428: Resilience

In this week’s episode, we’re continuing our Core Values series by diving into one of the most powerful values for runners and for life: resilience.

Resilience isn’t just about pushing through—it’s about bouncing back, learning, and growing stronger with every setback. We’ll share stories from our own running and coaching journeys, along with practical strategies you can use to build your own resilience on the run and beyond.

From tough races and challenging workouts to the curveballs life throws your way, resilience is what helps you keep moving forward. We’ll talk about how recovery, gratitude, and the support of a strong community all play a role in helping you rise, reset, and run with strength.

If you’ve ever faced a setback (and let’s be honest—we all have), this episode will remind you that resilience is not about perfection. It’s about showing up, growing, and finding the strength to keep going.

00:11 Defining Resilience in Running

01:10 Race Recap and Goal Setting

03:54 Integrity and Accountability

14:51 Resilience in Training

19:34 Resilience in Races and Competitions

21:31 Embracing Discomfort in Shorter Races

23:35 Mental Toughness and Adaptability in Racing

25:23 The Importance of Flexibility in Training Plans

27:54 Building Resilience Through Adapting Workouts

32:10 Reflecting on Wins and Learning Opportunities

40:24 The Role of Recovery in Building Resilience

41:16 Gratitude and Community Support in Resilience

44:35 The Essence of Resilience

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

Welcome back to the Real Life Runners podcast. Today we're continuing our core value series inspired by the values that we set with our cross country team and how they apply to all of us as runners in real life. So far we've talked about integrity, respect, and commitment, and today we're moving on to core value number four, which is resilience. Resilience is all about how we respond when things don't go as planned, because let's be real. Running in life will. Always bring challenges. So whether it's a tough workout, a bad race, an injury setback, resilience is what allows us to bounce back, keep showing up, and actually get stronger through the struggle. And that's what we're diving into today. So stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome back to the show. We're on two core value number four. Number four, it's resilience. Resilience. I love that word. It's like a fun word to say. And also, I just love this value and I love that we put this value into our cross country team this year as well.

Speaker 2: 1:18

Yes. I, there's a reason we started with integrity. Like that one's super important. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:23

And we totally called them out on that today too, because we are, we every,

Speaker 2: 1:26

we have some more calling out to do on Wednesday.

Speaker: 1:28

Oh yeah, we do. Oh, we do for sure. because every, practice that we have after a race, we do a race recap. And I ask the kids two questions. Number one, what's something positive that happened? What's a win from your race? What went well? And then number two, what? Could, didn't go as well as you had hoped that you can learn for next time. what did you learn, from something that maybe didn't go your way? So I don't wanna call it necessarily a positive and a negative, but it's like, what did you what? Gimme a win and then gimme a learning opportunity here. And. Today the kids were talking about,'cause they, a lot of them know the quote unquote right. Things to say. Because they've heard us talk enough.

Speaker 2: 2:10

It's a smart group of kids. Yeah. You got some juniors and seniors on there. They've gone through this multiple times. They know an answer that they could give that you'll generally just move on to the next person.

Speaker: 2:19

And also the ones that will like, make me very happy as well. Like some of them are very keen on those answers as well, but. today we were asking, oh. So that's what we do for our race recap, and then for the following race, like we do, a journal. And today it happened to be both because we had a race on Saturday practice today, and then we have a race tomorrow as well. And The day before a race, I'll always have them set two goals. I have them set, their first goal can be something objective, like a number, like a time on the clock or a pace or a, a place that they wanna finish in the race. And then number two is something that I tell them they need to have control over. So it's what's something. That you actually have control over. So a lot of them, like Kevin said, know that some of the right answers are hydration or nutrition are going to bed on time. And so they will say these things. And so for example, one of'em, when they said. Eat more or push harder or something like that. I always try to challenge them because that's a very broad answer, what does that mean? What specifically are you going to do in order to make that happen?

