Running Life: A Fitness Protection Production

We start with light chatter about Sarah's trip to Maine and Coach MK's intense love of Coach Sarah's #wideeyedworkface, before encouraging folks to hear the new podcast: A Full Tube of Toothpaste.

THANK YOU KAREN SCHLUETER! OMG! SOMEONE LISTENS TO MEEE!

After Coach MK did her usual radio-style introduction, we PLANNED to talk about the #RaceDayTakeAway challenge...but our connection cut out during the stream and though we recovered, most of the audio was not. Short version: All of the answers were WOW OMG. Y'all dug deep! ADRIENNE HOLMES WON THE $100 VISA GIFT CARD! WHEE! 

Here's why Coach MK wanted to try the #RaceDayTakeAway Challenge: "Bad runs contain good lessons. This is introspection, reflection, observation. No shame. No judgment. No inflated sense of purpose. Little narrative choices like these on a day-to-day basis MATTER."

We may do the #RaceDayTakeAway again! Let us know what you think! email [email protected]

REBUILD

1. In the Dizruns podcast, you mentioned an upcoming book club. Is that a thing? What was the book you wanted to start with?

2. This is Ann from TX. I’m hoping to do a (any) race sometime between December and February. I feel like I’ll be disappointed in myself if I don’t do one event this season. I know the birthday event is off the table this year. I know a half marathon is off the table this year. I was eyeballing a race mid-December that was based out of a nearby hill country golf course that is occurs at night. And being out in the cold and the dark and the stars sounds magical. They have half, 5k, and 10k options. Racing for time in the dark seems like a bad idea, but is this event a bad idea overall? Is any race event for me a bad idea? I’ll probably be in Rebuild for a long while. It seems unlikely that I’ll be able to sustain anything more than Rebuild for the next year, potentially more. WHAT DO I NEED TO GET? ‘performance”?

3. Does anxiety impact cortisol the same as stress? Are there any impacts to running to consider when taking meds like Prozac, Xanax, or the OTC Hylands Nerve Relief?

MAINTAIN

1. Hi! We’ve talked about “bad” runs where you can’t get your heart rate below 140. What about those when you can’t get your heart rate close to 140? What does that mean? I know 140 is a cap and not a target, but is there any good from a long run where your heart rate can’t even hit 130? I feel like on those days my whole body is like nope and is happy to trot along.

2. Can we expect fitness gains with the consistency, strength and harder workouts of the maintain program? I heard you mention a Build program coming in the future and it sparked my interest. I was wondering how the two programs might differ and what the expected outcomes would be.

3. Foam rolling. How often is optimal? Good enough? What time of day is best?

4. My husband ( Pete) is training to run NYC with me. He like endurance cycling and is building his km’s with 3:2 walk run. My nYC goal is literally to get there and participate. Running ahead and finishing 30mins ahead of him is less appealing than sharing the experience. We tend to do our own thing but I’ve been enjoying joining him for his longer runs (16km today). What do you think of running the 3:1 runs with him on friday and then doing the weekly long run solo on sunday? (Long winded- will listen to the poddie, hope it makes sense)

5. First, thank you both for all that you do. This thing you have built and the community around it is incredible. My question is simple I think! This is my first time using training peaks. I love the accessibility and having my planned and actual workouts in the same place with no effort on my part

Click here to receive our weekly content roundup, and download a PDF of Coach MK's Night Before Checklist to ensure your running habit sticks! http://bit.ly/2M3b1AX

We go from the panopticon (yes, Coach Sarah is going to Harvard at us for a minute, hang on) to parental advisories and Purple Rain to MK’s amazing skin care routine and the positive vibes it creates in her life. But what Sarah really wants to know (apart from which fingers MK uses to apply her Vitamin C serum) is how MK is feeling about her recent video conference with her own coach, Tia Accetta of Run Tucson (listen in here if you haven’t already!). Having this little window into a coach’s perspective on MK as an athlete is fascinating (and exciting!) and Sarah is particularly interested in Tia’s comment about the “window” that women have for consistent hard training.

