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MFR 119: Five Pillars of Intelligent Running

By Debbie Voiles

Five Pillars of Intelligent RunningWe all think of ourselves as intelligent runners, of course, but even the most experienced, veteran runners sometimes lose sight of the wise and effective path to their goals. Why does this happen? I think because we get caught up in the here and now, the ‘today,’ instead of keeping our eyes on the long term goal, not just our long term running goals but sometimes even our life goals. Yes, running can sometimes distract us from our most far-reaching life goals. That’s bad, but on the flip side, running can make us into the person we need to be to achieve those goals, right?

After all, at the most basic level, we want running to keep us alive and healthy, but beyond that, we set running goals for the purpose of making us into stronger people, finding out what we are, who we are, how much we can handle and overcome.

With this episode, I want to take you back to square one to evaluate whether you’re doing the most basic things to facilitate your trip toward both your short term goals and your most distant goals. I break it down into just five pillars. There is a big difference between an intelligent runner, training with wisdom, and just focusing on the next five miles. 

Don’t get me wrong, to some extent, that’s just what you need to do, focus on this run, absolutely, but I just mean that it’s a mistake to become so focused on those next miles that we forget where we want those miles to carry us, the reward we’re working toward. 

I hope this podcast will facilitate your running journey and that that will help you reach the destination of your life journey.

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Filed Under: mfr-podcast, Training Tagged With: intelligent runners, running, running goals, running journey

Day 8 of Beginner Runner Class: Nutrition and Running for Weight Loss – BRV 043

By Debbie Voiles

Weight loss or management plays a role in the life of virtually every runner. Either they start running to lose weight or they’ve alreaady lost weight, and the want to become a runner to help them maintain that weight loss or they’re worried that their weight will gradually creep up if they don’t get lots of exercise. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: brv-podcast, Training Tagged With: become a runner, guidelines for nutrition, running, running to lose weight, starting to run, weight loss

10-Day Become a Runner Class, Day 3: Running Schedules – BRV 038

By Debbie Voiles

Become a Runner Class Day 3: Running SchedulesYou need a plan.

You wouldn’t set out on a road trip without a map because the chances of arriving at your destination, assuming you hadn’t been there before, would be zero. There are far too many possibilities and far too many possible directions. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Beginner Runner Village, Beginner Runners, brv-podcast, Training Tagged With: beginner runner, career, getting started running, running, running principles

MFR 117: Accountability Hacks

By Debbie Voiles

Accountability Hacks

No matter who you are and no matter how long you’ve been running, you have days when you need a reason to get out and run, a reason beyond the fact that you are a runner, you believe in running, you love to run and you know you shoud run. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: mfr-podcast, Motivation Tagged With: accountability hacks, accountability hacks for runners, believe in running, love to run, running, you are a runner

MFR 113: Running Families

By Debbie Voiles

Families and RunningIt’s Saturday morning. Katie, your daughter, has a soccer game at 9:00, and your husband has to work. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: mfr-podcast Tagged With: families that run together, family running, running, running fun for kids

What is the Minimum Number of Miles Worth Doing?

By Debbie Voiles

group runDid you ever notice how, sometimes, runners have a bit of trouble with maintaining a realistic perspective? This seems to happen to all runners some of the time and some runners most of the time.

Have you ever said, “I only did 4 miles today” or “I just did 3”?

Most people have. Heck, I have.  It’s easy for runners to lose sight of reality, to undervalue our efforts, to fall into a pattern of subjective perspective, and that is always a mistake.

The words, “I only ran four miles,” may reveal a problem with our perspective on our running training, and it’s my goal to help you to see every day’s training from a more objective perspective.

One of my favorite sayings is “It’s all relative.” That relates closely to this topic.

Back in the day, when I, personally, hosted and lead all my local Run Tampa club’s group runs, I would always make two statements. Before we started, I’d say:

“Go as fast as you want, as far as you want, and turn around when you want.” When I said that, I was giving people permission to customize the run to be exactly what they wanted or needed it to be, and that always worked well.

After a run, invariably, someone would say, “I only did ____ (fill in the blank) number of miles.

When I heard that, I would say this: “I only have one rule at these runs: Never use the word ‘just’ or ‘only’ in the same sentence with the number of miles you ran, because no matter how many miles you ran, today, you ran farther than 99.9 percent of the population, most of whom were either still asleep or sitting on the couch while you were running.”

It’s funny because, over the years, there were times – there are times – when I’ve accidentally slipped and do it, myself, and it never failed, someone in the group would say, “Deb, I can’t believe you said only!” That makes me smile because it means they’ve been listening, and they remembered.

The thing is – and this is what happens to me, personally, on those occasions – the more we run and the longer distances we become accustomed to doing, the more insignificant shorter distances become; that’s where the relativity comes in.

Running Longer Distances

Now, really, running longer distances, in the big picture, is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve said it before, if someone likes to race half marathons, then I think it’s a good idea for that person to do at least one marathon. It will tremendously improve their performance in all future half marathons because, mentally, they will seem much shorter because they are much shorter than a marathon. And the same is true of someone who likes to race 5k’s; they should do at least one 15k or half marathon – or at least a 10k, because after that, a 5k will feel short, and it’ll be easier, psychologically, to run the whole thing, harder.

