Where is Your Locus of Control?

Recently I went to a workshop at my church entitled "Taming the Control Freak." Most people wouldn't describe me as such, but my close friends and family know that I can be a bit on the freak side when it comes to cleaning, organizing, planning, etc. Most of my control issues deal with myself and my immediate living situations--the control rarely comes out on other people except Chad, who has more than once been yelled at for sitting on a bed I just made, throwing a dish in the sink when I just unloaded the dishwasher, or otherwise disrupting my perfectly straightened surroundings.

Most of you would say, well that's just being a wife, and while that probably is true, I admit that I think I can control 90% of the things in my life. There are certainly good things that come out of this personality. Chad says that I'm the most disciplined person he's ever met; that if I have a goal, I do what I need to do to accomplish it, end of story. He even jokes that I'm the only person he knows who has the discipline to floss every night! But this amount of control can cause someone to have a hard time letting the mind and body relax. Even on my days off, I usually have a schedule or to-do list in my head. Often my mentality is, "If I want it done right, I have to do it myself."

While I learned some great applications from this workshop about how to let go, one thought I had is that when it comes to your health, controlling is exactly what you want to be. Whether a person has an internal or external locus of control determines many outcomes of their health. For example, those with an external locus believe that anything that happens to their health was going to happen anyway. They are often resistant to change because, "I just wasn't made to enjoy exercise," "It's genetic," "I got out of work late, so I couldn't exercise," or "Running hurts." All of which are just excuses that you can fight to overcome. On the flip side, those with an internal locus of control take full responsibility for their health outcomes. If they are diagnosed with high cholesterol or hypertension, their first thought is "What can I do to lower it?" If they gain weight, they know they can alter things in their diet/exercise or just plain work harder, and they will see results. Discipline is commonly found in these people, while lack of self-control is what leads the other group to slowly fall into sedentary, obese, high-risk lifestyles.

See these studies for further evidence:
http://www.workhealth.org/risk/rfblocus.html
http://www.units.muohio.edu/psybersite/control/health.shtml

Where on this continuum would you fall in regards to your health?

3 Kinds of Runs

After the past three years of training for one long distance race after another, I've pinpointed three distinct types of long runs.

1. The GREAT runs. These are the runs where you feel good the entire time, physically and mentally. It's the run where the endorphins are rushing like crazy. Often you may end up pushing your speed because you feel so good you want to run faster--and CAN. These aren't necessarily always the PR's, but often your finish times are a pleasant surprise. You notice the colors of the leaves and nature around you or how much you love the song that's on your iPod. To sum it up, you're invincible.

2. The good, mediocre or otherwise non-eventful runs. These are the runs that you don't have much to say about--not that they were bad; they just weren't great. There may have been slight muscle cramps, joint issues, side-stitches, etc. Or you may have felt fine physically, but didn't enjoy the run and you treated it like another chore on your to-do list. Sometimes you may have to slow down a notch. If you are looking for a time goal, chances are you'll still be able to push the speed on these runs, but it will require more effort and it will feel hard.

3. The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad runs. There could be many reasons a run could fall into this category: dehydration, hitting a wall, muscle/joint complications, weather elements--anything that forces you to slow down drastically and quesion whether or not you can even finish. You are tempted to turn around and go home early, or call for a ride, or lie down on the road in the fetal position. You start making deals with yourself...one more mile and I'll stop and catch my breath, stretch out my hamstring, etc. More often than not, us runners will keep going and finish out the mileage, rough as it is, but we'll have to accept the cold hard truth that we won't be able to keep up our intended pace. Once we get past the disappointment of not hitting a time goal, it becomes sheer survival. You get slower as you go, and the look on your face says it all. After these runs, you don't feel high on life, but rather sick or in pain. You question why you do this to yourself. Why you paid for that race you're training for.

