September 25, 2025 • 47 mins
In this week’s episode, we’re continuing our Core Values series by diving into one of the most powerful values for runners and for life: resilience.
Resilience isn’t just about pushing through—it’s about bouncing back, learning, and growing stronger with every setback. We’ll share stories from our own running and coaching journeys, along with practical strategies you can use to build your own resilience on the run and beyond.
From tough races and challenging workouts to the curveballs life throws your way, resilience is what helps you keep moving forward. We’ll talk about how recovery, gratitude, and the support of a strong community all play a role in helping you rise, reset, and run with strength.
If you’ve ever faced a setback (and let’s be honest—we all have), this episode will remind you that resilience is not about perfection. It’s about showing up, growing, and finding the strength to keep going.
00:11 Defining Resilience in Running
01:10 Race Recap and Goal Setting
03:54 Integrity and Accountability
14:51 Resilience in Training
19:34 Resilience in Races and Competitions
21:31 Embracing Discomfort in Shorter Races
23:35 Mental Toughness and Adaptability in Racing
25:23 The Importance of Flexibility in Training Plans
27:54 Building Resilience Through Adapting Workouts
32:10 Reflecting on Wins and Learning Opportunities
40:24 The Role of Recovery in Building Resilience
41:16 Gratitude and Community Support in Resilience
44:35 The Essence of Resilience
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker (00:00):
Welcome back to the Real Life Runners podcast.
(00:02):
Today we're continuing our corevalue series inspired by the
values that we set with ourcross country team and how they
apply to all of us as runners inreal life.
So far we've talked aboutintegrity, respect, and
commitment, and today we'removing on to core value number
four, which is resilience.
Resilience is all about how werespond when things don't go as
(00:22):
planned, because let's be real.
Running in life will.
Always bring challenges.
So whether it's a tough workout,a bad race, an injury setback,
resilience is what allows us tobounce back, keep showing up,
and actually get strongerthrough the struggle.
And that's what we're divinginto today.
So stay tuned.
(01:02):
What's up runners?
Welcome back to the show.
We're on two core value numberfour.
Number four, it's resilience.
Resilience.
I love that word.
It's like a fun word to say.
And also, I just love this valueand I love that we put this
value into our cross countryteam this year as well.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes.
I, there's a reason we startedwith integrity.
Like that one's super important.
Yeah.
Speaker (01:23):
And we totally called them out on that today too,
because we are, we every,
Speaker 2 (01:26):
we have some more calling out to do on Wednesday.
Speaker (01:28):
Oh yeah, we do.
Oh, we do for sure.
because every, practice that wehave after a race, we do a race
recap.
And I ask the kids twoquestions.
Number one, what's somethingpositive that happened?
What's a win from your race?
What went well?
And then number two, what?
Could, didn't go as well as youhad hoped that you can learn for
(01:49):
next time.
what did you learn, fromsomething that maybe didn't go
your way?
So I don't wanna call itnecessarily a positive and a
negative, but it's like, whatdid you what?
Gimme a win and then gimme alearning opportunity here.
And.
Today the kids were talkingabout,'cause they, a lot of them
know the quote unquote right.
Things to say.
Because they've heard us talkenough.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's a smart group of kids.
Yeah.
You got some juniors and seniorson there.
They've gone through thismultiple times.
They know an answer that theycould give that you'll generally
just move on to the next person.
Speaker (02:19):
And also the ones that will like, make me very happy as
well.
Like some of them are very keenon those answers as well, but.
today we were asking, oh.
So that's what we do for ourrace recap, and then for the
following race, like we do, ajournal.
And today it happened to be bothbecause we had a race on
Saturday practice today, andthen we have a race tomorrow as
well.
(02:39):
And The day before a race, I'llalways have them set two goals.
I have them set, their firstgoal can be something objective,
like a number, like a time onthe clock or a pace or a, a
place that they wanna finish inthe race.
And then number two is somethingthat I tell them they need to
have control over.
So it's what's something.
That you actually have controlover.
(03:00):
So a lot of them, like Kevinsaid, know that some of the
right answers are hydration ornutrition are going to bed on
time.
And so they will say thesethings.
And so for example, one of'em,when they said.
Eat more or push harder orsomething like that.
I always try to challenge thembecause that's a very broad
answer, what does that mean?
What specifically are you goingto do in order to make that
(03:24):
happen?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Because I listened to half of the kids before the
race.
On Friday, tell you on Thursdaythat they were going to eat more
between the end of school andtheir race.
And then I listened to a hugeamount of kids tell me that
their lesson that they learnedlast Friday is they need to eat
more before their race.
What?
That can't be the thing you'reworking on.
(03:45):
And the lesson learned,
Speaker (03:46):
it can, because if they tried eating more, then maybe
they didn't eat.
Enough.
So they could still work oneating more than they already
ate?
Yes.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Or changing the thing that they were eating more.
Yes.
But a lot of them.
Planned to eat more and thensimply did not
Speaker (04:01):
or said that they were going to because they knew that
was the right answer and thendid not and then did not.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right?
Speaker (04:06):
And so we had to call them out and remind them of core
value number one, which isintegrity, and that means doing
the things you say you're goingto do.
Because if you say that.
You're gonna do this thing andthen you don't end up doing it,
then you're not in integrity andyou're not learning anything
through the process either,which means you're not going to
make as much progress as arunner as you possibly could
(04:27):
have if you actually did thethings you said you were going
to do,
Speaker 2 (04:30):
right?
Because it's fine if you setthese goals and you don't
achieve them because then itgives you a lesson.
But if you set this goal, oh,this is the part that I'm gonna
control, I'm gonna try this,every race can essentially be an
experiment.
But if you're not actually.
Changing anything from one raceto the next.
Then you're not sure what'sworking and what's not.
(04:52):
Yeah.
You're like, I don't know.
I just tried a little bit harderand I didn't go quite as fast or
I tried a little bit harder,but, and I went faster.
You're like, okay, but you needto try some actual concrete
things and see what's helpingyou improve so you can then gain
a lesson from it.
Speaker (05:06):
Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that I
was challenged them on.
As well with a lot of them weresaying, walk less.
And I say, what does that mean?
what does it mean if you walkless?
do you know exactly how manytimes you walked?
Do you know exactly for how longyou walked during the race?
do you know at what point in therace you walked?
Because if you don't know thosedetails, it's gonna be very
difficult for you to measurewhether or not you walked less.
(05:29):
And so I said, make it morespecific.
Tell yourself.
That you're gonna try not towalk, and instead of walking,
you're just maybe gonna need toslow down a little bit.
If you feel like you want towalk, you're just going to slow
it down to an easier jog.
And then if that doesn't work,if you decide that you really do
wanna walk, decide ahead of timehow long you're going to walk
and count it.
(05:50):
In your head say, I'm only gonnawalk for 10 seconds or 20
seconds or 30 seconds.
And then once you get to thatnumber, literally count to 30
and then start running again.
keep that word to yourself.
Stay and integrity with thatgoal that you have set for
yourself is a.
If I need to walk, I'm onlygonna do 20 seconds at a time
and then I'm gonna keep going.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yes.
Or you could put a watch on yourwrist and just look at the clock
and see when 20 seconds havepassed.
Yeah.
Which is what our otherassistant coach suggested when
she pointed out again that we'veasked them to get watches since
day one.
Speaker (06:21):
It's so wild to me.
kids don't like wearing watchesnowadays.
They like, genuinely don't.
Unless it's an Apple watch.
I
Speaker 2 (06:26):
know, but their runners put a watch on your
wrist.
But
Speaker (06:29):
even the Apple watches, they don't even like that much.
They just, because they alwayshave their phone in their hand.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yes, but they're runners.
Put a watch on your wrist.
Speaker (06:35):
I hear ya.
I hear ya.
So anyway, we digress.
But the point, do you, no, notreally.
But the, because the point of itall is that these are core
values that we can't just talkabout.
We have to actually live themand we actually have to put them
into practice.
And I really hope that throughthis podcast series, you all are
starting to what's the word?
Not dwell or focus.
(06:56):
Meditate and what's the word I'mlooking for?
Think about how these thingsapply to you.
There's a word I'm looking forthere though, but basically
think about how these thingsapply to you, and I would really
love it if you were to share itwith me on social media or if
you are a member of our program.
jump, put a message in theFacebook group and let us know
how these things apply to you orwhat it made you think about.
(07:19):
Like where are you winning,where are you really strong and
where are maybe some areas thatyou can improve a little bit?
Because that's how we're gonnacontinue to grow as runners and
as people.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And it's tough to take on all of them.
I think taking on all fivevalues is a lot, and it's a lot
to ask the high school kids ifwe don't remind them on a
regular basis.
But we've gone through three.
We had integrity and respect andcommitment, and today we're
talking about resilience.
Pick one, dive into that one anddecide which one of these feels
like it really aligns withsomething that you would.
You would strive for.
(07:51):
You would be proud to say thatyou display that.
If someone watched you, theywould say, oh, that is a person
of integrity, that is a personof great respect for others and
themselves and all the things.
Which one are you like?
that's a quality I would likepeople to describe me as, and
then really lean into that.
I think that would be helpful.
Speaker (08:08):
Yeah, I agree and I think that all of these values
are definitely important to meand to us, I believe, and
resilience is one of my favoriteones because resilience.
Really matters because life andrunning are always going to
bring us challenges andresilience is what?
Allows us to adapt and recoverand keep moving forward.
(08:29):
It ge it genuinely is the goalof training.
We want to challenge ourselves,stress the body, and then the
body builds back stronger thanit was before.
So resilience is actuallybouncing back.
There's another.
concept and term calledanti-fragility, or being
anti-fragile, that means youbuild back stronger than you
were before.
And these, those two terms arevery much connected.
(08:51):
for the sake of today's episode,we're gonna use the word
resilience, but we mean both.
when we're talking about gettingstronger and coming back from
challenges, we're both talkingabout anti fragility and
resilience.
So the key with resilience isthat.
You aren't avoiding difficultybecause we need to do hard
things.
This is what helps us grow andadapt.
(09:12):
If you never went out for a run,you're not gonna become a better
runner.
You're not going to becomestronger, you're not going to
improve your endurance.
You have to do those challenginghard things and then give your
body the environment to help itbounce back.
So it's the ability to bendwithout breaking.
Because for runners, setbacksare I don't wanna say
inevitable, I don't really lovethat idea, but.
(09:34):
It seems like it's a very commonexperience for most, if not all
runners, that there's going tobe some sort of setback at some
point.
If you run long enough
Speaker 2 (09:44):
a setback, like you list a variety of setbacks,
injuries, bad runs, missedgoals, I think it's gonna be
awfully difficult to have a longrunning journey of life and not
have a bad run.
No.
Somewhere along the way.
Speaker (09:57):
I agree.
And I think that's it, right?
It's just the degree ofwhatever.
Setback you're looking at here,but I think that running
inherently comes with setbacksbecause progress is not linear.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I think that's part of the greatness that is running
is it has built in setbacks.
Like no matter how you do it, nomatter how you plan for it,
there are going to be setbacksin it.
You're like, oh, every, I dideverything exactly perfect for
this run.
And it's just like an easy,comfortable run.
And at mile two, just ridiculousside stitch.
Yeah.
For no good reason.