Speaker 2: 3:24

Because I listened to half of the kids before the race. On Friday, tell you on Thursday that they were going to eat more between the end of school and their race. And then I listened to a huge amount of kids tell me that their lesson that they learned last Friday is they need to eat more before their race. What? That can't be the thing you're working on. And the lesson learned,

Speaker: 3:46

it can, because if they tried eating more, then maybe they didn't eat. Enough. So they could still work on eating more than they already ate? Yes.

Speaker 2: 3:54

Or changing the thing that they were eating more. Yes. But a lot of them. Planned to eat more and then simply did not

Speaker: 4:01

or said that they were going to because they knew that was the right answer and then did not and then did not.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Right?

Speaker: 4:06

And so we had to call them out and remind them of core value number one, which is integrity, and that means doing the things you say you're going to do. Because if you say that. You're gonna do this thing and then you don't end up doing it, then you're not in integrity and you're not learning anything through the process either, which means you're not going to make as much progress as a runner as you possibly could have if you actually did the things you said you were going to do,

Speaker 2: 4:30

right? Because it's fine if you set these goals and you don't achieve them because then it gives you a lesson. But if you set this goal, oh, this is the part that I'm gonna control, I'm gonna try this, every race can essentially be an experiment. But if you're not actually. Changing anything from one race to the next. Then you're not sure what's working and what's not. Yeah. You're like, I don't know. I just tried a little bit harder and I didn't go quite as fast or I tried a little bit harder, but, and I went faster. You're like, okay, but you need to try some actual concrete things and see what's helping you improve so you can then gain a lesson from it.

Speaker: 5:06

Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that I was challenged them on. As well with a lot of them were saying, walk less. And I say, what does that mean? what does it mean if you walk less? do you know exactly how many times you walked? Do you know exactly for how long you walked during the race? do you know at what point in the race you walked? Because if you don't know those details, it's gonna be very difficult for you to measure whether or not you walked less. And so I said, make it more specific. Tell yourself. That you're gonna try not to walk, and instead of walking, you're just maybe gonna need to slow down a little bit. If you feel like you want to walk, you're just going to slow it down to an easier jog. And then if that doesn't work, if you decide that you really do wanna walk, decide ahead of time how long you're going to walk and count it. In your head say, I'm only gonna walk for 10 seconds or 20 seconds or 30 seconds. And then once you get to that number, literally count to 30 and then start running again. keep that word to yourself. Stay and integrity with that goal that you have set for yourself is a. If I need to walk, I'm only gonna do 20 seconds at a time and then I'm gonna keep going.

Speaker 2: 6:10

Yes. Or you could put a watch on your wrist and just look at the clock and see when 20 seconds have passed. Yeah. Which is what our other assistant coach suggested when she pointed out again that we've asked them to get watches since day one.

Speaker: 6:21

It's so wild to me. kids don't like wearing watches nowadays. They like, genuinely don't. Unless it's an Apple watch. I

Speaker 2: 6:26

know, but their runners put a watch on your wrist. But

Speaker: 6:29

even the Apple watches, they don't even like that much. They just, because they always have their phone in their hand.

Speaker 2: 6:33

Yes, but they're runners. Put a watch on your wrist.

Speaker: 6:35

I hear ya. I hear ya. So anyway, we digress. But the point, do you, no, not really. But the, because the point of it all is that these are core values that we can't just talk about. We have to actually live them and we actually have to put them into practice. And I really hope that through this podcast series, you all are starting to what's the word? Not dwell or focus. Meditate and what's the word I'm looking for? Think about how these things apply to you. There's a word I'm looking for there though, but basically think about how these things apply to you, and I would really love it if you were to share it with me on social media or if you are a member of our program. jump, put a message in the Facebook group and let us know how these things apply to you or what it made you think about. Like where are you winning, where are you really strong and where are maybe some areas that you can improve a little bit? Because that's how we're gonna continue to grow as runners and as people.

Speaker 2: 7:29

And it's tough to take on all of them. I think taking on all five values is a lot, and it's a lot to ask the high school kids if we don't remind them on a regular basis. But we've gone through three. We had integrity and respect and commitment, and today we're talking about resilience. Pick one, dive into that one and decide which one of these feels like it really aligns with something that you would. You would strive for. You would be proud to say that you display that. If someone watched you, they would say, oh, that is a person of integrity, that is a person of great respect for others and themselves and all the things. Which one are you like? that's a quality I would like people to describe me as, and then really lean into that. I think that would be helpful.

