July 24, 2025 • 36 mins
In this solo episode of the Real Life Runners podcast, Coach Kevin gets real about the role of discomfort in growth—on the run and in life. Sharing takeaways from a tough birthday run and the powerful ideas in The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter, Kevin unpacks how stepping outside our comfort zones can lead to real transformation.
He talks about why chasing big goals matters, how to avoid falling into the “arrival fallacy,” and the difference between pain that builds you up and stress that wears you down. You’ll also hear thoughts on recovery, resilience, and the underrated power of community support.
This episode isn’t just about pushing harder—it’s about choosing challenges that mean something. Kevin closes with a personal call to action: reflect on where you might be holding back, and consider what discomfort you might need to lean into to grow stronger—not just as a runner, but as a person.
00:00 Introduction: Embracing Discomfort
03:05 Pushing Boundaries: Is It Worth It?
05:18 The Arrival Fallacy
08:35 Training and Growth
14:42 Mental Strength and Support Networks
19:19 The Comfort Crisis
22:09 Practical Tips for Embracing Discomfort
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When was the last time that youchose to be uncomfortable?
Not sore after a run, but trulyuncomfortable in a way that
actually challenged your mindand your body?
That's what we're talking abouton today's episode one where I
get to feel a littleuncomfortable because, it's just
me on today's episode.
So today all about being alittle bit uncomfortable.
(00:21):
We're all gonna go through ittogether.
Let's see how this one goes.
(00:47):
All right, runners.
Welcome to the Real Life Runnerspodcast.
Like I said in the opening, it'sjust me.
Angie is outta town and so I'mdoing a solo one.
She went solo last week.
I listened to that one myself ona run, and this time you get
just me because we are incompletely different states and
not able to record together.
we will be back.
(01:08):
Actually, I think we might havean interview for next week, and
then we'll be back together tonormal programming come August.
So we'll see how this goes.
but today's episode is one.
It covers a lot of topics aboutthings that I've been listening
to lately, things that I've beenreading lately, some of my
favorite topics of pushing yourbody and pushing your mind and
(01:28):
trying to put those thingstogether and how do we decide on
big goals and is that the rightthing or my push too far?
It's a lot of topics and Let'sjust start diving into that
thing with a couple of topicsthat I want to open with and
define, and then we'll see if wecan start tying them together.
The first one comes from alittle over a week ago when I
(01:52):
had my birthday and I was tryingto figure out what to do for my
birthday run.
I like coming up with some sortof weird challenge, usually
related to however many yearsI've spun around the sun.
And I think last year I ran overa hill at a park near our house
for 40 some times.
I've done laps of theneighborhood.
I've done one minute on, oneminute off for however many
(02:14):
years.
So I wanted to.
Do something this year.
And the first thing that came tomind, this is an interesting
conversation that Angie and Iwere having.
'cause the first thing that cameto my mind was running for 44
miles.
And the first thing that came toAngie's mind was doing like 44
seconds.
44 times.
(02:34):
Or actually I think hers brokedown further of doing Four by
four by 44 seconds of that's 16by 44 seconds.
So it's pretty short distance.
My first thought was to run for44 miles, and she pointed out
that was a terrible idea becauseI've not been training in a way
that I could actually do.
That and feel good for the restof the day.
(02:56):
I could probably do it.
I'd end up walking a huge amountof it, and I would be without my
family for most of the day.
it was gonna be a lot of miseryin my head.
That still sounded like an okayidea, but that kind of gets us
right into this topic of ispushing ourself to do something
uncomfortable.
(03:16):
A good idea.
And the answer is sure, as longas there's some sort of
reasoning behind it, I would'vedone it for the reasoning of
it's my birthday.
No good reason.
Beyond that, I don't know if Iwould've gained any lessons from
it.
If I would've learned anythingabout myself.
It definitely would've thrown mytraining off.
(03:38):
it would've kickstarted mytraining, been like, Hey, let's
build that mileage back up,because I don't even have a race
on the calendar.
And because of that, I haven'treally been doing long, long
runs on the weekend.
Plus it's the summer in SouthFlorida, so it's a thousand
degrees outside and the humidityis just absurd.
and I get to relearn about whatDew point is and how that's just
brutal to the body every summer.
(04:00):
So anyway, back to the idea ofpushing boundaries, sometimes
pushing a boundary is a greatidea.
The idea of going really farseemed like a great idea to me.
Going farther than I have in along time seemed like a great
idea to me.
Thankfully, I had Angie aroundto suggest that going for 44
miles was pushing too farwithout a good reason, and that
(04:23):
without a good reason iscritical.
When we come up with pushingboundaries, she said, what else
do you have?
Because I had a variety of ideasand one of my other ideas was.
44 kilometers.
Thank goodness there's a wholenother measuring system that
well, everybody else in theworld uses except for us here in
the US essentially.
I went with four to fourkilometers, which is a little
(04:45):
over a marathon, and I could dothat, and it was not going to
wreck me for days and daysafterwards.
And I was able to do it in areasonable amount of time.
And then Angie had planned atrip for us and so I was able to
get back and shower and pack,and we left on time.
Like everything about it justworked out smoother because it
still pushed me.
(05:06):
It was still physicallychallenging, but it wasn't
something that was gonnacompletely wreck me.
Not that those are terribleideas.
Ever, but it was not necessaryto do it at this point.
I didn't have a good meaning forwhy, and that I think is
something super, superimportant, which takes us to the
first big idea that I wannacover, which is the concept of
(05:29):
the arrival fallacy.
The idea that once I've hit thisgoal, then I'll feel happy, then
I'll feel fulfilled, then I'llfeel satisfied, and that sense
of arrival, never really.
Actually gives us that level ofsatisfaction.
Anytime we reach whatever goalit is, we always then think to
(05:49):
the next goal.
It's very hard to hang on tothat feeling of satisfaction.
We actually, as humans, we'redesigned to continue to pursue
bigger and better things.
Andy's not here, so I don'tremember the actual, chemicals
inside of the brain, but thechemical that.
Leads us towards chasing biggoals is gives us a stronger
(06:10):
reaction than the chemical thatleaves us satisfied with the
things.
It's the whole idea that like ifyou think about a delicious
piece of chocolate cake, you getmore satisfaction after thinking
about that cake.
Then you do out of the joy ofactually eating the.
It's why food doesn't actuallysatisfy, but the thought of food
leaves us with these amazingcravings.
(06:30):
We can do the same thing withvarious running goals.
I know I did this for a longtime, trying to chase a silly
number on a clock when I crossed26.2 miles.
I thought that somehow crossingthe finish line in 2 37, I
forget.
I forget what the number isbecause I've.
Disconnected from that number.
(06:51):
I let that number control myfeelings about running and about
me as a runner for a long time,and I've separated so much that
I don't think I can actuallycome up with that now at 2 37,
12.
It's something like that.
but I've disconnected so farbecause I've come to, to
understand so clearly thatarrival fallacy that I'm never
(07:14):
going to feel as happy.
When I get to the thing as I doin pursuing the thing itself.
Okay, so we're gonna keep goingas.
As we move forward here, but itall comes back to, I think,
ultimately this sort ofexcitement slash disappointment
I had over my birthday run is Ididn't go as far as I wanted.
(07:35):
I didn't, I wasn't able to pushmyself, to a great distance as I
wanted.
But the thing is, I did still.
Push myself, and I did still doit with a whole lot of heat
outside, and I did still get upearly and go do it.
Like I could have done it on atreadmill and air conditioning,
and that's not what I did.
I could have chosen a differentshadier route.
I went out and I, there wasshade.
(07:57):
I went out and I started earlybefore the sun was beating down
on me, but I didn't go out of myway to make it a super easy
thing.
But I also didn't go so over thetop and make it a ridiculously
hard concept.
So it's this idea of finding achallenge that is enough that it
helps us continue to movetowards other challenges.