There's going to be challenges,there's going to be setbacks.
(10:29):
Sometimes you might be able tosee them coming, but Sometimes
they seem to come outtaabsolutely nowhere and then you
have to figure out, now what doI do?
Speaker (10:37):
Totally.
I remember you mentioned sidestitches.
I remember I did a solo halfmarathon when we did our, run
your Life challenge at the endof 2020.
Yeah.
And I ran a solo half marathonand.
I had been running for years atthis point and somehow developed
a side stitch somewhere aroundthe half of that race, and I
(10:57):
hadn't had side stitches inyears, but for whatever reason,
one that day came along andjumped right under my ribs.
I.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Feel like the girls and I picked you up at the end
of that race.
You did?
Speaker (11:08):
Yeah.
It was cute.
You guys were at the end waitingfor me.
Yeah.
You
Speaker 2 (11:11):
were not happy and smiling at the end of that.
No.
You were like, I had a sidestitch for so much of that and
it was like terrible headwind.
'cause I think you did an outand back on that.
I did an
Speaker (11:19):
out and back.
Yes.
And there was a terribleheadwind on the way back.
Pretty much the whole way down.
A one A like go coming backsouth on A one A.
Oh, I remembering
Speaker 2 (11:27):
all these details.
I
Speaker (11:28):
love that.
And it's so good because it's
Speaker 2 (11:29):
after 2017.
That's how I remember them
Speaker (11:32):
actually.
It was.
I think it was January 3rd thatI did it, and I did it right
after the new year'cause itwasn't.
Because you did it December31st.
Yep.
On you did 31 on the 31st.
And I think I did mine actuallyJanuary 2nd or third of 2021.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
cause we had to recover from our most likely
hardcore partying on January1st.
Speaker (11:51):
Hardcore partying.
That sounds just like us.
Yes, we need resilience tobounce back from the hardcore
partying that we do that's onNew Year's Eve.
And then also, from the ups anddowns with training, because
there's always going to be upsand downs.
And I really hope you hear thatbecause I think that there's a
lot of runners out there thatthink that they're doing
something wrong when theyexperience the downs.
(12:13):
They're like, I don'tunderstand.
Why is this feeling so badtoday?
I must be doing something wrong.
And the answer.
Could be like, there could besomething that maybe you need to
work on, but also it could justbe part of your training.
That could just be what'shappening that day.
It
Speaker 2 (12:28):
could just be a bad run.
And this happens more often fornewer runners, like the earlier
you are in running or theearlier you, if you're taking a
large break.
There's going to be more likelythat you have bad runs, the more
consistent you have day afterday and month upon month and
year upon year.
The fewer and far between the,the really bad runs are every
(12:49):
once in a while you have a runwhere you're just like, eh, that
didn't feel great.
Like I, I got it done.
I did it.
You asked me that.
I had one, I don't know, a weekor two ago, and you're like, how
was your run?
I'm like, I don't know.
it's done.
and that was it.
It wasn't like it was a bad run,but it wasn't great.
It was just like I had, I wentout, I got in some miles, I'm
gonna go take a shower now.
that was a bad day for me.
It's been a long time in atraining run, especially an
(13:12):
easier training run that I'vejust gone out and felt cruddy.
So that, I think.
Part of this is being able to beresilient through a lot of the
early setbacks, which I think isone of the tricky parts of
running, is you have to getthrough the difficult first.
The first couple of weeks arerough.
By the time you're through andyou've got the consistency of a
month, then the rough days comefewer and farther between.
(13:34):
And if you can build up a year,then the bad days are really
spaced out.
They just, they naturally are.
Speaker (13:41):
Yeah.
But like you said, gettingthrough some of those early days
of roughness are, is definitelychallenging and I'm guessing.
If you are listening to arunning podcast, you're probably
through that phase, and youcould probably remember back on
that time where it was tough.
But I think that we all gothrough these types of phases
and those of us that are overthe age of 40 and all of a
(14:02):
sudden things in our bodiesstart feeling different.
I think that.
that's where a lot of people getvery frustrated and very
confused.
'cause they're like, wait asecond.
I haven't changed anything.
I'm still doing the same thingsand all of a sudden my body's
not responding the way that itused to.
So these things do pop up evenafter years of training because
of all the things that are goingon in the changes in the
(14:23):
hormones that are happening inour bodies during this phase of
our life too.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, no, that's an excellent point.
Suddenly everything was goingsmoothly and my body's not
working like my body anymore.
That is.
That is a weird one.
That also happens if you, no,you just give a hernia and you
try and just keep runningthrough it.
Also, your body's not acting theway it's supposed to do.
But anyway, let's move on to ourfirst big point here, which is
resilience through training.
(14:47):
Training is never.
Linear training has constantplateaus.
There's fatigue that shows up,you get missed workouts, and one
of the biggest parts ofconsistency here is being
consistent through all the upsand downs of your training
because we've pointed out someof the low points, but there are
some big highs.
And always looking at just thehighs and being like, oh, that
was a great day, and trying tojust stack great day after.
(15:10):
Great day is.
Also not going to be the bestresilience.
Kinda says I can take the upsand I can take the downs and I
see that there's a generalupward trend, but sometimes
training just flattens out andyou've gotta be resilient when
from one day to the next, you'relike, it doesn't feel like I'm
improving.
I've been putting in the workfor the last 2, 3, 6, 8 weeks
(15:33):
and it just doesn't feel likeI'm getting anywhere.
That can be remarkablydemoralizing to run.
And it takes some resilience tobe able to say, I'm still gonna
get out there and I'm stillgonna do it, because eventually
there will be a breakthrough.
Speaker (15:45):
Yeah, and the tough part I think, with running is
that we don't know when that'sgoing to be and there's no
guarantee.
And it happens differently foreverybody.
And it happens differently foreach individual in different
training cycles because ofwhat's going on in your body,
because of what.
How long you've been runningbecause of the stress and the
other things that are going onin your life.
(16:06):
There's so many factors at playwith how your body responds to
training and.
It's, it can be difficult tostay resilient and continue to
show up and bounce back eventhrough some of those tougher
days or those tougher cycles orthose tougher months or even up
to a year for some people, likethere are times that running
(16:28):
just, you're not seeing thepayoff yet, but then when the
payoff does come, and it alwayswill come at some point at, and
I say that with a caveat, right?
There's a, there's an asteriskon that statement because I
think that.
If you continue to do the sameexact things and hope for a
different results, that is thedefinition.
Inanity, yes, that is thedefinition of insanity and not
(16:50):
resilience.
So if you are going for a periodof time and you're doing the
same things and you're notgetting results and you continue
to do those same things, likethere is something to be said
for.
Staying the course for a certainamount of time because maybe
your body just hasn't receivedthe payoff yet.
And then there's an alsosomething to be said for, if
it's been a few months and it'snot working, you need to change
(17:13):
what you're doing becausechanging this.
Stimulus will help your body toadapt in a different way.
And sometimes just that littlechange, it doesn't mean that you
have to add more.
It doesn't mean you have to pushharder.
it just means, okay, maybe weneed to make a little bit of a
change here and see how yourbody responds.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
A small change, some new novel stimulus.
But most of your training canprobably essentially stay what
it is.
I think that's where theresilience comes from, is
staying the course.
With small adjustments along theway, being able to say, I'm
gonna continue to stick withthis plan.
It doesn't seem like it'sworking.
Why don't I adjust this?
Why don't I remove this, addthis tweak, this small
(17:52):
adjustments, and then theresilience to.
See how that guy plays out.
The commitment to how is thisgoing to go?
Because sometimes you're gonnahave a bad workout, sometimes
you try something new and it,the first time you try the new
thing, that workout goes reallypoor.
That's not necessarily a signthat you had that everything's
awful, that your training is nowcompletely wrong.
(18:13):
A poor workout is very often asign that's an area of your
training that you've beenneglecting.
Often when I go and I try andstart doing a workout at
something like what yourfavorite is, like three K pace.
You love that kind of speed, notmy favorite.
So sometimes I try and throw oneof those in and it just doesn't
go well, and I'm like, oh,that's right.
'cause I haven't done a workoutof this pace for the last three
(18:35):
months.
And so that first one's notgonna go well, and you have to
be objective about this.
oh, it probably would've gonefine.
I did it so early in the morningthat my legs just weren't warmed
up yet.
It probably would've gone fine,but it was hot.
Oh, it probably would've gonefine, but I was dehydrated.
No, it probably didn't go finebecause you actually need to
focus on that area of training,and I think a lot of people, I.
(18:58):
They, they're like, oh, no, I'mresilient.
I keep going with my training.
But they're avoiding certainthings because those things are
more challenging.
And I think the parts that aremore challenging might be areas
to dive into.
That might be the part where youget the breakthrough and you
look at your training, you'relike, oh, that is commitment and
resilience to the plan.
Except for that part.
Except for that little thingover there.
And if you add that thing, itmight be enough to tip the
(19:20):
scale.
Speaker (19:21):
Yeah, I agree.
And then that con also connectsto our next point, which is
resilience in races orcompetitions.
And we've all experienced thoseraces where you're in the middle
of a race.
And we even talked to our crosscountry team about this last
week because we, had adiscussion with them about
pacing and how to pace a 5K.
And there's always going to be.
(19:42):
I shouldn't say always, but veryoften with most people, there's
going to be a dip in the secondmile of a 5K.
there's, it's a three mile race,3.1 miles, and that second mile
is oftentimes the slowest.
And even ke Kevin pointed out toour team, world records have
been set with this type ofpacing strategy.
The first mile is faster, thatsecond mile slows, and then the
(20:03):
third mile is faster again.
And that middle.
Section of the race, not only isyour body starting to get tired,
but mentally a lot of times'cause in a 5K especially, and
this can apply to really anydistance of a race around the
midpoint of the race is wherementally you start to check out
(20:23):
a bit, right?
it's like I've been pushing fora while and I still have.
Another half of the race to go.
there's still a lot of the raceleft for me to continue pushing
at this pace.
And it can be hard to do that.
And that's really whereresilience comes in of okay, I'm
going to keep pushing myselfhere.
I'm gonna bounce back from thislittle lull or this mental.
(20:45):
Down that I'm having right now,and I'm gonna push myself harder
on that third mile.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
it's a matter of maintaining that effort, of
continuing to push wheneverything in your body is
screaming, this is a bad idea.
Resilience.
And I think that racing is agreat way to increase your
resilience because when you goout and push hard, especially in
something that's shorter, Gofind a mile race.
I feel like they happen morepopularly over the summer that I
(21:10):
feel like some, there's somelocal tracks that host small
races and bring all comers.
I know they did when I was akid, I could drive 10 minutes
from my house and do all comersmeets every week of the summer.
but shorter races where you havethe opportunity to put yourself.
Position of great discomfortrelatively quickly, and then
keep racing is a chance to seehow resilient you can be where
(21:33):
your brain says you are doingsomething terrible to your body
and you have to slow down nowbecause that alarm comes on
really quick.
In a race where you go veryfast, I think in a race like a
half marathon, unless youdecide.
I'm gonna open up my halfmarathon the same way I open up
my 5K.
that voice in your head thatsays This is a terrible thing,
(21:54):
you're killing yourself, takes awhile to show up in a 5K.
That voice can show up prettyquick, and the more that you can
hear that alarm, this is aterrible idea.
