I'm Getting Stronger

Photo by Isabella Mendes from Pexels

I ran my first race more than ten years ago. My best friend had moved out of state and we began training together (while apart) so that we could run a race together. We devised a shared training plan and checked in with each other frequently to monitor progress from week to week. We were 100% committed to doing this thing and I remember being so proud when I crossed that first finish line.

I was hooked.

Since then, I’ve done countless half marathons and 5Ks and even one extermely slow marathon. There’s something so satisfying about the training process. You start out unable to sustain more than a few miles. Then, slowly, bit-by-bit, you gain miles and strength and it becomes easy. Or easier.

I loved the meditative aspect of my training runs. I was never aiming to be fast, only to be able to enjoy a long run instead of hating it. And it always happened. If you put in the miles and follow the training plan, there’s no other option but to get better at running. Your heart gets stronger, your legs don’t ache nearly as badly, and it starts to become a normal thing you do.

But the problem with running in races is that the race has a finish line.

And so my pattern, again and again over the years, has been train-train-train-train-race-STOP. At first my stoppings only lasted a month or two. But gradually over time, the months stretched on and until three months ago, I hadn’t run in over three years. My body was still hanging in there, but as I crossed over into my forties, I picked up on little ways my body was no longer maintaining it’s strength and flexibility.

The weird part is that I didn’t really miss exercising. I had no desire to do it. I didn’t crave movement at all. In fact, I dreaded it. The few times I would wander over to my apartment gym, I never felt like I was making progress. And so it felt useless and a waste of time. I couldn’t see the progress being made.

In the back of my mind, I knew I needed to take better care of my body. Movement is not an option for we humans, but I’d been treating it that way. A week before my 40th birthday, I signed up for my first Orangetheory class, at the urging of some dear friends of mine. It felt indulgent and wasteful to be spending money on gym classes when I had a PERFECTLY GOOD GYM RIGHT IN MY APARTMENT. But I realized it didn’t matter if I wasn’t using it. Didn’t want to use it. Didn’t know how to use it properly.

Orangetheory is basically like attending a super intense PE class for grown-ups. You show up and they boss you around (as nicely as possible) to get the most out of your hour in the gym. I realized after just one class that I was only giving about 30% of my potential when I showed up in the gym or went for a training run back in the day. Without someone to help plan out a truly effective workout and push me beyond my perceived limits, I was just phoning it in. Hence the lack of progress. And maybe even the boredom with running. If you’re not pushing to grow, things can get dull.

After three months, I think I might be stronger than I’ve ever been. Certainly stronger than I’ve been in the last ten years. That ever-gaining strength is my motivation. When I carry groceries from my car up to my apartment, I can load my arms up with heavy bags and it’s no problem. I can pick up both my three and six-year-olds at the same time and carry them around the room. I can see pops of muscle on my arms and legs that I’ve never seen before. And I can almost do my first pull-up. Almost.

I’m realizing that it’s hard for me to stick to things when I can’t see the progress. There’s immense value in baking in an “intense period” when taking on a new challenge so I can clearly see the growth from week to week. I just wasn’t seeing growth before because I wasn’t pushing hard enough. I was unintentionally holding back. I needed instruction and support to see what I was capable of and then sustain it.

Maybe later I’ll have a better skillset to do it on my own , but I’m in no hurry to take the training wheels off. Even Tiger Woods depends on his coach to push him to be even better. We are products of evolution and this stuff is hard for us for a very reason: We’re biologically programmed to conserve energy. Some of us just maybe took things a bit too far.

Sometimes when I’m on the treadmill, looking at myself in the mirror, I think about the ways I’m conserving energy in other areas of my life. What would the Orangetheory of running my business look like? Or the Orangetheory of parenting or wife-ing? How could I push harder so I could live a better, stronger life?

Something tells me the practice of pushing my body harder will make more than just my body strong. As Seth Godin would say, I’m learning where to put the pain.