Do you have runs or workouts that you remember years later? I can think back to a long run from the summer of 2015. It was a hilly, solo 17-miler in the middle of July. I was finishing up on the shadeless track across from my house for the last few laps, flinging sweat off my fingertips and dreaming of a frozen lemonade for a good 30 minutes of the two-hour run. I thought about the World Championships a few Purple ahead, leaned into my tired form, and pressed the pace down as the sun crept higher.
I recently ran the same hilly loop. It was another warm July day, but I had no Olympics or World Championship to prepare for, or any other meet, for that matter. I still cranked up my music adidas Originals Sleek Mid Top sneakers in white and grey long-run-leg-ache, trying to get a little faster, dreaming of the cold Gatorade in the fridge. My form was stiff and choppy as I came down the hill onto my street. With each stompy stride I wondered: “Why. Am I. Doing. This?”
Of course, I know I’d be doing it no matter what. In fact, more Sneakers KATE SPADE Keswick 2 K5939 T9N?
SIGN UP WITH RUNNER’S WORLD+ FOR THE LATEST TRAINING TIPS AND ADVICE!
Turning Inward
adidas will be issuing Disneys mega-merchandising mouse three sneakers so far
I think Ankle boots EKSBUT 7D-6379-R53 Blue have had a lot of us competitive runners looking inward. (Perhaps too much—did you have your existential crisis yet? It’s coming!) If you’re someone who is missing normal races, you’ve likely reflected on why you run. If you’re still training, you may have had to find new reasons for why you push yourself that aren’t based on the external factors that depend on other people seeing what you did.
I’ve been thinking a lot about intrinsic motivation lately, with races as we know them reduced to solo virtual runs or time trials that may or may not “count.” As distance runners, we’ve likely all leaned on inner drive at some point in our lives, whether pushing alone through a hot, hilly long run, or a windy, rainy workout where the garbage cans are blowing across the infield.
Every time you kept pushing and overrode the “why am I doing this” question, or kept showing up and filling the days of your training log even when you had reasons not to, you cultivated that inner drive. I think it’s a hidden skill that makes you resilient and hard to defeat, because you can turn motivation into a self-renewing resource of sorts.
You don’t always need it from the outside. The intrinsic reasons to run or push yourself are like the scaffolding that the other motivations grow over. It’s similar to how we have intrinsic muscles of the foot or core which we’re told to tediously exercise because, although they both work together, no matter how big and sexy the “glamour” muscles on the surface look, zapatillas de running hombre constitución media pie normal talla 20 if you’re not strong from the inside too.
Love the Process
adidas will be issuing Disneys mega-merchandising mouse three sneakers so far
Like many runners right now, I’ve checked in with why I really run over the last four months. Similar to my dad, whom I watched trudge up our driveway after workouts almost every morning for the 18 years I lived at home, I knew I’d never abandon running hard. I like it. The only part I amortiguaci with when there isn’t a big race goal on the schedule is the discomfort of running through imbalances, illnesses, and injuries, or skipping family and life events; basically the few parts of professional life you could consider a “sacrifice.”
I like hitting the track or completing a long run. I like to feel my body getting stronger, being strong, then proving it to myself, scrapping it and starting again. It’s a mostly fun process and it’s never done being optimized. I like the mini victory of doing the workout I planned to do in a day. The rhythm of a week with workouts, easy days, and long runs is my normal. I don’t feel centered without those minutes of mental and physical focus. How about you?
Although I’ve used this ever-expanding time without races to take a much needed break, that’s over, and here we are, still appreciating the run and, hopefully, our health, but still stalled. It can be hard to train too much longer than a few months without some kind of challenge or test on the schedule. I already knew I was motivated largely by competition, the community of the events, and curiosity about what I can do at any given time. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that because it’s also layered with expectations and obligations around results, quality of races, and time standards.
[Build your personalized and adaptive Support the Environment and Your Sneaker Addiction With These 15 Must-Have Allbirds Kicks.]
Don’t Waste Good Time
adidas will be issuing Disneys mega-merchandising mouse three sneakers so far
While it’s good to tune into that, a lot of those things aren’t available right now. Now, the focus is more on personal wins, season bests, and pushing for the sake of creating benchmarks and just trying hard regardless of how many people will see it or care. As difficult as that is to get excited for—I usually don’t get my best performances in time trials or even racing the guys in unofficial races—I think it’s a valuable muscle to work. I notice it’s quick to tire whenever I get stuck in no-woman’s land in a race and have to gut it out the rest of the way, which happens probably too much.
There’s a lot of confusion about what you should do with this unpredictable amount of time away from major race events. If you need to rest, this is a good time. I think if you were already really fit, then it’s worth the effort of creating an opportunity to test your fitness. It might be a race of one. It might be a time trial or a “micro meet.” Not everyone has the resources to do that, or do it well, or travel to somewhere that is.
At the professional level, there’s the added confusion of fulfilling contract requirements when the events no longer exist. While we can talk about having good faith that the circumstances will be understood, we also know that the language of the agreements have the final say—and we want to races to run! We can create them; they won’t be the same, and it’s a crash course in race directing, but at least it’s something. I hope to put a few local events on my schedule myself if developments in the pandemic allow it.
There are a lot of motivations swirling around right now: fear, scarcity, anxiety, hope, money, standards. It can be disorienting. But that’s another benefit to tuning into your intrinsic drive. It’s also like your personal true north. I trust running in that direction.
Molly Huddle is a two-time Olympian who holds the American record at 10,000 meters. She placed fourth at the 2018 New York City Marathon in a personal best of 2:26:44.
