Discipline and Intelligence

Sunday, June 26, 2016 · Mike Davis

Good morning. Grab your coffee and pull up a chair. This morning I am sipping coffee and chatting from our beautiful porch. I wish I could take a picture and share with Y’all how beautiful it is. My wife Kathy has done amazing things in a short time planting various flowers and also just painted a birdbath the same colors of our house. Yesterday we put up a bird feeder and now we eagerly await the cardinals to find it. Hopefully when we roll out the new website we will have the ability to post pictures along with the chat. For now you will have to take my word for it. I have purposely stayed away from detailing my ongoing struggles with my calf and had not mentioned it in over a couple weeks. However, I had actually shut down my running for 10 days because it had worsened. Yesterday I got up and foamed rolled, used our slant board and did some Sun Salutation a’s yoga. Then I set out for 30 minutes of running with the mindset that I would walk at even the slightest hint of pull on my calf. I could tell from my first half mile that the calf was far better than it has been in 3 months. Not the slightest pulling feeling whatsoever. Despite the calf feeling fine, I stayed at a 10:30 pace not only to protect the calf but, between the humidity and my layoff I knew it would not be an easy run. I turned around at the 17 minute point and still the calf felt normal but, the other factors were certainly coming in to play. The rain from the night before left the humidity at nearly 100 percent and my conditioning was certainly not great. I have not looked at my data yet but I know my pace picked up around the 12 minute point and I was running closer to a 10 minute pace. It is funny how we can have a plan for a disciplined race or in my case a run and yet we allow for the “feel good” factor to overcome us and typically the results are not so good. Yesterday as I approached 28 minutes of running I looked at my distance as well. No way would I get 3 miles of running with where I was at but if I went 1 more minute, possibly 2 minutes, I would get that 3 miles that sounded better than 2.9. Though I was laboring some, the calf was fine so an additional couple minutes would not be an issue I was sure. I looked at my Garmin as it hit 30 minutes and 2.92 miles and I… Eased into walking. I glanced at the data on my Garmin to note a pace of 10:10 and felt a twinge of “ugh” but, that soon turned euphoric. No signs of even a strain in my calf and my legs felt great! It is funny how we runners get hung up on distance and pace and often use them as measurements of our success. Running a minute or two more yesterday may not have caused me any problems and certainly would have made me feel better about the distance. Telling people that I am a runner and in the next breadth I tell them I did long run of 2.92 miles just doesn’t sound all the impressive. I will tell you this though; telling someone that I am a runner and following that up with but, I am not running because… That’s far worse. I am really excited because today I feel great and I will not need an extra day of recovery for my calf. Tomorrow I will be back at it and again I will prepare myself as I did yesterday and then I will run 30 minutes with only a goal of getting stronger. In fact my goal may be to not run any more than 2.92 miles! I certainly have a ways to go to prepare for “Reach the Beach” in September but, I can get there. Discipline and Intelligence are the 2 key components of being a successful runner and yet we runners often sacrifice one or the other, thinking we will be better for it. My next step yesterday may have been the one that my calf would have felt the strain and that would not have been a good thing physically or mentally. We train our runners to be smart and disciplined and trust the structured plan. I certainly struggle with that in my own running. I know of runners that feel they have to run 100 plus miles a week to be better runners. I would tell you that most if not all of them would be as good if not better if they stayed below 100 mines a week. Intelligent and disciplined running not only helps us to run healthier but is important component to becoming a stronger runner. We are really challenged as coaches by many that want to “kill” but, if we instill discipline into our runners, we have a much better runner. Now I have to be a more disciplined and smarter runner! Have a great Sunday and week ahead! God Bless Mike