When MK asked Tia about getting back to her former level, in the days when she set her PRs, Tia said: “I think you are going to be shocked, actually, by what your body can do...if you had spent the last 10 years giving it all you got, I might say that this might be sort of the end, but … I think women have a good 5-10 year range of consistent, hard training, and you haven’t really used that yet.”

Part of why Sarah is so fascinated by that comment and wanting to know more about what Tia meant is because she wants to know what it means for her, as a 33-year-old woman who has been running for 14 years. What follows is a fascinating discussion about how MK and Tia communicate, what Tia looks for in MK’s training peaks (and what MK looks for in the elite athletes she trains one-on-one), and, finally, MK’s coaching perspective on Sarah as an athlete and what lies in store for her, should she choose to pursue it (spoiler alert: Coach Sarah is not a used-up tube of toothpaste!).

Sarah talks about dreams of qualifying for Boston someday, even as the standard drops yet again, and MK helps her see where she is now as a really exciting moment, full of possibilities for her personally, professionally and athletically. Both coaches are excited about what the future may hold. The distance between where they are and where they want to be is EXCITING to them, something to celebrate and wonder about and respect, all at the same time.

Coach MK and Coach Sarah livestream a weekly QA session for their runners on The Fitness Protection Facebook page and Twitch. Follow the page and join the fun! This week we have excellent questions about tapers, migraines, testing, and the upcoming strength beta!

Subscribe to our NEW weekly newsletter and you can download a pdf of Coach MK's Nightly Checklist: The Little Habits that Make a Running Habit Happen! http://bit.ly/2M3b1AX

Maintain

1. Can you pretty please discuss and demonstrate the Chair Test that Coach MK referenced as a bench mark for readiness for marathon ramp up? I see different chair test on the InterWebs but I am not sure if they are the right ones. Thank You!!!

2. Can you talk about the taper? Do you have a "taper template"? How far out from race to cut back on long run and hard stuff? Thank you!!

2a. Please remind me of what a half marathon taper looks like. Is it 2 weeks or just the week before? Thanks!

3. Could you elaborate on last week's question about maintaining heart rate under 140? The answer was that heart rate should be below 140 for the first hour. But after the hour, it seemed like the suggestion was to maintain a pace. I thought a key aspect of HR training to keep your heart rate below 140? If subsequent hours we should focus on pace, is heart rate disregarded?

4. Hi Coaches. I am in a good running place right now. I working my way back from injury with tenacity. My Plantar Fasciitis is much improved. I am feeling stronger and faster than ever. All the strength work is really helping me especially the strength accountability thread every day. My question is this : I don’t know whether to do the strength beta or not. I am doing 90% of the work 90% of the time in maintain ( but no hard speed work yet as I heal) I am hoping to do a half at the end of September which is half way through the strength beta. I am loving doing all the body weight and other exercises but I am not sure my body could handle the pace work in the plan (i am guessing there will be a lot of this) I don’t know whether to do what I can in the strength beta. Or wait until i am back to 100% fitness and just continue to work in maintain. One more request: can you release a BOSU series as I love my bosu. I think it has helped me recover from PF. I want to do MORE BOSU Thank you #coachedandloved

5. Any ideas to prevent the post long run migraine headache? I’ve experienced migraines since puberty and regular running is helpful at preventing them, except I still get them after long runs and harder effort work outs. I aggressively hydrate during the run, wearing my Nathan hydration pack for any thing over an hour w nuun but still am getting them. Any ideas? I know you’re not my doctor, etc,, but thought maybe you or others have ideas I haven’t tried yet.

