Before
Hello Athletes,
I know that I can sound like a broken record when I continue to encourage and push you to keep running during the pandemic. I know that it’s hard sometimes to be motivated when we are going to school in our bedroom on Zoom, when our activities this year look nothing like what our activities looked like 10 months ago, when we don’t get to see our friends face-to-face. I get it, I do.
And I know that it’s hard to be motivated to push ourselves when we are not sure what we are training for. What will the next season look like? When will the next season start? Does all this really matter? I get this too, I do.
I feel the same way sometimes. It’s hard. And getting older, with my fastest days behind me, I have some of my own issues to work through. The older I get, the faster I was! Not whining, I’m just saying I have my own challenges. We all have our own challenges, worries and fears, and I am not saying I completely understand what each of you are going through. We all have our own situations and our own battles to fight. I am saying that I have some similar challenges, I am in this whole pandemic thing with you too…so when I continue to challenge you all to get out there and run, I know that I am not asking you for something that is easy or trivial. I’m asking you to do something hard.
So…I wanted to share with you my own birthday challenge.
Today was my 62nd birthday (yikes!). I set my alarm so I could wake up pre-dawn and be on the track before sunrise (I wanted to be on the track with as few people as possible–as it turns out, it was just me out there all alone. And the workout I gave myself was 62×200–yes, you read that right, sixty-two reps, one for each time I’ve been around the sun on this rock of ours. I ran the 62 reps in five sets of 12 (plus two extra) and gave myself 30 seconds of recovery between reps and three minutes between sets. I wasn’t particularly fast, but I gave myself a goal of getting faster as the workout went along, and I ended up dropping about 10 seconds a rep over the course of the workout.
And though I was not particularly fast, I can tell you that the cumulative effect was…interesting. Those reps added up! I was a little wobbly at the end as I tried to punch out my last few laps a bit faster than the ones before.
I was not sure the watch would record this many laps.
I don’t know when I’m racing again. I know that I will never set a new PR in the marathon (I know that all of you will have shots at PRs in the future!). I can’t tell you exactly why it felt important to challenge myself today in the middle of a pandemic, but I can tell you that I feel a lot of satisfaction from what I ran this morning. And I believe that it is important for you, too, to keep finding things in your running and other parts of your life that let you think, “Yes, I’m pushing myself forward, I’m not letting circumstances break me, I’m strong and healthy and determined.”
When I get after you to push yourself, when I encourage you to get out and run, it’s not just because I think these actions will be good for you. I encourage you because I think these actions are good for us.
So I’m not bragging about my 62×200 (though I am pretty proud of this workout). I’m telling you about my morning because I want you to know that I’m taking my own advice, too.
You are fabulous athletes. You are even better people. Running can make you healthier, mentally and physically, during this pandemic; even more importantly, by working in the face of hardships, you are honing your grit. And stronger grit ‘muscles’ will help you now and throughout your lives.
You are going to do wonderful things in your lives. You can start now! I believe in you.
Be well, be strong, be gritty! I care about you.
–Coach Flatow
After
I know I’m not blazing my reps anymore…but that will not stop me from getting out and trying!