You have to slow down andrespond.
No, this is just uncomfortable,but I'm going to be okay.
The more that you can hear thealarm and turn it down, hit the
snooze button on the alarm, themore resilient you can be.
Speaker (22:16):
Yeah, because running really gives us the chance to
navigate discomfort becausediscomfort is always going to
show up in life, and so it'sgiving us a safe way.
You know the way that you lookat it, it is safe like running.
Obviously there's an inherentrisk of injury that happens with
running, but running is a safeway to challenge yourself and to
(22:38):
play with discomfort and figureout your relationship with
discomfort.
How much discomfort can yousustain before.
You break or before you slowdown, and I'm not talking about
actual pain from a problem here.
Discomfort and pain are twodifferent things in this
discussion, but it's reallygiving you a window into.
(23:00):
Some of those mental, like yourmental strength as well, like
the mental toughness or themental adaptations that you need
to deal with the discomfort andcontinue to push yourself,
continue to give the effort thatyou want to give and show up in
the way that you want to.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah.
And that mental toughness istricky because sometimes you
have to adapt your strategyduring the middle of a race.
sometimes, you've, we talkabout, goals and a, b and C
goals and stuff like that, andsometimes partway through a
race, the a goal is out thewindow.
And what are you gonna do now?
Because you had a racingstrategy, you had a plan for
(23:36):
your, a goal, but something cameup, you took it out too slow.
You had to have a bathroombreak, something came up and now
you're on a different strategy.
Or you had a plan for exactlyhow you were gonna warm up and
how you were gonna fuel duringeverything and.
Something happened with parkingbefore the race, and you got to
the race late and your warmupplan went out the window because
(23:57):
it couldn't work exactly thesame way it always does.
This happens with our CrestCountry team.
Every year at the end of theseason, there's how they warm up
for every single meet.
You go do your warmup.
We come back, we're gonna put onour spikes, then we get to the
line.
We've got this much time at theline, there's a perfect plan on
how this all works, and suddenlywe get to the state meet and the
schedule is different.
(24:18):
And the where our tent is versuswhere the starting line is way
farther than it is in any othermeet, and they have to be able
to adjust.
So you need to have a plan ofwhat you're going to do in the
race, what you're going to dobefore the race, but that.
Plan can't be everything, and Ifeel like that's exactly what
(24:38):
resiliency is.
If the plan has to go exactlyaccording to what it says first,
I do step A, then B, then C, andthen my race happens perfectly.
If you can't do step B, the raceis still going to happen and you
have to be able to beadjustable.
You have to have that resiliencyto say, alright, the workout
wasn't exactly what I've alwaysdone, but it's still time to
(25:00):
show up and race.
Speaker (25:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
And that really shows us, and Ithink that's one of the things
that is good about racing.
Like I am not a avid, an avidracer by any means.
but I do think and appreciatethe times that I do race that.
Ability and that opportunity tochallenge myself and to see
where I am both physically andmentally.
(25:24):
And I think that what you saidthere is very important because
things don't often go exactlythe way that we plan them.
And it is very important for usto be able to adapt and just
keep going and not getcompletely derailed.
I know that we've had some ofour people in the real Life
runners team that.
they planned to be to the racean hour ahead of time so they
(25:45):
could get their warmups, butthere was traffic, and then they
took a round, a wrong turn, andthen there was no parking.
And so they had to drive aroundfor 20 minutes trying to find
parking, and they literally gotto the race or to the starting
line as the gun was shootingoff, and there was just no
chance for them to like even goto the bathroom.
So there.
There's so many differentstories, right?
(26:05):
And if you've been racing forany length of time, you've
probably had a situation whereit didn't go to plan.
And that's really whereresilience comes into play.
So the more resilient you are,the better you're gonna be able
to adapt to those differenttypes of situations.
Yeah, it's, I think
Speaker 2 (26:20):
one of my favorite parts about racing is having
that ability to adapt towhatever it is that's showing up
at you.
Because on race day you can.
Try your best to control as muchas you can, but there are going
to be a whole lot ofcircumstances that are beyond
your control.
You know where you talk about wehave a runner set, two different
(26:41):
goals of a goal.
That might be like a time or aplace or something like that's
not entirely under theircontrol, especially if they set
a play goal'cause they're not incontrol.
Of who else is in the race andhow fast those people are
running, which is why it'salways nice to have another goal
that you feel more in controlover.
But sometimes that thing thatyou feel in control of also
(27:02):
doesn't quite go according toplan.
I've run a few ultras and we'vegot a checklist of all the
supplies we need, and there havebeen a water bottle mishap for
the last two races.
So like
Speaker (27:11):
seriously, how does that happen?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Like you'd think that we'd have this figured out and
all dialed in, but.
Speaker (27:17):
We did find the cap though, for this, the last one
we did find the cap, but it wasmissing.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But we still, we had a plan.
Yeah.
And it wasn't perfect, but itwas going to work.
Yeah.
And you have to be able toadjust and just keep moving
forward.
Speaker (27:29):
Yeah.
And I think that's really, whenwe take that and bring it into
the rest of life and the rest ofour training, this is where, you
have.
The best of intentions.
You have your plan set out forthe week.
I'm gonna run on Tuesday,Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and
then who knows what happens onTuesday, right?
Like maybe you were planning torun after work and you got a
phone call from your kid'sschool and you had to go pick up
(27:51):
your kid because they were sick.
And then all of a sudden thatwindow that you had set aside
says, is now missing or is nowgone.
And people that are so rigid andTied to their plan, have a
difficult time adjusting andadapting because.
Resilience makes us moreflexible.
We have to be more flexible, be,and we have to learn how to
(28:14):
adapt our training instead ofjust quitting or instead of just
writing that off or feeling likewe have to fit that in somewhere
later in the week.
there's.
There's some wiggle room here.
There's, it's not saying, oh, weshould just always skip our
workouts.
Clearly that's not going to getyou very far.
But we also need to be able tosay, okay, you know what?
Life decided to life today, andI'm not gonna get this in and
(28:36):
I'm also not going to beatmyself up about it.
Or maybe you had an hour setaside.
For a workout and somethinghappened and now all of a sudden
you only have 30 minutes.
There's a lot of people thatwould say, if I can't get in the
full workout, I'm just not gonnado it.
It's not even worthwhile andhear me when I say this because
I know that I've had to repeatthis.
We've had to repeat this to ourclients many times that.
(29:00):
Adapting the workout and tryingto get something in is
oftentimes better than nothing.
Not always, but most of the timeit's going to be better for you.
To try to adapt this and getsomething in 20 minutes is often
better than zero.
Unless your body really needs arest and recovery day than by
all means, listen to your body,but maybe you can challenge
(29:20):
yourself, and even if it's notthe full.
Session, the full workout, youcan still get something in that
you are going to benefit from orat least help you maintain where
you are.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, sometimes it's not the benefit, but it is
certainly the maintenance.
And that was me this morning.
I overslept, I hit my alarm andlooked at my watch and I'm like,
I have already snoozed thistwice.
that's a long time.
Yeah, that was a long time.
And I was like, I could just.
Stay in bed and set my secondalarm and get up when I'm
supposed to get up, but I don'treally see a window of when I'm
(29:51):
gonna be able to run later inthe day.
So my option is run what I canget in now or put a zero on the
board.
And so I think that there's alot of people.
We, me, you mentioned thisearlier, the idea of resilience
and anti fragility beingsimilar.
Yeah.
So I'm gonna use the wordfragile that they say, this is
my training plan.
I hit this, and if I can't hitthis, then I'm doing nothing
(30:11):
like that.
That's the option.
And I feel like that's just avery fragile way to have a
training plan of this is myworkout and I'm hitting it on
Monday or zero, and then I moveto my Tuesday.
I do exactly what it says onTuesday or zero.
Whereas resilience says I can dosomething.
And that something comes inlayers.
There's variations.
Maybe I do a shortened versionof the workout.
(30:33):
I, maybe it's not a workout, butit's an easy run.
Maybe it's just a crosstraining.
Maybe I go and walk, maybe Iremove the schedule of my entire
week.
But resilience is like theopposite of this binary of
follow, the exact plan or donothing.
Resilience is like you've got somany.
Options in the middle ground.
You just need to figure out whatit is that you're gonna be able
(30:55):
to take on and what you canaccomplish.
Speaker (30:57):
Yeah, I agree.
And then you also, as anothercaveat, you have to be careful.
'cause if you're adjusting everysingle workout or you're missing
things all the time, or notgetting the training plan, that
is not following your trainingplan.
So if you don't get the resultsthat you want, you have to also
recognize, okay, I didn'tactually follow the training
plan here.
I.
Adjusted and adapted and did thebest I could, but that's not
(31:19):
necessarily going to give youthe same results that you would
have if you did follow thetraining plan.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
No, I completely agree with that.
I think resilience says thismight not be exactly the
training plan, but it's the bestI can do during this training
window,
Speaker (31:35):
which is great.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah,
Speaker (31:36):
and that's really important for us to acknowledge
that also.
And I think that the other coolthing about resilience is when
you overcome these obstacles,you are showing yourself how
strong you are both on and offthe road.
And that helps you to buildconfidence because work has real
challenge or work life has realchallenges like work and
(31:57):
deadlines and family drama andmedical needs and aging parents
and all sorts of things that canpop up.
Running is one of those thingsthat gives you proof that you
can take on obstacles and stillhave a productive outcome.
You can do hard things and thatcan make you stronger.
You can still get through it.
(32:18):
You can come out better on theother side.
You don't have to run away fromthe challenge or sit down and or
stay in bed.
You can still get something in.
You might stumble.
It might not go perfectly, butyou're gonna give your best
effort anyway, and that's goingto help you build confidence not
only in running, but also in therest of your life.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, and I think that's what the resilient runner
says is this workout is goingterrible, but I'm still going to
get in something.
So when you get that bigchallenge in life, you're like,
I don't know exactly how tonavigate this circumstance.
I'm in.
It feels remarkablyuncomfortable, but you don't
quit.
You keep putting.
(32:58):
Putting forth your best effort.
You stumble along the way.
It might not be perfect, but youjust keep going.
The same way that like you got12 by a quarter on the schedule
and you start stumbling on paceon rep three.
You're like, I'm gonna continueto put this in.
It's not gonna be great, but I'mgoing to continue doing this
because I'm going to finish theworkout.
(33:18):
You see the obstacle, that it'snot going great, but you
continue to persevere.
Speaker (33:23):
Absolutely.
So what are some ways that youcan build resilience?
number one, just show up.
like you have to just keepshowing up.
You're not going to buildresilience unless you're
actually showing up and you'redoing the hard things.
The second thing that you needto do is instead of seeing
things as a failure, see them asfeedback or as a learning
opportunity.
(33:44):
And that's one that takes usback to what I was talking about
the beginning of this episode.
That we do with the crosscountry team is gimme a win or a
po, something positive aboutyour last race.
And then also the second thing,tell me something that you
learned that is going to helpyou the next time around because
we.
Are not perfect.
And I try to tell our kids thisalso, especially the younger
(34:06):
kids on our team, like thefreshmen, the sophomores, like
you guys don't have a lot ofracing experience.
There's still a ton for you tolearn.
