Working Harder Then You Think
With the lack of control I have over my schedule, the past two weeks have been giving me some anxiety. The anxiety is not coming from 3 out of 4 kids having pink eye, me losing my voice, or wanting to finish my book … that would be too easy. I keep thinking about the Leadville 100 in August, and the Leadville 50 in July, that I need to get ready for. People spend over a year training for these events and while I believe I’m ready mentally, I know there are some steps to take physically.
Here in Colorado over the past 2-3 weeks the weather has included everything from snow to sun to freezing temps. I can deal with all of that while running. What still knocks me down, literally, is wind. We have been experiencing the kind of wind that keeps you up at night. The wind that takes your chair from that patio and loans it to your neighbor. 30+ mph winds is not the type of training environment I’m looking for, but I know I need to run.
My solution was the basement. I have a treadmill that is almost as old as the ages of my 4 kids combined. There’s no shelf to put anything on, my water bottle does not fit in the holder, and the display is more like an oversized timer. However, it does have a belt that continues to go around and around. For how much longer, I’m not sure. When it stops working … well … that will be a post from the hospital as I’ll be thrown into an unfinished wall.
I have been using this treadmill for the past two weeks and after each run been feeling not-so-impressed. I’d crank through an hour and step off feeling weak. If I was doing sprints or speedwork then that would make sense. These runs were more just go for an hour to be moving. After each I felt like I had put in 5 hours of running. Commence anxiety.
This weekend I found the root cause of my anxiety: incline. The treadmill has an incline button on it. Remember, this thing is old and held together by rocks and string. The button is not digital. You hold down the lever and hear a loud motorized noise similar to a semi truck starting their engine. There is no unit of measure to let you know what incline you are at so it’s more of just feel it.
Well, I had been feeling it for a reason. The incline on this particular dinosaur was it’s max. Granted, max for on this particular treadmill is probably only 5%, but when trying to get back into the distance, going for over an hour at 5% takes it’s toll. As I held down the incline button for what seemed like 3 minutes, the happiness began to come back. Wow, I think I could have run for three hours!
Here’s the lesson from my pain:
You can either get discouraged and jump off, or find the root cause of the pain.
Sometimes we work harder then we need to just because we think we should. This applies to the world of running, business, and life. I see companies and employees trying to make things complicated. Some do it because that’s the way it has always been done while others just don’t know any better.
No pain, no gain is not always true. If there’s pain, there may be a better way to gain.
My favorite way to evaluate if I am causing myself pain:
Write it down
It’s the best way to look back and see patterns. Keep a time journal of what you do all day. You may find that the 2 hours you are spending on one task can be reduced down to 15 minutes. If you can track it, there is a way to improve it!
What are you working hard at that might be able to be simplified?
