faster, higher, stronger: Assuming you know your own limits is like kissing your sister

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Assuming you know your own limits is like kissing your sister

I know, I know...the title is kinda weird, but I'm stretchin' here people. I try to make these posts somewhat interesting for you people to read. I try to give you guys something worthwhile, something of substance, and hopefully, something that will make you sit back in your chairs and think on for at least 2 minutes.

Anyway, as I begin my summer of running, I find myself having to redefine my motivations for the training that I will have to do in order to not only run another marathon, but to improve upon my first marathon time (5:04). Last summer, it was personal, it was about doing the impossible, setting that bar sooooo far above what I felt was realistic, a desire to achieve something I never thought I would have even wanted to try....

Based on my own assumptions regarding my limits, I did the impossible and I reached the bar.....so now what? My motivation this time around is simple: do it and do it better than before. Last summer, I assumed my limit was 26.2 miles (actually, I assumed it would be somewhere around 24 miles and I have to just gut out the last 2.2 miles). I was wrong. I'm glad I didn't think my limit was something like only 13 miles cuz I never would have ever gone to Chicago and I would have never run the marathon. NEW PHILOSOPHY: I don't ever want to assume my own limits...I think from now on, I'd rather know that whatever I'm going to do, I'm gonna do it "BALLSOUT," "balls to the wall," as great as I can do it. After I'm done, I'll sit back and look at what I did and analyze whether I reached my limit or not. I don't wanna propose to know what I am capable of cuz I proved to myself on October 22, 2007....that I know NOTHING of what my own limits may be.

Wouldn't it be great if we all just gave up on putting limits on ourselves and decided to shoot for the stars?! How creative and over-achieving would we be in life? WOW! I think I may be the smartest man alive!

Anyway, I've been running up a storm lately. Friday, I ran 4 miles in under 40 minutes (that was my long-run for the week which is not really meant to be timed or paced out but I still try to stay under 10 minutes per mile). Saturday, I did 3 miles then took Sunday off (not really cuz I played a baseball game on Sunday). Monday morning, I ran 3 miles and then around 6PM, I did a short 2 mile speed session with my boy Mike "the animal" Knill. We did the first mile at an 8:30 pace then did Fartliks for the 2nd mile. (Ha ha, funny name, I know) Fartlik workouts are a form of speed workouts where you run for a prescribed amount of time (ours was 30 sec) at about 75% speed, then slow to a jog for 1 minute, then back up to 75% for 30 seconds then back to the jog. We did that for the last mile. Needless to say, doing the speed workout 6 hours after my morning 3 miles, I was gassed....but it felt good to just all out sprint. I took off Tuesday (well, actually, I worked on the baseball field at Middletown for about 3 hours then threw batting practice for an hour before our game). Today, I went out and ran 4 miles. I think tomorrow I'll drop down to 3 miles and then do 5 on Friday. I'm gonna try and make my long runs every Friday so I can have my off day on Saturday (and recover from the long run)and still be kinda fresh for my baseball games on Sundays. Last summer, I did my long runs on Saturday (which maxed out at 22 miles) and then turned around and played a double header on Sunday......NOT MUCH FUN FOR THE KNEES!

Anyway, that's all for this time! Lemme know if you ever wanna go for a run with me! Jus' gimme a call and we'll find a time and place!
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for sharing this with me!
SEE YA ON THE HILL!
Michael

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Hey txt me the details for the H-burg marathon if u want some younguns cheering for u!!; July 2, 2007 at 7:01 PM

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SOME GOOD QUOTES

***"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously giveother people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our fear,our presence automatically liberates others."-Marianne Williamson***"The only people for me are the mad ones ... the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.-Jack Kerouac*** "Citius, Altius, Fortius" A latin term, it means "Faster, Higher, Stronger." ***"Running, one might say, is an absurd passtime upon which to be exhausting ourselves....but if you can find meaning in the kind of running you have to do to stay on this team, chances are, you can find meaning in another absurd passtime....LIFE."-Bill Bowerman***"Be on fire for something."***"Anything you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must, absolutely must come to pass."

What does "See ya on the hill" mean?

