Training For Life

It's another in a sporadic series of my musings about things that are indirectly related to running. (I probably didn't need to say that, since you were going to find that out as soon as you read past the first sentence.)

Over the past few weeks, I've been hitting some relatively high mileage (80-ish per week), and surprisingly enough, feeling the best I've ever felt at this volume. I've never actually sustained a training volume this high for this long (at least not to my recollection), and I'm noticing that very minor aches and pains, occasional sluggishness, and mental roadblocks (really? ANOTHER mile in the rain? wasn't 14 enough?), at a low, but persistent level, are the only things that are making this difficult.

Which brings me to the point, which is that perhaps this is precisely the aspect of training that brings about improvement. The phrase "pleasantly exhausted" is thrown around to describe how you should feel after a training run, and I think that to some extent, this phrase applies to that feeling that you have throughout your heavy training periods. Because really, if every day weren't just a little bit challenging, how would you grow and improve? And furthermore (I didn't really want to use that word, but when am I going to get a chance to use it again without sounding even more preachy than I do right now?), if there isn't some variety in the challenge, if there isn't some new thing to dread just a little bit each day, won't you quickly run out of ways to improve?

So maybe that oft-quoted, rarely-understood Bowerman line from that Prefontaine movie (about people who are able to find meaning in the absurd pastime that is running also being able to find meaning in the absurd pastime that is life) isn't as vacuous as I thought. In both training for a race, and in life, if you subject yourself to too much punishment, you'll just wind up broken down, worn out, and incapable of reaching your goal. On the other hand, if you constantly avoid the truly difficult tasks, you'll never be ready when the opportunity to shine presents itself.

But if you can take pleasure in pursuits each day that leave you just a little bit muddied, bloodied, and breathless, over time, you'll probably find that you've grown quite a bit, accomplished a lot, and lived a richer life for it. And, as I'm discovering, maintaining the delicate balance between labor, and enjoying the fruits thereof, is the key to all of this, and much more difficult than it seems, which probably explains why so few people truly reach their potential.

Or maybe I'm just making all of this up, and it sucks to be tired. I'm going to go and bake some bread now, because there's a recipe for it in the Baltimore Guide, and I'm calling their bluff on the quality.