(08:20):
Not that the run that I did onthat one day was going to define
my running.
It was the ran run that I did onthat day.
It didn't define who I am as arunner.
It simply was another step on mytraining journey.
So the whole idea of why wewould ever go out and push
ourself to something furtherthan we're used to is that we
(08:43):
want to grow.
as humans, we desire growth.
We're always looking for thenext thing.
If you've ever crossed thefinish line of a race and then
thought to yourself, huh.
I bet I could do that fiveseconds faster.
I'm not sure there's any runnerout there that hasn't had that
thought relatively soon aftercrossing the finish line,
(09:05):
regardless of how big of a PRthat was.
How amazing of a time drop thatwas.
Maybe like a half marathon orwho went from 2 0 5 to 1 59 like
that.
That barrier of changing thelead number on a time of 5K,
that goes from over 30 to under30, from over 20 to under 20.
(09:25):
When that lead number changes,it seems super, super exciting,
but what's really.
Most satisfying is not thatnumber.
It's all of the work that we putin to get to that number, and
that's why I love coaching somuch is because I get to help
out with the process of all ofthe journey along the way.
(09:49):
Of people who are like, this isthe goal that I have in mind,
but I don't know, it's big and Idon't really wanna share it.
we do this every year at thestart of the season with our
cross country kids of what'syour goal?
And they're like, oh, I'mthinking of running.
And they put it, throw a numberout there.
And I'm like, what was your PRfrom last year?
And the numbers like 30 secondsslower.
And I'm like, Yeah, you're goingto get that you're a year older.
(10:10):
This works out great with highschool kids'cause they just get
faster.
as long as we don't hurt'em,they all get faster.
And, with, with Angie's Strengthprograms, they do a pretty good
job of not getting hurt alongthe way.
But in order to improve, theyhave to keep pushing themselves.
If all they did was every daycome to practice and we just did
the exact same loop every singleday, eventually that stress
(10:33):
wouldn't be enough to stress thebody anymore.
We'd be doing great on therecovery side, but we wouldn't
actually be stressing ourselvesin order to adapt, in order to
continue pushing ourselves, inorder to see what we are capable
of.
There has to be enough stress inthe body.
That were like, Ooh, I wasn'tquite capable of doing that.
(10:54):
I need some recovery time so Ican come back and build back
stronger and change whatever thecapabilities are within my body
so that next time I have to tryand do that, I get to do it and
I'm going to be more successfulat it.
It's why.
When the kids first start comingout, I give'em a couple weeks to
get used to running in the heat,and then I start ramping
distance up on them and they'relike, what?
(11:14):
I just did three.
How do you think that I'm gonnabe able to do four this time?
I'm like, because you did threefor the last like entire week.
Now you're used to the heat.
If you did three, you can dofour.
Or if they don't, if they have awatch with them, if they did 30,
they could probably do 40.
Is it possible they're gonnaneed to take a walking break in
there?
Sure.
But if they did 30, they canprobably do 40.
(11:35):
Or if they did 40, they could do45.
There's always that ability todo just a little bit more, as
long as you have the other sideof growth, which is making sure
that you're not just pushing alittle bit more, but you're also
recovering.
Some of the kids on the team arereally good at doing this out on
runs.
They'll push themselves just alittle bit farther, or they'll
(11:57):
take that run and go a littlebit faster, but we also take'em
into the weight room.
And this year one of the thingsthat I'm doing is having the
kids actually monitor theweights that they're lifting so
they can see, oh, I haven'ttried to lift a heavier weight
in a long time.
I want to actually increasethat.
And it's not that we're gettingthe cross country kids to be
like the size of the footballplayers.
Although I've seen some of thefootball players at summer
(12:19):
practice and they might bebetter designed for the
cross-country team, but that's awhole different topic.
but the strength that we'rebuilding these kids.
If we don't keep increasing theweights or if we just allow them
to do the same exercises withthe same weights, eventually
it's not a stress on them.
We can change this.
If you go out and you do thesame loop on a run, you can
(12:40):
change the speed that you'redoing it instead of going at a
steady pace the whole time.
You can go faster and slower andfaster and slower through the
whole thing.
You can do this in the weightroom if you don't have heavier
weights.
You can do the same exercise andtry and really do a.
An increase your range ofmotion, or you can go through
the exercise slower.
(13:01):
You can go through theconcentric movement.
if you're doing, like a squat,you can go down really slow and
then push back up faster.
Or you can push up and then tryand get like up onto your toes
briefly and get almost like amini plyometric out of it.
There are ways to modify all thedifferent exercises that just
slightly increase your stressnow.
(13:23):
Don't start bouncing on all ofyour squats.
Do all this under some guidanceof an actual trainer in front of
you if you're gonna try andbranch out on squats.
But there are ways that you canmodify the exercises that you
can make sure that they arecontinuously stressing yourself
as long as you also have time torecover from it.
Okay.
(13:43):
The track that sometimes Imyself fall into.
I am really good about not doingthis to coach other people, but
sometimes I end up accidentallydoing it to myself is I'll do a
speed workout one day and thenlift pretty hard the next day
and then.
Do a speed the next day and thenlift pretty hard the next day.
And suddenly I've strung fourreally physically taxing days,
(14:06):
and it's the end of the week andI can't figure out why I'm so
exhausted.
And I'm like, oh, that's right,because I did overstress every
day and I never gave myself thetime to recover.
Adaptation.
Always reaching for somethingmore is nice, but remember that
adaptation is not always pushingyourself as far as you can, as
fast as you can every singleday.
that adaptation always needs abit of a pullback.
(14:27):
After I did my long birthdayrun, I then used the rest of the
weekend getaway that Angie hadplanned to recover from that
thing and take really good careof myself.
So that was a balance of theoverstress and then the recovery
time.
All of this.
Also exists in the mentalcapacity.
We need to be able to pushourselves.
(14:48):
We need to know that runningcreates a space where we are
safe to push ourselves.
Sometimes there's parts of theenvironment around us.
My job as a teacher, if.
If the principal comes into myroom and they're observing,
sometimes it's Ooh, I feel likeI'm gotta make sure I perform
(15:08):
really well in the test.
I was talking to our daughterwho just was in, a play
production over the wheel,musical production over the
weekend, and.
We were talking about how shefeels more comfortable during
the actual performance than shedoes during the audition
portion, because there's thislevel of uncomfortableness of,
oh, I have to make sure that Iactually, I really step up and
(15:29):
compete.
But all of the practice, oncethe auditions are done, and
then.
All of the practice up untilshe's actually on stage.
She feels great because she's socomfortable with the people that
she's around, that even thoughwhat she's doing would terrify a
lot of people, I find the wholeidea of standing in front of a
stage and singing the way thatshe does that seems unbelievably
(15:51):
scary to me.
She thinks that when I'm like,oh, I'm gonna go run for 50.
Miles, a hundred kilometers, ahundred miles, that is super
crazy and insane.
So we both understand the otherperson's insanity and we both
understand that ultimately bothof us are pushing ourselves and
we get this weird combinationthat we understand the other
(16:11):
person, but not exactly, but weboth see that the other person
is trying to push themselves.
And both of us understand thisidea of mental strength, that in
order to push yourself, it'sbest if you surround yourself
with people that you feelcomfortable screwing up in front
of.
Hey, it's one of my favoriteparts of the Real Life Runners
(16:34):
community.
It's my shameless plug forjoining Real Life Runners, and I
don't even have the website togo to because Angie is not here.
But go to Instagram and at reallife runners and then DM Angie
about how to become part of theteam because the team is
amazing.
Everybody supports each otherand they know when other people
(16:57):
have races and they're cheeringother people on.
And even though you may havenever met this other person in
your life, you feel like youhave an entire community that
understands your same crazinessand are there to support it.
