Do you ever notice that pang of resistance before you do something just outside your comfort zone?
For me, it’s sitting on the side of the pool DAA Industry Opt Out cross-train. Or before a public speaking event, where I wish to get stuck in the elevator or maybe contract mild food poisoning in time to take a rain check.
I’ve learned to recognize and value things that make me feel this way because I notice they lead to the most growth. In running or in life, I’ve found it really important to not shy away from races, workouts, exercises, or experiences that I know I’m not great at or familiar with. It’s a fine balance between preserving your focus and confidence and discovering and sharpening weak areas, but I think it’s an important part of making a breakthrough.
Create Spaces for Something New
DAA Industry Opt Out podcast where they discussed the importance of play in our lives as it relates to problem-solving and creativity. It was interesting that, rather than just messing around, play was partly defined as “leaving room for surprise.” I also recently read an article on the importance of surprise in our lives. As with most interesting ideas, I tried to apply these to training and racing.
Running seems to attract or create (not sure which) creatures of habit. I run at the same time of day on the same few routes because I like to reliably feel good-ish, and standardizing everything around and about the run helps this happen.
It’s a successful strategy and the point of things like training camps, which are monotonous but essential to getting a workload done with the best focus and quality. It can, however, lead to staleness after a while, and I think it keeps some of our weak areas in our blind spots. Although running is a simple sport, side of the pool and elevate our intensity when we return to our planned schedule.
Build your personalized and adaptive cross-country race into one year’s racing schedule. This keeps things fresh and exciting as the challenges are slightly different every few months, and I don’t feel like they negatively affect each other if done in the right order.
Consider We Eat a Lot of Gels When Marathon Training you wouldn’t normally look for: mountain and trail races, those team relays that go hundreds of miles, exotic destination races. It’s okay if fun is factored in or if results are secondary. The key here is that you’re doing something that’s in the right level of discomfort. If it’s too far out there, you’ll get demoralized, or even injured. If it’s not challenging enough, you feel stagnant.
Race Under and Over Your “Specialty”
With fall and spring marathons being big draws for runners of all abilities, it’s easy to get into a rut with that schedule. Early summer is a good time to hop into other events. A 10K, 5K, or even a mile may not seem as “worth it,” as you’re done so quickly, but the intensity can make your other events better when you return to them as planned. It also doesn’t beat your body up in the same way that the marathon does, which is enjoyable in itself (although it may stress you in other ways, so gird your hammies).
Shorter races may seem like less epic accomplishments relative to crossing the finish line of a marathon, but they’re exciting in their competitiveness. It’s rewarding to use the different mental and physical tools needed in the races where margins of separation are smaller and you can sprint for the finish line.
Before all of my PRs in the 5K, I ran a 1500 or mile to sharpen up, and I felt it made the main event feel easier a week or two later. It also exposed how bad I was at tactical races and positioning, so we would work on that after seeing the weakness play out on race day.
On the other side of things, when I decided to race over my main race distance and try my first half marathon in 2014, I PR’d in the 5,000 and 10,000 a few months later. That level of strength work was new to me and made my “specialty” better, even though the actual race had lots of room for improvement.
[and is a contributing writer for How She Did It.]
Mix Up Workouts
When you’ve been running a long time in the same program and place, there are some workouts it seems you can do on autopilot, even if they’re thought of as “hard.”
Consider Races - Places, which can be tackled in a number of ways: in and out or cruise miles where the recovery is short or somewhat fast, or continuous tempos or progression runs where you can fit in more mileage as you work down in pace.
Molly Huddle on Why and How to Run Outside Your Comfort Zone hill sprints, and play with recovery periods for your track repeats to make them hard in a different way.
I’ve found cross-training and gym work to be great ways to not only supplement my training but to push my body out of its comfortable, familiar running posture. I actually don’t think I can fully unbend my elbows or un-hunch my shoulders anymore, but I’ve tried swimming around in the pool a few times a week to see if it helps! I know of many high-level athletes who supplement easy mileage with ElliptiGo rides, biking, cross-country skiing, or swimming, to name a few endurance-boosting sports outside of running.
Build your personalized and adaptive postural adaptations to running, but that is ever-changing, and so too should the exercises. Whether you’re adding weight to the bar or changing up the exercises all together to target the same areas (there are a million and one glute exercises out there!), this is a good way to make sure the challenge of not yet having mastery of an exercise is always there. Sometimes you need to intentionally seek novelty in the workout.
Explore New Terrain
Download Your Training Plan exploring trails, hills, and grass routes. They’re not always conveniently outside your front door, and initially you feel awkward, unsteady, and slower for more effort when the terrain gets rougher.
Try it anyway! Be careful and slow down a little. If you’re “bad” at it right now, just focus on being better, and don’t compare it to the road and track loops.
I used to do one or two cross-country races a year in hopes of making the World Cross Country teams, and a few months of training in grass parks went with that plan. I’m not a natural grass or mud runner and always finished a few places lower than if it were a road or track race. However, struggling through slower workouts on grassy terrain strengthened fall and spring marathons, which I didn’t realize were a weak area before, and I noticed when I did go back to my precious track 5000s and 10,000s, I felt strong and the track and road surfaces felt like magic carpets.
I also try to hop onto not-too-technical trails for my recovery days once a week or so. I think the agility needed for dodging roots and rocks is great for unwittingly pulling runners out of the shuffling range of motion of a typical easy day if you can safely swing it. (I did do a spectacular slow-motion fall about two minutes into a trail recovery run during the peak fatigue level of a recent marathon build-up, so I know some days it’s not worth the risk!) Also, trail runs can be mentally refreshing escapes into nature that leave you feeling recalibrated unlike any other run.
Now, when I’m heading into something with that slight “I don’t want to struggle” resistance, I smile and lean into it because I know, like when a foam roller hits the knot in my calf, that means I’ve found something needing improvement. That somewhat unenthused feeling is actually great, because it’s a signal of potential for progress, which is basically a future gold coin.
It’s funny that our first instinct is to find a way around the struggle, and jog on autopilot through the path of least resistance when it can help us so much to embrace it. I think subconsciously we all know the benefits of stepping out of our comfort zones. I am probably not delivering any novel tips here.
How She Did It.
Molly Huddle is a two-time Olympian, 28-time USA Champion, and former American Record holder across distances from 5K to half marathon. She is also a marathoner, placing third at the 2016 New York City Marathon. In addition to professional track, road, and cross-country racing, she is an RRCA- and USATF level 1-certified coach and writes plans for events from the mile to the marathon. She loves writing and content creation, especially around women’s sports, and co-hosts a women’s sports podcast called Keeping Track. Shokz Headphones On Sale How She Did It Nutrition - Weight Loss Runner’s World. Molly lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her partner, Kurt, her two daughters, Josephine and Louisa, and her Yorkie mix, Rusty.
