Tuesday Shakeout: Building resilience
One mistake at a time
The following things have gone “wrong” during the first week of Boston Marathon training:
Showing up to a cold weather run with two left-handed gloves.
Showing up to a treadmill run with two left-heeled socks.
Forgetting to add hydration mix before a 10-mile run.
Assuming a path was clear of snow and ice when it was absolutely not.
Recording a 9.5 mile tempo run as .95 of a mile on my watch.
That’s a fairly long set of frustrating experiences after just seven days of training. While there have definitely been moments when I’ve let these petty annoyances get the better of me, what I haven’t done is let any of them linger beyond an exasperated sigh or two.
This is the major difference between the runner I was back in the day when every little detail used to bother me to the point of distraction, and the runner I am now. What a waste of time and energy it was to battle all the trivial issues that arose during training when you can just shrug and move on.
Besides, most of these inconveniences were easily fixable and none were actually important. The watch thing was so dumb all I could do was laugh. Texting my coach– No, it didn’t take 82 minutes to complete one mile – was objectively hilarious.
It struck me after several of these miscues began piling up that what marathon training does best is provide an opportunity to reframe all these little moments of adversity and turn them into layers of resilience. Either you learn to roll with the punches or you can keep taking them on the chin. Your choice.
This week for paid subscribers, further adventures in marathon training and a new-to-me gel with the phenomenally simple name of Carb.