And if a race doesn't go well,they're there to cheer you on
that you were bold and braveenough to venture out and push
(17:18):
yourself into something that wastricky, that mental strength
part.
Whew.
Two Ultras ago when I ran theDaytona a hundred, there was a
point in the race that I wascompletely ready to be done, and
I was hours and hours into therace and I knew that I still had
hours and hours to go, and theblisters on my feet were killing
(17:39):
me.
And I told Angie, I don't knowhow long this is gonna take me.
And she said, it's okay.
We're gonna be here for as longas it needs.
And when she said that,suddenly.
I gained so much mental strengthbecause I was able to deal with
the uncomfortableness, knowingthat I had the support.
Okay?
(18:00):
So having a support networksometimes allows you to feel
safe even when you're outside ofyour comfort zone.
it says Even if this endspoorly, the people around me
will still love me, and so it'sgonna be okay.
If I do something scary, it'sgonna be okay.
If I declare what the, what mybig goal is and I end up
(18:22):
flopping, it's gonna be okay.
Okay.
And that knowing that it's gonnabe okay, whether things work out
the way you want or whether theydon't, gives you that mental
strength to continue perseveringin the face of what is
astronomical odds.
a couple ultras back when I wastraining with a hernia to race
for a hundred miles, those werebig odds.
(18:44):
I had already tried a hundredbefore and had not made it to
the finish line.
The, the deck in my head wasstacked against me, but I was
still willing to do it because Ihad people.
That would support me.
All right.
Moving on.
The next thing that I want totalk about is something that I
heard on a different podcastthat I was listening to, because
honestly, I don't listen to oursunless it's an interview or an
(19:05):
Angie solo episode.
because I can't stand the soundof my own voice.
God bless all of you forlistening to this because for
those of people who have.
Ever listen to themselves onrecording?
You know what it's like,sometimes the sound of your own
voice just doesn't seem quiteright.
So I was listening to adifferent podcast and they were
talking about a book from a fewyears back, and the author's
name is Michael Easter and hewrote a book about the comfort
(19:28):
crisis, how society isessentially building up a world
that we live in that makeseverything as easy to get to as
possible.
And how running is a possibleway to go against this comfort,
this excessive comfort around usand the concept of the book, and
(19:49):
then where that podcast wentwere slightly different.
But the idea was essentially welive in a world where, I have a
tracker on my arm at all times,so I know how many steps I get
in, but the concept of the bookwas essentially we could get up
if we wanted to, we could getup.
Okay.
Order breakfast to our house sowe don't even have to go to the
(20:10):
grocery store.
We could have it delivered toour house.
We could have it delivered,cooked to our house.
So all we have to do is nuke itand you'd be fine that way.
but at a minimum, we could havegroceries delivered to our
house.
We could make things morecomfortable and have prepared
foods delivered to our house sowe could get out of bed.
Go to the bathroom, get the foodthat is already prepared in our
fridge, heat it up, and thenmove to somewhere in the house
(20:33):
where we could conceivably workon a computer in a virtual work
environment all day long, onlytaking breaks to go to the
bathroom and eat more food.
And at the end of the day, wecould move from that desk to
maybe a couch, watch some tv,and go back to bed and call it a
day and end the day with like ahundred steps.
Okay.
(20:54):
It's possible the society thatwe've created makes that a very
realistic possibility.
Going out and running does notfit into this because it is
inherently.
More resistant than that world.
That's why some people find itso challenging to get up and go
run.
They constantly think thatthey've gotta build up the
(21:16):
motivation to go run, becauserunning is inherently trickier
than sitting on a couch.
That's why the suggestion isalways just.
Do the bare minimum, do the nexteasiest step, and I think Angie
was talking about this on lastweek's episode.
Just put on your running clothesand tie up the shoes and head
out the door, because onceyou're out the door, it's more
(21:37):
likely that you're gonna startthe run and it's not that
difficult.
If you can wrap your headaround, I'm just getting
dressed.
Then once you're out the door,be like, all right, I'm just
gonna walk for five minutes.
And now you're five minutes awayfrom your house.
And if you are feeling reallydown and you're like, I don't
have it today, I am just feelingsuper exhausted.
(21:57):
You could walk five minutes backto your house and now you've
gone for a 10 minute walk.
And that might help youmentally.
Okay.
But it also might be just enoughmovement that you're like, all
right, maybe I could startrunning.
Okay.
That it gives you that justenough to get over the initial
hurdle that you've got somemomentum built up that you can
start going so.
(22:18):
The whole idea of going out andexercising is a way to fight
back against the excessiveamount of comfort in the world.
This is why I love picking big,scary goals.
This is why I love running inthe first place.
This is why I like running whenit's super, super hot outside.
Okay?
This is why I'm trying to getbetter about running when it's
(22:40):
raining outside.
I like to suggest that becauseit's Florida essentially every
time it's running.
I might get struck by lightning,and that's why I should run
inside, but it's not, it'sbecause I don't like running in
wet shoes.
That's the main thing.
I don't like running in, insquishy shoes, and it's
something that I just find thatuncomfortable.
But the suggestion from the bookis, maybe we should find areas
(23:05):
in our life where we can planout discomfort.
Okay.
Now don't get me wrong, thisgoes back to what I said at the
beginning.
You should not be pushingyourself to physical and mental
challenges every single day.
You need some recovery in orderfor growth to come in, but you
don't need every day to be assmooth as possible.
(23:25):
If you're trying to improve as arunner, if you're trying to
improve in any craft, you haveto find days where you're
pushing yourself, where it's notjust an easy run most distance
running because it's sophysically taxing on the body.
Most running should be at a veryeasy, comfortable pace, but some
runs need to be difficult.
(23:46):
Some runs, we need to stretchour efforts.
If you find hills terrible,okay, you just hate running up
hills.
It might be a sign that onoccasion you should go run up
hills if, for the physicalbenefits, great, but also the
mental benefits of choosing,aspects of running that you find
(24:07):
difficult.
Okay.
I find.
Running super long distancesdifficult, but remarkably
rewarding.
very difficult.
Once you've been running forseveral hours, it's difficult to
continue running.
So even though I find odd joyand fun in that aspect, I do
still find it remarkablydifficult.
(24:27):
But there's other aspects ofrunning that I find difficult
that I shrug away from.
Super fast speed work.
Not my favorite.
Angie loves it.
She leans into that.
I like moderate pace speed work.
I like doing fart like sessionswhere it's like, ah, two minutes
fast, two minutes easy, twominutes up, and two minutes
down, and it doesn't have aspecific pace assigned to it.
I love those days, so I like tostretch myself by going into the
(24:51):
weight room and trying to liftheavy things.
Because that's not my favorite.
By going on runs where I'mactually timing myself over
shorter, faster segments andseeing how fast I'm actually
going of, am I able to hit sometime metrics to see if I could
hit certain race time goals.
It's not my favorite process,but it's a little bit of
(25:11):
discomfort that I can put in,that I can be like, all right.
I'm gonna control thisuncomfortable thing.
I'm going to purposely putmyself in an uncomfortable
position, and this is theworkout that I'm doing today.
So it's a challenge that I offerto you as the listener is find.
Some aspect of running.
We've all got some part of therunning that we're like, Ooh,
(25:33):
that's not my favorite thing.
And maybe that's the part ofyour training plan that you keep
skipping.
Maybe it's the long run that youdon't really like.
And so instead of doing six, youtend to make it like five.
Instead of doing 12, you're downat eh, tens close.
Make sure that you're actuallygetting.
The length of the long run, andif you need to put in walking
(25:55):
breaks, then put in walkingbreaks, but cover the distance.
Maybe like Angie, you were not abig fan of the tempo run.
Maybe the 20 minutes at moderateeffort just seems like it's
overwhelming.
I know it did for her when Ifirst started prescribing that
to her so many years back.
But she's come around to it.