Speaker: 8:08

Yeah, I agree and I think that all of these values are definitely important to me and to us, I believe, and resilience is one of my favorite ones because resilience. Really matters because life and running are always going to bring us challenges and resilience is what? Allows us to adapt and recover and keep moving forward. It ge it genuinely is the goal of training. We want to challenge ourselves, stress the body, and then the body builds back stronger than it was before. So resilience is actually bouncing back. There's another. concept and term called anti-fragility, or being anti-fragile, that means you build back stronger than you were before. And these, those two terms are very much connected. for the sake of today's episode, we're gonna use the word resilience, but we mean both. when we're talking about getting stronger and coming back from challenges, we're both talking about anti fragility and resilience. So the key with resilience is that. You aren't avoiding difficulty because we need to do hard things. This is what helps us grow and adapt. If you never went out for a run, you're not gonna become a better runner. You're not going to become stronger, you're not going to improve your endurance. You have to do those challenging hard things and then give your body the environment to help it bounce back. So it's the ability to bend without breaking. Because for runners, setbacks are I don't wanna say inevitable, I don't really love that idea, but. It seems like it's a very common experience for most, if not all runners, that there's going to be some sort of setback at some point. If you run long enough

Speaker 2: 9:44

a setback, like you list a variety of setbacks, injuries, bad runs, missed goals, I think it's gonna be awfully difficult to have a long running journey of life and not have a bad run. No. Somewhere along the way.

Speaker: 9:57

I agree. And I think that's it, right? It's just the degree of whatever. Setback you're looking at here, but I think that running inherently comes with setbacks because progress is not linear.

Speaker 2: 10:08

I think that's part of the greatness that is running is it has built in setbacks. Like no matter how you do it, no matter how you plan for it, there are going to be setbacks in it. You're like, oh, every, I did everything exactly perfect for this run. And it's just like an easy, comfortable run. And at mile two, just ridiculous side stitch. Yeah. For no good reason. There's going to be challenges, there's going to be setbacks. Sometimes you might be able to see them coming, but Sometimes they seem to come outta absolutely nowhere and then you have to figure out, now what do I do?

Speaker: 10:37

Totally. I remember you mentioned side stitches. I remember I did a solo half marathon when we did our, run your Life challenge at the end of 2020. Yeah. And I ran a solo half marathon and. I had been running for years at this point and somehow developed a side stitch somewhere around the half of that race, and I hadn't had side stitches in years, but for whatever reason, one that day came along and jumped right under my ribs. I.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Feel like the girls and I picked you up at the end of that race. You did?

Speaker: 11:08

Yeah. It was cute. You guys were at the end waiting for me. Yeah. You

Speaker 2: 11:11

were not happy and smiling at the end of that. No. You were like, I had a side stitch for so much of that and it was like terrible headwind.'cause I think you did an out and back on that. I did an

Speaker: 11:19

out and back. Yes. And there was a terrible headwind on the way back. Pretty much the whole way down. A one A like go coming back south on A one A. Oh, I remembering

Speaker 2: 11:27

all these details. I

Speaker: 11:28

love that. And it's so good because it's

Speaker 2: 11:29

after 2017. That's how I remember them

Speaker: 11:32

actually. It was. I think it was January 3rd that I did it, and I did it right after the new year'cause it wasn't. Because you did it December 31st. Yep. On you did 31 on the 31st. And I think I did mine actually January 2nd or third of 2021.

Speaker 2: 11:48

cause we had to recover from our most likely hardcore partying on January 1st.