And if you tell me that there'snothing for you to learn, that's
a problem because there's somuch for you to learn.
So just.
Pick one thing, and a lot ofthem aren't really sure, oh, I
could've pushed myself harder.
What does that mean?
like that's, I always challengethem because again, they like to
(34:28):
give an answer that they thinkis the right answer, but what
does that actually mean?
are you telling me?
Because if you tell'em.
If you're telling me that youcould have pushed harder, that's
telling me that you didn'tactually push yourself very hard
in this race.
Is that what you're saying here?
Like how could you have pushedharder?
could you have actually pushedharder?
Because a lot of you look likeyou were pushing yourself in
this race, and maybe you didn'tend up with a number that you
(34:50):
wanted, but were you given theappropriate effort, or did you
let, like I know that some ofthem.
I did get more specific abouttheir self-talk.
I want to work on my negativeself-talk, especially in the
second mile.
I was like, great, that'sperfect.
Or in the second half of therace.
I think that's so fantasticbecause acknowledging your wins,
and that goes back to the firstquestion that I asked them is
(35:12):
what is a win from this race?
Those small wins help.
View to build resilience overtime, especially if there's an
obstacle that you overcame inthe middle of the race.
Because some of those kids hadsomething challenging happen in
the middle of the race and theystill came back and they still
ran a pr.
The kids that ran, how many kidsdid we have that ran prs like
(35:34):
10, eight to 10
Speaker 2 (35:35):
last week?
Nine.
Speaker (35:36):
Yeah, nine.
There we go.
Look at me like in the middle.
I know.
Eight to 10.
That was pretty good.
So there was nine runners on ourteam that.
Ran a personal record, theirpersonal best PRPB in the race
last week, which is fantastic,and a lot of those were newer
runners, which is fine.
But if you're continuing to seethose wins and you say, oh my
(35:58):
gosh, like this thing was reallyhard and I got through it,
you're building resilience inboth running and just in your
own sense of self and yourconfidence in yourself to
overcome hard things and toovercome those obstacles.
Become stronger in the process.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
And I think that in order to be able to reframe this
failure, in order to see thesesmall wins, you actually have to
take time for reflection.
Some people love the journaling.
You love the journaling
Speaker (36:24):
reflection.
That was the word I was lookingfor earlier.
Thank you.
When I was trying, remember whenI was thinking about meditation
or.
Yes.
Thinking about what you want.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Re reflection.
That was
Speaker (36:34):
the word.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, that was not me.
You actually wrote that part.
reflection is the word you weresearching for, but sometimes you
can actually write it down injournaling for people who love
the journaling experience, beopen to the journal.
Even
Speaker (36:46):
if you don't love the journaling experience, there's
still so much to gain from it.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
You can start, you can put words on a piece of
paper.
It does not have to be amazing
Speaker (36:55):
or it, or not paper.
Like you could also open up thenotes app on your phone and
dictate into that if you wantto,
Speaker 2 (37:01):
right?
But you have to have somethingthat gives you a chance to
reflect, like an actual pause inyour day where you're going to
be able to.
Think about this thing, not justgo out and do a hard thing and
be like, that was hard and I'mdone with it.
But actually be able to reflect.
You can't gain a lesson if youdon't know what the lesson is.
Like this is a classic of, whenI learned how to teach and it's
often reminded to teachers.
(37:23):
Tell the class what you're goingto teach them.
Then teach them the thing andthen tell them what you taught
them.
if you go in and you do a hardthing and you don't actually
know what the lesson was at theend of it, it's very difficult
to learn the lesson.
If you're like, I don't know, Ithought the lesson was just run
really hard.
Then the only lesson you've gotis always push harder and always
(37:43):
push harder is not the lesson tobe gained in most circumstances.
Every once in a while that mightbe the lesson, but in most
cases, that's not it.
There's a whole lot of otherlessons that can be taken care
of.
Speaker (37:53):
Yeah, and I think that this was impart important
because like for example, ournumber one runner, this year on
our team is a freshman, and sheis, she has a natural, she has a
lot of natural talent, which isfantastic.
And she still has a lot to learnand there are so many ways that
we can help her improve.
As a runner, she's, it's veryexciting.
There's so much potential there.
(38:13):
And in our second race of theseason, we told her, Kevin told
her not to go out and try topush as hard as she could.
Like he gave her a specificstrategy that he wanted her to.
Do during the race becausethere's things that you need to
learn in each race.
So she went out and she didpretty well with the strategy
that you gave her, right?
(38:34):
Yes.
And so she wasn't out therepushing herself the entire time.
She was not trying to pr, shewas not trying to win the race
even though she did end upcoming in second place, which
was fantastic.
But she could have beencompeting for first if she
would've been actually pushingherself.
But she listened to her coaches,which is fantastic in and of
itself, and did not, and thencame back.
(38:54):
In the next race and.
She ran today, what, a 20 or32nd pr?
It was almost 40 seconds.
Not today, but last week.
Yeah, it
Speaker 2 (39:01):
was almost 40 seconds.
She beat the girl that beat herin the last race that I was
like, just, this is gonna be ahard training session, but it's
not a race.
So if that girl starts to pullahead, I want you running nice
and relaxed and let her go.
There will be times, other timesin the season where you need to
race that girl.
And when it came down to therace where both of them were
pushing.
The runner on our team was like,actually, look at me.
(39:23):
I'm in front.
that's how that thing playedout.
Yeah.
Because the other girl ran asimilar time.
Yeah.
And the girl on our team dropped30 or 40 seconds.
Yeah.
that's what it is every racedoes not need to go to the,
sometimes it's a chance topractice various techniques of
racing.
Speaker (39:38):
Yeah.
And that's going to help buildresilience.
Some other things that are veryimportant for you to build
resilience are.
Is recovery, okay?
You have to recover because itis going to be darn near
impossible for you to bounceback day after day, week after
week, month after month, yearafter year.
If you are not getting enoughrecovery, you are not gonna be
(39:59):
able to keep pushing yourselfhard.
You are not going to be able tokeep performing at the level
that you want to perform if youare not getting enough sleep, if
you're not getting enough restand recovery and easy days in
your week.
And if you're not.
Giving your body enough fuellike that is a huge thing that
builds resilience, is makingsure that you are recovering and
giving your body the nutrition,the hydration, the sleep, the
(40:23):
care, the recovery that itneeds, because you cannot build
resilience unless you have the.
Appropriate amount of recovery.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
All right.
I really like the next one youhave here.
Practice gratitude forresilience, and we talk a lot
about overcoming obstacles.
Can you actually be grateful forthe obstacle?
Can you be grateful for the badday, for the struggling workout
for the messy days?
Can you be grateful for pushingthrough even though it doesn't
look great?
That is a difficult gratitude.
(40:52):
A lot of people, if you ask thekids on our team, what were you
grateful about the race?
I bet the kids who PRD wouldmention the pr.
Yeah, I bet very few wouldmention, oh, I had a side stitch
at mile two, but I overcame itand I didn't get a pr, but I, I
finished the race still, noone's gonna be grateful for the
side stitch at mile two.
They might be grateful that theyover, that they finished the
(41:12):
race.
But can you be grateful for thechallenge that was presented to
you?
That's the difficult part.
And if you can show gratefulgratitude for the obstacle,
because the obstacle helps youbecome a stronger, more
resilient athlete and human,then you start getting these
crazy breakthroughs because thenyou never see obstacles as
negatives.
Obstacles are chances to improveyour current situation.
Speaker (41:36):
Yeah.
It's super true and also verydifficult.
Especially I
Speaker 2 (41:42):
know it's so easy to say though.
Oh,
Speaker (41:43):
I know.
But especially when you're init, right?
Like especially when you're inthe midst of that obstacle, and
I know that there.
Is a time and a place forgratitude.
And I try to be in gratitude asmuch as possible, but there are
things that are just really hardand I can be thankful for parts
of it.
I can be thankful for, some ofit sometimes, but sometimes it's
(42:06):
really challenging to begrateful for all of it,
Speaker 2 (42:08):
which gets you to a topic that you like, which is,
can you go to neutral?
Speaker (42:13):
Neutral is very good and neutral is a very helpful
thing, and I think that, theother.
Thing that we wanna bring uphere, which kind of gives you an
insight into our fifth corevalue for next week, is, a way
to build resilience is alsoleaning on your community and
your support systems, because Ithink a lot of us are very hard
on ourselves.
(42:33):
A lot of the time, and we don'talways give ourselves the credit
that we deserve.
We don't always see some of thethings in our life as wins.
We don't always see just howstrong we are and just how
resilient we are bouncing backfor some of the things, because
again, we have high standards orhigh expectations, or we're
just.
Hard on ourselves in a lot ofdifferent ways, and when you
(42:55):
have teammates or trainingpartners or spouses or friends
or a coach that can show you andthat can help you see just how
strong and just how resilientyou've been, we forget things
very quickly, very easily.
Sometimes we forget those reallyhard training blocks, and when
you have someone remind you,Hey, do you realize like what
(43:16):
you've been through in the pastsix months and now you're coming
out on the other side of that?
It's really helpful because Ithink that sometimes, especially
during the hard times, we putour heads down and we move
forward, right?
Like a lot of us, sometimes weshut down.
Sometimes we cry sometimes, buta lot of times we know we have
to keep moving forward and so weput our head down and we just
(43:37):
keep powering through.
And it can be very helpful tohave other people in your life
remind you of just how strongand resilient you are.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
that's.
Really well put.
All right.
I think we wrap this thing uphere to summarize, resiliency is
the ability to keep showing up,not because it's easy, but
because you have trainedyourself to respond to the
challenges.
With strength, it's knowing thatthere's obstacles in front of
you and that you can take on theobstacles, that you don't have
(44:07):
to run away from the challenge.
You don't have to run away fromthe difficulty that you accept
that things might not beperfect, that you accept that
failure might show up.
But you keep getting back up.
I saw this on Instagram.
I forget whose adorable kidmentioned it, but they were
like, they had trained this intotheir kid because it's adorable.
He said, what do trail runnersdo fall down and then what do
(44:27):
they do?
Get back up?
that's what runners do.
It happens all the time.
You have bad days and then youkeep going.
You get back up and you justkeep going.
That is resiliency.
Speaker (44:38):
Absolutely.
And so I would love for you allto take a moment of reflection
because that's the word that Iperhaps
Speaker 2 (44:45):
journal about
Speaker (44:45):
it remembered.
and if you want message us, Iwould love to hear from you as
well and acknowledge yourselffor the resilience that you've
had.
Maybe over, maybe it's today,maybe it's over the past week.
Maybe it's over the past coupleof months.
acknowledge yourself and let.
Write it down or give yourselfprops or take yourself out for
(45:06):
some frozen yogurt or ice creamto celebrate your resilience or
just, acknowledge yourself.
Maybe even tell somebody aboutit.
Tell a good friend or yourspouse or your.
Training partner or your coachor us, how you've been
resilient.
And then also ask yourself inwhat areas do I maybe need to
develop a little bit moreresilience?
In what areas have I been maybeletting myself off the hook and
(45:29):
I need to get a little bitbetter about bouncing back
through some of these toughsituations that are going on in
my life?
So if you found this episodehelpful, stay tuned for core
value number five next week, orwe will be wrapping up our core
value series.
