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Today I want to talk about change.
That word was not in the title at all. But as you will soon see, the word “change” runs a strand through every part of that title.
Let me break it all down.
My New Temporary Running Plan
There is one bad habit I see in so many people that annoys me to no end. And I’m guilty of this too, which is probably why it annoys me so much.
If it doesn’t work immediately, change the plan until it does.
So, if I’m trying to build a following on a newsletter and it's not working, do you really think it will work if all I do is change the platform or change the content around?
The answer is…it might. But the reality is, if you talk to most people with successful newsletters, podcasts, YouTube channels, etc, the majority took around 5 years of consistently sticking to the plan.
Our problem is that when the plan doesn’t give us the results, or any results whatsoever in the first couple of months, then we give up and change the plan. Change the content we write about, change the format of posts, change the consistency, change the platform, etc etc.
We do this because we want to avoid the real issue at hand.
It took those other creators 5 years of consistency.
The real issue is that even in those 2 months you tried, you were not really consistent. I’m guilty of this one for sure!
Run Consistently
The same is true in our running. If you stick to a running plan for a particular race and don’t get your goal time, before you change the plan, look at how consistent you were first.
Did you actually hit every workout? Did you actually eat the right foods to fuel your workouts? On the harder workouts, did you actually push yourself beyond what was comfortable?
Because, yes, there might come a time when the plan does need to change. When it simply didn’t work because you followed the wrong plan.
If you were trying to run a sub 2:30 marathon and you stuck to a plan where you ran 30 miles a week and missed your goal, then yes, we can look at the plan and say, “that was way too few miles for such a lofty goal.”
But I think before we start changing plans, we need to look first at our consistency.
Recover Consistently
When it comes to running, I thought of this:
“If you are going to train like an athlete, you need to act like an athlete.”
This means that you are showing up to workouts like it’s your job, you are training beyond comfort on those harder sessions, you are fueling your body well, and most importantly. And I mean, most importantly. You are recovering like an athlete.
If there is one thing athletes do well, it’s recovery. They know their bodies, how to turn it down, relax, and recover.
Recovery is also more than just sitting on the couch the rest of the day!
And this is where I’m at. I had a plan, I stuck to the plan, and I got injured.
But when I look back, although I was consistent with running, I was not consistent with recovery. And if you train like an athlete without recovering like an athlete, you will get hurt.
The other reality to tackle is that if you train like an athlete, eventually you will get an injury no matter what. Even Usain Bolt got injuries, but he treated them as temporary troughs and came out stronger on the other side.
I heard one runner say that injuries are a good time to reset, focus on what was working, what wasn’t working, and how you can improve.
For me, it’s also a time to ensure I still keep up my endurance, but through different means.
Specifically, for me, my plan over this month is to transition from running for the majority of my low aerobic training and start doing the stationary bike at the gym.
Now, it is vital that if you have a running injury and decide to take time off from running, that you still do all that recovery stuff I talked about before. If you don’t, then the injury might go away, but it might come right back when you start running again.
So my plan is to bike for the majority of my training and build in a strict stretching and foam rolling time into my day.
The Blues
As I’ve been transitioning into my new plan, I have taken some time off running. The crazy thing is that other than post-marathon breaks, I think this is my first time taking a break from running since I started taking this sport seriously last January.
That sounds weird to say.
And as I discussed in my post-marathon blues article, when you don’t have that consistent running endorphin high that your body is used to, your brain chemistry starts to get out of whack.
And I can definitely feel that now. We finally got back to the gym just yesterday (from when I actually wrote this post, not when you’re reading it) and I can already feel a difference.
But these past few days I definitely felt more bummed, less motivated, and I almost thought my foot was getting worse. Plus I have had a headache this whole week too.
It’s a whole thing and I honestly think it’s all related to stopping running. It is pretty wild that your body can adapt to running so consistently that you almost have withdrawal effects when you stop.
Adaptation
Which brings me to my final point.
Our bodies can adapt. It’s one of the numerous parts to God’s design in humans that just blows my mind.
When change occurs, we can adapt to that so quickly.
For a while, Taylor and I were traveling to Greensboro once a week to spend the night so Taylor could work and we could lead a Bible study Monday evenings.
Well, for a month or so we have been off Bible study, which means we still travel to Greensboro, but we can make it a day trip.
And for a while, it felt like we had an entire new day in our week we didn’t know what to do with!
It was awesome! But it also didn’t take long to adapt, fill up the time, and start to feel exhausted having to travel to and from in one day. Even though we no longer spend the night.
Or take my running as an example. I’ve run on average 5-6 days a week for months at a time. My body adapts and begins to expect that. That becomes the new normal (if you can call it that). And when that vanishes, your body has to take time to adapt again. You feel those withdrawals.
Types of Adaptations
It did get me thinking, though. I feel like there are two times our bodies adapt:
Purposeful Adaptations
Unexpected Life Adaptations
Unexpected Life Adaptations are when things in life just happen. Maybe you lose a job and are forced to move somewhere. The transition will blow, but you will eventually adapt to your new home.
Maybe you break a bone and have to take time off of training and normal life. Maybe you’ll feel withdrawals from no training or simply miss being able to make coffee with two hands in the morning.
But eventually you will adapt to having more time in the day, eating slightly less healthy, and being able to sit around and “rest” all day. And yes, you’ll even figure out an efficient way to make coffee one-handed.
Some adaptations are harder than others, but we all have the ability to adapt if we just let our bodies do their thing.
Which leads to what I think is the harder adaptation: purposeful ones. These typically take a different name: habits.
Whether forming a habit or breaking a habit (which is just forming an opposite habit), we have all heard that it takes 3 weeks for that habit to sink in.
I’d put it in different words: it takes 3 weeks for our bodies to fully adapt to a new habit.
Once we’ve adapted to that new way of life, changing from it makes us feel off.
But during those 3 weeks our bodies will fight it, as if they don’t want to adapt. Until finally, they give in, adapt, and recognize the new normal.
From what I’ve seen and experienced, the wild part of the human body is that the longer you have a habit you’re trying to change, the harder those 3 weeks become.
But the crazier part to me is that it is still always around 3 weeks of consistency before my body adapts fully.
That goes both ways too. If you build a multi-year habit, like working out every day, it still seems like it takes about 3 weeks of no training for our bodies to adapt to the point that training everyday sounds like a foreign concept.
My training, for instance, is transitioning to more stationary cycling as my foot recovers. It feels strange, and it’s really hard to do it when I can look back at how far I’d come in running.
But I also know that if I’m consistent for the next few weeks, my body will adapt, this will become the new normal, and the thought that I used to run everyday will start to sound foreign.
Even when I look back at my last marathon block and remember that I would get up everyday in the cold and dark of winter to go run 11 miles is shocking. I couldn’t imagine doing that right now. I can’t even get up at the same time I did then, and the sun is actually shining at that time now!
But I stuck to it and adapted.
So I’ll leave us with this: adaptation is hard, whether it’s out of your control or you are trying to build a hard habit, but our bodies can do it.
The transition might come with some bluesy feelings, but that’s normal. We just need to push through, trust God, and eventually our bodies will adapt.
And always remember to give your body proper rest and recovery.
Until next time, run with joy!