It's still not her favorite, butshe still does it every once in
a while because of the mentalhurdle.
(26:17):
Yes, there are physical benefitsof doing the wide variety of
efforts, and that's a wholedifferent concept here.
What I'm talking about isfinding the aspect of your
training that makes you mentallyuncomfortable, and then living
that discomfort don't even, forthe most part.
Listen to our podcast.
(26:38):
It's fantastic.
We love it.
Share with friends and family.
Tell everybody how amazing thepodcast is.
It'll be better.
Angie will be back.
There'll be both of us, trustme.
but find the part of yourrunning.
Maybe it's the super fast speedwork.
Maybe it's the tempo session.
Maybe it's the long run hills,whatever it is.
And then without headphones.
(26:58):
Just go out and get into thehard session.
Just put yourself through itwhere the only thing you have to
deal with the discomfort areyour own thoughts, and it will
help you figure out what kind ofcoping strategies you have.
And Angie talked about somecoping strategies last week
where she can zoom in on what'shappening around her and she can
(27:18):
zoom out.
And we've talked about copingstrategies before.
That sometimes there'sdistraction, but sometimes
there's paying very closeattention.
And you can practice all ofthese different tactics, but
it's difficult to practice themwhen you have music in your
ears, when you have an audiobook or a podcast in your ears.
So pick that aspect of yourtraining that's Ooh, that's not
(27:40):
my favorite aspect.
That's really hard.
And sometimes to get through it,I just turn up the music really
loud and I sing along and thenit's done.
See what happens if you putyourself in that uncomfortable
position and then do it withjust the thoughts inside of your
head.
It is remarkably satisfying.
Okay.
Which brings us back to thearrival fallacy.
(28:02):
Doing that workout is not goingto, in one attempt, make you a
completely different personsaying, I did my speed workout
for the week without headphones,and therefore I feel
satisfaction.
It's, that's not how this works.
It's not like I've accomplishedthis goal, therefore I feel this
way.
You can feel however you want.
(28:25):
The idea here is that all ofthis process, that the whole
idea of all of the workouts andthe mental work and putting
yourself in challengingsituations and trying to figure
out which different copingstrategies will work for you.
And this one worked and I, oh,this one worked last week, but I
tried it again this week and itdidn't work.
(28:46):
And all of this, and successfulworkouts and quote unquote
unsuccessful workouts that allof this.
Is the training process.
All this trains you to be abetter runner.
All this trains you to be abetter person.
All this training helps you setup to, I think, the joy that is
running, because running doesn'tguarantee success.
(29:11):
Life doesn't guaranteehappiness.
Okay?
Just because you sign up for arace and you pay the entry fee,
the very expensive entry fees oncertain races, no one's
guaranteeing a pr.
That's not what comes with it.
Like you can't pay your raceentry fee and for an extra$20,
they'll guarantee a pr.
That's not how it goes.
(29:32):
What running guarantees is thechallenge.
The challenge is there.
That's what it's it, you go outand you climb a mountain, you're
gonna get a view at the top, butmost of your day is gonna be
spent looking at the mountain.
Okay, we're taking the annualsummer trip out to California
(29:55):
and we're gonna go on someamazing hikes.
I'm sure Angie's gonna plan outsome phenomenal things.
There's gonna be some greatviews, but most of the views are
gonna be the trail in front ofme.
Hey, a lot of them are gonna bethe trail sitting in front of
me, and then every once in awhile we'll go around a bend and
there'll be a beautiful view.
But if you don't enjoy the trailin front of you, if you don't
(30:15):
enjoy the challenge of climbingup the mountain, the hill,
whatever it is, then the view atthe top is just gonna be a brief
view, and you could just go tothe gift shop and collect a
postcard that has the same viewthat feeling at the top is only
so satisfying if you go throughthe challenges to get there.
Okay, so it's not that you'regoing to be a completely new
(30:38):
person at the top.
It's not that the marathonfinish line changes you, it's
the months leading that prepareyou for the possibility of
running the marathon, of chasingyour 5K PR of lifting more than
you've ever done before, ofgoing for that job promotion of,
(30:59):
whatever the thing is.
Okay.
This is the part where I.
I feel a connection to mydaughters, even though neither
of them run the one dances andshe trains really hard.
And I could watch her dance andI, unless she falls over, I
literally, I can't tell.
If she screws a step up, she'llcome off the stage.
(31:20):
She always has the smile.
'cause you have to have thesmile on stage.
And she comes off and sometimesas soon as she clears the stage,
her face drops and she justcrumbles.
And sometimes she's stillsmiling and I never know what it
is.
But the stage, like I said, therunning doesn't guarantee the
happiness.
The stage doesn't guaranteehappiness, but she enjoys
(31:41):
training with who she's with.
She enjoys going to practice.
She enjoys practicing dancing athome.
She's always dancing.
It brings her joy.
Even though there are aspects ofit that are very physically
challenging, even though the,there is the mental daunting
process of standing on stagewith judges in front of you,
scribbling notes on the piece ofpaper in front of them, that's a
(32:02):
mentally daunting process.
It is mentally challenging to gointo a race, pin a number on
your front, and know thathowever long from now you're
gonna cross a finish line andthere's gonna be a big, giant
number on a clock.
That you can feel judgment fromit, or you can say, Hey, I've
done all of this training.
I know who I am at the startingline, and I know that's the same
(32:24):
person I'm gonna be at thefinish line regardless of what
that clock says.
This is how I think combining,putting yourself into
uncomfortable scenarios and thearrival fallacy slide together
really nice because by puttingyourself in uncomfortable
situations, you gain joy out ofthe process and you're not
worried about how you're gonnafeel when you get there because
that real satisfaction actuallycomes from all of the steps
(32:49):
along the way.
Okay, so hopefully all this tiedtogether and made some semblance
of sense.
Usually Angie helps me with anoutline to try and take my just
rambling thoughts and put themtogether.
Sometimes she has to translatethings that I say into actual
English, so I hope that youappreciated this run.
I know.
I found this very mentallychallenging.
(33:10):
Honestly, just to click therecord button, I clicked it
probably eight times and thevolume was working, but I was
just not sure that I couldactually do this thing.
And I know that Angie's got anepisode that she could have run
if I was not physically capableof doing this.
But sometimes we need to putourselves into new.
(33:30):
Difficult, mentally challengingplaces.
Maybe it's physicallychallenging, maybe it's mentally
challenging.
Maybe it's both.
Hey, if I come up with anotherrace, I will.
You guys on the podcast will besome of the first to know that
I've come up with anothermentally, physically challenging
race that I'm going for.
But find one yourself.
(33:50):
Okay.
Or my challenge as I, I saidduring the episode is sometime
during this week, pick whateveraspect it is about training
during the week that you'relike, Ooh, that's the one part
of my training that I reallydislike and think about
beforehand.
What is it that I find sochallenging about this?
Go into it and do that workout,that long run that easy.
(34:13):
Run that lifting session,whatever the thing is, go in and
do it with no background noise.
Just the thoughts and copingstrategies you have in your
head, and then afterwardsactually take the time to sit
and think, what did I get out ofthat?
Because the growth comes duringthat recovery process, but only
(34:33):
if you actually allow there tobe time for growth.
If you run a race, going backand thinking about how that race
went so that you can improve thenext time is how you do it.
Okay?
and so this is my thoughts foryou, is sometime during this
week come up with a workout thatyou can challenge yourself and
figure out how can I mentallygrow from that workout.
(34:55):
If you've got something, if youwanna share, I have Instagram,
so feel free to DM me.
I am Kevin at Real.
No.
Kevin, oh man.
I'm totally actually gonna haveto look this thing up, but you
can always share your thoughtsand your joys with Angie.
She's@realliferunners, onInstagram, and I am going to
(35:18):
give you mine in just a second.
It's totally coming.
There we go.
