Author: Jenna

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another week of Runs on Espresso. Grab your favorite coffee-based beverage and settle in. Today’s podcast is going to be a look at the book that called me out for my bullshit. This book was recommended to me by another runner when I asked for books to help get over the I can’t run farther than 18-20 miles hump. I mentioned it to my local OIselle group and we decided to form a book club and read it together. We read each section then had a virtual meeting to discuss it.

The book is The Brave Athlete Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion by Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson. If you decide to read it I would suggest purchasing the physical book, not an ebook. There’s a lot of illustrations and exercises that work better with a physical book. I would also suggest doing the exercises in a separate notebook. You may want to do some of these exercises later or redo them. I also don’t write in books so that’s how I did it but I think I will try to review the book annually and redo some exercises as needed. 

The book is divided into four sections: The Basics, Heart, Wings, and Fight. Each section has several chapters. I’ll go over the general idea from each section and pull some things that I really stuck out to me. 

The Basics

The first section gets into how our brains work. Of course, I learned this a million years ago in school but haven’t really thought about it since. The main thing I gained from this is my chimp brain is more in charge than I’d like to admit. This section is really short so not much to say but the idea is to remind you the chimp is in charge, not you, but you can learn to help manage him or her.

Heart

This section gets into how you think about yourself. The first thing that really stuck out to me was I want to be a mature athlete not a strong athlete. A mature athlete is someone that is fully grown, confident, content and seeks healthy competition. A mature athlete deals with injuries and doesn’t struggle when they can’t train.

Reading this section and I realized I fall into the volatile identity. I sometimes have no issues seeing myself as an athlete and others I have no idea why I think I could call myself an athlete. I constantly struggle with this. I need to work on my consistency in my training and goal setting. I think sometimes I set too high of expectations for myself and fall short. When that happens I stop training. Point taken book, point taken.

A quote that stuck out to me was:

The thoughts and feelings you experience are not actually you at all because you are a chess player, not a chess piece. You experience your thoughts but you are not actually them. You are the carrying container of the experience; you are not the experience itself. 

Wow. I need the reminder to separate myself from my thoughts and feelings. 

The other big part of this section that stuck out to me was around self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-efficacy. I always lumped all of these together as one thing but it turns out they are all a little different. They are more like steps. I always thought I had pretty healthy self-esteem and self-confidence so I didn’t know why I struggled to complete a marathon. Well, it turns out my biggest issue is self-efficacy or the belief that you can perform a specific task at a certain level. My self-confidence, beliefs about your general abilities, also comes and goes. So those are definitely areas I need to work on. 

Let’s take a quick break for a word from my sponsor.

Welcome back!

The third section is Wings and it’s all about validation, injuries and other body image. I marked a main point in validation. It’s discussing comparison and how we all do it. It doesn’t matter what you try to tell yourself, comparison is biology. We should accept we will compare and use it to become happier, faster, and grittier instead of envious and resentful. It’s a great reminder. We can’t escape comparing ourselves to others but use that power for good and not evil. The chapter also digs into social media. I won’t get into too much detail but remember, social media is everyone’s A roll. Behind the glossy veneer, they may be struggling just as much as you.

The next part covers body image and food. I definitely need to work on my body image. I have a little extra weight but I’m overall healthy. It’s hard though when squeezing yourself into tight workout clothes to not think you’re fat. Before even reading the book I was working on my self talk. This part also talks a little about disordered eating. I read through that part and it didn’t apply to me. It was interesting to read though. 

Next it covers injuries. Outside of my broken leg a year ago I haven’t really dealt with many injuries. The only other thing I could think of was when I had vocal cord dysfunction. It caused me to get vertigo like symptoms when running. Once I figured the problem out, some medication and breathing exercises helped. When I asked some runners what topics they’d want to hear about injuries was a big one. I know many runners struggle when they can’t run. The biggest takeaway for me was to focus on staying healthy. To not overtrain and make sure I do exercises that will help me stay injury free. 

Lastly it covered exercise dependency. I definitely do not suffer from this. I could totally spend all day lazing around on the couch. I can see where it can become a fine line and one could easily fall into it. 

The last section is one I will keep coming back to over and over. It’s really the areas I need the most work on. The first area is about fear and comfort zones. I definitely struggle with trying new things and going outside of my comfort zone. Every time I’ve tried a new distance I freak out a little bit. I wonder if i can do it. Hell, even on my long runs I wonder if I can do distances I’ve done before. 