Yesterday, hell broke loose when Beyoncé released an advertisement showing us more of the work she did to get ready for her EPIC Coachella performance, forever preserved in a Netflix special called Homecoming. Beyoncé's preparation began shortly after giving birth to twins, so the story of returning to post-partum performance-level readiness in 8 months is part of what made her performance so epic. 

The response to the ad on Coach MK's social media feeds (and even the local news!) was so visceral, MK shared the video with Susan and Sarah, who each had equally visceral, but different, reactions that intersect with body image and running. We knew we needed to talk about what everyone is really saying when reacting to that ad.

Weight is a TOUCHY, emotional, loaded topic. Weight loss is an even touchier topic. This podcast may be triggering to you, so be warned: we discuss weight loss, diet culture, weight, orthorexia, and systems of eating that have been co-opted as weight-loss plans. We've done our best to explore these topics sensitively. If you think we could have done better, please email [email protected] and tell us what to do differently next time. We would rather be 'better' than 'right'. If we are hurting you then we aren't 'right', please help us be better.

Special thanks to Mr. MK for bravely sharing a crash diet story with us in a livestream. I love being married to you.

Super special thanks to Coach Sarah for being so open, so brave, so honest and so vulnerable in this conversation. It pains me to think you could ever look at yourself and see anything other than radiant beauty; these are the moments I want to burn the world down. Thank God you quit Harvard so we can focus on building rather than burning. :)

SHOW NOTES

Society has never been more obsessed with food. In the recent Nielsen Global Health and Ingredient-Sentiment Survey, half of U.S. respondents reported adhering to a restricted diet - one that limits or prohibits certain foods or ingredients.

The term “orthorexia”, coined and recognized in the DSM in 1998, in recent years has become part of a broader conversation about the ethics and safety of restricted diets touted as ‘weight-loss solutions’, specifically by celebrities and bloggers/instagram influencers who dole out advice and tips despite having no training or certifications.

It is common for women to start running in order to lose the baby weight. The emergence of the “Dad-Bod” prompts men to start jogging for the same reasons. There are two places you can be at any time: where you want to be and “Not there YET”. Both are valid. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to want to make changes. It’s okay to want to lose weight, to fit in your clothes again. It’s okay to take up running. Neither is categorically bad or wrong, and not everything you read on the internet is harmful and terrible. 

Our goal today is to examine the strong feelings the 22 Days advertisement elicited, recognizing the same forces that act on Beyoncé act on us as well. 

Video is here: https://youtu.be/1qv_D7OSQrA

We try to make our positions and opinions clear, while explaining the experiences and forces in our lives that shaped our response today.  There is SO MUCH to unpack here, and every bit of it matters.

Coach Sarah: "I hear 'every woman's nightmare' and it makes me mad, because what about the women who have worked HARD for YEARS to cultivate good relationships with their bodies? All that work to BE okay, now we have to PROVE that we're okay? Will we ever be free of this conversation? Will my work ever be done?"

Coach MK: "I totally thought the nightmare she was talking about was stepping on a scale with people watching in our nasty fatphobic world. But maybe that’s because I did it for a blog post 2 years ago."

for more shownotes and links, there are PLENTY, head over to the blog at https://www.coachedandloved.com/blog/

Coach MK and Coach Sarah livestream a weekly QA session for their runners on The Fitness Protection Facebook page and Twitch. Follow the page and join the fun!

