Going the distance part 4 - Maintaining mojo
2024-12-18 20:35
Going the distance is a blog series I'm creating related to how I've continued to lace up and just run, week after week, for the past 16+ years. It's a reminder for myself of the things that work, and an exploration into the why's and how I actually do it.
Maintaining Mojo
This ended up a big post..
I'd be kidding myself if I said running always came easy and I love it so much that there's nothing in the world I'd rather be doing. I go through slumps often where I struggle to lace up. I think it's important to acknowledge those internal struggles, because it more often means something is out-of-whack in my life. The body or head is telling me I need rest, or a change of focus. That focus could be something external of running, like getting back on track with work tasks that are draining me mentally, or it could be a change of focus within running, like stop vert bagging and look at speedwork or distance.
If I ignore these feelings I'll burn myself out. The most obvious burnout I got was when I was targetting 200,000m of vertical climbing for the year last year. In June I pushed really hard for the 100,000m halfway mark, got it, but after consecutive 4000m+ weeks on top of heavy work weeks, I crashed, lost my mojo for the next few months, and never got to my target, ending with 150,825m, still an achievement I'm proud of and biggest year ever.
Here are some nifty tricks I use to keep consistently running, enjoy it, progress in some capacity, and not flake out.
Interesting routes
I think this is a creative expression. I really get a kick out of new interesting routes. Be it to peaks or across ridges, I like to map my own lines, or just wing it on the day. Today I did just that - planned an out n back in the shade because it was hot, but a spur caught my eye and I knew the ridge at the top would get me back to where I wanted. So I tried it out. It was an awesome climb up, following goat tracks, a bit of rock scrambling, and the possibility of hitting a dead end always looming. I had lots of fun and now have an exciting new line I can take if I want that little bit more gnarl. The fun was probably some chemical reaction in my head of the unknown, the risks, the successes, and all that.
I also like mapping out my own epic full or multi-day birthday runs, or doing projects like Trig Bagging, or random ones like "increase 200m vert every day until I can't".
Effort levels
I like to split between easy, medium and hard efforts each week.
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Saturday or Sunday is usually a long-run which I consider "hard" but at easy pace, sometimes with hard effort bursts within if I'm feeling it (see "Listen to the body below").
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If I run Monday, that'll almost always be easy, recovering from a long-run.
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Tuesday/Wednesday might be a harder run with hill efforts, or just a hillier run.
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Thursday/Friday might be a medium pace hilly run.
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I do a lot of vert so it all depends on how fatigued my legs are. Sometimes mid run I'll decide to smash a downhill section which ruins my quads for the next day or two. Likewise with ups. I have to replenish with rest and food correctly too.
Listen to the body
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As above, if I'm tired, I won't put the pressure on to run. Rest is fine. Same goes with mental fatigue. My previous job was mentally taxing, so sometimes I just needed to do nothing. BUT, running does have a recharging effect on me for mental fatigue, it just depends what it is. I can be totally relaxed for 6 hours on the trail, however a 30 minute meeting can drain the life out of me.
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If my body is physically tired, I'll eat more good food - vegetables, red meat - and lower my effort levels or total distance/vert.
Events
Events don't do it for me like it does for others. Events can be a good motivator in themselves. I actually find the looming event stressful, adding pressure on myself to be fit ready for the day, inducing paranoia of injury and pressure to hit weekly targets before tapering. There are so many events these days if I want to do one I could probably just look up the week prior and find something.
When I do sign up for events, it's usually the lead-up I enjoy most. Training new routes or new programmes, pushing myself in all kinds of ways. The race is usually just as expected if I've done the training right.
I much prefer to just be event-ready all the time. If someone rings me today and asks if I want to run 100km tomorrow, if it interests me I'll say yes. It'll hurt, and I won't get a PB, but there was no pressure and I'll just enjoy it. That has never actually happened, but I have done similar 30/40km runs out of the blue. I try and do annual birthday runs and the last one I did I had a couple very different runs planned a week out (either a ~30hr ridge scrambling point-to-point, or a 24hr/10,000m vert climbing effort). It wasn't til 2 nights before I chose which one (it was the vert).
Stat hunting
I'm a data guy. I have tracked my running since 2010. If you've read this far, you've probably got wind of my vert targets, but I'm also conscious of distance and time, and vert wasn't always my thing. I use Strava and Runalyze to track from my Garmin Fenix 6 device. I like keeping an eye on weekly stats. It's not the do-all-end-all though, because I listen to my body but it is nice to throw in targets varied to my current state.
In summary
All the things above usually blend into my current running state. Lately, mojo is creeping back off the back of illness and injury, change of career and subsequent reduction in fitness. I've been consistent the last few weeks around 50% of my peak output, but that consistency is something I've missed for a while and a good indicator the mojo is back.