ALL-OR-NOTHING

As I continue to think about strength training, stretching, nutrition and the other ancillary details that could help my running – but never seem to get done – I came up with this realization; I don’t have to treat these things with the same “all-or-nothing” approach that I take with my running. I don’t have the time (there’s that excuse again), energy or mental fortitude to approach those topics with the same vigor that I do running.

So what happens? After a few days or weeks of including these activities, they eventually fall to the wayside. I think a better approach would be not to focus on following any sort of plan. If I get the urge to lift, then I should go lift. If I’m sitting in front of the TV doing nothing, I should lie on the ground and do some stretching or crunches. The key is to remove that added pressure of “having” to do those things regularly.

Another thing I find with these types of activities is that as I get fitter, they become more of my routine. If I run a good race I’ll be like “Wow, what if I cut out all that junk food and threw in some core work? I’d run even faster.”

I thought I’d give an update regarding my advertisement. Now I like the letsrun.com message board as much as the next person. If you sift through all the threads on hotness, music, soccer, Lance, etc. you might even find a nugget or two on running. The problem is that these other threads are so numerous that running-related threads can get pushed off the front page very quickly. So basically I’m saying I didn’t get any bites off of that message board. I did get 2 responses off one the coolrunning message boards. In addition, I got 10 responses from an email I sent out to runners I know. Now the hard part is going to be finding a day, time and place where people can meet.

Thanks to “Bear” for sending me this NY Times article regarding aging star athletes. Here’s a sample paragraph from the article;

The dirty secret among former high school and college jocks is that many don't remain active as adults. In their glory days they were the fittest among their peers. But as adults many are overtaken by nonjocks who embrace fitness as a commitment to health, forget the varsity letter.

Hmm, my 20 year high school reunion is only a year away. It’ll be interesting to see what all the jocks look like.

Oh, before I forget, I ran 7 easy recovery miles this morning. After work I'm meeting my friend Mary for another 5-7 easy miles. It's supposed to be 92 with a dew point in the upper 60s - not fun.

On a non-running related note…for all you women who’ve ever wanted to change your man, here’s another NY Times article that’s pretty interesting and funny. Thanks to Eric for sending it to me.

Since I didn’t have a quote of the day yesterday, I'll throw in a bonus quote today; one from each of the NY Times articles.

“When you run at such a competitive level and come back to do it at a recreational level, that is a hard transition to make. With no goal, I find it hard to get out there. There's nothing to shoot for." - Howie Zebersky, 32, who raced for the State University at Albany

“I felt as if I should throw him a mackerel.” – Amy Sutherland, after using techniques she learned from dolphin trainers to ‘train’ her husband