MAINTAIN

So I am not sure if this is more a podcast question or an ATC question or just random thoughts. But I am thinking a lot lately about being socialized not to take up mental, emotional, and physical space. I only did one year of organized sports as a kid and it was soccer. I was in 1st or 2nd grade and small, playing with boys one or two years older. And I had undiagnosed asthma. Oh and then I did a year of cross country in sixth grade (also small) and was SO slow that I came in dead last every practice and every meet. So far last that I almost missed the bus once. So you can imagine what that did to my self assessment of potential. This is not to ask for pity just to provide context. For the last three races I’ve signed up for I’ve backed out really early in the training. I am self sabotaging in the way that Sam Dylan Finch talks about fawning in relationships. The thought of “competing” is almost too much mental burden to comprehend. The thought of coming in last only reinforces the lessons learned from childhood. But I can’t believe the lesson here is, don’t compete. Don’t race. Don’t try. I just think I never really learned HOW to be aggressive/assertive/taking up space confidently in spaces outside of a precisely defined academic setting (because some of those carry this weight too). How does that urge to compete, urge to give myself permission to best someone else, the subverted or suppressed urge - how does it relate to the body conversation we are having? What are the right small steps to take to STOP trying to shrink physically, fit in emotionally, erase myself athletically while still running - I am 44 and I want to give myself permission to be really angry and fight on behalf of myself! In my head I think to compete I need to have perfect preparation to have a right to participate or any chance of “success” (also apparently personally undefined) - and I don’t think that’s right either. But I don’t have ANY idea how to start unpacking all of this besides obviously talking to my therapist about it, and I thought I’d come to my favorite coaches because I DO think it’s part of this larger conversation. Small steps are the key to get from sedentary to rockstar fitness. Small steps are the key to get from poor nutrition to nurturing yourself. What are the small steps to get from doubting a right to take up space in a race to pushing yourself hard and being badass?

I know we've beat summer running to death, but can you talk a little bit about shuffling/walking at whatever snail pace necessary to keep HR low vs. running at 150-155. What's better? Should we do whatever it takes to keep under 140 or is it better to get out there and get moving even if HR is higher than it should be because it's 90F at 5am and it's humid AF!

Starting the on-ramp in a week. Which means I have 11 weeks until my Marathon (insert minor freak out here, okay now I am better

Last week we touched on the notion of ambition: how a little can encourage good work but too much can lead to bad choices. This week, we take a critical look at lying and cheating by examining the forces (systems, pressures, incentives) that would lead a person to cheat in sport at both the professional and hobbyjogger (aka Boston Qualifying/not-paid-to-be-here) level, and wonder if that's much different from a time little Coach Sarah lied to her parents about swim practice.

To be clear, we are not condoning cheating. Like top colleges, the highest levels of sport are full of people who absolutely deserve to be there. In this podcast we postulate that cheating is not going to end unless we look at why a good person would make a seemingly bad choice.

Show Notes

Cheating is defined as: "to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination."

Coach MK and Coach Sarah take a high-level look at pop culture, aka “current history/history in the making” then seeing how our responses to these stories tell us how we view and judge ourselves and how THAT, frequently warped lens, focuses on our goals, our bodies, our expectations...and for most of our runners, all of that is visible in our approach to running.

The duo discuss the relevance and importance of their generational wordview (Sarah is a Millennial, MK is a Xennial or something? she isn't quite sure) and how the world changes but the worldview doesn't. 

They move on to the New Season of Queer Eye Season 4, where Jonathan Van Ness goes back to his high school to give his music teacher Kathi Dooley a makeover. MK hails from a family of teachers, and is THRILLED that this show deftly and cleanly demonstrates how the job most Baby Boomer and Gen X teachers signed up for isn't the job they are expected to perform today. 

This leads to the importance of the arts in general, and how both ladies tie their critical thinking ability to their liberal arts education while realizing that hiring managers may not appreciate what a liberal arts major brings to to a corporate environment anymore. The pressure to major in anything BUT liberal arts is very very real, and the pressure mounts as the cost of education continues to rise, seemingly unabated.

After some very cool tangents about Coach Sarah's Harry Potter-sounding college experience at Middlebury (WHAT IS YOUR LIFE COACH SARAH?!?!?) and how pressure to perform broke Coach MK, the duo acknowledge how pressures to perform have increased and students feel they don't have room to learn from failure AND be admitted to top universities anymore. The population is growing but college classes aren't, which means the competition is stiffer than ever...and the incentives to get an advantage any way possible, are rising. When the stakes are high you can bet that cheating is, too. What's a teacher to do?