Then the book goes into when we mentally throw in the towel. It called me out. As I said before I am a shit quitter. I do have a few legit quits but most of the time I shit quit because it seems hard. Or I’m tired. My excuse du jour. 

Then we talk about embracing the suck. Yup, that’s me. I don’t like running in the summer because it’s hot. I do this every summer. I start off strong, not letting it bother me but by August I can’t deal with it anymore and I quit for a few weeks. The authors give several ways to cope. I need to review and implement them.

The concentration part was interesting. I never thought of that as an issue for me. I learned my focus is very internal and broad. Which means I am good at analyzing and planning. I am horrible at doing. I question my training. I question if I did everything I could for the race. 

The very last section covers pressure and stress. Ugh, I’m always stressed and anxious. Reading through the chapter I understood I am not under pressure. I’m not a professional. My performance affects no one but me. I do tend to overthink things and get stressed. Besides coffee I run on stress and anxiety. This is another chapter I need to review and work on the strategies given.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I find it incredibly helpful and eye opening. I’ve got pages marked and I know which sections I need ro review over and over again. I plan to keep the notebook I did the exercises in with the book. I can review and redo the exercises and see if I’ve made progress. 

Tell me, have you read this book? What did you think about it? I’ve read a lot of running books but I’d love to hear your favorites! Let me know what they are!

Update to episode 3 and SMART goals…

I’ve reached the point in the summer where I always want to throw in the towel due to the heat. This happens every August. I’m rethinking if I want to run a 50k in November because I’m struggling to get long runs in. I may start training later and run in January or February. It’s also made me think, why do I want to run a 50k? Do I really want to run it? And honestly, I can’t answer those questions. 

Several years ago after I had done quite a few half marathons. I set my sites on the marathon because it seemed like the next logical step and I really wanted to do it. I trained so hard but got so sick a week or two before the marathon. It was devastating. A lot has happened since that first time, both athletically and personally. 

I never thought I bought into the youre not a real runner until you run a marathon but then I wonder why I keep trying to run farther when it’s never worked out before. So maybe deep down I feel to prove myself as a real runner until I do a marathon or ultra. But is it really what I want to do? I don’t know. I love running but I also like doing other workouts and marathon training takes away from other activities. And it’s such a big time investment. Am I questioning this because it’s outside my comfort zone? I don’t know. 

So here I am, again, wondering what should I do next? I’m not sure I want to run a 50k. I’m not sure I want to spend 5-6 hours running. But I’m not sure that I don’t. So for now, I guess I keep on running and thinking on what I really want from running, besides a mental health treatment and weight management program. 

What do you think? Should I give up or set aside the ultra goal?

And now, coffee corner. This weekend was my 40th birthday. It’s a strange time to celebrate a milestone birthday. I took off Friday and Monday. It’s nice having a couple of extra days off. I’ve been working from home so it’s not all that different to be home but I get to do other things. I got a lot accomplished but of course I also took some time to relax. Sometimes we just need to take some time to ourselves to refresh and reset. 

You can find me on instagram at runs_on_espresso, twitter at runsonespresso or email at jenna@runsonespresso.com. You can find my blog at runsonespresso.com and my redbubble shop is Runs on Espresso.

Until next week, I hope your runs are as strong as your coffee. 

Hey everyone! Welcome to Runs on Espresso! I’m your host, Jenna, an ok runner and coffee drinker extraordinaire! I realized while listening to my last two podcasts (for quality and to help myself get better because trust me, it sucks listening to yourself) that no one really cares about my daily training except me. I want to rework the podcast a bit and make it more useful for more people. Plus, it’s helpful to have podcasts that are almost timeless. So if you listen to this in a year, it’s still applicable. My training schedule in a year won’t matter. Not even to me.

I find most podcasts take 5-10 episodes to really get their groove so I hope you will give me the chance to find mine. I was thinking and trying to figure out which way to go with this and of course, it hit me while in the shower. Don’t all good ideas seem to come in the shower?

I currently don’t have a coach so I have to do it myself. I’m ok with that, as I’ve done it most of my running career. But I want to be a better runner. Right now a running coach isn’t in my budget so I’m all I got. Well, and books, magazines, and other resources online.

Someday I would love to take a certification and become an actual running coach but for now, I will have to work with what I have. Hopefully, we can all learn and become better runners together! So my plan is to make the podcast a kind of training manual. Each episode will focus on a topic and I’ll share my research, thoughts, opinions and how it can be applied to my training. 