Kevin Brown, RLR at as is onInstagram.
Every once in a while I'lldecide to post something.
Sometimes I get in a mood andI'll post things for a couple of
straight weeks.
feel free to DM me and be like,Hey.
What's going on?
And, especially if you've gotsomething that you think is
(35:40):
gonna be a fun challenge for youthis week that you wanna share,
and maybe I will post somethingthat I find challenging and put
that up on Instagram myself.
It'll be a fun little challengefor both of us.
All right, I hope you gotsomething out of this guys.
until then, go out there and runyour life.
When was the last time that youchose to be uncomfortable?
Not sore after a run, but trulyuncomfortable in a way that
actually challenged your mindand your body?
That's what we're talking abouton today's episode one where I
get to feel a littleuncomfortable because, it's just
me on today's episode.
So today all about being alittle bit uncomfortable.
(00:21):
We're all gonna go through ittogether.
Let's see how this one goes.
(00:47):
All right, runners.
Welcome to the Real Life Runnerspodcast.
Like I said in the opening, it'sjust me.
Angie is outta town and so I'mdoing a solo one.
She went solo last week.
I listened to that one myself ona run, and this time you get
just me because we are incompletely different states and
not able to record together.
we will be back.
(01:08):
Actually, I think we might havean interview for next week, and
then we'll be back together tonormal programming come August.
So we'll see how this goes.
but today's episode is one.
It covers a lot of topics aboutthings that I've been listening
to lately, things that I've beenreading lately, some of my
favorite topics of pushing yourbody and pushing your mind and
(01:28):
trying to put those thingstogether and how do we decide on
big goals and is that the rightthing or my push too far?
It's a lot of topics and Let'sjust start diving into that
thing with a couple of topicsthat I want to open with and
define, and then we'll see if wecan start tying them together.
The first one comes from alittle over a week ago when I
(01:52):
had my birthday and I was tryingto figure out what to do for my
birthday run.
I like coming up with some sortof weird challenge, usually
related to however many yearsI've spun around the sun.
And I think last year I ran overa hill at a park near our house
for 40 some times.
I've done laps of theneighborhood.
I've done one minute on, oneminute off for however many
(02:14):
years.
So I wanted to.
Do something this year.
And the first thing that came tomind, this is an interesting
conversation that Angie and Iwere having.
'cause the first thing that cameto my mind was running for 44
miles.
And the first thing that came toAngie's mind was doing like 44
seconds.
44 times.
(02:34):
Or actually I think hers brokedown further of doing Four by
four by 44 seconds of that's 16by 44 seconds.
So it's pretty short distance.
My first thought was to run for44 miles, and she pointed out
that was a terrible idea becauseI've not been training in a way
that I could actually do.
That and feel good for the restof the day.
(02:56):
I could probably do it.
I'd end up walking a huge amountof it, and I would be without my
family for most of the day.
it was gonna be a lot of miseryin my head.
That still sounded like an okayidea, but that kind of gets us
right into this topic of ispushing ourself to do something
uncomfortable.
(03:16):
A good idea.
And the answer is sure, as longas there's some sort of
reasoning behind it, I would'vedone it for the reasoning of
it's my birthday.
No good reason.
Beyond that, I don't know if Iwould've gained any lessons from
it.
If I would've learned anythingabout myself.
It definitely would've thrown mytraining off.
(03:38):
it would've kickstarted mytraining, been like, Hey, let's
build that mileage back up,because I don't even have a race
on the calendar.
And because of that, I haven'treally been doing long, long
runs on the weekend.
Plus it's the summer in SouthFlorida, so it's a thousand
degrees outside and the humidityis just absurd.
and I get to relearn about whatDew point is and how that's just
brutal to the body every summer.
(04:00):
So anyway, back to the idea ofpushing boundaries, sometimes
pushing a boundary is a greatidea.
The idea of going really farseemed like a great idea to me.
Going farther than I have in along time seemed like a great
idea to me.
Thankfully, I had Angie aroundto suggest that going for 44
miles was pushing too farwithout a good reason, and that
(04:23):
without a good reason iscritical.
When we come up with pushingboundaries, she said, what else
do you have?
Because I had a variety of ideasand one of my other ideas was.
44 kilometers.
Thank goodness there's a wholenother measuring system that
well, everybody else in theworld uses except for us here in
the US essentially.
I went with four to fourkilometers, which is a little
(04:45):
over a marathon, and I could dothat, and it was not going to
wreck me for days and daysafterwards.
And I was able to do it in areasonable amount of time.
And then Angie had planned atrip for us and so I was able to
get back and shower and pack,and we left on time.
Like everything about it justworked out smoother because it
still pushed me.
(05:06):
It was still physicallychallenging, but it wasn't
something that was gonnacompletely wreck me.
Not that those are terribleideas.
Ever, but it was not necessaryto do it at this point.
I didn't have a good meaning forwhy, and that I think is
something super, superimportant, which takes us to the
first big idea that I wannacover, which is the concept of
(05:29):
the arrival fallacy.
The idea that once I've hit thisgoal, then I'll feel happy, then
I'll feel fulfilled, then I'llfeel satisfied, and that sense
of arrival, never really.
Actually gives us that level ofsatisfaction.
Anytime we reach whatever goalit is, we always then think to
(05:49):
the next goal.
It's very hard to hang on tothat feeling of satisfaction.
We actually, as humans, we'redesigned to continue to pursue
bigger and better things.
Andy's not here, so I don'tremember the actual, chemicals
inside of the brain, but thechemical that.
Leads us towards chasing biggoals is gives us a stronger
(06:10):
reaction than the chemical thatleaves us satisfied with the
things.
It's the whole idea that like ifyou think about a delicious
piece of chocolate cake, you getmore satisfaction after thinking
about that cake.
Then you do out of the joy ofactually eating the.
It's why food doesn't actuallysatisfy, but the thought of food
leaves us with these amazingcravings.
(06:30):
We can do the same thing withvarious running goals.
I know I did this for a longtime, trying to chase a silly
number on a clock when I crossed26.2 miles.
I thought that somehow crossingthe finish line in 2 37, I
forget.
I forget what the number isbecause I've.
Disconnected from that number.
(06:51):
I let that number control myfeelings about running and about
me as a runner for a long time,and I've separated so much that
I don't think I can actuallycome up with that now at 2 37,
12.
It's something like that.
but I've disconnected so farbecause I've come to, to
understand so clearly thatarrival fallacy that I'm never
(07:14):
going to feel as happy.
When I get to the thing as I doin pursuing the thing itself.
Okay, so we're gonna keep goingas.
As we move forward here, but itall comes back to, I think,
ultimately this sort ofexcitement slash disappointment
I had over my birthday run is Ididn't go as far as I wanted.
(07:35):
I didn't, I wasn't able to pushmyself, to a great distance as I
wanted.
But the thing is, I did still.
Push myself, and I did still doit with a whole lot of heat
outside, and I did still get upearly and go do it.
Like I could have done it on atreadmill and air conditioning,
and that's not what I did.
I could have chosen a differentshadier route.
I went out and I, there wasshade.
(07:57):
I went out and I started earlybefore the sun was beating down
on me, but I didn't go out of myway to make it a super easy
thing.
But I also didn't go so over thetop and make it a ridiculously
hard concept.
So it's this idea of finding achallenge that is enough that it
helps us continue to movetowards other challenges.
(08:20):
Not that the run that I did onthat one day was going to define
my running.
It was the ran run that I did onthat day.
It didn't define who I am as arunner.
It simply was another step on mytraining journey.
So the whole idea of why wewould ever go out and push
ourself to something furtherthan we're used to is that we
(08:43):
want to grow.
as humans, we desire growth.
We're always looking for thenext thing.
If you've ever crossed thefinish line of a race and then
thought to yourself, huh.
I bet I could do that fiveseconds faster.
