"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable will."
Mahatma Gandhi
This week I actually had time between runs, work and my sons hockey tournament to watch a movie. The movie was Amy, the documentary about Amy Winehouse, the 27 year old jazz singer who had a voice of angel but whose life ended as a result of years of drug and alcohol abuse and bulimia. Tony Bennett, who had the opportunity to record a duet with her compared her to Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday and said she was "an extraordinary musician with a rare intuition as a vocalist."For several years, she fought the little voice inside her head that told her to use alcohol and drugs, but in the end she lost that battle. She was very young when she became famous and like many other famous child stars (River Phoenix, Macaulay Culkin, Lindsay Lohan, Brittney Spears, Justin Bieber, Dana Plato, just to name a few) she was unable to cope. She seemed to have temporary signs of strength in which she abstained from alcohol and drugs, but in the end she gave up. One of her body guards noted that after her final time on the stage ( in which she refused to sing, and stumbled around completely wasted ) that it seemed like she had just given up. After her death, Tony Bennett expressed regret at not trying to give her the benefit of his experience and said, "Life teaches you really how to live it, if you could live long enough." In other words, life experience increases your ability to cope with the difficulties of life, but at the same time, you have to have the difficulties in life in order to learn to tap into your inner strength so that you are able to cope. Unlike Amy Winehouse, most of us have the luxury of making mistakes without being the punchline in somebody's comedy routine, but her age and her inexperience did her no favours and as a result the world lost a true talent.
Inner strength is something that all of us need as use in many facets of our life. Inner strength is the the thing that enables us to keep going in difficult times. Inner strength is always with you, and sometimes you have to dig deep in order to find it, but I think you also have to practice using it. Using the similar words to Tony Bennett, life teaches you how to find your inner strength.
When I first started running, the leader of the Sun Run Clinic I was in proudly stated that running is 90% mental and 10% crazy. At first, this statement made me laugh, but as I ran more and went through various struggles, I began to see how this was not far off from the truth .After reading a very good article in "Runner's World" this week, I found that this wasn't just anecdotally true, but also scientifically true, As it turns out, there is a doctor, Tim Noakes, who in his book, Lore of Running, basically says that it is the brain that allows or limits endurance performance rather than the body. He says that "the brain is there to look after you and to make sure whatever you do, you do it safely." Other researchers have found that perception of physical effort influences how soon a person gives up.They tested this hypothesis with 2 groups of exercisers: one who were given a mental task before the workout, and one who just did the workout. They found that group that did the mental task before hand gave up sooner, even though their physiological responses were not different than the other group, thus concluding that their effort was not due to 'cardiorespiratory and musculoenergetic factors." Other researchers have recently postulated that the brain can be trained to allow the body to physically handle more. They say that you need to train your brain the same way you train your body. Training your brain to cope with discomfort is key to running success. Using Tony Bennett's statement again, you have to feel this discomfort, so that you can cope with the discomfort. If you don't have these experiences, you have difficulty accessing your inner strength on race day.
This week's training, I am happy to report, had plenty of discomfort. From the hill training in the driving rain and gale force winds to the grueling 29 km long run, my brain was getting a lot of practice dealing with discomfort. At about 27 kilometers of my long run, my little negative voices started popping up in my head. My legs were screaming at me to stop, but I didn't. I am hoping that all this discomfort training is working, because if my muscles are sore at 27 km, I can't imagine how they are going to feel at 42!!!
Total kilometers this week: 58.
Total times I felt uncomfortable: infinite (apparently this is GOOD)
Life as a whole teaches you how to dig deep to use your inner strength when times get tough, and to modify Tony Bennett's phrase one last time, running teaches you how to run, if you last long enough.
Inner strength is something that all of us need as use in many facets of our life. Inner strength is the the thing that enables us to keep going in difficult times. Inner strength is always with you, and sometimes you have to dig deep in order to find it, but I think you also have to practice using it. Using the similar words to Tony Bennett, life teaches you how to find your inner strength.
When I first started running, the leader of the Sun Run Clinic I was in proudly stated that running is 90% mental and 10% crazy. At first, this statement made me laugh, but as I ran more and went through various struggles, I began to see how this was not far off from the truth .After reading a very good article in "Runner's World" this week, I found that this wasn't just anecdotally true, but also scientifically true, As it turns out, there is a doctor, Tim Noakes, who in his book, Lore of Running, basically says that it is the brain that allows or limits endurance performance rather than the body. He says that "the brain is there to look after you and to make sure whatever you do, you do it safely." Other researchers have found that perception of physical effort influences how soon a person gives up.They tested this hypothesis with 2 groups of exercisers: one who were given a mental task before the workout, and one who just did the workout. They found that group that did the mental task before hand gave up sooner, even though their physiological responses were not different than the other group, thus concluding that their effort was not due to 'cardiorespiratory and musculoenergetic factors." Other researchers have recently postulated that the brain can be trained to allow the body to physically handle more. They say that you need to train your brain the same way you train your body. Training your brain to cope with discomfort is key to running success. Using Tony Bennett's statement again, you have to feel this discomfort, so that you can cope with the discomfort. If you don't have these experiences, you have difficulty accessing your inner strength on race day.
This week's training, I am happy to report, had plenty of discomfort. From the hill training in the driving rain and gale force winds to the grueling 29 km long run, my brain was getting a lot of practice dealing with discomfort. At about 27 kilometers of my long run, my little negative voices started popping up in my head. My legs were screaming at me to stop, but I didn't. I am hoping that all this discomfort training is working, because if my muscles are sore at 27 km, I can't imagine how they are going to feel at 42!!!
Total kilometers this week: 58.
Total times I felt uncomfortable: infinite (apparently this is GOOD)
Life as a whole teaches you how to dig deep to use your inner strength when times get tough, and to modify Tony Bennett's phrase one last time, running teaches you how to run, if you last long enough.
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