Sarah's Story

Monday, September 22, 2014 · Mike Davis

Good afternoon! This past week I met at the Portsmouth high school track with Sarah, one of my favorite people and a fantastic client. Sarah is in her final phase of her marathon training and this particular workout session was going to be her last real challenging run as she moves into tapering. Sarah came to us about mid-way through her training looking to get some help as she made her push for her first marathon. Because of the timing I felt it was best to continue with her long run schedule and focus more on her other runs with a goal of getting her stronger both physically and mentally. Since we begin working together I have challenged Sarah with a weekly workout that included either a tough hill workout or a challenging track workout under my direction. Sarah's attitude was amazing, never backing down no matter how difficult a workout I assigned her. Without a doubt I challenged Sarah a great deal and she kept responding with perfection and a running coach could not ask any more from their runner. This past Thursday morning at the Portsmouth high track at 6:15am Sarah was already finishing her mile warm up when I pulled up. I gave her marching orders that consisted of running 800 meters at 5K pace followed by a 400 meter recovery and continue until I told her she was done. In my head I knew I wanted to get eight 800s out of her, but I was unsure that was fare or doable at the pace I wanted. Her first 800 was at 3:50 so she had indeed set the bar pretty high for herself. The other challenge would be that I was only giving her 400 meter recoveries when normally you matched the recovery distance with the interval distance. Despite the challenge Sarah rolled through the first four 800's with only one slight burp, but with my encouragement she got back on pace with her 5K pace. By number six I could see that Sarah was tiring but I encouraged her to focus and keep pushing off the asphalt. She did just that and was able to maintain her 5K pace. As she came around from her 400 recovery I was now determined to push her through 2 more 800s and that is when I finally told her what she had left. Sarah’s seventh was right at 4 minutes, so when she came around for final 400 I told her that she needed to really focus and try to run her fastest 800 of the morning. At that point I don’t think Sarah believed that was possible, but I was determined to teach her a valuable lesson. Sarah pushed and as she ran the first 400 meters I could see that she was overcoming her doubt that she had enough left to move her feet at the pace I required. As she came down the stretch for her final 100 meters I was quite jubilant inside as my watch indicated that she would beat her very first 800 time by almost 15 seconds. For me as a running coach nothing makes me prouder than watching my clients overcome a false reality. Sarah’s false reality was her brain telling her that her body was not capable of even running another 800 meters never mind doing it faster than she had gone up to that point. Instead Sarah pushed harder and created a whole new mindset that will have a great impact on her fast approaching marathon. When Sarah finished I explained to her that I still have no desire to get her faster for the marathon despite the impression that this particular workout was speed based. Instead I was interested in hearing her feelings after her sixth 800? Sarah confirmed my belief that at that point she felt she had very little left any idea of going faster was daft (I’m paraphrasing)! Well I took over and explained to her that when she gets to mile 21 and her body feels sore from the toes on up and she doesn’t think she can finish her marathon, she needs to think back to that early morning track workout and how despite what her brain told her, she was able to not only finish, but finish even faster than she started. Don’t get me wrong, this workout had great value physically as it strengthened her legs as well as her V02 management, but the physiological gain was king that day for Sarah. We have three goals when we work with our runners; one train their legs, two improve their core and the third is training the muscle between the ears. The third is the by far the hardest to train, but if we are successful the runner can do amazing things. Later that evening I ran into a mutual friend of Sarah’s and myself and she told me how she had seen Sarah after the workout and that Sarah indeed learned much about herself that morning. How great is that! Having had many success stories with many different runners, I am really proud of NFLR, but I am so excited for Sarah and eager to see the results of our work together. Marathons are unpredictable so who knows what the result will be, but I believe that our work with Sarah will benefit her in many, many different ways. More to come… Time to move along so have a great week and enjoy the perfect weather! We have started a 5K training group in York on Monday’s and Wednesday’s, so feel free to join in! Be well! Mike