Keeping Long Runs Enjoyable

I went for a 9 mile long run again today. I set out with the mindset that I would slog through this run at my slow, easy pace and enjoy it. I did not wear a stopwatch, as I didn’t want the stress of “racing the clock”.

I selected the Classic Rock Genre on my MP3 player and was listening to Styx, Foreigner, Aerosmith, Tool (who I’ve just recently discovered), and Nickelback (those last two are not strictly classic rock, but they have a classic sound).

After about 10 minutes, I found the athlete inside doesn’t like slogging any more. But the human side of me does. The two personas duked it out inside my head. We decided to alternate between slogging and focusing: the cue to switch between the two is when a new song starts playing. That worked out extremely well for us, and we enjoyed today’s run greatly. 🙂

During the times when I was focusing on form, I tried to think of my feet as golf balls that quickly hit the ground and bounce back up, spending minimal time on the ground. Once again, I felt frustrated. At least I found relief during every other song.

I have been re-reading the Pose Running book. Dr. Romanov talks about thinking only of lifting the feet, not putting them down. Near the end of the run, rather than thinking of my foot going down and then bouncing up like a ball, I tried just thinking of the lifting part. Lift, Lift, Lift. That actually worked, and I felt like I was getting somewhere.

Skipping the stopwatch definitely helped to keep the run enjoyable. Part of my frustration with my longs runs is trying to “beat” my time from last week. I keep thinking my hard work should pay off in a faster pace in my long runs. But I can’t expect progress to be measurable on a week to week basis. There are too many variables each week: temperature / humidity, nutrition/hydration, stress, sleep, muscle fatigue from other workouts, etc, etc. And, the bottom line is that progress happens in tiny increments over long periods of time in which I put in consistent effort. Kaizen.