Speaker: 11:51

Hardcore partying. That sounds just like us. Yes, we need resilience to bounce back from the hardcore partying that we do that's on New Year's Eve. And then also, from the ups and downs with training, because there's always going to be ups and downs. And I really hope you hear that because I think that there's a lot of runners out there that think that they're doing something wrong when they experience the downs. They're like, I don't understand. Why is this feeling so bad today? I must be doing something wrong. And the answer. Could be like, there could be something that maybe you need to work on, but also it could just be part of your training. That could just be what's happening that day. It

Speaker 2: 12:28

could just be a bad run. And this happens more often for newer runners, like the earlier you are in running or the earlier you, if you're taking a large break. There's going to be more likely that you have bad runs, the more consistent you have day after day and month upon month and year upon year. The fewer and far between the, the really bad runs are every once in a while you have a run where you're just like, eh, that didn't feel great. Like I, I got it done. I did it. You asked me that. I had one, I don't know, a week or two ago, and you're like, how was your run? I'm like, I don't know. it's done. and that was it. It wasn't like it was a bad run, but it wasn't great. It was just like I had, I went out, I got in some miles, I'm gonna go take a shower now. that was a bad day for me. It's been a long time in a training run, especially an easier training run that I've just gone out and felt cruddy. So that, I think. Part of this is being able to be resilient through a lot of the early setbacks, which I think is one of the tricky parts of running, is you have to get through the difficult first. The first couple of weeks are rough. By the time you're through and you've got the consistency of a month, then the rough days come fewer and farther between. And if you can build up a year, then the bad days are really spaced out. They just, they naturally are.

Speaker: 13:41

Yeah. But like you said, getting through some of those early days of roughness are, is definitely challenging and I'm guessing. If you are listening to a running podcast, you're probably through that phase, and you could probably remember back on that time where it was tough. But I think that we all go through these types of phases and those of us that are over the age of 40 and all of a sudden things in our bodies start feeling different. I think that. that's where a lot of people get very frustrated and very confused.'cause they're like, wait a second. I haven't changed anything. I'm still doing the same things and all of a sudden my body's not responding the way that it used to. So these things do pop up even after years of training because of all the things that are going on in the changes in the hormones that are happening in our bodies during this phase of our life too.

Speaker 2: 14:26

Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. Suddenly everything was going smoothly and my body's not working like my body anymore. That is. That is a weird one. That also happens if you, no, you just give a hernia and you try and just keep running through it. Also, your body's not acting the way it's supposed to do. But anyway, let's move on to our first big point here, which is resilience through training. Training is never. Linear training has constant plateaus. There's fatigue that shows up, you get missed workouts, and one of the biggest parts of consistency here is being consistent through all the ups and downs of your training because we've pointed out some of the low points, but there are some big highs. And always looking at just the highs and being like, oh, that was a great day, and trying to just stack great day after. Great day is. Also not going to be the best resilience. Kinda says I can take the ups and I can take the downs and I see that there's a general upward trend, but sometimes training just flattens out and you've gotta be resilient when from one day to the next, you're like, it doesn't feel like I'm improving. I've been putting in the work for the last 2, 3, 6, 8 weeks and it just doesn't feel like I'm getting anywhere. That can be remarkably demoralizing to run. And it takes some resilience to be able to say, I'm still gonna get out there and I'm still gonna do it, because eventually there will be a breakthrough.

Speaker: 15:45

Yeah, and the tough part I think, with running is that we don't know when that's going to be and there's no guarantee. And it happens differently for everybody. And it happens differently for each individual in different training cycles because of what's going on in your body, because of what. How long you've been running because of the stress and the other things that are going on in your life. There's so many factors at play with how your body responds to training and. It's, it can be difficult to stay resilient and continue to show up and bounce back even through some of those tougher days or those tougher cycles or those tougher months or even up to a year for some people, like there are times that running just, you're not seeing the payoff yet, but then when the payoff does come, and it always will come at some point at, and I say that with a caveat, right? There's a, there's an asterisk on that statement because I think that. If you continue to do the same exact things and hope for a different results, that is the definition. Inanity, yes, that is the definition of insanity and not resilience. So if you are going for a period of time and you're doing the same things and you're not getting results and you continue to do those same things, like there is something to be said for. Staying the course for a certain amount of time because maybe your body just hasn't received the payoff yet. And then there's an also something to be said for, if it's been a few months and it's not working, you need to change what you're doing because changing this. Stimulus will help your body to adapt in a different way. And sometimes just that little change, it doesn't mean that you have to add more. It doesn't mean you have to push harder. it just means, okay, maybe we need to make a little bit of a change here and see how your body responds.

