The voices around me

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Bo

The people around you, both at work and socially, often have the biggest impact on your goals and the success you are in life. This was my conclusion as I completed my final lap around the track at training on Saturday morning.

Coach had us running 400m’s, then 800m’s a couple of times but I was so preoccupied thinking about the week that was that I hardly noticed the other runners lapping me. My head was swimming with thoughts about the people I work with, about the daily challenges I’m facing and the deadlines on the horizon.

As I started on that final lap, I heard the familiar voices from behind as they passed me, “Well done Bron” and “Keep going Bron, nice work!” My fellow runners.

This is definitely the one thing that stands out for me as one of the biggest benefits about training with other runners; the support of one another. When they catch me running my warm up out on the road, they’ll slow down so that I can (try) and keep up. They encourage me when I’m struggling to complete my last lap. They inspire me to run as fast as I can and constantly keep me motivated.

They build me up, lap after lap…

If you have a similar environment at work, you’re really blessed. Because it’s the people that make the difference. I’m not saying that every day is rosy and that every training session is easy. But I’m truly grateful that the colleagues I work with are who they are. I’m grateful that I have a manager who makes time for me, appreciative that I can laugh (mostly at myself) with my team and blessed to have work friends who care enough to support me daily.

And I’m especially grateful to be surrounded by such an awesome bunch of runners every time I train!

Afraid to set a goal

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Bo

At the beginning of the year, my 12 year old niece signed a contract with my sister that states that if she successfully receives good marks for her exams, she will be allowed to attend all the school disco’s. It came as no surprise recently that she was not allowed to attend the latest disco due to low marks because her goals were a tad unrealistic to begin with. Dom goals

But I do feel her pain. Setting my own running goals lately is a challenge. I’m committed to my training and at this stage, my coach has made me run each and every day to build up consistency and a good foundation. But in the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking about my goals and more specifically, the pace I would like to run.

I signed up with Coach Dave to run faster than my current 8 minutes per km. But what is my specific goal? What pace am I working towards? Can I run at 7 minutes per km? Or should I be brave and set a goal of 6 minutes per km?

You see, this frightens me because I don’t know. I have no idea what I am capable of? I’m worried that I set a goal that is unreachable and unrealistic. I set a 5km PB (personal best) time on Saturday, but then the next day ran a race at 7:49 mins/km. Huh?So I went back to one of my favourite blog posts about setting goals posted by Mark Wolff. Bottom line: My goals need to be realistic. Also, to ensure that I don’t get injured and disappointed, I need to accept that reaching my goals will take time, patience and discipline.

So for now, I’m committing to 3 (attainable) goals:

Don’t skip Monday, Wednesday & Saturday training sessions & give it 110% at every session. Push hard.
Run every day (except Friday). As Coach Dave says: Consistency, consistency, consistency.
Keep a log book & focus on learning how my body responds to training sessions. It’s like Mark points out, “Remember to aim that arrow well, don’t just look at the target but assess the wind direction and speed, stay steady in the pull and release with intended purpose.”

This is all I’m committing to until I feel a bit more confident to set more specific goals.

I’ll also be chatting to my niece about her goals and suggesting she might want to re-submit a revised contract if she has any intentions of attending more disco’s. It’s the smaller goals which are achievable that matter more and build up your confidence to set higher goals than having to deal with failures which set you back.

Two words. Let’s begin.

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Bo

I’m not known for my patience and I wore this like a flashing neon sign around my neck on Saturday morning. It was only my second training session and my new running coach mentioned that he would email me my training schedule sometime in the next week. Without hesitation I said, “And the training will make me run faster, right?” Fail… I could see it in his eyes.

Structure. Consistency. Those are the two words he used in his reply to me. He first wants to set some structure into my running routine and start with the basics. He wants to assess where I am at the moment and what I want to run, and what my goals are. Then I need to get some consistency into my routine and we’ll work from there.

One step at a time and one day at a time.

I must admit, this gives me a chance to gauge where I am too. Here’s what we’re working with:

My 5km PB – 37 minutes : Dischem 5km race
My 10km PB – 74 minutes : Vaal 10km race
My 21km PB – 2h48 : Two Oceans half marathon
My fastest km – 6:01 minutes

My average pace for majority of my runs is 8 minutes per km. This is the part I want to change. I’m not aiming to run Comrades, I’m not even aiming to run any specific race. I just need to see whether or not I can run faster. That’s all.

Structure and consistency. One step at a time. One day at a time. Oh, and to learn to be more patient. Can I throw that one in as well?

*Image from http://www.rockcreekrunner.com, a great new site I happened to stumble upon*

You never regret it.

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Bo

I’ll be honest with you, I did not want to get out of bed this morning to go running. I know I need to put some extra training in because of all the 10km races coming up soon but that didn’t stop me from having that mental negotiation with myself as I lay snuggled up in bed.

My head told me:

The cold front has arrived. You know you don’t like to run in the cold. I hate it!
The wind is blowing. You hate the wind and this wind is icy. My worst!
It’s Sunday. It’s the day of rest so turn over and go sleep. It sounded so good!

Somehow, I reasoned with myself that it was much warmer heading off to gym than it was being out on the roads, so off I went.

An hour later, driving home, I had the biggest smile on my face. Here’s what my heart told me:

You did good. Sometimes I find myself training harder on the treadmill than what I do out on the road. And funny enough, I am able to run in under 8 mins /km on that “deathmill”
The woman running on the treadmill next to me had a prosthetic leg. Nothing says be grateful you can run than seeing that
Your body thanks you! I had that awesome red glowing face. I love that look!

I need to remind myself regularly that not once have I ever regretted running.

Earlier this week, I happened to find jasmine on my time trial route. What an awesome smell which always alerts me that Spring is finally on its way.