Not Today ‘Rona!

Hi Everyone,

So first off, it’s been awhile since I last wrote in this blog. Like, over a year and a half! Yikes!! Life kinda got in the way. A lot has happened, and I have a lot to catch you-all up on, but I’m NOT going to try to do it all today! Besides, what fun would that be? I’ts not like we got anything else better to do in quarantine, so I might as well ration it out. right? Lol.

Today I want to talk about what many of us are dealing with right now. All of our Effing Races are being cancelled!!! From 5k’s to Marathons, to Triathlon’s & Duathlons as well. I’t’s been very difficult for many of us to deal with, I hear ya!

Ever since I stated running in 2014, this was my process:

As you can see, everything was focused on “The Race”. The race was the starting point. Without The Race, nothing happened, there was no starting point. Like many of you, when my races started to get canceled, I was freaking out. What do I do now? Races are my life! I felt that races defined who I was.

Back in February, I changed Coaches. OK, that’s another story that I’ll need to catch you all up on as well, anyway, my Coaches at Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition, met with me and we had a long talk about this.

They pointed out that that I start racing in early January, usually at the Dave’s 10 Miler, then there are the races leading up the Glass City Marathon, then the Spring Duathlons, then the Local Triathlons, then IRONMAN Season starts. OK, so there’s another thing that I’ll need to catch you up on. Damn, I’ve got some work to do. Lol. Then the fall races, like Churchill’s and Indy, then the December races, like the Santa Hustle, Miracle on Main and the Christmas Story House Race. As we talked about this, it became apparent to me that I was not only racing all year, but TRAINING all year as well.

During this call, Karel, one of my coaches, I actually have 3 coaches at Trimarni, said, “We are athletes, we train, that’s what we do. It’s a lifestyle. We do it all year long, we do it pretty much every day, Races are just Check-Points to validate how our training is going”.

First, I had to give myself permission to refer to myself as an Athlete, which is not something that I was comfortable doing, but when we worked through that, it became very clear what he was taking about.

If we only focus on “The Race”, then we are setting ourselves up for a major letdown, not only when things like we are going through right now with Covid-19, but also what happens if an injury, or your work schedule or family requirements happen and you have to miss a race? It can be an emotional roller coaster.

One of my other Coaches, Marni, said, “The goal is to stay in a state of “Readiness” but not at our “Peak”. When the races start to open back up, then we will ramp up our training to peak just before the race”. Another way to look at it is, if you train on a contestant basis without even having any races planned, if and when, a race comes along that you want to do, you can simply signup for it and you are pretty much already trained. You just need to put the final touches on your training to get ready.

While it’s not easy, as I do miss all of my friends and the excitement of the races, I am working to embrace this new philosophy and I keep training.

While this may not work for everyone, I hope it is of benefit to you.

Until next time …. take care my friends!