"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Where Do We Go From Here?

Sorry if today's title has "Sweet Child O Mine" running through your head like it's running through mine.

I've written a number of serious posts in the past few weeks, but have only published drivel; the serious stuff just doesn't seem quite right, somehow. I've been doing the year-end analysis that most of us do and started thinking about next year, not just in sports but in blogging. There have been a number of times I've thought of pulling the plug on this blog, as I'm not doing much running or racing, but the emphasis of this blog has always been (aside from creepy silliness) teaching people how to decide how to train.

I had to learn everything anew when I started thinking about unthinkable distances and I chronicled my rather steep learning curve. I also tried to convey some of the "how-to" aspects of training. I've always been a "teaching" coach; I want my athletes to be able to coach themselves eventually, rather than always look to me for what to do. If you search this blog, you can find all of the "hows," but I wanted to cover the "whys," and I think I did an okay job of covering the intellectual side of that. What's been missing has been the emotional side of why an athlete does what he or she does.

I got the idea, of all places, from reality TV. In the first years of "The Biggest Loser," I was always saying that they needed to address the psychological reasons these people were 400 pounds; they've started doing just that in the more recent seasons.

I'm going to do a series of posts on "training curses." The first one is probably the most common and the most serious: boredom. Thinking ahead, I might have dozens of these posts, covering the emotional problems that face runners in training.

So, beating everyone else to the punch: I'm writing what I know.

3 comments:

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Well, here's something you need to know: Teh Peachy Escargot, even though he lives in GA, is a Mets fan. That's why the news about Lee crushed him so.

I don't know why a Georgian would be a Mets fan, but then, why would a Cletus be? Because Carolina Cletus is one, too.

sea legs girl said...

Ooooh. I'm looking forward to these training curses. I tend to feel that what other people consider my curse to actually be a blessing: when I need comfort I go on a long, long slow run. I'll never get faster that way, but it sure makes me happy.

The real curse I feel people have when it comes to training is they work all day -wait to run until they get home and then their legs are too tired. That and everyone drives to work these days. If you can get past The Situational Curse, then maybe you can start dealing with the mental curses.

wildknits said...

Looking forward to this series - and glad to hear there is no more talk of pulling the plug on the blog!