Sage Rountree: Yoga for Athletes, Training for Running and Triathlon | Blog
The Internal Made External, Part 4
As I sat in meditation today by an open window, a dog visiting my neighbors barked and barked. The barking was regular but not at rhythmic, predictable intervals. Yap . . . yap . . . nothing . . . yap, yap . . .
Instead of finding this distracting, I discovered it was a great tool. Having something beyond my immediate control to notice but not react to was very useful, an external manifestation of what goes in internally.
After finishing, I glanced out the window to find the dog looking right at me from his vantage point forty yards away on my neighbors' porch. Good dog.
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Valle Crucis 15 Miler
With my running group, I enjoyed the Valle Crucis 15 Miler on Saturday. The course had beautiful views, because it quickly led us up a mountain before descending and finishing along the Watauga River. That meant five miles up, five miles down, and five miles gently uphill. On the first long uphill, my Garmin auto-paused twice, either because I was running so slowly or because the GPS couldn't hold the satellites on the switchbacks.
This terrain was perfect for focusing and being in the moment. You can run only so fast uphill, and you can run only so slow downhill. The last third of any run requires some extra focus and attention to form. As I began the descent around mile 6, I felt a jubilant sense of gratitude and presence, going so far as to say "Thank you!" aloud. By mile 13, that had given way to a sarcastic "Thanks a lot."
Here, for your amusement, is the elevation profile and map. Look at the elevation gain and loss listed above left—could that be right? On the top right graph, the green line is elevation. You'll see the five up, five down, and five flattish miles there. You'll also see, from the red line indicating my heart rate and the blue line showing my speed, that I held myself in check until the last five miles, when I sped up, ready to be done. (There's another elevation profile on the bottom, with distance measured in kilometers.) After the race, I enjoyed not one but two ten-minute bouts of sitting in the cold river, which felt wonderful.
April 27, 2009 07:15 AM
| Training and Racing
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Plan the Work, Work the Plan
It was deeply satisfying to track my coaching client Stacey G. as she ran the Boston Marathon yesterday. Stacey, a former division 1-A collegiate track runner, hired me to train her for this race after she'd been plagued with overuse injuries in her previous marathon training. Her plan involved a lot of focused running complemented with strength training, plyometrics, drills, swimming, and a weekly ride (now that Boston's done, she's making a transition to triathlon, which I know she'll love). She consistently nailed her workouts, and while there were days when she felt sore and tired and a week when her foot hurt, she made it to Hopkinton free of injury.
Better still, Stacey lined up with a very detailed race plan. Her plan was based on what had worked for her in training, from clothing to nutrition to pacing. I asked her to write out the plan based on the prompts you see below. She provided specific answers to each of the questions, and her writing, whether intentional or not, revealed her faith in her training and her ability. It was full of "I will . . ." statements ("I will hold back at the start"), which made me feel even more confident in her readiness.
Yesterday, she followed the plan to the letter and wound up with a five-minute PR of 3:17. Pretty impressive!
You can do the same. As your peak race of the season approaches, take the time to write out a race plan of your own. Follow the outline here as a starting point for your own document. (You can even grab a Word file with the prompts in it on my downloads page.) If you're a big list-maker, you might then make a packing list and a schedule for your race weekend. The more you reflect on your training and think through how you want things to go, the more likely it is that they'll work out as you planned.
GOALS
List your conservative goal:
List your public goal, what you’ll tell friends and coworkers you hope to do:
List your private goal, what you’ll tell your best friends you’d like to make:
List your super-secret radical goal:
GEAR
What are you wearing?
What if it’s really cold?
What if it’s really hot?
What’s your anti-chafing plan?
PERI-RACE NUTRITON
What do you plan on eating for dinner the night before?
Breakfast on race day?
Afterward?
RACE NUTRITON
Please list exactly what you plan to eat and when (either by time or by mile markers).
Ditto for hydration.
PACING
What’s the plan?
How will you hold yourself accountable to this plan? (E.g., pace chart tattoo from the expo, stopwatch, GPS, etc.)
How will external factors such as terrain or crowds affect this plan? How will you alter the plan in response?
MENTAL STRATEGIES
What mental strategies or tricks do you plan to use in the race?
List your fears about the race, and how you plan to cope should they materialize. Mark each one as either “in my control” or “out of my control.”
Include any other contingencies that seem relevant.
April 21, 2009 12:55 PM
| Training and Racing
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Your First Class
In the last 36 hours, I've spoken with four athletes who profess interest in yoga but who feel intimidated by going to their first class. Once or twice a week, I get an e-mail from a potential student who worries about coming to yoga for the first time. So I've pulled up an old draft I started when a Twitter friend (sidenote: come join us on Twitter, and learn what all the cryptic RTs, #s, and @s mean! I'm @sagetree) asked me two months ago if I had any advice for runners who'd never been to yoga before. Indeed I do! Much of it appears in The Athlete's Guide to Yoga, and I'll repeat the main points here.
First, a story: I hated the first yoga class I went to. I was absolutely miserable. Yoga was so much harder than it looked from the other side of the studio door. I didn't know what to put where, I had no endurance for the work, I didn't know what language the teacher was speaking, and I really had to pee. By the end, I was trying not to cry, terrified that I'd be breaking protocol if I walked out to find a bathroom. Not a very auspicious start to my future career!
What changed my mind? Prenatal yoga. It was gentler, and I was in the right frame of mind to enjoy the experience. There was zero sense of competition, and it was so easy to feel a connection between what was going on with my body, what was going on with the other mothers-to-be in the room, and a sense of universality.
So there's my first piece of advice: be open. There will be plenty that feels unfamiliar, even if you have the good fortune of finding a class like Carrboro Yoga Company's Yoga 101. Why not tell the teacher up front that you're new and feeling out of place?
Next, stay open. If the first class you drop in on isn't right for you (remember, mine wasn't), keep looking. There's a teacher who's right for you, and you'll know it when you've found it. I discuss this more in my post on yoga and running shoes.
If you're an athlete approaching class for the first time, play it safe. Choose a class labeled "gentle," "restorative," or "level 1." This does a few things: first, it puts you in a situation more appropriate for beginners. Second, it will help you avoid the temptation to push too hard. Athletes are naturally competitive, and seeing advanced variations might goad you to go too far. Keep your eyes on your own paper, as they say. Third, it ensures that you won't be undermining your sport performance by following a practice that is too draining for your current stage of training.
Finally, remember (or learn) the very first principle of the very first limb of yoga: ahimsa. First, do no harm. If anything seems wrong for your body, skip it. A good teacher will make you feel comfortable modifying or even omitting things that don't work for your body.
Readers, any other advice or good stories from your first yoga experiences?
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