When it comes to pyramids, so often the top receives all the attention, we focus on that pinnacle, the achiement of all the hard work.
The hours, days, weeks, months, perhaps years of dedication, hard work and effort are forgotten or perhaps not even contemplated as we ‘sum-up’ up in a drive to simplify time taken and effort strived, towards the outcome.
It’s clear that the end is not the whole, the top of the pyramid only exists because of the foundation and every single layer between.
One night, running around a marine lake with a view out across the dark waters of the night-time River Dee, and the Welsh hills beyond I realised that I really enjoyed the build up.
I’d been busy focusing on the top of the pyramid, the end result, for me that was race day and I was almost living it as I ran around that lake on a training run, thinking through what it might be like, the feelings etc, perhaps the areas of challenge etc. At that point I knew that focusing on only that one day would narrow the enjoyment I could take from trainnig runs, and perhaps more importantly I learnt a valuable coaching lesson too – if my athletes focus only on the race, or end result, what does it matter what you do on the way there? How much difference does one run really make?
You see the really important thing here is to focus on the run you are currently doing, to be mindful of it, and how it benefits you. To bring the magnifying glass to your current effort is supremely important and can have a very useful outcome: it keeps you grounded in your progresss, and makes you realise that you are doing the work, makes you see you are stronger, fitter, faster, and psychologically builds another layer of strength and fortitude.
Things change when you get to this stage, you find that enjoyment comes from any run, it’s simply a case of where you direct your attention and focus. Once you are no longer reliant on races to provide the enjoyment, you can truly start to make changes in your running, become injury free, to run faster, to really deliver recovery that actually reduces fatigue.
Try it, you won’t beleive what you’ve been missing.
Hope to see you on an event soon,Regards, Geoff