So, I’m not at all suggesting that you avoid longer runs. Not at all. This is a separate topic. I’m just saying don’t let that warp your perspective, your sense of what distance is worthwhile and valuable, because even one mile is worth doing and valuable. Really, seriously, it is!

Look at it this way: Think of all the times you didn’t have time to get in the miles you wanted; so, you ended up not even going out. You considered the day a missed training day, but in actuality, you could have definitely managed to squeeze in say, two miles, but you felt like 2 miles wasn’t worth it.

One or two miles is very worth doing, and here’s why:

Two miles compared to zero is much much better. I’d like to say it’s ten times better or twenty times or a hundred times better, but it’s more than any of those because zero times anything is zero. This bears out that old saying, anything is better than nothing, and so it is, dramatically better, for several reasons.

For one thing, the entire medical community is telling us more and more than we need to get out and out and move throughout the day. So, even the opportunity to walka mile a couple even once a day is far better than not, and by the same token, running one mile, then, is an extreme improvement on not doing it.

From a running fitness perspective, your body needs to be reminded, very often, that you’re a runner. If you miss one day, no big deal, but when life gets busy, if you’re supposed to run on a given day, then to do even one or two miles is far better than none because your body and your mind need a constant reminder that this is who you are, and this is what you do.

I hope that makes sense to you because it makes perfect sense to me. Running is part of my identity; so, a missed day that was meant to be a running day, is always a disappointment, and if I let time constraints keep me from doing it, then I am disappointed.

Even one mile is better than no miles. At least I can give my body and mind a little tiny piece of what it’s craving.

If I am time-constrained, then that’s always, to some degree, stressful; so, even one mile of running will make all things better. Even one mile will lower my stress, but this may not help some people as much because you have to look at it from a glass half full standpoint and exercise positivity by focusing on the fact that you managed to get out there and get in ‘some’ running rather than focusing on what you didn’t have time for what ever number of miles you would have liked to do. Again, it’s a matter of perspective.

Let’s say every other week something comes up and you end up missing a day of training because you don’t have time to do your whole workout; so, you just don’t do any of it. That, I think, is a huge error. Let’s say you actually could have eeked out time for two miles. If this happens every other week, with 52 weeks a year, that’s 26 weeks times 2 = 52 miles. Is 52 miles worth running? You bet it is, and 26 is too, for that matter.

Any physician will tell you that even brief bouts of exercise, even 10, 15 or 20 minutes is still very much worth doing. It will make that day, healthier. Just getting up from a chair and walking around the office is worthwhile; so, certainly running one mile vs zero miles is a huge difference. So, don’t let the fact that you’re accustomed to running many miles ever stop you from just doing one or two.

That doesn’t mean you should ‘aim’ for one or two miles.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t also make the point that I would never recommend aiming for one or two miles, not if you’re trying to improve at running. Even to just maintain good fitness, I’d say do at least three. Once you are a runner, I think it’s best to aim for a minimum of 3 or 4 miles or more on any given day, unless it’s a rest and recovery day, which is just as important as running on a running day.

But, assuming it’s a day when you’re supposed to run, then it’s better from a health and training perspective to mix it up the distance, better to do 3 miles one day and 5 miles the next, than to do 4 miles on both days. It’s more interesting and will provide a superior training effect.  Any time a running coach creates a schedule using the accepted training principles, it’s always going to vary mileage from day to day within a week.

Any distance is worthwhile, very worthwhile. If you only have time for one or two or three miles, just try to keep things in perspective and remember the time when you were just starting out and you would have felt a sense of extreme accomplishment for doing that. Strive to recapture that. Give yourself credit and embrace that feeling once again.

Filed Under: mental, Training Tagged With: brief bouts of exercise, half marathons, longer runs, maintain good fitness, marathon, missing a day of training, run longer distances, run tampa, running, running day, running fitness, running longer distances, running training

MFR 99: Foot Trouble, or Alternatively, Dumb Runner Mistakes I’ve Made and Hope that You Won’t Make

By Debbie Voiles

Dumb runner mistkesSome runner foot problems, i.e, injuries, can be prevented, and some can’t. Sometimes, you do everything right, care, meticulously for your feet, and boom, they still happen. Other times, you do something really dumb – and by ‘you,’ I mean ‘me.’ Yes, recently, I made a super dumb runner mistake. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: mfr-podcast, Running injuries and prevention Tagged With: runner, runner foot problems, runner mistake, running

MFR 97: Safety for Runners

By Debbie Voiles

Safety First - AlwaysRunning gives us so much. It makes our lives better in a hundred ways, but we can’t forget running safety. We owe it this: to be careful, to exercise wisdom, to do what we know in our hearts, we should do, even if it’s inconvenient and even if sometimes restricts our running. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: mental, mfr-podcast, Training Tagged With: run smart, runner safety, running, tips for safe running, tips for staying safe

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