I'm not sure there's any runnerout there that hasn't had that
thought relatively soon aftercrossing the finish line,
(09:05):
regardless of how big of a PRthat was.
How amazing of a time drop thatwas.
Maybe like a half marathon orwho went from 2 0 5 to 1 59 like
that.
That barrier of changing thelead number on a time of 5K,
that goes from over 30 to under30, from over 20 to under 20.
(09:25):
When that lead number changes,it seems super, super exciting,
but what's really.
Most satisfying is not thatnumber.
It's all of the work that we putin to get to that number, and
that's why I love coaching somuch is because I get to help
out with the process of all ofthe journey along the way.
(09:49):
Of people who are like, this isthe goal that I have in mind,
but I don't know, it's big and Idon't really wanna share it.
we do this every year at thestart of the season with our
cross country kids of what'syour goal?
And they're like, oh, I'mthinking of running.
And they put it, throw a numberout there.
And I'm like, what was your PRfrom last year?
And the numbers like 30 secondsslower.
And I'm like, Yeah, you're goingto get that you're a year older.
(10:10):
This works out great with highschool kids'cause they just get
faster.
as long as we don't hurt'em,they all get faster.
And, with, with Angie's Strengthprograms, they do a pretty good
job of not getting hurt alongthe way.
But in order to improve, theyhave to keep pushing themselves.
If all they did was every daycome to practice and we just did
the exact same loop every singleday, eventually that stress
(10:33):
wouldn't be enough to stress thebody anymore.
We'd be doing great on therecovery side, but we wouldn't
actually be stressing ourselvesin order to adapt, in order to
continue pushing ourselves, inorder to see what we are capable
of.
There has to be enough stress inthe body.
That were like, Ooh, I wasn'tquite capable of doing that.
(10:54):
I need some recovery time so Ican come back and build back
stronger and change whatever thecapabilities are within my body
so that next time I have to tryand do that, I get to do it and
I'm going to be more successfulat it.
It's why.
When the kids first start comingout, I give'em a couple weeks to
get used to running in the heat,and then I start ramping
distance up on them and they'relike, what?
(11:14):
I just did three.
How do you think that I'm gonnabe able to do four this time?
I'm like, because you did threefor the last like entire week.
Now you're used to the heat.
If you did three, you can dofour.
Or if they don't, if they have awatch with them, if they did 30,
they could probably do 40.
Is it possible they're gonnaneed to take a walking break in
there?
Sure.
But if they did 30, they canprobably do 40.
(11:35):
Or if they did 40, they could do45.
There's always that ability todo just a little bit more, as
long as you have the other sideof growth, which is making sure
that you're not just pushing alittle bit more, but you're also
recovering.
Some of the kids on the team arereally good at doing this out on
runs.
They'll push themselves just alittle bit farther, or they'll
(11:57):
take that run and go a littlebit faster, but we also take'em
into the weight room.
And this year one of the thingsthat I'm doing is having the
kids actually monitor theweights that they're lifting so
they can see, oh, I haven'ttried to lift a heavier weight
in a long time.
I want to actually increasethat.
And it's not that we're gettingthe cross country kids to be
like the size of the footballplayers.
Although I've seen some of thefootball players at summer
(12:19):
practice and they might bebetter designed for the
cross-country team, but that's awhole different topic.
but the strength that we'rebuilding these kids.
If we don't keep increasing theweights or if we just allow them
to do the same exercises withthe same weights, eventually
it's not a stress on them.
We can change this.
If you go out and you do thesame loop on a run, you can
(12:40):
change the speed that you'redoing it instead of going at a
steady pace the whole time.
You can go faster and slower andfaster and slower through the
whole thing.
You can do this in the weightroom if you don't have heavier
weights.
You can do the same exercise andtry and really do a.
An increase your range ofmotion, or you can go through
the exercise slower.
(13:01):
You can go through theconcentric movement.
if you're doing, like a squat,you can go down really slow and
then push back up faster.
Or you can push up and then tryand get like up onto your toes
briefly and get almost like amini plyometric out of it.
There are ways to modify all thedifferent exercises that just
slightly increase your stressnow.
(13:23):
Don't start bouncing on all ofyour squats.
Do all this under some guidanceof an actual trainer in front of
you if you're gonna try andbranch out on squats.
But there are ways that you canmodify the exercises that you
can make sure that they arecontinuously stressing yourself
as long as you also have time torecover from it.
Okay.
(13:43):
The track that sometimes Imyself fall into.
I am really good about not doingthis to coach other people, but
sometimes I end up accidentallydoing it to myself is I'll do a
speed workout one day and thenlift pretty hard the next day
and then.
Do a speed the next day and thenlift pretty hard the next day.
And suddenly I've strung fourreally physically taxing days,
(14:06):
and it's the end of the week andI can't figure out why I'm so
exhausted.
And I'm like, oh, that's right,because I did overstress every
day and I never gave myself thetime to recover.
Adaptation.
Always reaching for somethingmore is nice, but remember that
adaptation is not always pushingyourself as far as you can, as
fast as you can every singleday.
that adaptation always needs abit of a pullback.
(14:27):
After I did my long birthdayrun, I then used the rest of the
weekend getaway that Angie hadplanned to recover from that
thing and take really good careof myself.
So that was a balance of theoverstress and then the recovery
time.
All of this.
Also exists in the mentalcapacity.
We need to be able to pushourselves.
(14:48):
We need to know that runningcreates a space where we are
safe to push ourselves.
Sometimes there's parts of theenvironment around us.
My job as a teacher, if.
If the principal comes into myroom and they're observing,
sometimes it's Ooh, I feel likeI'm gotta make sure I perform
(15:08):
really well in the test.
I was talking to our daughterwho just was in, a play
production over the wheel,musical production over the
weekend, and.
We were talking about how shefeels more comfortable during
the actual performance than shedoes during the audition
portion, because there's thislevel of uncomfortableness of,
oh, I have to make sure that Iactually, I really step up and
(15:29):
compete.
But all of the practice, oncethe auditions are done, and
then.
All of the practice up untilshe's actually on stage.
She feels great because she's socomfortable with the people that
she's around, that even thoughwhat she's doing would terrify a
lot of people, I find the wholeidea of standing in front of a
stage and singing the way thatshe does that seems unbelievably
(15:51):
scary to me.
She thinks that when I'm like,oh, I'm gonna go run for 50.
Miles, a hundred kilometers, ahundred miles, that is super
crazy and insane.
So we both understand the otherperson's insanity and we both
understand that ultimately bothof us are pushing ourselves and
we get this weird combinationthat we understand the other
(16:11):
person, but not exactly, but weboth see that the other person
is trying to push themselves.
And both of us understand thisidea of mental strength, that in
order to push yourself, it'sbest if you surround yourself
with people that you feelcomfortable screwing up in front
of.
Hey, it's one of my favoriteparts of the Real Life Runners
(16:34):
community.
It's my shameless plug forjoining Real Life Runners, and I
don't even have the website togo to because Angie is not here.
But go to Instagram and at reallife runners and then DM Angie
about how to become part of theteam because the team is
amazing.
Everybody supports each otherand they know when other people
(16:57):
have races and they're cheeringother people on.
And even though you may havenever met this other person in
your life, you feel like youhave an entire community that
understands your same crazinessand are there to support it.
And if a race doesn't go well,they're there to cheer you on
that you were bold and braveenough to venture out and push
(17:18):
yourself into something that wastricky, that mental strength
part.
Whew.
Two Ultras ago when I ran theDaytona a hundred, there was a
point in the race that I wascompletely ready to be done, and
I was hours and hours into therace and I knew that I still had
hours and hours to go, and theblisters on my feet were killing
(17:39):
me.
And I told Angie, I don't knowhow long this is gonna take me.
And she said, it's okay.
We're gonna be here for as longas it needs.
And when she said that,suddenly.