Speaker 2: 17:28

A small change, some new novel stimulus. But most of your training can probably essentially stay what it is. I think that's where the resilience comes from, is staying the course. With small adjustments along the way, being able to say, I'm gonna continue to stick with this plan. It doesn't seem like it's working. Why don't I adjust this? Why don't I remove this, add this tweak, this small adjustments, and then the resilience to. See how that guy plays out. The commitment to how is this going to go? Because sometimes you're gonna have a bad workout, sometimes you try something new and it, the first time you try the new thing, that workout goes really poor. That's not necessarily a sign that you had that everything's awful, that your training is now completely wrong. A poor workout is very often a sign that's an area of your training that you've been neglecting. Often when I go and I try and start doing a workout at something like what your favorite is, like three K pace. You love that kind of speed, not my favorite. So sometimes I try and throw one of those in and it just doesn't go well, and I'm like, oh, that's right.'cause I haven't done a workout of this pace for the last three months. And so that first one's not gonna go well, and you have to be objective about this. oh, it probably would've gone fine. I did it so early in the morning that my legs just weren't warmed up yet. It probably would've gone fine, but it was hot. Oh, it probably would've gone fine, but I was dehydrated. No, it probably didn't go fine because you actually need to focus on that area of training, and I think a lot of people, I. They, they're like, oh, no, I'm resilient. I keep going with my training. But they're avoiding certain things because those things are more challenging. And I think the parts that are more challenging might be areas to dive into. That might be the part where you get the breakthrough and you look at your training, you're like, oh, that is commitment and resilience to the plan. Except for that part. Except for that little thing over there. And if you add that thing, it might be enough to tip the scale.

Speaker: 19:21

Yeah, I agree. And then that con also connects to our next point, which is resilience in races or competitions. And we've all experienced those races where you're in the middle of a race. And we even talked to our cross country team about this last week because we, had a discussion with them about pacing and how to pace a 5K. And there's always going to be. I shouldn't say always, but very often with most people, there's going to be a dip in the second mile of a 5K. there's, it's a three mile race, 3.1 miles, and that second mile is oftentimes the slowest. And even ke Kevin pointed out to our team, world records have been set with this type of pacing strategy. The first mile is faster, that second mile slows, and then the third mile is faster again. And that middle. Section of the race, not only is your body starting to get tired, but mentally a lot of times'cause in a 5K especially, and this can apply to really any distance of a race around the midpoint of the race is where mentally you start to check out a bit, right? it's like I've been pushing for a while and I still have. Another half of the race to go. there's still a lot of the race left for me to continue pushing at this pace. And it can be hard to do that. And that's really where resilience comes in of okay, I'm going to keep pushing myself here. I'm gonna bounce back from this little lull or this mental. Down that I'm having right now, and I'm gonna push myself harder on that third mile.

Speaker 2: 20:49

it's a matter of maintaining that effort, of continuing to push when everything in your body is screaming, this is a bad idea. Resilience. And I think that racing is a great way to increase your resilience because when you go out and push hard, especially in something that's shorter, Go find a mile race. I feel like they happen more popularly over the summer that I feel like some, there's some local tracks that host small races and bring all comers. I know they did when I was a kid, I could drive 10 minutes from my house and do all comers meets every week of the summer. but shorter races where you have the opportunity to put yourself. Position of great discomfort relatively quickly, and then keep racing is a chance to see how resilient you can be where your brain says you are doing something terrible to your body and you have to slow down now because that alarm comes on really quick. In a race where you go very fast, I think in a race like a half marathon, unless you decide. I'm gonna open up my half marathon the same way I open up my 5K. that voice in your head that says This is a terrible thing, you're killing yourself, takes a while to show up in a 5K. That voice can show up pretty quick, and the more that you can hear that alarm, this is a terrible idea. You have to slow down and respond. No, this is just uncomfortable, but I'm going to be okay. The more that you can hear the alarm and turn it down, hit the snooze button on the alarm, the more resilient you can be.