In this conversation, the conclusion is the point as they circle back to look at what cheating is and what the word means when discussing a professional athlete, the holes in the systems that monitor cheating globally, and how the same types of actions are occurring at the hobbyjogger level as the governing bodies struggle to determine how to sniff out and manage doping in super-master categories and why a runner would even consider it or believe that they are not doing anything wrong.

I can only read one link, which one do I pick?

This one: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/doping-rumored-among-older-athletes-testing-implemented/

This is a close second: https://www.outsideonline.com/2298566/how-catch-blood-doping-marathoner

This is older, 2009, but even more relevant today: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/us/19athletes.html

During that podcast, you said to follow WHO on Twitter?

Ross Tucker. His blog is amazing, but very technical. His Tweets, less so. 

Alex Hutchison, too. I get alerts when these guys tweet, their content is always relevant and on-topic, unlike these podcasts!!!

I also said to read Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style’s Facebook page.  

Why Cheat To Go to Boston When You can Run For Charity?

Corral placement. Prestige, too but you cannot discount corral placement as part of the race experience (ask anyone who has ever Run Disney).

Coach MK likes to say that running more slowly than you want to go in any given moment is THE hardest thing you will ever do as a runner- so a 3:15 marathoner may not consider a charity bib to be a viable option. The race wouldn't lose allure or integrity by allowing charity runners with a recent race time faster than 4 hours (the original qualifying metric) AND/OR within 10 minutes of the runner's qualifying standard to be corralled with with runners at that same level, but doing so could in fact help allay some of the incentive to cheat and reduce the perception that a charity bib is lesser or undeserving. 

BUT LANCE ARMSTRONG!
Not letting him off the hook, but casting him out of the sport changed nothing. He will totally make a comeback no matter how any of us feel about it. That’s reality, not endorsement. 

Read this about Floyd, though. 

Links on Burnout/Errand Paralysis

Anne Helen Petersen is the bomb. Just read everything she writes and you’re good. Not surprisingly, it’s a generational thing.

The Coaches catch up quickly before telling the world how INCREDIBLE Julie Patno Winkler's Vermont 100 performance was over the weekend. Quick reminder about the upcoming Strength Beta opening on Sept 1 (email [email protected] if you want to join) then we dive into questions around the 20 minute mark.

Note: at the time of the recording, Coach MK had not yet seen Julie's Training Peaks data. Once she did, she absolutely lost her mind. If you would like to see what she saw, click here for a data-filled video walk through Julie's badassery. Click here and then click here for the Facebook posts. 

REBUILD

1. When I'm running outside in the heat, if my HR stays under 140 and I'm well-fueled, am I generally OK even though I'd rather go home and crawl into the freezer?

2. I’m kinda starting to wonder about upper body strength. My core and lower body are doing amazing with the strength work, but I’m noticing the muscles in my upper back, chest, and arms are fading a bit. Are these muscles not important to running, and should I just focus on them as an “extracurricular” to my FPP workouts? By focusing on them, I don’t mean I’m going to be hitting big weights or reps, just incorporating some push-ups or overhead presses with dumbbells every now and then.

MAINTAIN

1. During the marathon ramp up plans, should we continue to follow the strength circuits that are part of the monthly Maintain plans?

2. I've heard MK mention 95 minutes as the magic number for long runs. Can you talk about what happens in our bodies after 95 minutes and help me motivate for these long runs in the terrible summer heat? Thanks!

3. On the marathon plan: I have a conflict with one of my 16 mile Saturday runs. Is it okay to start the plan a week early and repeat the weekday runs? I know that I will be hiking on that particular Saturday but probably won't get the time on my feet that the plan specifies.