When I ran my first marathon (the LaSalle bank Marathon) in October of this past fall, I raised money for the foundation started by my favorite athlete (and childhood hero): Walter Payton. Walter Payton was (and still is) my idol because of the way he played the game of football. He was never the biggest guy, never the fastest guy, and never the strongest guy, yet he found ways to kick and scratch for every yard on every run. He never gave up easy, never just ran out of bounds, and never slid to avoid a hit. In the off-season, he would embark on this hellish training program that always included hill running. He would run hills until he could no longer walk, and then muster up the courage and strength to keep running. He would invite other football players to come and run hills with them and then laugh as they utterly destroyed themselves just trying to keep up with him...all the while he was just warming up. I think life is a lot like runninig hills. Running hills is hard. Running hills will really test you. There is no way to rest while running uphill. Hills, to me, are like those challenges we face in life: job challenges, financial challenges, personal challenges, relationship challenges, emotional challenges, etc. We can avoid'em and pretend they don't exist (at which point we'd be stuck standing at the bottom of the hill), or we can put our heads down and get running. That's not to say that if you just put your down and run, that you'll conquer every hill...sometimes the hill is just too steep. But to me, the analogy of the hill is more about your willingness to climb than it is how many hills you've conquered. Cuz we all know by now in our lives that once you've conquered one hill (or failed), there will surely be another hill ready for you. So I see this running as a hill for me, a challenge that tests me, and challenges me. That's why I finish my blogs with "SEE YA ON THE HILL," cuz I figure if I see you on the hill, that means you to, have accepted whatever challenge has been laid before you, as opposed to just standing at the bottom, unwilling to climb at all.

WHY RUN A MARATHON?

I have been asked that question many, many times since I started running 2 years ago. I can't honestly say that I've yet to come up with a viable, concrete, understandable answer to the question. I should admit here that I HAVE NEVER ENJOYED RUNNING, NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN ANY GOOD AT IT. I played soccer in high school and I was a fullback, so I did the minimal amount of running. Anyway, I started running cuz I was fat. In 2004 I was going through some life/relationship issues and I wanted to make some changes...I felt little control over what was going on in my life and I was searching for something I could control, my weight was something I could control. I started running a mile before I would do my lifting routine (I would go to a memeber of my family's home and workout in their basement-gym ((BIG shouts out and a big thanks to Karen and Steve)). Then I began running a mile before and then another one after lifting. At this point, I must admit, I was just excited when I finished my mile in under 10 minutes (now thats my super-easy pace). At some point in 2005, a friend of mine (BIG shouts out to OG) asked me to run in a 5k (3.2 miles) with him. He had already paid the entry fee for another runner who had cancelled on him and he didn't want his money to go to waste. So I ran it and finished in 25:41 (not bad). After that, I figured-what the hell-if I can run 3 miles today, I can do it again tomorrow and then the day after, and try to get rid of some of this fat I got goin' on. As the 3 miles became easier and easier, I bumped my runs up to 4 miles, then 5 miles, and so on all the way up to 8 miles before it finally got too cold to run outside and I packed it in for Christmas. I began to wonder what enjoyment I got out of doing the act of something I didn't actually enjoy. After much thought, I found that I enjoyed the challenge of going farther than I ran yesterday...knowing that with every step, I was now running 1 step farther than I had ever run before in my life. That Christmas, in need of something in my life to make me feel a lil'more worthwhile, something to take my mind off my struggles (still in the midst of personal/relationship issues), I set upon the goal of doing (what I felt at the time was) the impossible: run 26.2 miles. I looked forward to the training, the focus (cuz my focus would be on something other than what it had been focused on for the year prior) and the determination it was gonna take to get me to the finish line. I set my goal, I did it, and now I wanna go again and improve upon my first attempt. That's why I run. Those personal issues I had are now long gone and have been totally dealt with. Now I am left only with the challenge of being better than I was the last time out...of making myself a better man, a better citizen, a better human being. Come along for the ride! Encouragement is always welcome!

faster, higher, stronger

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Assuming you know your own limits is like kissing your sister

1 comment:

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