I gained so much mental strengthbecause I was able to deal with
the uncomfortableness, knowingthat I had the support.
Okay?
(18:00):
So having a support networksometimes allows you to feel
safe even when you're outside ofyour comfort zone.
it says Even if this endspoorly, the people around me
will still love me, and so it'sgonna be okay.
If I do something scary, it'sgonna be okay.
If I declare what the, what mybig goal is and I end up
(18:22):
flopping, it's gonna be okay.
Okay.
And that knowing that it's gonnabe okay, whether things work out
the way you want or whether theydon't, gives you that mental
strength to continue perseveringin the face of what is
astronomical odds.
a couple ultras back when I wastraining with a hernia to race
for a hundred miles, those werebig odds.
(18:44):
I had already tried a hundredbefore and had not made it to
the finish line.
The, the deck in my head wasstacked against me, but I was
still willing to do it because Ihad people.
That would support me.
All right.
Moving on.
The next thing that I want totalk about is something that I
heard on a different podcastthat I was listening to, because
honestly, I don't listen to oursunless it's an interview or an
(19:05):
Angie solo episode.
because I can't stand the soundof my own voice.
God bless all of you forlistening to this because for
those of people who have.
Ever listen to themselves onrecording?
You know what it's like,sometimes the sound of your own
voice just doesn't seem quiteright.
So I was listening to adifferent podcast and they were
talking about a book from a fewyears back, and the author's
name is Michael Easter and hewrote a book about the comfort
(19:28):
crisis, how society isessentially building up a world
that we live in that makeseverything as easy to get to as
possible.
And how running is a possibleway to go against this comfort,
this excessive comfort around usand the concept of the book, and
(19:49):
then where that podcast wentwere slightly different.
But the idea was essentially welive in a world where, I have a
tracker on my arm at all times,so I know how many steps I get
in, but the concept of the bookwas essentially we could get up
if we wanted to, we could getup.
Okay.
Order breakfast to our house sowe don't even have to go to the
(20:10):
grocery store.
We could have it delivered toour house.
We could have it delivered,cooked to our house.
So all we have to do is nuke itand you'd be fine that way.
but at a minimum, we could havegroceries delivered to our
house.
We could make things morecomfortable and have prepared
foods delivered to our house sowe could get out of bed.
Go to the bathroom, get the foodthat is already prepared in our
fridge, heat it up, and thenmove to somewhere in the house
(20:33):
where we could conceivably workon a computer in a virtual work
environment all day long, onlytaking breaks to go to the
bathroom and eat more food.
And at the end of the day, wecould move from that desk to
maybe a couch, watch some tv,and go back to bed and call it a
day and end the day with like ahundred steps.
Okay.
(20:54):
It's possible the society thatwe've created makes that a very
realistic possibility.
Going out and running does notfit into this because it is
inherently.
More resistant than that world.
That's why some people find itso challenging to get up and go
run.
They constantly think thatthey've gotta build up the
(21:16):
motivation to go run, becauserunning is inherently trickier
than sitting on a couch.
That's why the suggestion isalways just.
Do the bare minimum, do the nexteasiest step, and I think Angie
was talking about this on lastweek's episode.
Just put on your running clothesand tie up the shoes and head
out the door, because onceyou're out the door, it's more
(21:37):
likely that you're gonna startthe run and it's not that
difficult.
If you can wrap your headaround, I'm just getting
dressed.
Then once you're out the door,be like, all right, I'm just
gonna walk for five minutes.
And now you're five minutes awayfrom your house.
And if you are feeling reallydown and you're like, I don't
have it today, I am just feelingsuper exhausted.
(21:57):
You could walk five minutes backto your house and now you've
gone for a 10 minute walk.
And that might help youmentally.
Okay.
But it also might be just enoughmovement that you're like, all
right, maybe I could startrunning.
Okay.
That it gives you that justenough to get over the initial
hurdle that you've got somemomentum built up that you can
start going so.
(22:18):
The whole idea of going out andexercising is a way to fight
back against the excessiveamount of comfort in the world.
This is why I love picking big,scary goals.
This is why I love running inthe first place.
This is why I like running whenit's super, super hot outside.
Okay?
This is why I'm trying to getbetter about running when it's
(22:40):
raining outside.
I like to suggest that becauseit's Florida essentially every
time it's running.
I might get struck by lightning,and that's why I should run
inside, but it's not, it'sbecause I don't like running in
wet shoes.
That's the main thing.
I don't like running in, insquishy shoes, and it's
something that I just find thatuncomfortable.
But the suggestion from the bookis, maybe we should find areas
(23:05):
in our life where we can planout discomfort.
Okay.
Now don't get me wrong, thisgoes back to what I said at the
beginning.
You should not be pushingyourself to physical and mental
challenges every single day.
You need some recovery in orderfor growth to come in, but you
don't need every day to be assmooth as possible.
(23:25):
If you're trying to improve as arunner, if you're trying to
improve in any craft, you haveto find days where you're
pushing yourself, where it's notjust an easy run most distance
running because it's sophysically taxing on the body.
Most running should be at a veryeasy, comfortable pace, but some
runs need to be difficult.
(23:46):
Some runs, we need to stretchour efforts.
If you find hills terrible,okay, you just hate running up
hills.
It might be a sign that onoccasion you should go run up
hills if, for the physicalbenefits, great, but also the
mental benefits of choosing,aspects of running that you find
(24:07):
difficult.
Okay.
I find.
Running super long distancesdifficult, but remarkably
rewarding.
very difficult.
Once you've been running forseveral hours, it's difficult to
continue running.
So even though I find odd joyand fun in that aspect, I do
still find it remarkablydifficult.
(24:27):
But there's other aspects ofrunning that I find difficult
that I shrug away from.
Super fast speed work.
Not my favorite.
Angie loves it.
She leans into that.
I like moderate pace speed work.
I like doing fart like sessionswhere it's like, ah, two minutes
fast, two minutes easy, twominutes up, and two minutes
down, and it doesn't have aspecific pace assigned to it.
I love those days, so I like tostretch myself by going into the
(24:51):
weight room and trying to liftheavy things.
Because that's not my favorite.
By going on runs where I'mactually timing myself over
shorter, faster segments andseeing how fast I'm actually
going of, am I able to hit sometime metrics to see if I could
hit certain race time goals.
It's not my favorite process,but it's a little bit of
(25:11):
discomfort that I can put in,that I can be like, all right.
I'm gonna control thisuncomfortable thing.
I'm going to purposely putmyself in an uncomfortable
position, and this is theworkout that I'm doing today.
So it's a challenge that I offerto you as the listener is find.
Some aspect of running.
We've all got some part of therunning that we're like, Ooh,
(25:33):
that's not my favorite thing.
And maybe that's the part ofyour training plan that you keep
skipping.
Maybe it's the long run that youdon't really like.
And so instead of doing six, youtend to make it like five.
Instead of doing 12, you're downat eh, tens close.
Make sure that you're actuallygetting.
The length of the long run, andif you need to put in walking
(25:55):
breaks, then put in walkingbreaks, but cover the distance.
Maybe like Angie, you were not abig fan of the tempo run.
Maybe the 20 minutes at moderateeffort just seems like it's
overwhelming.
I know it did for her when Ifirst started prescribing that
to her so many years back.
But she's come around to it.
It's still not her favorite, butshe still does it every once in
a while because of the mentalhurdle.
(26:17):
Yes, there are physical benefitsof doing the wide variety of
efforts, and that's a wholedifferent concept here.
What I'm talking about isfinding the aspect of your
training that makes you mentallyuncomfortable, and then living
that discomfort don't even, forthe most part.
Listen to our podcast.
(26:38):
It's fantastic.
We love it.
Share with friends and family.
Tell everybody how amazing thepodcast is.
It'll be better.
Angie will be back.