4. I have a question about the strength beta and I think I know the answer, but I need to hear the words come from Coach MK and/or Coach Sarah. I am register for my first full marathon...YAY! I am going to be running the Disney Marathon in Jan 2020. I have been considering running a 10 miler in October to try for a better proof of time and get more time on the course for the Disney Marathon. My goal for the marathon is to finish and feel good enough to enjoy the rest of our family vacation at Disney. If I want to do the strength beta do I need to forget about getting a better proof of time at the October 10 miler? Thanks, Kris!

Last year, Susan DiLeo hit Coach MK with an idea: she wanted to run 50 miles before midnight on her 50th birthday. The catch? She wanted to run them on a 1-mile paved loop around the parking lot at the New Jersey State Fairgrounds. 

Read the shownotes to Coach MK's fiery intro here!

In this episode, Susan will tell you how she sold Coach MK and no less than 15 other women on this idea, plus you’ll hear from two other badasses who fell under Susan’s spell: Melissa Yacuzzo and Tamara Paton. 

These women are modest, but their accomplishments are anything but. We hope you enjoy this tale of a 24-hour race that is WAY cooler than you would think: Three Days at the Fair.

Check out Melissa’s post on the #coachedandloved blog!

Coach MK and Coach Sarah livestream question and answer sessions for their runners each week on the Fitness Protection Program Facebook Page, The Fitness Protection Program YouTube Channel, and Twitch, simultaneously. Join us! They are a lot of fun and super informative, and anyone may ask follow-up questions during the live broadcast.

(Re)Build

Hey Coach MK & The Amazing Coach Sarah (sorry I accidentally submitted a doc without completing the question): Any tips on form for “runner’s knee”? I notice minor knee pain after doing strides/accelerators/pick ups. I feel like I generally have good form. However, the acceleration & speed seem to be the precipitating factors. I cannot thank you both enough for your wisdom, guidance, support & awesomeness you bring into my world! - Becky

I’m not quite in the market for a new watch yet, but what are the differences between the Polar Vantage M and V? It looked like running power without a stryd, their “recovery pro” thing and an orthostatic test. What the heck is an orthostatic test? Are those worth the extra 200 bucks?

Maintain

Hi Coaches. So happy to be here. As you know I am rehabbing my Plantar Fasciitis from 9 weeks ago. I am happy to say that it’s 95% there. I am listening to my body and continuing with all the rolling, massage and strength exercises so it doesn’t return. I am also able to wear my Fivefingers again to improve my foot strength. My question is about long runs. I am doing what I can do. Listening to my body. Is it ok to slowly build up with an a of being able to follow the August plan more closely. Today’s long run I did 75 minutes I was tired and hungry. It was tough I am scared doing too much will get me injured again. I am kind of thinking doing maybe 90 next week and see how I feel the last week of July Is this reasonable? So glad I am coached and loved again. Also thank you Coach Sarah for your strength streams. I am so consistent thanks to you. X

Just need a reminder on how many weeks to ramp up for a half marathon. Is it 6 weeks? Also just wondering if office hours will be available if we would like advice for race day strategy? Race isn't until the fall, so I'm not stressing just curious to know if this will be an option available to us. Thanks! Kim

A couple questions. First up... for those of us running a fall marathon, is it a good idea to run a half marathon somewhere in the 10 week program and if so when? Also, if we have a hilly marathon, are there specific strength exercises or tweaks to our existing 10 week program. Or would this be something we can access in our member center? THANKS much...and I forgot to look but is this where we also find descriptions to the runs of the 10 week programs. THANKS A TON!

Heart rate question. I know my Garmin 235 is bit wacky. Sometimes it doesn’t read my HR correctly. If I am really basically running at my normal EE rate and the Garmin goes all wacky- should I continue and just shuffle or should I walk? I can take my pulse and am pretty sure I am below 140. Thoughts?

