Endurance training, like getting an
advanced education, can become an incredibly selfish venture. Your training
schedule becomes a priority, you start focusing on your diet, you are
constantly listing to your body and everything becomes about you. While these
activities are not inherently bad, (in fact they can be quite good for you), it
does become easy to give into the temptation of becoming very self absorbed. I
speak from experience on this point.
A practice I began engaging in when I first
started doing long run was using this time for meditation and prayer. Those of
you, who know me well, know how busy my mind generally is. Seeking quiet and
silence is challenging for me, but not so when my legs are carrying me across
pavement and trails or pumping bike pedals. In doing this, the time that I
spend training becomes about something greater than just my athletic endeavors.
In these moments, I begin to realize how incredibly blessed I am. I have a life
that allows me to make time for endurance training. I have always had enough in
life. I am physically capable of doing athletics. These things are not afforded
to everyone. I have tried to invest my time in helping more people realize that
they can make time to have the fitness levels they want. I have taken multiple
individuals on their first runs. I started a column on commuting advice to
encourage more people to take up cycling and bike commuting. I have tried to be
generous with my finances, though this is something that I could always do
better. Still, I want to do more.
This led me to the decision to run this
duathlon to raise money for charity. While I am excited to work towards new
athletic achievement, I want this effort to be about more than me. Scope is a
charity that works to provide services for individuals with disabilities, both
mental and physical. This gives people who have different challenges than the
rest of us to have more normal lives and to go after their own goals and
dreams. I believe that this is an important service and I am excited to
contribute to this cause. If you are able, please consider sponsoring me
financially for this event. All of your contributions go directly to Scope to
fund the services they provide. My fundraising page can be found here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmilyGrace. I
will have this link at the bottom of every blog post I write about training
during this time, but I wanted to dedicate at least one post about my reasons
for training for charity.
Training Update: Over the past week, I have
been focusing on rebuilding my distance running and increasing my running pace.
I have an excellent running partner, whose natural pace is faster than mine. We
have been running throughout 2-3 days a week after work. We usually do one run
for distance and one for hills. After each run, I hop on my bike and ride 6.7
miles home. This is starting to give me a little more of the feel of a run
followed by a bike ride. I also did an 8 mile distance run at an average pace
of 10:28 min/mile. This is my fastest distance running pace yet and gives me
hope that I will be able to run the miles of the duathlon at a sub 10 min/mile
pace.
 |
| Post Hill Run and Cycle Home Celebrating the Sweaty Disheveled Goodness of Exercise Photo by Piper Williams (http://piperwilliams.500px.com/) |
No comments:
Post a Comment