And if you haven't yet, I wouldlove for you to leave us a
review on the podcast.
(45:49):
If you haven't supported thepodcast yet, I mentioned this
last week, we also have, a newpage set up where you can help
support the podcast.
You can make any donation of adonation of any amount to the
podcast, just to help us tocontinue to reach new audiences
and spread the word and, makeour productions even better.
Find that linkover@realliferunners.com slash
(46:11):
podcast.
That page will also give you thelinks for you to leave a review
and to catch up on any of ourprevious episodes.
And there's some other fun stuffthat I have for you guys on that
page as well.
So find all of thatover@realliferunners.com slash
podcast.
And as always, thanks forjoining us.
This has been The Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
(46:32):
428.
Now get out there and run yourlife.
Welcome back to the Real Life Runners podcast.
(00:02):
Today we're continuing our corevalue series inspired by the
values that we set with ourcross country team and how they
apply to all of us as runners inreal life.
So far we've talked aboutintegrity, respect, and
commitment, and today we'removing on to core value number
four, which is resilience.
Resilience is all about how werespond when things don't go as
(00:22):
planned, because let's be real.
Running in life will.
Always bring challenges.
So whether it's a tough workout,a bad race, an injury setback,
resilience is what allows us tobounce back, keep showing up,
and actually get strongerthrough the struggle.
And that's what we're divinginto today.
So stay tuned.
(01:02):
What's up runners?
Welcome back to the show.
We're on two core value numberfour.
Number four, it's resilience.
Resilience.
I love that word.
It's like a fun word to say.
And also, I just love this valueand I love that we put this
value into our cross countryteam this year as well.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes.
I, there's a reason we startedwith integrity.
Like that one's super important.
Yeah.
Speaker (01:23):
And we totally called them out on that today too,
because we are, we every,
Speaker 2 (01:26):
we have some more calling out to do on Wednesday.
Speaker (01:28):
Oh yeah, we do.
Oh, we do for sure.
because every, practice that wehave after a race, we do a race
recap.
And I ask the kids twoquestions.
Number one, what's somethingpositive that happened?
What's a win from your race?
What went well?
And then number two, what?
Could, didn't go as well as youhad hoped that you can learn for
(01:49):
next time.
what did you learn, fromsomething that maybe didn't go
your way?
So I don't wanna call itnecessarily a positive and a
negative, but it's like, whatdid you what?
Gimme a win and then gimme alearning opportunity here.
And.
Today the kids were talkingabout,'cause they, a lot of them
know the quote unquote right.
Things to say.
Because they've heard us talkenough.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's a smart group of kids.
Yeah.
You got some juniors and seniorson there.
They've gone through thismultiple times.
They know an answer that theycould give that you'll generally
just move on to the next person.
Speaker (02:19):
And also the ones that will like, make me very happy as
well.
Like some of them are very keenon those answers as well, but.
today we were asking, oh.
So that's what we do for ourrace recap, and then for the
following race, like we do, ajournal.
And today it happened to be bothbecause we had a race on
Saturday practice today, andthen we have a race tomorrow as
well.
(02:39):
And The day before a race, I'llalways have them set two goals.
I have them set, their firstgoal can be something objective,
like a number, like a time onthe clock or a pace or a, a
place that they wanna finish inthe race.
And then number two is somethingthat I tell them they need to
have control over.
So it's what's something.
That you actually have controlover.
(03:00):
So a lot of them, like Kevinsaid, know that some of the
right answers are hydration ornutrition are going to bed on
time.
And so they will say thesethings.
And so for example, one of'em,when they said.
Eat more or push harder orsomething like that.
I always try to challenge thembecause that's a very broad
answer, what does that mean?
What specifically are you goingto do in order to make that
(03:24):
happen?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Because I listened to half of the kids before the
race.
On Friday, tell you on Thursdaythat they were going to eat more
between the end of school andtheir race.
And then I listened to a hugeamount of kids tell me that
their lesson that they learnedlast Friday is they need to eat
more before their race.
What?
That can't be the thing you'reworking on.
(03:45):
And the lesson learned,
Speaker (03:46):
it can, because if they tried eating more, then maybe
they didn't eat.
Enough.
So they could still work oneating more than they already
ate?
Yes.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Or changing the thing that they were eating more.
Yes.
But a lot of them.
Planned to eat more and thensimply did not
Speaker (04:01):
or said that they were going to because they knew that
was the right answer and thendid not and then did not.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right?
Speaker (04:06):
And so we had to call them out and remind them of core
value number one, which isintegrity, and that means doing
the things you say you're goingto do.
Because if you say that.
You're gonna do this thing andthen you don't end up doing it,
then you're not in integrity andyou're not learning anything
through the process either,which means you're not going to
make as much progress as arunner as you possibly could
(04:27):
have if you actually did thethings you said you were going
to do,
Speaker 2 (04:30):
right?
Because it's fine if you setthese goals and you don't
achieve them because then itgives you a lesson.
But if you set this goal, oh,this is the part that I'm gonna
control, I'm gonna try this,every race can essentially be an
experiment.
But if you're not actually.
Changing anything from one raceto the next.
Then you're not sure what'sworking and what's not.
(04:52):
Yeah.
You're like, I don't know.
I just tried a little bit harderand I didn't go quite as fast or
I tried a little bit harder,but, and I went faster.
You're like, okay, but you needto try some actual concrete
things and see what's helpingyou improve so you can then gain
a lesson from it.
Speaker (05:06):
Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that I
was challenged them on.
As well with a lot of them weresaying, walk less.
And I say, what does that mean?
what does it mean if you walkless?
do you know exactly how manytimes you walked?
Do you know exactly for how longyou walked during the race?
do you know at what point in therace you walked?
Because if you don't know thosedetails, it's gonna be very
difficult for you to measurewhether or not you walked less.
(05:29):
And so I said, make it morespecific.
Tell yourself.
That you're gonna try not towalk, and instead of walking,
you're just maybe gonna need toslow down a little bit.
If you feel like you want towalk, you're just going to slow
it down to an easier jog.
And then if that doesn't work,if you decide that you really do
wanna walk, decide ahead of timehow long you're going to walk
and count it.
(05:50):
In your head say, I'm only gonnawalk for 10 seconds or 20
seconds or 30 seconds.
And then once you get to thatnumber, literally count to 30
and then start running again.
keep that word to yourself.
Stay and integrity with thatgoal that you have set for
yourself is a.
If I need to walk, I'm onlygonna do 20 seconds at a time
and then I'm gonna keep going.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yes.
Or you could put a watch on yourwrist and just look at the clock
and see when 20 seconds havepassed.
Yeah.
Which is what our otherassistant coach suggested when
she pointed out again that we'veasked them to get watches since
day one.
Speaker (06:21):
It's so wild to me.
kids don't like wearing watchesnowadays.
They like, genuinely don't.
Unless it's an Apple watch.
I
Speaker 2 (06:26):
know, but their runners put a watch on your
wrist.
But
Speaker (06:29):
even the Apple watches, they don't even like that much.
They just, because they alwayshave their phone in their hand.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yes, but they're runners.
Put a watch on your wrist.
Speaker (06:35):
I hear ya.
I hear ya.
So anyway, we digress.
But the point, do you, no, notreally.
But the, because the point of itall is that these are core
values that we can't just talkabout.
We have to actually live themand we actually have to put them
into practice.
And I really hope that throughthis podcast series, you all are
starting to what's the word?
Not dwell or focus.
(06:56):
Meditate and what's the word I'mlooking for?
Think about how these thingsapply to you.
There's a word I'm looking forthere though, but basically
think about how these thingsapply to you, and I would really
love it if you were to share itwith me on social media or if
you are a member of our program.
jump, put a message in theFacebook group and let us know
how these things apply to you orwhat it made you think about.
(07:19):
Like where are you winning,where are you really strong and
where are maybe some areas thatyou can improve a little bit?
Because that's how we're gonnacontinue to grow as runners and
as people.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And it's tough to take on all of them.
I think taking on all fivevalues is a lot, and it's a lot
to ask the high school kids ifwe don't remind them on a
regular basis.
But we've gone through three.
We had integrity and respect andcommitment, and today we're
talking about resilience.
Pick one, dive into that one anddecide which one of these feels
like it really aligns withsomething that you would.
You would strive for.
(07:51):
You would be proud to say thatyou display that.
If someone watched you, theywould say, oh, that is a person
of integrity, that is a personof great respect for others and
themselves and all the things.
Which one are you like?
that's a quality I would likepeople to describe me as, and
then really lean into that.
I think that would be helpful.
Speaker (08:08):
Yeah, I agree and I think that all of these values
are definitely important to meand to us, I believe, and
resilience is one of my favoriteones because resilience.
Really matters because life andrunning are always going to
bring us challenges andresilience is what?
Allows us to adapt and recoverand keep moving forward.
(08:29):
It ge it genuinely is the goalof training.
We want to challenge ourselves,stress the body, and then the
body builds back stronger thanit was before.
So resilience is actuallybouncing back.
There's another.
concept and term calledanti-fragility, or being
anti-fragile, that means youbuild back stronger than you
were before.
And these, those two terms arevery much connected.
(08:51):
for the sake of today's episode,we're gonna use the word
resilience, but we mean both.
when we're talking about gettingstronger and coming back from
challenges, we're both talkingabout anti fragility and
resilience.
So the key with resilience isthat.
You aren't avoiding difficultybecause we need to do hard
things.
This is what helps us grow andadapt.
(09:12):
If you never went out for a run,you're not gonna become a better
runner.
You're not going to becomestronger, you're not going to
improve your endurance.
You have to do those challenginghard things and then give your
body the environment to help itbounce back.
So it's the ability to bendwithout breaking.
Because for runners, setbacksare I don't wanna say
inevitable, I don't really lovethat idea, but.
(09:34):
It seems like it's a very commonexperience for most, if not all
runners, that there's going tobe some sort of setback at some
point.
If you run long enough
Speaker 2 (09:44):
a setback, like you list a variety of setbacks,
injuries, bad runs, missedgoals, I think it's gonna be
awfully difficult to have a longrunning journey of life and not
have a bad run.
No.
Somewhere along the way.
Speaker (09:57):
I agree.
And I think that's it, right?
It's just the degree ofwhatever.
Setback you're looking at here,but I think that running
inherently comes with setbacksbecause progress is not linear.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I think that's part of the greatness that is running
is it has built in setbacks.
Like no matter how you do it, nomatter how you plan for it,
there are going to be setbacksin it.
You're like, oh, every, I dideverything exactly perfect for
this run.
And it's just like an easy,comfortable run.
And at mile two, just ridiculousside stitch.
Yeah.
For no good reason.
There's going to be challenges,there's going to be setbacks.
(10:29):
Sometimes you might be able tosee them coming, but Sometimes
they seem to come outtaabsolutely nowhere and then you
have to figure out, now what doI do?
Speaker (10:37):
Totally.
I remember you mentioned sidestitches.
I remember I did a solo halfmarathon when we did our, run
your Life challenge at the endof 2020.
Yeah.
And I ran a solo half marathonand.
I had been running for years atthis point and somehow developed
a side stitch somewhere aroundthe half of that race, and I
(10:57):
hadn't had side stitches inyears, but for whatever reason,
one that day came along andjumped right under my ribs.
I.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Feel like the girls and I picked you up at the end
of that race.