The reason I was able to so vividly desribe Run #3 is because that's exactly what my 11-mile run this past Sunday was. The worst run I can remember in ages. I knew about 3 miles in, it wasn't going to be fun. I tried bargaining with myself: my turn-around point at 5.5 miles was becoming 5 miles, or 4.5 miles in my head. I reasoned that 10 miles instead of 11 is hardly a difference...but once you're at 5 miles, what's another 1/2 mile before you turn around? I ended up doing the full distance, but slowwwwwly. I was running around my FULL marathon pace and stopping every mile for breathers. At many times I thought about Marshall Ulrich and how all he did was put one foot in front of the other to run across America. If he could do that, I could finish this. So I did. And then I was dizzy and nauseous for the rest of the evening.

It was my own fault for thinking that I could run on a Sunday evening after a whole weekend of bad food. Half the food I ate the Saturday before was pure junk: cookies, ice cream and the beer that goes along with March Madness. The other half of what I ate wasn't necessarily unhealthy, but not what you want to be eating prior to a long run: grilled steak, a huge strawberry spinach salad, grilled asparagus and red onions. The morning before the run, I had buckwheat banana walnut pancakes (Monon Food Company--yumm!) thinking that would be good fuel for the upcoming run. It was, but the 4 cups of coffee I had with it depleted all water from my body. I was sweating out pure salt during my run despite the Gatorade I had with me.

It was a good lesson that no matter how many longs runs I've done, I can't expect good results after a weekend like that. You can't always prepare for runs, and in fact, some of my best ones were when I wasn't feeling up to the task and had no expectations. This weekend though, you better believe I'm going to make every effort to run first thing on Saturday morning before the damage is done! (Or hopefully not done at all!)

Running on Empty

Recently, I read the book "Running on Empty," the auto-biography of Marshall Ulrich. Admittedly, I had never heard of him, but the book's title caught my attention at the library: "Running on Empty: An Ultramarathoner's Story of Love, Loss and a Record-Setting Run Across America." Wow. This guy not only does ultramarathons (100+ miles, 24 hour runs, etc.) on a regular basis, but he has done this on Pike's Peak and in Death Valley; he does adventure races and eco-challenges all around the world; and he has climbed all the famous mountains (Kilimanjaro, Everest, Whitney). However, he is most well-known for his 2008 transcontinental run from San Francisco to New York City...and he set a record at doing it...at the age of 57. Think training for a marathon is tough? Try training for 40-60 miles a day, for 57 days straight. Where do you even begin?

Like most runners, he runs for more than just the physical challenge and health benefits. He runs for the personal satisfaction of completing one crazy goal after another and to cope with the problems that life brings along. Life doesn't discriminate--it brings challenges, even devastations, to anyone. The only reason he began running is because his wife was diagnosed with a serious form of cancer and ultimately died at the tender age of 30. During all her treatments, he developed high blood pressure, so he ran as a way to alleviate stress and improve his health. After her death, he ran to escape, then, after he realized how naturally good he was at the sport, continued running for the rest of his life.

What was most interesting to me is that Ulrich said that anything above the traditional marathon distance is where things change. That's where the body starts to require much more fuel and in different forms (fat vs. sugar). That's where the challenge becomes purely mental, not physical. That was music to my ears, because do I have a desire to run further than a marathon? Absolutely not. If there was some greater distance that was common for runners to achieve, would I consider it? Yes. But, Ulrich found great significance in 26.2 miles as a natural stopping point. A phenomenal achievement.

The other sentence that really hit home with me was this: "It's a compelling dichotomy: Running takes discipline and focus. What makes it tolerable, though, is letting the mind drift, checking out of 'real life,' where the legs keep moving as the world keeps turning, but the mind focuses elsewhere and notices, for example, the beauty of a bristlecone pine, bent and twisted by the wind." Runners: how true is that? We follow strict training regimens, sacrifice more appealing plans and record all the stats of our runs with diligence. But at the end of the day, it's losing yourself in the run. It's that runner's high, that, as cheesy as it sounds, does exist. It's being outside, in the middle of nature, just running. Wondering where did those last 20 minutes go? Such a beautiful, pure thing.

