50,000 steps AKA Hitting the Pavement
I've always been a runner. My parents joke that I learned to run before I learned to walk. It's always been apart of my life, and has helped me a great deal in my mental health. It's a way for me to decompress after a long day. I began doing races with my dad back when I was 10 or 11; mainly 5k and 10k's. There's an old picture in the Edmonton Sun as proof. It's a picture of my dad and I with someone dressed up as Santa, for the Santa Shuffle. It was a 5k, but what made that picture unique was that we were both still in our shorts and t-shirts in -20 weather. Back then my thought process was, I always run in shorts and a t-shirt, so what makes any difference if the weather is cold. I've learned my lesson since.
This brings me to now. I signed up for the Servus Edmonton Half Marathon, which is coming up on the 18th. I never planned on ever doing a distance that long, but a friend of mine was running it, and didn't want to run it alone. So, here I am, ready for race day. My training started off rough, but by the end I ran 17k in 1 hr 28 mins. In training, as a rule of thumb, you never want to run the distance you're training for until the actual race, so you typically run a few k shy of that goal. I'm looking good to finish the full 21k in under 2 hrs.
Why am I writing about this? 50,000. We're told if you want to get good at something and come close to mastery that we need 50,000 repetitions. Now I can't say I've even come close to 50,000 repetitions in Kung Fu, but with running, I must be in the millions by now. This realization has given me 2 insights.
1. Repeated efforts, however small, day in and day out make a huge difference.
-Even on my off days, it still contributed to my overall training and skill. Before training for this half marathon, the most I ran was 12k, but my usual daily training was somewhere between 5 and 10 usually. Also my average pace was around 5:37 minutes per km, and now my average is 5:07 minutes per km. Doesn't seem like much does it? Shaving 30 seconds off my time. So I will put it into perspective this way: 21Km @ 5:37= roughly 118 mins vs 21km @ 5:07= 107 minutes. That's 11 minutes total off my time.
2. Mental toughness plays a huge role in your efforts and in your training.
-Running long distances has taught me that you have to be mentally strong. Mental endurance I just as important, if not more important, than physical endurance. Sure your body needs to hold up under the stress of running long distances, but your mind also has to be ready and willing. 21km is a lot, and you can make that out to be mountain or a hill, depending on how you view it. Trust me, there was a time in my early 20's that running a 1km was challenging, even after years of running 10 k consistently every day. The reason was because my mind wasn't in it. I was having some mental health problems and that translated in my mind telling my body to physically stop "running away". As soon as I took care of the mental aspect, running 10 k became easy again.
I'm really just at the beginning of my Kung Fu journey, and I know I still have a lot of hurdles to overcome (like my body doing what my brain is trying to tell it. Darn flexibility); but by keeping these 2 insights in perspective I believe I can achieve a black belt and beyond... eventually.
This brings me to now. I signed up for the Servus Edmonton Half Marathon, which is coming up on the 18th. I never planned on ever doing a distance that long, but a friend of mine was running it, and didn't want to run it alone. So, here I am, ready for race day. My training started off rough, but by the end I ran 17k in 1 hr 28 mins. In training, as a rule of thumb, you never want to run the distance you're training for until the actual race, so you typically run a few k shy of that goal. I'm looking good to finish the full 21k in under 2 hrs.
Why am I writing about this? 50,000. We're told if you want to get good at something and come close to mastery that we need 50,000 repetitions. Now I can't say I've even come close to 50,000 repetitions in Kung Fu, but with running, I must be in the millions by now. This realization has given me 2 insights.
1. Repeated efforts, however small, day in and day out make a huge difference.
-Even on my off days, it still contributed to my overall training and skill. Before training for this half marathon, the most I ran was 12k, but my usual daily training was somewhere between 5 and 10 usually. Also my average pace was around 5:37 minutes per km, and now my average is 5:07 minutes per km. Doesn't seem like much does it? Shaving 30 seconds off my time. So I will put it into perspective this way: 21Km @ 5:37= roughly 118 mins vs 21km @ 5:07= 107 minutes. That's 11 minutes total off my time.
2. Mental toughness plays a huge role in your efforts and in your training.
-Running long distances has taught me that you have to be mentally strong. Mental endurance I just as important, if not more important, than physical endurance. Sure your body needs to hold up under the stress of running long distances, but your mind also has to be ready and willing. 21km is a lot, and you can make that out to be mountain or a hill, depending on how you view it. Trust me, there was a time in my early 20's that running a 1km was challenging, even after years of running 10 k consistently every day. The reason was because my mind wasn't in it. I was having some mental health problems and that translated in my mind telling my body to physically stop "running away". As soon as I took care of the mental aspect, running 10 k became easy again.
I'm really just at the beginning of my Kung Fu journey, and I know I still have a lot of hurdles to overcome (like my body doing what my brain is trying to tell it. Darn flexibility); but by keeping these 2 insights in perspective I believe I can achieve a black belt and beyond... eventually.
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