Enclosing my "hilly" race course. Looks like I have my work cut out for me

• Twitter often gets slammed for being a place where only nastiness happens, and there is plenty of that, but there’s also a lot of critical thought and constructive conversation - this is a popular medium for working out, or just expressing, complicated feelings about the casting of a black actress as Ariel in an upcoming remake of The Little Mermaid. To some, it doesn’t feel reparative, it feels like tokenism, and this particular casting choice doesn’t fix what’s been wrong with Disney Princess stories and their lack of representation for decades - it demonstrates that the people behind it never really understood the problem to begin with (https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/notmyariel-white-twitter-is-big-mad-about-disney-cast-1836128376)
• Coach MK was STUCK on this after watching Toy Story 4, where she stood in the theater to YELL at the screen multiple times and had TALKS with her daughters after the movie ended. #feministbuzzkill alert! https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/bo-peep-toy-story-4-feminist-makeover
• Along similar lines, the way the Internet has reacted to this latest turn of events with Taylor Swift is indicative of the sort of pseudo-intellectual discourse that has been swirling around her for years: it’s easier to look at her and see privilege and immaturity (and congratulate yourself for “seeing through her”) than it is to look at her and see calculated decisions that were often stipulated by her contract. Now that her contract has ended and she’s speaking out, people point to her actions without considering the “why” - and that’s where the critical thinking should happen but doesn’t. https://www.buzzfeed.com/elliewoodward/taylor-swift-wrote-look-what-you-made-me-do-scott-borchetta
• Native Tennessean Coach MK is #teamtaylor because she has followed this story for well over a decade. Big Machine's rise totally changed Nashvegas as well as the music industry. https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/yes-the-sale-of-big-machine-is-big-and-so-is-taylor-swifts-concerns/

• Sidenote on the pseudo-intellectual takes in our respective pasts: Sarah’s husband’s very self-aware blog posts about the books that gave him a swelled head as a young teen! https://bit.ly/2RZVUsb
• We like critical thinking around here, particularly when it comes to running and the kinds of demands runners put on their performance. Learning to be curious and excited about what your body CAN do is the first step towards real self-love that isn’t performative. acceptance is observation free from judgment.
• The things that make Coach Sarah and Coach MK successful, happy runners are also the things that makes them good poker players (no-limit Texas Hold’Em, to be exact - yes, Coach Sarah was the cool girl who beat all the boys in college and took their money every Monday night). They never put pressure on themselves to play a hand they can’t win - what good can that possibly do? That is the OPPOSITE of giving up - that’s being judicious about when to care about outcomes: preserving your longevity by only caring when it matters.
• By the way, you better believe both MK and Sarah have EVERY INTENTION of PRing the marathon - we are going to be our best and fastest selves in these next five, ten years. The fact that we’re not there YET is COOL and EXCITING - Coach Sarah plans to race a marathon in the fall with no pace numbers on her watch and be curious and excited about whatever outcome falls out of it.
• Toxic, forced positivity is a thing, and it doesn’t help anyone who is struggling with the way they relate to their bodies and the way they see themselves - we always want to help you find the wins, but we never want to insist that you fake a positivity that you don’t feel - it is ALWAYS okay not to be okay. https://www.healthline.com/health/body-positivity-doesnt-cure-eating-disorders#1
• Vice article: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzmkva/the-pursuit-of-high-self-esteem-is-making-us-miserable?utm_campaign=subscription&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nuzzel - when we think we HAVE TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT OURSELVES OR ELSE, it can take away our ability to be honest (even just with ourselves) when we’re actually struggling - it can inhibit our ability to see that clearly. “keeping up with contingent self-esteem requires constant impression management.”
• Reference to the ORANGE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlOKSo8L6_M) - every training cycle is generating a NEW baseline, ANOTHER chance to hit the reset button and see where you are at! THAT is exciting!
• Would you have guessed that Coach MK was named Most Tenacious and that Coach Sarah was named Most Conscientious in high school? And...do you think they thought that was a compliment at the time? (They did not).
• The space between where you are and where you want to be is exciting - how about that for a paradigm shift?