Who is your running hero?

Looking for a good spinning workout?

One website I frequently use for coming up with ideas for my spinning classes is musicforcycling.com. (Formerly spinfreak.com). I've used tons of their routines and they are generally killer workouts. I decided I would finally share one of my own creations! I did this workout for my Monday "1-Hour Cycle Zone" class back in February.

Note: I used a power music mix made for settings like this, so the tempo of each song was the same. Great for steady hill climbs so you can encourage members not to slip slower than the beat of the song, even as resistance gets higher.

10 mins: Warm-up.
10 mins: Steady hill climb on tempo all in the saddle. Resistance anywhere from 6-8.5, gradually getting steeper as the hill neared the end.
3 mins: Active Recovery. Don't be fooled...ARs aren't exactly a walk in the park. Rather than a full recovery, I gave the participants the first minute all to themselves, i.e. a true recovery, water break, etc. But then the rest of the AR was mine. I made them raise the resistance up to a 7 (moderate incline) then ride at a pace above tempo/beat of the song. They held that until the next hill started, so the good news was that as they once the hill began, they got to decrease both speed and resistance.
12 mins: Hill climb on tempo alternating between seated and standing. Resistance starting at 6, ending at 8.5.
5 mins: AR. First two minutes were true recovery, last 3 were AR.
15 mins: Hill climb on tempo, seated and standing. Since this hill was quite long, I made them do extreme inclines for 1-3 mins (think trudging through mud) followed by another 1-2 mins of a plateau.
5 mins: Cool-down.

Comments after class:
"Did you fail the part of your course work where they talk about recoveries??"
"That was miserable."
"Next time I know when I hear steady tempo (what they call techno) music, I should run away."
"I'm starting to gauge the intensity of my workouts based on how large the puddle of sweat around my bike is."
But, best of all:
"Great workout!"
"Thanks, see you tomorrow!"

It's a sick and twisted profession that I'm in.

Introducing 800s

I just finished Week 4 of Galloway's "Half-Marathon for Time Goal" program--which included my first round of 800-meter runs. From here on out, every other Saturday includes an ever-increasing number of 800m runs, while the other Saturdays are focused on building distance. It's hard to say which one I like better. I do like the change of pace (literally) of incorporating short bursts of half-mile runs, and it's nice that the entire workout is over faster than a long run...but towards the end of each 800m I'm begging for mercy. (PS when you do speed work on the Monon, you feel ridiculous, because everyone else is doing steady-state cardio. I'm sure they were all wondering why I would come zooming up behind them only to stop and pant.)

Galloway has a formula to help you calculate what your 800m time should be: take your intended mile time for the race, cut it in half, then subtract 15 seconds. An 8:30 pace would be a stretch goal for me, so I tried to keep all my 800s at 4:00. I was successful until the last one, which was closer to 4:10. This isn't supposed to be an all-out sprint, but definitely something fast enough to challenge your body and make you need a rest interval.

Here's how the break-down works (always starting with a light 10-min warm-up):

-Run 400m (.25 miles)
-Walk for 10-30 seconds
-Run the 2nd 400m
-Walk for 2:30-3:00.
-Repeat for as many rounds as what the training program calls for on that date.

Since this was the first time I had done this workout, I stayed on the conservative side and used the full 30 second and 3:00 walk breaks. (So, when I said that my 800m times were 4:00, that includes the :30 of walking.)

This week called for 4 x 800. If you do the math by looking above, that was only a 25-minute workout. I would venture to say that I was almost as exhausted as my hour runs. The next day I was sore in way different spots than normal...my hip flexors (which is always the case when I work on speed) and my ABS! Thus proving that running is one of the best total body workouts ever.

The program builds up to 12 x 800 on Week 12. Woof!!