In episode one I focused on my difficulties deciding on what to do and what training plan to do. Then in episode two I explained what I decided to do. I feel so much better and my mind has settled so much since I finally made a decision and just planned everything out for the next few months. I’m definitely one of those people that needs a plan. My anxiety gets going in high gear if I don’t have a plan and everything feels like it’s spinning out of control. It almost feels like I’m on a tilt a whirl that won’t ever stop. Once I finally decide on something and move forward the ride stops and I get off, feeling a little shaky but overall satisfied.

I know not everyone operates this way. If you are one of those types that doesn’t feel the need to plan, please reach out to me and let me know how you train. I’d love to hear from a different perspective!

Let’s take a minute for a word from my sponsor.

And I’m back. 

With everything I’ve already said, I think the first thing is to talk about goals. Because it’s hard to create a plan without goals. And I think I really needed to dig down into what it is I actually want before I could make a map of how to get there. So today’s podcast is going to be all about goals. 

In episode one I mentioned my six general goals. A quick reminder or if you haven’t listened to episode one they are:

1. Increase speed
2. Increase long run distance
3. Run more trails
4. Increase strength
5. Decrease weight and body fat
6. More cross-training

I’m sure many of you have similar general goals. I wanted to get more specific. Like why do I want to get faster and run longer? What is the ultimate end I want to reach? I thought about it and kept coming back to I want to do an ultra. Nothing crazy, just a 50k. Although some people may say that itself is crazy. 

For me, figuring out exactly what I want to do will help me shape my training. It will also help me focus in on those six goals and really figure out how everything will work together to get me through a 50k. What is it you want to accomplish in your running? Maybe you want to get a faster 5k, maybe break a certain time. Figuring out exactly what it is you want is the key to everything else falling into place. 

Many experts suggest doing SMART goals, so let’s break down my 50k goal into a SMART goal. Feel free to grab a pen and notepad and do the same for yours. I’ll wait while you pause and go get them. I have researched and read a lot about SMART goals over the years so I didn’t use a specific reference. If you are unfamiliar with the idea, google it. There are tons of resources out there. Some free, some want you to buy shit. I’ll try to provide enough info that you can follow along and set your own without extra research.

Ok, so in SMART goal the S stands for specific. So, what exactly do we want to do? Run a 50k isn’t quite specific enough. For me, I want to run a 50k on November 28th in 6 hours. So, using the faster 5k from earlier you could say you want to run a 5k in under 30 minutes in three months. 

M is measurable. How will we track our progress? For my 50k goal, I’ll track my progress by my long runs. How far did I go? How did I feel after? Did I increase steadily? And so on. I also have a mid-plan 35k to test. For the faster 5k, you would probably focus on your speed work days. Did it feel easier this week? Were you able to do the tempo run at the designated pace? 

A is attainable. For me, I believe 50k is attainable. I’ve never done a marathon but I have done training runs of 18-20 miles in the past. I need to stay healthy and find ways to keep my energy level up. And not break my leg again. For a faster 5k if you currently run a 32 minute 5k breaking 30 is doable but breaking 20 would probably be much harder. 

R is always the weirdest one for me. Is it relevant? Well, in all reality is running 50k or getting a faster 5k really relevant? Probably not. I’m not a professional runner. I run to improve and challenge myself. So really no matter what goal I set it’s relevant. I can see how being relevant works for say business goals or professional development but in our personal lives, it seems every goal we set would be relevant. This is always the letter I struggle with on personal goals because I’m all like of course it’s relevant. What do you think? Let me know because maybe I just haven’t found the right explanation for this one yet.

Lastly, we have T for time. We kind of covered this in defining our specific goal. So I said I want to run a 50k on November 28th. I will also have a check-in date half way through where I do a 35k. This will help me keep on track and make sure I’m hitting those long run distances each week. If you leave your goal of hitting a faster 5k open ended when will you actually attempt it? Never. So sit down and have a goal date (say three months from now) and maybe a mid plan check where you try to run a 5k and see where you are at. Try to keep your timeline specific. If you say I want to run a 50k or 5k this year, it’s too broad. We may never do the things we want to do “this year”. I like to think in quarters. Three months is usually a good time frame. Most training plans are 12-18 weeks which is 3 or 4 months. It’s far enough out that you can accomplish it but not so far that you slack off because you think you have more time to complete it.

