That's it my friends I'm calling it quits
I'm done letting my destructive inner voice convince me to over-train and then believing him that the failure was my fault!! No more.
My last short workout was really hard and a bit disappointing. I was aiming to complete my 5k at a faster time than a few weeks ago. For some reason though despite being able to maintain my speed for the first mile, the second one was ugly. It could be that I just had an off day but it's more likely that I needed to run at a slightly slower pace and pushing for those extra seconds made a big difference in my ability to stay on track.
If falling short on my second lap wasn’t bad enough, mysteriously my watch shut down at the end of my 2nd mile and I could no longer see my pace in order to get back on track. But as I was running that final mile I noticed something fascinating. Although my exertion rating was pretty consistent at about an 8.5 until that point, as soon as my watch turned off it dropped down to a 6!! That’s a big difference and so I wondered what happened. Was it just a coincidence that at the moment my watch died I lost my energy? Why did it get harder to give it my all just because I couldn't see how fast I was running anymore? I know that my workouts are always just to help bring out my best and even without my watch I could still give it my all. Why not continue pushing just as hard even when things went dark?
I then realized something insightful… that I too am human. Even though I aspire to always do my exercise purely lishma, when I receive feedback about my progress it makes a big difference in enabling me to put in 100% and keep going. Watching my pace and being able to see how close I am to reaching the goal is critical for the success of my workout and my training in general. This is the greatness of training with a chart. When I can see where I am headed and watch my progress I am so much more motivated to keep going and put in more effort. This is true about reaching my one-mile goal or whether I am trying to climb all the way to 26.2. For successful training, it is critical that I am continuously watching and tracking my progress and being able to see my growth at every step of the way. When I can't see my progress not only am I flying blind but I actually invest less energy!!!! This is a wild and scary thought because I can be training and working hard but if I am doing it without a clear plan and a schedule I may be holding myself back from tremendous amounts of growth that are just waiting for me to unlock. As the famous adage goes.. Don’t just train harder…. train SMARTER too!!
So what does a runner do after they bomb a workout? How do they get back on track and not allow the setback to get them derailed?
The answer is they vault. What is vaulting you may ask? Vaulting refers to using a fall or leap to propel oneself upward or forward, often to clear an obstacle or to gain height. (New word I just discovered thanks to ChatGPT :)) When we fall down we have a choice. We can either allow the fall to keep us down or we can vault ourselves forward by using the setback to rise higher than before. We need to remember that our growth is not a straight line. In reality there are ups and downs along the way as we get faster, stronger, more fit, healthier or even smarter. Whatever we are reaching for in life the path to the finish line includes both ups and downs and its important that we have an accurate and realistic approach regarding what the path of true growth looks like. As long as we are headed in the right direction and making some progress along the way we are exactly where we need to be. When we appreciate this truism we will be less likely to let the fall hold us back and more likely to use a tough workout as a way to vault us forward.
It also helps to remind ourselves that we shouldn’t run away from the hard and the difficult. As the great Beattie Deutsch says, "Its not that you can do hard things…. it's that you SHOULD do hard things." This can also help us get through those tough moments when it seems we may be falling backwards.
Pesach is coming. I have wondered why the slavery in Egypt needed to be so hard especially the final years right before the redemption? Not only were the Jews oppressed, abused and forced to work long hours under harsh conditions but after Moshe arrives Pharaoh takes away the bricks and the Jews are forced to make them from the raw material!! Talk about next level slavery! Then if that wasn’t bad enough chazal teach us that the cities of Pithom & Ramses where K'Y were forced to build, were not even physically capable of being built altogether!! No matter what they did their construction collapsed! That is not regular and pretty intense. How can we understand this level of physical servitude and mental torture?
One of the most important principles that I teach my runners is that the training is not about the finish line… its about the training and the process. There is an incredible Maharal in Parshas Beshalach that explains the reason why Hashem told Moshe to stop davening when Klal Yisroel was at the Yam Suf. Stopping to daven for a Jew is normally suicide. Why would Hashem tell Klal Yisroel to stop davening?? The Maharal writes that Hashem would not save the Jewish people while they were in the midst of their Tefillah. As long as they were still davening their redemption was on hold. Rav Hutner explains that the reason why this was true was because in reality we don’t pray to end or avoid a crises, rather the crises comes to help make sure that we are always praying. Hashem was worried that if he saved us in the midst of our Tefilah we would think that the prayer was only there for the purpose of bringing the salvation. But in truth Hashem brought the crises because he wanted us to daven. Therefore Hashem held back the redemption and waited for Klal Yisroel to end their Teffilah in order to make sure that we appreciated that the goal is secondary and it’s the process that really matters.
Maybe the intense slavery in Egypt had a similar purpose. The more intense the work and the oppression the greater the focus on the value of the process. Pisom and Ramses were unique places where work could not even be done, because when our work has no success it is much easier to forget about the goal; in fact the goal almost becomes irrelevant. The ability for the Jewish people to focus and appreciate the process was so critical prior to our birth as nation, that even years of intense slavery were prescribed for the sake of internalizing this sensitivity.
Maybe this is also why there is such a focus on questions on the night of Seder. We focus on questions to such a degree that halacha even requires them to be asked when a person is conducting their Seder alone. What lesson do the questions themselves inspire that they represent such an integral part of the Pesach experience? I would like to suggest that the questions represent the process and the answers the goal. Pesach is about the process so of course the questions are where we focus our energy and attention, even when there isn't anyone else around to answer them.
So the next time you have a tough workout remember that you can vault yourself forward and let's try to focus on training and the process. If you are exercising without a goal or a chart think about how much farther and stronger you can reach when you train with more direct feedback and where your progress can be clearly seen at each step. This will allow you to not only get farther or faster but will give you the best chance of maximizing your training and becoming the best runner and person you can be!!
This Pesach while you are eating your matzah and drinking your wine think about how you can vault your health forward. Join so many of my runners who last Pesach were feeling like slaves to their bad habits and poor health but this year are appreciating and celebrating their new freedom to live healthier lives. It all starts with a small commitment to make a change and a health goal, one that must first be chosen so that the training can begin and the process can then be prioritized.
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