You did?
Speaker (11:08):
Yeah.
It was cute.
You guys were at the end waitingfor me.
Yeah.
You
Speaker 2 (11:11):
were not happy and smiling at the end of that.
No.
You were like, I had a sidestitch for so much of that and
it was like terrible headwind.
'cause I think you did an outand back on that.
I did an
Speaker (11:19):
out and back.
Yes.
And there was a terribleheadwind on the way back.
Pretty much the whole way down.
A one A like go coming backsouth on A one A.
Oh, I remembering
Speaker 2 (11:27):
all these details.
I
Speaker (11:28):
love that.
And it's so good because it's
Speaker 2 (11:29):
after 2017.
That's how I remember them
Speaker (11:32):
actually.
It was.
I think it was January 3rd thatI did it, and I did it right
after the new year'cause itwasn't.
Because you did it December31st.
Yep.
On you did 31 on the 31st.
And I think I did mine actuallyJanuary 2nd or third of 2021.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
cause we had to recover from our most likely
hardcore partying on January1st.
Speaker (11:51):
Hardcore partying.
That sounds just like us.
Yes, we need resilience tobounce back from the hardcore
partying that we do that's onNew Year's Eve.
And then also, from the ups anddowns with training, because
there's always going to be upsand downs.
And I really hope you hear thatbecause I think that there's a
lot of runners out there thatthink that they're doing
something wrong when theyexperience the downs.
(12:13):
They're like, I don'tunderstand.
Why is this feeling so badtoday?
I must be doing something wrong.
And the answer.
Could be like, there could besomething that maybe you need to
work on, but also it could justbe part of your training.
That could just be what'shappening that day.
It
Speaker 2 (12:28):
could just be a bad run.
And this happens more often fornewer runners, like the earlier
you are in running or theearlier you, if you're taking a
large break.
There's going to be more likelythat you have bad runs, the more
consistent you have day afterday and month upon month and
year upon year.
The fewer and far between the,the really bad runs are every
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once in a while you have a runwhere you're just like, eh, that
didn't feel great.
Like I, I got it done.
I did it.
You asked me that.
I had one, I don't know, a weekor two ago, and you're like, how
was your run?
I'm like, I don't know.
it's done.
and that was it.
It wasn't like it was a bad run,but it wasn't great.
It was just like I had, I wentout, I got in some miles, I'm
gonna go take a shower now.
that was a bad day for me.
It's been a long time in atraining run, especially an
(13:12):
easier training run that I'vejust gone out and felt cruddy.
So that, I think.
Part of this is being able to beresilient through a lot of the
early setbacks, which I think isone of the tricky parts of
running, is you have to getthrough the difficult first.
The first couple of weeks arerough.
By the time you're through andyou've got the consistency of a
month, then the rough days comefewer and farther between.
(13:34):
And if you can build up a year,then the bad days are really
spaced out.
They just, they naturally are.
Speaker (13:41):
Yeah.
But like you said, gettingthrough some of those early days
of roughness are, is definitelychallenging and I'm guessing.
If you are listening to arunning podcast, you're probably
through that phase, and youcould probably remember back on
that time where it was tough.
But I think that we all gothrough these types of phases
and those of us that are overthe age of 40 and all of a
(14:02):
sudden things in our bodiesstart feeling different.
I think that.
that's where a lot of people getvery frustrated and very
confused.
'cause they're like, wait asecond.
I haven't changed anything.
I'm still doing the same thingsand all of a sudden my body's
not responding the way that itused to.
So these things do pop up evenafter years of training because
of all the things that are goingon in the changes in the
(14:23):
hormones that are happening inour bodies during this phase of
our life too.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, no, that's an excellent point.
Suddenly everything was goingsmoothly and my body's not
working like my body anymore.
That is.
That is a weird one.
That also happens if you, no,you just give a hernia and you
try and just keep runningthrough it.
Also, your body's not acting theway it's supposed to do.
But anyway, let's move on to ourfirst big point here, which is
resilience through training.
(14:47):
Training is never.
Linear training has constantplateaus.
There's fatigue that shows up,you get missed workouts, and one
of the biggest parts ofconsistency here is being
consistent through all the upsand downs of your training
because we've pointed out someof the low points, but there are
some big highs.
And always looking at just thehighs and being like, oh, that
was a great day, and trying tojust stack great day after.
(15:10):
Great day is.
Also not going to be the bestresilience.
Kinda says I can take the upsand I can take the downs and I
see that there's a generalupward trend, but sometimes
training just flattens out andyou've gotta be resilient when
from one day to the next, you'relike, it doesn't feel like I'm
improving.
I've been putting in the workfor the last 2, 3, 6, 8 weeks
(15:33):
and it just doesn't feel likeI'm getting anywhere.
That can be remarkablydemoralizing to run.
And it takes some resilience tobe able to say, I'm still gonna
get out there and I'm stillgonna do it, because eventually
there will be a breakthrough.
Speaker (15:45):
Yeah, and the tough part I think, with running is
that we don't know when that'sgoing to be and there's no
guarantee.
And it happens differently foreverybody.
And it happens differently foreach individual in different
training cycles because ofwhat's going on in your body,
because of what.
How long you've been runningbecause of the stress and the
other things that are going onin your life.
(16:06):
There's so many factors at playwith how your body responds to
training and.
It's, it can be difficult tostay resilient and continue to
show up and bounce back eventhrough some of those tougher
days or those tougher cycles orthose tougher months or even up
to a year for some people, likethere are times that running
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just, you're not seeing thepayoff yet, but then when the
payoff does come, and it alwayswill come at some point at, and
I say that with a caveat, right?
There's a, there's an asteriskon that statement because I
think that.
If you continue to do the sameexact things and hope for a
different results, that is thedefinition.
Inanity, yes, that is thedefinition of insanity and not
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resilience.
So if you are going for a periodof time and you're doing the
same things and you're notgetting results and you continue
to do those same things, likethere is something to be said
for.
Staying the course for a certainamount of time because maybe
your body just hasn't receivedthe payoff yet.
And then there's an alsosomething to be said for, if
it's been a few months and it'snot working, you need to change
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what you're doing becausechanging this.
Stimulus will help your body toadapt in a different way.
And sometimes just that littlechange, it doesn't mean that you
have to add more.
It doesn't mean you have to pushharder.
it just means, okay, maybe weneed to make a little bit of a
change here and see how yourbody responds.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
A small change, some new novel stimulus.
But most of your training canprobably essentially stay what
it is.
I think that's where theresilience comes from, is
staying the course.
With small adjustments along theway, being able to say, I'm
gonna continue to stick withthis plan.
It doesn't seem like it'sworking.
Why don't I adjust this?
Why don't I remove this, addthis tweak, this small
(17:52):
adjustments, and then theresilience to.
See how that guy plays out.
The commitment to how is thisgoing to go?
Because sometimes you're gonnahave a bad workout, sometimes
you try something new and it,the first time you try the new
thing, that workout goes reallypoor.
That's not necessarily a signthat you had that everything's
awful, that your training is nowcompletely wrong.
(18:13):
A poor workout is very often asign that's an area of your
training that you've beenneglecting.
Often when I go and I try andstart doing a workout at
something like what yourfavorite is, like three K pace.
You love that kind of speed, notmy favorite.
So sometimes I try and throw oneof those in and it just doesn't
go well, and I'm like, oh,that's right.
'cause I haven't done a workoutof this pace for the last three
(18:35):
months.
And so that first one's notgonna go well, and you have to
be objective about this.
oh, it probably would've gonefine.
I did it so early in the morningthat my legs just weren't warmed
up yet.
It probably would've gone fine,but it was hot.
Oh, it probably would've gonefine, but I was dehydrated.
No, it probably didn't go finebecause you actually need to
focus on that area of training,and I think a lot of people, I.
(18:58):
They, they're like, oh, no, I'mresilient.
I keep going with my training.
But they're avoiding certainthings because those things are
more challenging.
And I think the parts that aremore challenging might be areas
to dive into.
That might be the part where youget the breakthrough and you
look at your training, you'relike, oh, that is commitment and
resilience to the plan.
Except for that part.
Except for that little thingover there.
And if you add that thing, itmight be enough to tip the
(19:20):
scale.
Speaker (19:21):
Yeah, I agree.
And then that con also connectsto our next point, which is
resilience in races orcompetitions.
And we've all experienced thoseraces where you're in the middle
of a race.
And we even talked to our crosscountry team about this last
week because we, had adiscussion with them about
pacing and how to pace a 5K.
And there's always going to be.
(19:42):
I shouldn't say always, but veryoften with most people, there's
going to be a dip in the secondmile of a 5K.
there's, it's a three mile race,3.1 miles, and that second mile
is oftentimes the slowest.
And even ke Kevin pointed out toour team, world records have
been set with this type ofpacing strategy.
The first mile is faster, thatsecond mile slows, and then the
(20:03):
third mile is faster again.
And that middle.
Section of the race, not only isyour body starting to get tired,
but mentally a lot of times'cause in a 5K especially, and
this can apply to really anydistance of a race around the
midpoint of the race is wherementally you start to check out
(20:23):
a bit, right?
it's like I've been pushing fora while and I still have.
Another half of the race to go.
there's still a lot of the raceleft for me to continue pushing
at this pace.
And it can be hard to do that.
And that's really whereresilience comes in of okay, I'm
going to keep pushing myselfhere.
I'm gonna bounce back from thislittle lull or this mental.
(20:45):
Down that I'm having right now,and I'm gonna push myself harder
on that third mile.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
it's a matter of maintaining that effort, of
continuing to push wheneverything in your body is
screaming, this is a bad idea.
Resilience.
And I think that racing is agreat way to increase your
resilience because when you goout and push hard, especially in
something that's shorter, Gofind a mile race.
I feel like they happen morepopularly over the summer that I
(21:10):
feel like some, there's somelocal tracks that host small
races and bring all comers.
I know they did when I was akid, I could drive 10 minutes
from my house and do all comersmeets every week of the summer.
but shorter races where you havethe opportunity to put yourself.
Position of great discomfortrelatively quickly, and then
keep racing is a chance to seehow resilient you can be where
(21:33):
your brain says you are doingsomething terrible to your body
and you have to slow down nowbecause that alarm comes on
really quick.
In a race where you go veryfast, I think in a race like a
half marathon, unless youdecide.
I'm gonna open up my halfmarathon the same way I open up
my 5K.
that voice in your head thatsays This is a terrible thing,
(21:54):
you're killing yourself, takes awhile to show up in a 5K.
That voice can show up prettyquick, and the more that you can
hear that alarm, this is aterrible idea.
You have to slow down andrespond.
No, this is just uncomfortable,but I'm going to be okay.
The more that you can hear thealarm and turn it down, hit the
snooze button on the alarm, themore resilient you can be.
Speaker (22:16):
Yeah, because running really gives us the chance to
navigate discomfort becausediscomfort is always going to
show up in life, and so it'sgiving us a safe way.
You know the way that you lookat it, it is safe like running.
Obviously there's an inherentrisk of injury that happens with
running, but running is a safeway to challenge yourself and to
(22:38):
play with discomfort and figureout your relationship with
discomfort.
How much discomfort can yousustain before.
You break or before you slowdown, and I'm not talking about
actual pain from a problem here.