Speaker: 22:16

Yeah, because running really gives us the chance to navigate discomfort because discomfort is always going to show up in life, and so it's giving us a safe way. You know the way that you look at it, it is safe like running. Obviously there's an inherent risk of injury that happens with running, but running is a safe way to challenge yourself and to play with discomfort and figure out your relationship with discomfort. How much discomfort can you sustain before. You break or before you slow down, and I'm not talking about actual pain from a problem here. Discomfort and pain are two different things in this discussion, but it's really giving you a window into. Some of those mental, like your mental strength as well, like the mental toughness or the mental adaptations that you need to deal with the discomfort and continue to push yourself, continue to give the effort that you want to give and show up in the way that you want to.

Speaker 2: 23:15

Yeah. And that mental toughness is tricky because sometimes you have to adapt your strategy during the middle of a race. sometimes, you've, we talk about, goals and a, b and C goals and stuff like that, and sometimes partway through a race, the a goal is out the window. And what are you gonna do now? Because you had a racing strategy, you had a plan for your, a goal, but something came up, you took it out too slow. You had to have a bathroom break, something came up and now you're on a different strategy. Or you had a plan for exactly how you were gonna warm up and how you were gonna fuel during everything and. Something happened with parking before the race, and you got to the race late and your warmup plan went out the window because it couldn't work exactly the same way it always does. This happens with our Crest Country team. Every year at the end of the season, there's how they warm up for every single meet. You go do your warmup. We come back, we're gonna put on our spikes, then we get to the line. We've got this much time at the line, there's a perfect plan on how this all works, and suddenly we get to the state meet and the schedule is different. And the where our tent is versus where the starting line is way farther than it is in any other meet, and they have to be able to adjust. So you need to have a plan of what you're going to do in the race, what you're going to do before the race, but that. Plan can't be everything, and I feel like that's exactly what resiliency is. If the plan has to go exactly according to what it says first, I do step A, then B, then C, and then my race happens perfectly. If you can't do step B, the race is still going to happen and you have to be able to be adjustable. You have to have that resiliency to say, alright, the workout wasn't exactly what I've always done, but it's still time to show up and race.

Speaker: 25:02

Yeah, absolutely. And that really shows us, and I think that's one of the things that is good about racing. Like I am not a avid, an avid racer by any means. but I do think and appreciate the times that I do race that. Ability and that opportunity to challenge myself and to see where I am both physically and mentally. And I think that what you said there is very important because things don't often go exactly the way that we plan them. And it is very important for us to be able to adapt and just keep going and not get completely derailed. I know that we've had some of our people in the real Life runners team that. they planned to be to the race an hour ahead of time so they could get their warmups, but there was traffic, and then they took a round, a wrong turn, and then there was no parking. And so they had to drive around for 20 minutes trying to find parking, and they literally got to the race or to the starting line as the gun was shooting off, and there was just no chance for them to like even go to the bathroom. So there. There's so many different stories, right? And if you've been racing for any length of time, you've probably had a situation where it didn't go to plan. And that's really where resilience comes into play. So the more resilient you are, the better you're gonna be able to adapt to those different types of situations. Yeah, it's, I think

Speaker 2: 26:20

one of my favorite parts about racing is having that ability to adapt to whatever it is that's showing up at you. Because on race day you can. Try your best to control as much as you can, but there are going to be a whole lot of circumstances that are beyond your control. You know where you talk about we have a runner set, two different goals of a goal. That might be like a time or a place or something like that's not entirely under their control, especially if they set a play goal'cause they're not in control. Of who else is in the race and how fast those people are running, which is why it's always nice to have another goal that you feel more in control over. But sometimes that thing that you feel in control of also doesn't quite go according to plan. I've run a few ultras and we've got a checklist of all the supplies we need, and there have been a water bottle mishap for the last two races. So like

Speaker: 27:11

seriously, how does that happen?