So how does this all relate to those six goals I mentioned previously? Now that I know what I want my goal to be I can focus on these general goals to help support my larger training goal. I won’t go through the SMART process for all of these. That would be really boring even for me. Each of my general goals will help me get to my big, SMART goal of running a 50k in 6 hours. Strength training and core work will help me build muscle, lose fat and body fat making me lighter and running easier on my body. Building my long runs, cross-training, and running more trails will help me prepare physically and mentally for endurance on the trails. And of course doing speed work will help me finish in my desired time. I’ve written down more specific SMART goals for each of these mini goals. 

Did you write this all down as you went? I highly suggest if you didn’t go back and do that now. Or if you are driving or running while listening, do this as soon as you have a moment. Having a goal written down can actually help you reach it. Writing it down makes it real and serves as a reminder of what you’re doing and why. And if you really want to feel some pressure to meet your goal, tell someone. Or post it on social media. Maybe find a friend that will ask about your goal. This is especially helpful for people that want to be held accountable. I know some people like to have outside accountability. If that’s not you and you know it, not you are just too scared to share your goal, then don’t tell a friend you know will bug you about how you’re doing. 

Side note: If you want to know more about accountability types check out Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies. I’ll post a link in the show notes. Basically, there are four types of people when it comes to accountability. I took the quiz and came out as a questioner which makes total sense to me because I want to know WHY I’m doing something. Why will it help me do X? How will it help me reach my goals? I know personality tests are controversial but I like taking them and seeing what it says. A lot of them do apply to me but I take them all with a grain of salt. I still think they are fun and can help you understand yourself better. Check it out or not. I’m just sharing what has worked for me. You may find something else works better for you.  

I mentioned a couple of times doing a check halfway through. I’m serious. Don’t skip check-ins. They will help you stick to it and you can adjust your plan or goal if needed. If you don’t think you’ll remember this part, pause the podcast and put in a google calendar reminder to check in once a month or so. Then actually do it. Sit down, pull out your paper with your written SMART goal, and evaluate yourself and your goal. When you do this, celebrate your victories. Have you hit all those goal paces in your speed work! Great job! DId you do all your long runs? Did you add something new to training or clean up your diet? Celebrate those little milestones. 

Something I try to do at the end of each day is to write down something positive from my daily workout. I got this idea from Kara Goucher’s book Strong. If you haven’t read this book yet, I would suggest it. It’s a pretty short book but it really helped me. I may actually re-read it and talk about it in a future episode. But the point is, even if your workout sucked there is at least one thing that is good about it. Maybe it’s just that you got out the door and did it even though the kids were whining all day, your boss was on your ass, whatever stressors you had that day made you want to sit on the couch with a vodka drink and reese’s but instead you changed in to tight spandex and went for a run. 

Whew! I think that about covers goal setting! I hope you found it useful and are thinking about what you want to do for the rest of the year. I’d love to hear the goals you’ve come up with. Send me an email jenna@runsonespresso.com or find me on Twitter and tell me your goals. twitter.com/runsonespresso. If you need an accountability buddy I’m happy to help you out!

And now, grab your favorite coffee beverage for Coffee Corner. Last weekend we took our dog on her first camping trip. We only did one night to see how she did and if it seemed like she enjoyed it. She is not a big fan of longer car rides because she can’t sit in our laps. She spent the whole drive up wanting to get in front with us. We started out early and had plenty of time before we could set up our campsite so we took Doggo to a couple of creeks and a lake. She absolutely loved being able to get in the water. At the third creek I took off my shoes and socks and waded in. The water was so cold, it felt nice. 

Once at the campsite we put the dog on a tie out. She’s never had one that we know of and she liked having a bit more freedom than the usual leash. She did not like us setting up the tent far away from her though. The site was huge and we set her up by the picnic table figuring that’s where we would be while relaxing after dinner. 

When we took her to the tent and she was a little hesitant going in but once inside she hopped on the air mattress and worked on finding the most comfortable spot. She slept all night, unlike us humans. We didn’t sleep well because the air mattress slowly deflated and we ended up on the hard ground. We didn’t see any issues with it and looked again at home and filled it back up. There were no rips, holes, tears and stayed inflated. We think we must not have had the valve in all the way. Other than that, the doggo did great and seemed to enjoy herself. She fought sleep the entire car ride home but she did doze off a few times. We will definitely take her on a longer trip next time. She loves hiking and going in water. So far she only wades in and lays down. We have her on a leash so she can’t go far. We don’t know if she can swim. We have a life jacket for her and plan to take her somewhere she can try swimming and being in the kayak. She is an adventure doggo and up for anything! Or she wants to be with us everywhere we go and puts up with adventure but I think she really loves it. She goes NUTS when her pack comes out!

