training for {life}

Many times when I head out running with friends or meet other runners, I get asked the question: “Are you training for anything?” I suppose that is a natural question, but I often find myself without an answer. I haven’t felt the desire to do much racing in the past 2 years, and so I suppose it is interesting to others that I still do long runs once a week (which really isn’t even that long anymore), tempo runs and the occasional track workout. I learned after training for the two marathons Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 that I get really competitive and stressed out at races. In fact racing ended up being another source of anxiety for me, runs became less fun, turned into another thing I had to do, and the rest of life had to work itself around my training schedule. In other words, I was going about it all wrong. My friend Amy and I had a good talk about it a few weeks before I ran Boston 2010 and I realized that I needed to think about running in a whole new light, and we worked on tactics to get me to focus on having fun while running from Hopkinton to Boston. Many of the tactics worked well, and I did have much more fun that other races, felt more relaxed and engaged with the crowds. But, I also realized that training for marathons took too much out of me, was not sustainable for me, and so I’ve cut back on my running since. Consequently, I have lost a fair amount of fitness, but at least I’ve regained more balance with regards to non-work related activities (doing a bit more yoga, cooking and reading), and feel less pressure to ‘perform’ or hit some kind of goal/target while out on a run.

Of course Marc gets asked that question a lot too, especially since he actually is in more consistent training mode, and is so fast even on a bad day that it does seem like he’s on a serious training regimen. Still, like me, he often has no races in mind or planned and just runs to keep sane, fit, and more or less race-ready if the spirit strikes. We both think that is a good way to go about it.

Last week, we had met up at Weaver Street Market after each of our respective long runs, and because we were in our running attire, when we saw some folks we knew, were asked on 2 separate occasions (within 30 mins of each other): “Are you training for anything?” We shrugged, and on each occasion, our friend looked at us knowingly, nodded and said: “Just training for life?” Ah… yes, that IS it! We had never thought about describing it that way, but life is exactly what we are training for –both literally and figuratively.

On a separate note, it was Marc’s 33rd birthday on Wednesday! We had a few friends come over for some homemade red wine chocolate cake (with mascarpone and morello cherry filling & dark chocolate ganache), oatmeal raisin cookies & drinks. I was so overloaded with sugar and fat, it took me over an hour to fall asleep! I guess it is a good thing we run and train for what life has to offer (yes, even decadent desserts)!