Speaker 2: 27:12

Like you'd think that we'd have this figured out and all dialed in, but.

Speaker: 27:17

We did find the cap though, for this, the last one we did find the cap, but it was missing.

Speaker 2: 27:21

But we still, we had a plan. Yeah. And it wasn't perfect, but it was going to work. Yeah. And you have to be able to adjust and just keep moving forward.

Speaker: 27:29

Yeah. And I think that's really, when we take that and bring it into the rest of life and the rest of our training, this is where, you have. The best of intentions. You have your plan set out for the week. I'm gonna run on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and then who knows what happens on Tuesday, right? Like maybe you were planning to run after work and you got a phone call from your kid's school and you had to go pick up your kid because they were sick. And then all of a sudden that window that you had set aside says, is now missing or is now gone. And people that are so rigid and Tied to their plan, have a difficult time adjusting and adapting because. Resilience makes us more flexible. We have to be more flexible, be, and we have to learn how to adapt our training instead of just quitting or instead of just writing that off or feeling like we have to fit that in somewhere later in the week. there's. There's some wiggle room here. There's, it's not saying, oh, we should just always skip our workouts. Clearly that's not going to get you very far. But we also need to be able to say, okay, you know what? Life decided to life today, and I'm not gonna get this in and I'm also not going to beat myself up about it. Or maybe you had an hour set aside. For a workout and something happened and now all of a sudden you only have 30 minutes. There's a lot of people that would say, if I can't get in the full workout, I'm just not gonna do it. It's not even worthwhile and hear me when I say this because I know that I've had to repeat this. We've had to repeat this to our clients many times that. Adapting the workout and trying to get something in is oftentimes better than nothing. Not always, but most of the time it's going to be better for you. To try to adapt this and get something in 20 minutes is often better than zero. Unless your body really needs a rest and recovery day than by all means, listen to your body, but maybe you can challenge yourself, and even if it's not the full. Session, the full workout, you can still get something in that you are going to benefit from or at least help you maintain where you are.

Speaker 2: 29:30

Yeah, sometimes it's not the benefit, but it is certainly the maintenance. And that was me this morning. I overslept, I hit my alarm and looked at my watch and I'm like, I have already snoozed this twice. that's a long time. Yeah, that was a long time. And I was like, I could just. Stay in bed and set my second alarm and get up when I'm supposed to get up, but I don't really see a window of when I'm gonna be able to run later in the day. So my option is run what I can get in now or put a zero on the board. And so I think that there's a lot of people. We, me, you mentioned this earlier, the idea of resilience and anti fragility being similar. Yeah. So I'm gonna use the word fragile that they say, this is my training plan. I hit this, and if I can't hit this, then I'm doing nothing like that. That's the option. And I feel like that's just a very fragile way to have a training plan of this is my workout and I'm hitting it on Monday or zero, and then I move to my Tuesday. I do exactly what it says on Tuesday or zero. Whereas resilience says I can do something. And that something comes in layers. There's variations. Maybe I do a shortened version of the workout. I, maybe it's not a workout, but it's an easy run. Maybe it's just a cross training. Maybe I go and walk, maybe I remove the schedule of my entire week. But resilience is like the opposite of this binary of follow, the exact plan or do nothing. Resilience is like you've got so many. Options in the middle ground. You just need to figure out what it is that you're gonna be able to take on and what you can accomplish.

Speaker: 30:57

Yeah, I agree. And then you also, as another caveat, you have to be careful.'cause if you're adjusting every single workout or you're missing things all the time, or not getting the training plan, that is not following your training plan. So if you don't get the results that you want, you have to also recognize, okay, I didn't actually follow the training plan here. I. Adjusted and adapted and did the best I could, but that's not necessarily going to give you the same results that you would have if you did follow the training plan.

Speaker 2: 31:25

No, I completely agree with that. I think resilience says this might not be exactly the training plan, but it's the best I can do during this training window,

Speaker: 31:35

which is great.