Discomfort and pain are twodifferent things in this
discussion, but it's reallygiving you a window into.
(23:00):
Some of those mental, like yourmental strength as well, like
the mental toughness or themental adaptations that you need
to deal with the discomfort andcontinue to push yourself,
continue to give the effort thatyou want to give and show up in
the way that you want to.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah.
And that mental toughness istricky because sometimes you
have to adapt your strategyduring the middle of a race.
sometimes, you've, we talkabout, goals and a, b and C
goals and stuff like that, andsometimes partway through a
race, the a goal is out thewindow.
And what are you gonna do now?
Because you had a racingstrategy, you had a plan for
(23:36):
your, a goal, but something cameup, you took it out too slow.
You had to have a bathroombreak, something came up and now
you're on a different strategy.
Or you had a plan for exactlyhow you were gonna warm up and
how you were gonna fuel duringeverything and.
Something happened with parkingbefore the race, and you got to
the race late and your warmupplan went out the window because
(23:57):
it couldn't work exactly thesame way it always does.
This happens with our CrestCountry team.
Every year at the end of theseason, there's how they warm up
for every single meet.
You go do your warmup.
We come back, we're gonna put onour spikes, then we get to the
line.
We've got this much time at theline, there's a perfect plan on
how this all works, and suddenlywe get to the state meet and the
schedule is different.
(24:18):
And the where our tent is versuswhere the starting line is way
farther than it is in any othermeet, and they have to be able
to adjust.
So you need to have a plan ofwhat you're going to do in the
race, what you're going to dobefore the race, but that.
Plan can't be everything, and Ifeel like that's exactly what
(24:38):
resiliency is.
If the plan has to go exactlyaccording to what it says first,
I do step A, then B, then C, andthen my race happens perfectly.
If you can't do step B, the raceis still going to happen and you
have to be able to beadjustable.
You have to have that resiliencyto say, alright, the workout
wasn't exactly what I've alwaysdone, but it's still time to
(25:00):
show up and race.
Speaker (25:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
And that really shows us, and Ithink that's one of the things
that is good about racing.
Like I am not a avid, an avidracer by any means.
but I do think and appreciatethe times that I do race that.
Ability and that opportunity tochallenge myself and to see
where I am both physically andmentally.
(25:24):
And I think that what you saidthere is very important because
things don't often go exactlythe way that we plan them.
And it is very important for usto be able to adapt and just
keep going and not getcompletely derailed.
I know that we've had some ofour people in the real Life
runners team that.
they planned to be to the racean hour ahead of time so they
(25:45):
could get their warmups, butthere was traffic, and then they
took a round, a wrong turn, andthen there was no parking.
And so they had to drive aroundfor 20 minutes trying to find
parking, and they literally gotto the race or to the starting
line as the gun was shootingoff, and there was just no
chance for them to like even goto the bathroom.
So there.
There's so many differentstories, right?
(26:05):
And if you've been racing forany length of time, you've
probably had a situation whereit didn't go to plan.
And that's really whereresilience comes into play.
So the more resilient you are,the better you're gonna be able
to adapt to those differenttypes of situations.
Yeah, it's, I think
Speaker 2 (26:20):
one of my favorite parts about racing is having
that ability to adapt towhatever it is that's showing up
at you.
Because on race day you can.
Try your best to control as muchas you can, but there are going
to be a whole lot ofcircumstances that are beyond
your control.
You know where you talk about wehave a runner set, two different
(26:41):
goals of a goal.
That might be like a time or aplace or something like that's
not entirely under theircontrol, especially if they set
a play goal'cause they're not incontrol.
Of who else is in the race andhow fast those people are
running, which is why it'salways nice to have another goal
that you feel more in controlover.
But sometimes that thing thatyou feel in control of also
(27:02):
doesn't quite go according toplan.
I've run a few ultras and we'vegot a checklist of all the
supplies we need, and there havebeen a water bottle mishap for
the last two races.
So like
Speaker (27:11):
seriously, how does that happen?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Like you'd think that we'd have this figured out and
all dialed in, but.
Speaker (27:17):
We did find the cap though, for this, the last one
we did find the cap, but it wasmissing.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But we still, we had a plan.
Yeah.
And it wasn't perfect, but itwas going to work.
Yeah.
And you have to be able toadjust and just keep moving
forward.
Speaker (27:29):
Yeah.
And I think that's really, whenwe take that and bring it into
the rest of life and the rest ofour training, this is where, you
have.
The best of intentions.
You have your plan set out forthe week.
I'm gonna run on Tuesday,Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and
then who knows what happens onTuesday, right?
Like maybe you were planning torun after work and you got a
phone call from your kid'sschool and you had to go pick up
(27:51):
your kid because they were sick.
And then all of a sudden thatwindow that you had set aside
says, is now missing or is nowgone.
And people that are so rigid andTied to their plan, have a
difficult time adjusting andadapting because.
Resilience makes us moreflexible.
We have to be more flexible, be,and we have to learn how to
(28:14):
adapt our training instead ofjust quitting or instead of just
writing that off or feeling likewe have to fit that in somewhere
later in the week.
there's.
There's some wiggle room here.
There's, it's not saying, oh, weshould just always skip our
workouts.
Clearly that's not going to getyou very far.
But we also need to be able tosay, okay, you know what?
Life decided to life today, andI'm not gonna get this in and
(28:36):
I'm also not going to beatmyself up about it.
Or maybe you had an hour setaside.
For a workout and somethinghappened and now all of a sudden
you only have 30 minutes.
There's a lot of people thatwould say, if I can't get in the
full workout, I'm just not gonnado it.
It's not even worthwhile andhear me when I say this because
I know that I've had to repeatthis.
We've had to repeat this to ourclients many times that.
(29:00):
Adapting the workout and tryingto get something in is
oftentimes better than nothing.
Not always, but most of the timeit's going to be better for you.
To try to adapt this and getsomething in 20 minutes is often
better than zero.
Unless your body really needs arest and recovery day than by
all means, listen to your body,but maybe you can challenge
(29:20):
yourself, and even if it's notthe full.
Session, the full workout, youcan still get something in that
you are going to benefit from orat least help you maintain where
you are.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, sometimes it's not the benefit, but it is
certainly the maintenance.
And that was me this morning.
I overslept, I hit my alarm andlooked at my watch and I'm like,
I have already snoozed thistwice.
that's a long time.
Yeah, that was a long time.
And I was like, I could just.
Stay in bed and set my secondalarm and get up when I'm
supposed to get up, but I don'treally see a window of when I'm
(29:51):
gonna be able to run later inthe day.
So my option is run what I canget in now or put a zero on the
board.
And so I think that there's alot of people.
We, me, you mentioned thisearlier, the idea of resilience
and anti fragility beingsimilar.
Yeah.
So I'm gonna use the wordfragile that they say, this is
my training plan.
I hit this, and if I can't hitthis, then I'm doing nothing
(30:11):
like that.
That's the option.
And I feel like that's just avery fragile way to have a
training plan of this is myworkout and I'm hitting it on
Monday or zero, and then I moveto my Tuesday.
I do exactly what it says onTuesday or zero.
Whereas resilience says I can dosomething.
And that something comes inlayers.
There's variations.
Maybe I do a shortened versionof the workout.
(30:33):
I, maybe it's not a workout, butit's an easy run.
Maybe it's just a crosstraining.
Maybe I go and walk, maybe Iremove the schedule of my entire
week.
But resilience is like theopposite of this binary of
follow, the exact plan or donothing.
Resilience is like you've got somany.
Options in the middle ground.
You just need to figure out whatit is that you're gonna be able
(30:55):
to take on and what you canaccomplish.
Speaker (30:57):
Yeah, I agree.
And then you also, as anothercaveat, you have to be careful.
'cause if you're adjusting everysingle workout or you're missing
things all the time, or notgetting the training plan, that
is not following your trainingplan.
So if you don't get the resultsthat you want, you have to also
recognize, okay, I didn'tactually follow the training
plan here.
I.
Adjusted and adapted and did thebest I could, but that's not
(31:19):
necessarily going to give youthe same results that you would
have if you did follow thetraining plan.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
No, I completely agree with that.
I think resilience says thismight not be exactly the
training plan, but it's the bestI can do during this training
window,
Speaker (31:35):
which is great.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah,
Speaker (31:36):
and that's really important for us to acknowledge
that also.
And I think that the other coolthing about resilience is when
you overcome these obstacles,you are showing yourself how
strong you are both on and offthe road.
And that helps you to buildconfidence because work has real
challenge or work life has realchallenges like work and
(31:57):
deadlines and family drama andmedical needs and aging parents
and all sorts of things that canpop up.
Running is one of those thingsthat gives you proof that you
can take on obstacles and stillhave a productive outcome.
You can do hard things and thatcan make you stronger.
You can still get through it.
(32:18):
You can come out better on theother side.
You don't have to run away fromthe challenge or sit down and or
stay in bed.
You can still get something in.
You might stumble.
It might not go perfectly, butyou're gonna give your best
effort anyway, and that's goingto help you build confidence not
only in running, but also in therest of your life.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, and I think that's what the resilient runner
says is this workout is goingterrible, but I'm still going to
get in something.
So when you get that bigchallenge in life, you're like,
I don't know exactly how tonavigate this circumstance.
I'm in.
It feels remarkablyuncomfortable, but you don't
quit.
You keep putting.
(32:58):
Putting forth your best effort.
You stumble along the way.
It might not be perfect, but youjust keep going.
The same way that like you got12 by a quarter on the schedule
and you start stumbling on paceon rep three.
You're like, I'm gonna continueto put this in.
It's not gonna be great, but I'mgoing to continue doing this
because I'm going to finish theworkout.
(33:18):
You see the obstacle, that it'snot going great, but you
continue to persevere.
Speaker (33:23):
Absolutely.
So what are some ways that youcan build resilience?
number one, just show up.
like you have to just keepshowing up.
You're not going to buildresilience unless you're
actually showing up and you'redoing the hard things.
The second thing that you needto do is instead of seeing
things as a failure, see them asfeedback or as a learning
opportunity.
(33:44):
And that's one that takes usback to what I was talking about
the beginning of this episode.
That we do with the crosscountry team is gimme a win or a
po, something positive aboutyour last race.
And then also the second thing,tell me something that you
learned that is going to helpyou the next time around because
we.
Are not perfect.
And I try to tell our kids thisalso, especially the younger
(34:06):
kids on our team, like thefreshmen, the sophomores, like
you guys don't have a lot ofracing experience.
There's still a ton for you tolearn.
And if you tell me that there'snothing for you to learn, that's
a problem because there's somuch for you to learn.
So just.
Pick one thing, and a lot ofthem aren't really sure, oh, I
could've pushed myself harder.
What does that mean?
like that's, I always challengethem because again, they like to
(34:28):
give an answer that they thinkis the right answer, but what
does that actually mean?
are you telling me?
Because if you tell'em.
If you're telling me that youcould have pushed harder, that's
telling me that you didn'tactually push yourself very hard
in this race.
Is that what you're saying here?
Like how could you have pushedharder?
could you have actually pushedharder?
Because a lot of you look likeyou were pushing yourself in
this race, and maybe you didn'tend up with a number that you
(34:50):
wanted, but were you given theappropriate effort, or did you
let, like I know that some ofthem.