There'll be both of us, trustme.
but find the part of yourrunning.
Maybe it's the super fast speedwork.
Maybe it's the tempo session.
Maybe it's the long run hills,whatever it is.
And then without headphones.
(26:58):
Just go out and get into thehard session.
Just put yourself through itwhere the only thing you have to
deal with the discomfort areyour own thoughts, and it will
help you figure out what kind ofcoping strategies you have.
And Angie talked about somecoping strategies last week
where she can zoom in on what'shappening around her and she can
(27:18):
zoom out.
And we've talked about copingstrategies before.
That sometimes there'sdistraction, but sometimes
there's paying very closeattention.
And you can practice all ofthese different tactics, but
it's difficult to practice themwhen you have music in your
ears, when you have an audiobook or a podcast in your ears.
So pick that aspect of yourtraining that's Ooh, that's not
(27:40):
my favorite aspect.
That's really hard.
And sometimes to get through it,I just turn up the music really
loud and I sing along and thenit's done.
See what happens if you putyourself in that uncomfortable
position and then do it withjust the thoughts inside of your
head.
It is remarkably satisfying.
Okay.
Which brings us back to thearrival fallacy.
(28:02):
Doing that workout is not goingto, in one attempt, make you a
completely different personsaying, I did my speed workout
for the week without headphones,and therefore I feel
satisfaction.
It's, that's not how this works.
It's not like I've accomplishedthis goal, therefore I feel this
way.
You can feel however you want.
(28:25):
The idea here is that all ofthis process, that the whole
idea of all of the workouts andthe mental work and putting
yourself in challengingsituations and trying to figure
out which different copingstrategies will work for you.
And this one worked and I, oh,this one worked last week, but I
tried it again this week and itdidn't work.
(28:46):
And all of this, and successfulworkouts and quote unquote
unsuccessful workouts that allof this.
Is the training process.
All this trains you to be abetter runner.
All this trains you to be abetter person.
All this training helps you setup to, I think, the joy that is
running, because running doesn'tguarantee success.
(29:11):
Life doesn't guaranteehappiness.
Okay?
Just because you sign up for arace and you pay the entry fee,
the very expensive entry fees oncertain races, no one's
guaranteeing a pr.
That's not what comes with it.
Like you can't pay your raceentry fee and for an extra$20,
they'll guarantee a pr.
That's not how it goes.
(29:32):
What running guarantees is thechallenge.
The challenge is there.
That's what it's it, you go outand you climb a mountain, you're
gonna get a view at the top, butmost of your day is gonna be
spent looking at the mountain.
Okay, we're taking the annualsummer trip out to California
(29:55):
and we're gonna go on someamazing hikes.
I'm sure Angie's gonna plan outsome phenomenal things.
There's gonna be some greatviews, but most of the views are
gonna be the trail in front ofme.
Hey, a lot of them are gonna bethe trail sitting in front of
me, and then every once in awhile we'll go around a bend and
there'll be a beautiful view.
But if you don't enjoy the trailin front of you, if you don't
(30:15):
enjoy the challenge of climbingup the mountain, the hill,
whatever it is, then the view atthe top is just gonna be a brief
view, and you could just go tothe gift shop and collect a
postcard that has the same viewthat feeling at the top is only
so satisfying if you go throughthe challenges to get there.
Okay, so it's not that you'regoing to be a completely new
(30:38):
person at the top.
It's not that the marathonfinish line changes you, it's
the months leading that prepareyou for the possibility of
running the marathon, of chasingyour 5K PR of lifting more than
you've ever done before, ofgoing for that job promotion of,
(30:59):
whatever the thing is.
Okay.
This is the part where I.
I feel a connection to mydaughters, even though neither
of them run the one dances andshe trains really hard.
And I could watch her dance andI, unless she falls over, I
literally, I can't tell.
If she screws a step up, she'llcome off the stage.
(31:20):
She always has the smile.
'cause you have to have thesmile on stage.
And she comes off and sometimesas soon as she clears the stage,
her face drops and she justcrumbles.
And sometimes she's stillsmiling and I never know what it
is.
But the stage, like I said, therunning doesn't guarantee the
happiness.
The stage doesn't guaranteehappiness, but she enjoys
(31:41):
training with who she's with.
She enjoys going to practice.
She enjoys practicing dancing athome.
She's always dancing.
It brings her joy.
Even though there are aspects ofit that are very physically
challenging, even though the,there is the mental daunting
process of standing on stagewith judges in front of you,
scribbling notes on the piece ofpaper in front of them, that's a
(32:02):
mentally daunting process.
It is mentally challenging to gointo a race, pin a number on
your front, and know thathowever long from now you're
gonna cross a finish line andthere's gonna be a big, giant
number on a clock.
That you can feel judgment fromit, or you can say, Hey, I've
done all of this training.
I know who I am at the startingline, and I know that's the same
(32:24):
person I'm gonna be at thefinish line regardless of what
that clock says.
This is how I think combining,putting yourself into
uncomfortable scenarios and thearrival fallacy slide together
really nice because by puttingyourself in uncomfortable
situations, you gain joy out ofthe process and you're not
worried about how you're gonnafeel when you get there because
that real satisfaction actuallycomes from all of the steps
(32:49):
along the way.
Okay, so hopefully all this tiedtogether and made some semblance
of sense.
Usually Angie helps me with anoutline to try and take my just
rambling thoughts and put themtogether.
Sometimes she has to translatethings that I say into actual
English, so I hope that youappreciated this run.
I know.
I found this very mentallychallenging.
(33:10):
Honestly, just to click therecord button, I clicked it
probably eight times and thevolume was working, but I was
just not sure that I couldactually do this thing.
And I know that Angie's got anepisode that she could have run
if I was not physically capableof doing this.
But sometimes we need to putourselves into new.
(33:30):
Difficult, mentally challengingplaces.
Maybe it's physicallychallenging, maybe it's mentally
challenging.
Maybe it's both.
Hey, if I come up with anotherrace, I will.
You guys on the podcast will besome of the first to know that
I've come up with anothermentally, physically challenging
race that I'm going for.
But find one yourself.
(33:50):
Okay.
Or my challenge as I, I saidduring the episode is sometime
during this week, pick whateveraspect it is about training
during the week that you'relike, Ooh, that's the one part
of my training that I reallydislike and think about
beforehand.
What is it that I find sochallenging about this?
Go into it and do that workout,that long run that easy.
(34:13):
Run that lifting session,whatever the thing is, go in and
do it with no background noise.
Just the thoughts and copingstrategies you have in your
head, and then afterwardsactually take the time to sit
and think, what did I get out ofthat?
Because the growth comes duringthat recovery process, but only
(34:33):
if you actually allow there tobe time for growth.
If you run a race, going backand thinking about how that race
went so that you can improve thenext time is how you do it.
Okay?
and so this is my thoughts foryou, is sometime during this
week come up with a workout thatyou can challenge yourself and
figure out how can I mentallygrow from that workout.
(34:55):
If you've got something, if youwanna share, I have Instagram,
so feel free to DM me.
I am Kevin at Real.
No.
Kevin, oh man.
I'm totally actually gonna haveto look this thing up, but you
can always share your thoughtsand your joys with Angie.
She's@realliferunners, onInstagram, and I am going to
(35:18):
give you mine in just a second.
It's totally coming.
There we go.
Kevin Brown, RLR at as is onInstagram.
Every once in a while I'lldecide to post something.
Sometimes I get in a mood andI'll post things for a couple of
straight weeks.
feel free to DM me and be like,Hey.
What's going on?
And, especially if you've gotsomething that you think is
(35:40):
gonna be a fun challenge for youthis week that you wanna share,
and maybe I will post somethingthat I find challenging and put
that up on Instagram myself.
It'll be a fun little challengefor both of us.
All right, I hope you gotsomething out of this guys.
until then, go out there and runyour life.
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