Patience is a virtue (that I don't have)

I am slowly (very slowly!) learning to be patient and to shift my focus from short term to long term goals. I know that sticking blindly to a plan is not always a good thing; I know that both training and competition goals might need to be adjusted, according to form and injuries. However, knowing does not immediately imply applying in practice. It takes time, experience, and quite a bit of pain to change habits... As my former muscle therapist once told me:

Wisdom is knowledge put into practice.

I have had the knowledge for a long time, but I have not always been able to put it into practice. Hopefully this is changing now, and I am slowly getting wiser. One has to be flexible and must be able to adjust both everyday training plans and short term competition plans depending on form. For example, if it is your interval training day, you should listen to your body during warm up to assess whether or not you are up to tough training. If it feels right, go for it at maximum effort. If not, take it easy; it is OK to do intervals at moderate effort, too. If you push your body beyond what it is ready for, it will anyway not be able to benefit from the practice. One way of knowing whether you are up to tough practice on a particular day is to check your resting heart rate in the morning before you get up. In fact, this has now become a habit for me; I do it every morning. If your resting heart rate is where it should be (at its lowest), then you are ready for pushing yourself. It is is about 10% higher than normal, then it means that your body is still recovering from previous exercise, so you should take it easy that day. In fact you should not have more than two tough training sessions a week. The rest of your training (about 80%) should be at slow to moderate pace, to build endurance and strength, and to avoid wearing down your muscles.

I have become much better at listening to my body when it comes to the intensity of the training, but it is not always easy when you are training with friends. For example zone 1 training is typically hard to do with others, even with friends who have comparable training zones. Somehow I always end up going to a higher zone when I am not running alone, so I have to be more disciplined about this.

What I have not been so good at so far is to listen to my body when it comes to deciding what kind of training to do. The pain dictates that I should avoid long flat runs and rather concentrate on uphills, as the latter feels much better. However, as long as I have had the goal of participating at Bergen City half marathon at the end of April, I could not leave long flat run practices alone. After a long period of not running, I started out with three consecutive days of long flat runs, with the result that the pain is now worse than ever. In hindsight it is easy to see how stupid I was; I could at least start out with 5 km runs, right? No, of course it had to be 10, 10, and 15. During the first nine days, I did 85 km.... I am almost too embarrassed to write it down. Please don't ever make the same mistake. Start out cautiously and listen very carefully to your body after a break from running. I do understand the reason of my stupidity, though, and I have now done something about it: I have decided not to participate at Bergen City half marathon. It is simply not worth destroying my body for, although it was the first thing on my A list this year, and I have been so much looking forward to it. My first intention was to wait and see until the race day and decide there and then whether to participate or not. The problem is that the possibility of participation has been stressing me to take wrong decisions. Although long flat runs are painful, I keep doing them every now and then since I need this kind of practice for the half marathon... So I have taken this hard decision already now not to participate (which I am actually quite proud of!). Because of the Bergen City half marathon, I had on my training plan two races of 5 km each next week, to get some speed training. These are also cancelled now. Only uphills for me for me for a while! I am learning.... albeit very slowly...

Changing training plans is one thing, but changing competition plans in this way is really hard. Competing is a major part of the fun for me, and competitions have always inspired me and given me incredible boost of energy and self confidence. In the beginning, my race goals were adjusted in the way that I added more and more races on my plan, as things were going so incredibly well. Now, until I have recovered, I might have to do the opposite and cancel participation from races. As one of my experienced running friends Eva said: there is always another competition, and it is better to be able to run some than not to be able to run at all. Listen to her advice, and learn from my experiences. If you start feeling pain somewhere, take it easy for a while. It does not mean stop running; just take slower or shorter distances, or another type of running, uphill instead of flat or the opposite, depending how the pain incurred.

A while ago I read the following quote which was credited to Buddha. I was in the middle of letting go of something that really meant a lot to me, and the quote made perfect sense at that point, although I found it really sad. Now, as I was letting go of Bergen City 2015, I remembered it again:

In the end, what really matters is how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things that were not meant for you.

I thought that I might never be able to run a half marathon again, and it really made me sad. Fortunately I am an incurable optimist, so I think I will be able to do it again sometime. I just hope that running altogether is not one of the things I have to let go.... But this again is just too negative, and actually experience showed me that the quote should rather be interpreted like this:

In the end, what really matters is how passionate you were about the ingredients of your life, how kind and generous you were to others, and how wisely you were able to adjust your path as you went.

In fact, you never have to completely let go of something that is important to you. You can simply change the way that thing is a part of your life. Bergen City half marathon, we are not parting for ever. Perhaps in 2016 or later I might join you again. Even if not, I will always be your friend, and I will be there to cheer the others to finish! In the meanwhile, there is a huge number of uphill races in May and June, and as long as I do not do stupid things I hope that I will be able to train for them and participate in most of them. Yesterday, with the new wisdom, my old friend Stoltzekleiven embraced me and welcomed me back to uphill training. This afternoon, I might pay my back yard mountain Ulriken a visit or simply rest. I have to keep in mind all the time: moderation, patience, and caution (not at all my strong sides). I have to make sure to keep the pain under control and not get carried away. Perhaps records will have to wait a bit longer than I was hoping for, but I have time.

I'll be back!