Ok, that’s all I have for today. I hope you liked setting your SMART goals! Until next time may your runs be as strong as your coffee!

Hey everyone! Welcome to Runs on Espresso. Today’s episode is going to be like a shot of espresso. I don’t have much time to record but wanted to make sure I still got an episode up!

It’s been another week and I was still all over about my training plan. So this episode is going to focus on this week’s training and the struggle to figure out what I’m doing. I think, I hope I finally have an idea of what I want to do. 

So first, how did this week go? It wasn’t my best but certainly not my worst. 

I’m going to talk about some TMI here so if you don’t want to listen feel free to skip ahead a bit.

I knew my period was coming (thanks Garmin) and yet every time it still hits me like a ton of bricks. I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. I had some coffee and just curled in a ball on the couch. Eventually I moved back to the bed. It was clear I wasn’t going to be getting anything accomplished. I had some Prevail Oil so I took that and it helped with cramps and nap time. 

(Side note: I’m a Prevail ambassador and if you are interested in trying CBD you can use my code Volden20 at prevailbotanicals.com. We use the salve for a lot of different things.)

Basically Sunday was no workout and I are all the food. All of it. And I slept. My body needed it.

Monday was the day I just gave up. I had to go into the office and so didn’t run before work. I’d do it after. Then I ran around work a lot so I was like ok, I can do my Sunday weight work out. Did I do either of those things? Nope. I stuffed my face with french fries and watched TV. 

Wednesday morning I had goal pace repeats. They were definitely a challenge but I was able to maintain the faster pace for 5 minutes at a time. Progress.

Tuesday and Thursday Thursday I did a morning bike ride and weights at lunch.

Friday was an easy run. And it was easy. I woke up and get out the door pretty quick for me. I didn’t struggle with wanting to run. I just did it. 

Saturday I did a  virtual 10k trail race! I haven’t been on a trail since early March. OMG. I forgot how hard it can be! As usual, it took me longer to get ready and go than planned. I think I started around 6:20 and it was already over 90 degrees. I was also running into some heavy wind so I was slow and hot. My energy level depleted quickly. But you know what? I did it. I went to the trail, I ran 6.2 miles and I survived. I didn’t get attacked by a snake. I didn’t even see (or hear) one. A couple of times I thought I heard one but I think it was lizards in bushes because the noise stopped as soon as I heard it. 

And back to thinking about stopping the Garmin Training and do my own. This is why I can’t have nice things. I started with a spreadsheet (yup, I’m a dork like that) and plugged in my long runs for the rest of August through November. I used a 16 week 50k plan and adjusted the distances to fit my virtual races and upcoming Run Every Trail and Run One challenges. Both challenges are from Aravaipa Racing. You should check them out. You can do run every street if you aren’t a trail runner. But basically you pick an area, like your zipcode or town, and run every street. Or you pick a park and run every trail. I’ve got my park and trails already planned out. It starts in September and goes through the end of the year. Run One is pick one trail or street and run one end to the other. I picked a trail I haven’t done yet.

After the long runs I plugged in the east days and Wednseday I alternated temp and intervals. I will probably use the Nike app for the speedwork. It’s way too much work to enter workouts in Garmin.

I also decided to drop the duathlon but going to keep riding on Tues/Thurs for more cardio/cross training. I don’t have a good way to record the bike position and upload to the race site and I want to get these challenges done so I decided to hold off on the duathlon. I might make my own and do it eventually but for now I want to continue to focus on doing a 50k.

Currently I’m reading The Brave Athlete and its been so helpful. And now it’s calling me out. I’m on the quitting chapter this week. And I to quote the book shit quit all the time. I am queen at coming up with excuses. Usually it’s “I’m too tired”. Most of the time my limitations are all mental. Yes, running longer distances is uncomfortable physically, as in my body gets tired but I don’t quit because of pain or injury. It’s all in my head. I am definitely going to re-read this chapter and work on the recommendations. The next chapter is about hardening up. I haven’t read it yet but I think I may also need to read that one a few times.

Coffee Corner… I don’t have many random thoughts this week. Let’s see, maybe I’ll recommend a few podcasts. If you like audiobooks and classic novels you should check out Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Phoebe is the voice of the podcast Criminal and this summer she has started reading a chapter a day in classic books. If you like comedy, maybe The Endless Honeymoon is more your flavor. It’s comedians Moshe Kasher and Natasha Leggero. They give advice to callers, listen to secrets people have left in voicemails and interview comedian friends.

Alright, that’s all I have for today. I will see you in a week! Until then, may your runs be as strong as your coffee.