I did get more specific abouttheir self-talk.
I want to work on my negativeself-talk, especially in the
second mile.
I was like, great, that'sperfect.
Or in the second half of therace.
I think that's so fantasticbecause acknowledging your wins,
and that goes back to the firstquestion that I asked them is
(35:12):
what is a win from this race?
Those small wins help.
View to build resilience overtime, especially if there's an
obstacle that you overcame inthe middle of the race.
Because some of those kids hadsomething challenging happen in
the middle of the race and theystill came back and they still
ran a pr.
The kids that ran, how many kidsdid we have that ran prs like
(35:34):
10, eight to 10
Speaker 2 (35:35):
last week?
Nine.
Speaker (35:36):
Yeah, nine.
There we go.
Look at me like in the middle.
I know.
Eight to 10.
That was pretty good.
So there was nine runners on ourteam that.
Ran a personal record, theirpersonal best PRPB in the race
last week, which is fantastic,and a lot of those were newer
runners, which is fine.
But if you're continuing to seethose wins and you say, oh my
(35:58):
gosh, like this thing was reallyhard and I got through it,
you're building resilience inboth running and just in your
own sense of self and yourconfidence in yourself to
overcome hard things and toovercome those obstacles.
Become stronger in the process.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
And I think that in order to be able to reframe this
failure, in order to see thesesmall wins, you actually have to
take time for reflection.
Some people love the journaling.
You love the journaling
Speaker (36:24):
reflection.
That was the word I was lookingfor earlier.
Thank you.
When I was trying, remember whenI was thinking about meditation
or.
Yes.
Thinking about what you want.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Re reflection.
That was
Speaker (36:34):
the word.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, that was not me.
You actually wrote that part.
reflection is the word you weresearching for, but sometimes you
can actually write it down injournaling for people who love
the journaling experience, beopen to the journal.
Even
Speaker (36:46):
if you don't love the journaling experience, there's
still so much to gain from it.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
You can start, you can put words on a piece of
paper.
It does not have to be amazing
Speaker (36:55):
or it, or not paper.
Like you could also open up thenotes app on your phone and
dictate into that if you wantto,
Speaker 2 (37:01):
right?
But you have to have somethingthat gives you a chance to
reflect, like an actual pause inyour day where you're going to
be able to.
Think about this thing, not justgo out and do a hard thing and
be like, that was hard and I'mdone with it.
But actually be able to reflect.
You can't gain a lesson if youdon't know what the lesson is.
Like this is a classic of, whenI learned how to teach and it's
often reminded to teachers.
(37:23):
Tell the class what you're goingto teach them.
Then teach them the thing andthen tell them what you taught
them.
if you go in and you do a hardthing and you don't actually
know what the lesson was at theend of it, it's very difficult
to learn the lesson.
If you're like, I don't know, Ithought the lesson was just run
really hard.
Then the only lesson you've gotis always push harder and always
(37:43):
push harder is not the lesson tobe gained in most circumstances.
Every once in a while that mightbe the lesson, but in most
cases, that's not it.
There's a whole lot of otherlessons that can be taken care
of.
Speaker (37:53):
Yeah, and I think that this was impart important
because like for example, ournumber one runner, this year on
our team is a freshman, and sheis, she has a natural, she has a
lot of natural talent, which isfantastic.
And she still has a lot to learnand there are so many ways that
we can help her improve.
As a runner, she's, it's veryexciting.
There's so much potential there.
(38:13):
And in our second race of theseason, we told her, Kevin told
her not to go out and try topush as hard as she could.
Like he gave her a specificstrategy that he wanted her to.
Do during the race becausethere's things that you need to
learn in each race.
So she went out and she didpretty well with the strategy
that you gave her, right?
(38:34):
Yes.
And so she wasn't out therepushing herself the entire time.
She was not trying to pr, shewas not trying to win the race
even though she did end upcoming in second place, which
was fantastic.
But she could have beencompeting for first if she
would've been actually pushingherself.
But she listened to her coaches,which is fantastic in and of
itself, and did not, and thencame back.
(38:54):
In the next race and.
She ran today, what, a 20 or32nd pr?
It was almost 40 seconds.
Not today, but last week.
Yeah, it
Speaker 2 (39:01):
was almost 40 seconds.
She beat the girl that beat herin the last race that I was
like, just, this is gonna be ahard training session, but it's
not a race.
So if that girl starts to pullahead, I want you running nice
and relaxed and let her go.
There will be times, other timesin the season where you need to
race that girl.
And when it came down to therace where both of them were
pushing.
The runner on our team was like,actually, look at me.
(39:23):
I'm in front.
that's how that thing playedout.
Yeah.
Because the other girl ran asimilar time.
Yeah.
And the girl on our team dropped30 or 40 seconds.
Yeah.
that's what it is every racedoes not need to go to the,
sometimes it's a chance topractice various techniques of
racing.
Speaker (39:38):
Yeah.
And that's going to help buildresilience.
Some other things that are veryimportant for you to build
resilience are.
Is recovery, okay?
You have to recover because itis going to be darn near
impossible for you to bounceback day after day, week after
week, month after month, yearafter year.
If you are not getting enoughrecovery, you are not gonna be
(39:59):
able to keep pushing yourselfhard.
You are not going to be able tokeep performing at the level
that you want to perform if youare not getting enough sleep, if
you're not getting enough restand recovery and easy days in
your week.
And if you're not.
Giving your body enough fuellike that is a huge thing that
builds resilience, is makingsure that you are recovering and
giving your body the nutrition,the hydration, the sleep, the
(40:23):
care, the recovery that itneeds, because you cannot build
resilience unless you have the.
Appropriate amount of recovery.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
All right.
I really like the next one youhave here.
Practice gratitude forresilience, and we talk a lot
about overcoming obstacles.
Can you actually be grateful forthe obstacle?
Can you be grateful for the badday, for the struggling workout
for the messy days?
Can you be grateful for pushingthrough even though it doesn't
look great?
That is a difficult gratitude.
(40:52):
A lot of people, if you ask thekids on our team, what were you
grateful about the race?
I bet the kids who PRD wouldmention the pr.
Yeah, I bet very few wouldmention, oh, I had a side stitch
at mile two, but I overcame itand I didn't get a pr, but I, I
finished the race still, noone's gonna be grateful for the
side stitch at mile two.
They might be grateful that theyover, that they finished the
(41:12):
race.
But can you be grateful for thechallenge that was presented to
you?
That's the difficult part.
And if you can show gratefulgratitude for the obstacle,
because the obstacle helps youbecome a stronger, more
resilient athlete and human,then you start getting these
crazy breakthroughs because thenyou never see obstacles as
negatives.
Obstacles are chances to improveyour current situation.
Speaker (41:36):
Yeah.
It's super true and also verydifficult.
Especially I
Speaker 2 (41:42):
know it's so easy to say though.
Oh,
Speaker (41:43):
I know.
But especially when you're init, right?
Like especially when you're inthe midst of that obstacle, and
I know that there.
Is a time and a place forgratitude.
And I try to be in gratitude asmuch as possible, but there are
things that are just really hardand I can be thankful for parts
of it.
I can be thankful for, some ofit sometimes, but sometimes it's
(42:06):
really challenging to begrateful for all of it,
Speaker 2 (42:08):
which gets you to a topic that you like, which is,
can you go to neutral?
Speaker (42:13):
Neutral is very good and neutral is a very helpful
thing, and I think that, theother.
Thing that we wanna bring uphere, which kind of gives you an
insight into our fifth corevalue for next week, is, a way
to build resilience is alsoleaning on your community and
your support systems, because Ithink a lot of us are very hard
on ourselves.
(42:33):
A lot of the time, and we don'talways give ourselves the credit
that we deserve.
We don't always see some of thethings in our life as wins.
We don't always see just howstrong we are and just how
resilient we are bouncing backfor some of the things, because
again, we have high standards orhigh expectations, or we're
just.
Hard on ourselves in a lot ofdifferent ways, and when you
(42:55):
have teammates or trainingpartners or spouses or friends
or a coach that can show you andthat can help you see just how
strong and just how resilientyou've been, we forget things
very quickly, very easily.
Sometimes we forget those reallyhard training blocks, and when
you have someone remind you,Hey, do you realize like what
(43:16):
you've been through in the pastsix months and now you're coming
out on the other side of that?
It's really helpful because Ithink that sometimes, especially
during the hard times, we putour heads down and we move
forward, right?
Like a lot of us, sometimes weshut down.
Sometimes we cry sometimes, buta lot of times we know we have
to keep moving forward and so weput our head down and we just
(43:37):
keep powering through.
And it can be very helpful tohave other people in your life
remind you of just how strongand resilient you are.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
that's.
Really well put.
All right.
I think we wrap this thing uphere to summarize, resiliency is
the ability to keep showing up,not because it's easy, but
because you have trainedyourself to respond to the
challenges.
With strength, it's knowing thatthere's obstacles in front of
you and that you can take on theobstacles, that you don't have
(44:07):
to run away from the challenge.
You don't have to run away fromthe difficulty that you accept
that things might not beperfect, that you accept that
failure might show up.
But you keep getting back up.
I saw this on Instagram.
I forget whose adorable kidmentioned it, but they were
like, they had trained this intotheir kid because it's adorable.
He said, what do trail runnersdo fall down and then what do
(44:27):
they do?
Get back up?
that's what runners do.
It happens all the time.
You have bad days and then youkeep going.
You get back up and you justkeep going.
That is resiliency.
Speaker (44:38):
Absolutely.
And so I would love for you allto take a moment of reflection
because that's the word that Iperhaps
Speaker 2 (44:45):
journal about
Speaker (44:45):
it remembered.
and if you want message us, Iwould love to hear from you as
well and acknowledge yourselffor the resilience that you've
had.
Maybe over, maybe it's today,maybe it's over the past week.
Maybe it's over the past coupleof months.
acknowledge yourself and let.
Write it down or give yourselfprops or take yourself out for
(45:06):
some frozen yogurt or ice creamto celebrate your resilience or
just, acknowledge yourself.
Maybe even tell somebody aboutit.
Tell a good friend or yourspouse or your.
Training partner or your coachor us, how you've been
resilient.
And then also ask yourself inwhat areas do I maybe need to
develop a little bit moreresilience?
In what areas have I been maybeletting myself off the hook and
(45:29):
I need to get a little bitbetter about bouncing back
through some of these toughsituations that are going on in
my life?
So if you found this episodehelpful, stay tuned for core
value number five next week, orwe will be wrapping up our core
value series.
And if you haven't yet, I wouldlove for you to leave us a
review on the podcast.
(45:49):
If you haven't supported thepodcast yet, I mentioned this
last week, we also have, a newpage set up where you can help
support the podcast.
You can make any donation of adonation of any amount to the
podcast, just to help us tocontinue to reach new audiences
and spread the word and, makeour productions even better.
Find that linkover@realliferunners.com slash
(46:11):
podcast.
That page will also give you thelinks for you to leave a review
and to catch up on any of ourprevious episodes.
And there's some other fun stuffthat I have for you guys on that
page as well.
So find all of thatover@realliferunners.com slash
podcast.
And as always, thanks forjoining us.
This has been The Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
(46:32):
428.
Now get out there and run yourlife.
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