Speaker 2: 31:35

Yeah,

Speaker: 31:36

and that's really important for us to acknowledge that also. And I think that the other cool thing about resilience is when you overcome these obstacles, you are showing yourself how strong you are both on and off the road. And that helps you to build confidence because work has real challenge or work life has real challenges like work and deadlines and family drama and medical needs and aging parents and all sorts of things that can pop up. Running is one of those things that gives you proof that you can take on obstacles and still have a productive outcome. You can do hard things and that can make you stronger. You can still get through it. You can come out better on the other side. You don't have to run away from the challenge or sit down and or stay in bed. You can still get something in. You might stumble. It might not go perfectly, but you're gonna give your best effort anyway, and that's going to help you build confidence not only in running, but also in the rest of your life.

Speaker 2: 32:37

Yeah, and I think that's what the resilient runner says is this workout is going terrible, but I'm still going to get in something. So when you get that big challenge in life, you're like, I don't know exactly how to navigate this circumstance. I'm in. It feels remarkably uncomfortable, but you don't quit. You keep putting. Putting forth your best effort. You stumble along the way. It might not be perfect, but you just keep going. The same way that like you got 12 by a quarter on the schedule and you start stumbling on pace on rep three. You're like, I'm gonna continue to put this in. It's not gonna be great, but I'm going to continue doing this because I'm going to finish the workout. You see the obstacle, that it's not going great, but you continue to persevere.

Speaker: 33:23

Absolutely. So what are some ways that you can build resilience? number one, just show up. like you have to just keep showing up. You're not going to build resilience unless you're actually showing up and you're doing the hard things. The second thing that you need to do is instead of seeing things as a failure, see them as feedback or as a learning opportunity. And that's one that takes us back to what I was talking about the beginning of this episode. That we do with the cross country team is gimme a win or a po, something positive about your last race. And then also the second thing, tell me something that you learned that is going to help you the next time around because we. Are not perfect. And I try to tell our kids this also, especially the younger kids on our team, like the freshmen, the sophomores, like you guys don't have a lot of racing experience. There's still a ton for you to learn. And if you tell me that there's nothing for you to learn, that's a problem because there's so much for you to learn. So just. Pick one thing, and a lot of them aren't really sure, oh, I could've pushed myself harder. What does that mean? like that's, I always challenge them because again, they like to give an answer that they think is the right answer, but what does that actually mean? are you telling me? Because if you tell'em. If you're telling me that you could have pushed harder, that's telling me that you didn't actually push yourself very hard in this race. Is that what you're saying here? Like how could you have pushed harder? could you have actually pushed harder? Because a lot of you look like you were pushing yourself in this race, and maybe you didn't end up with a number that you wanted, but were you given the appropriate effort, or did you let, like I know that some of them. I did get more specific about their self-talk. I want to work on my negative self-talk, especially in the second mile. I was like, great, that's perfect. Or in the second half of the race. I think that's so fantastic because acknowledging your wins, and that goes back to the first question that I asked them is what is a win from this race? Those small wins help. View to build resilience over time, especially if there's an obstacle that you overcame in the middle of the race. Because some of those kids had something challenging happen in the middle of the race and they still came back and they still ran a pr. The kids that ran, how many kids did we have that ran prs like 10, eight to 10

Speaker 2: 35:35

last week? Nine.

Speaker: 35:36

Yeah, nine. There we go. Look at me like in the middle. I know. Eight to 10. That was pretty good. So there was nine runners on our team that. Ran a personal record, their personal best PRPB in the race last week, which is fantastic, and a lot of those were newer runners, which is fine. But if you're continuing to see those wins and you say, oh my gosh, like this thing was really hard and I got through it, you're building resilience in both running and just in your own sense of self and your confidence in yourself to overcome hard things and to overcome those obstacles. Become stronger in the process.

Speaker 2: 36:14

And I think that in order to be able to reframe this failure, in order to see these small wins, you actually have to take time for reflection. Some people love the journaling. You love the journaling

Speaker: 36:24

reflection. That was the word I was looking for earlier. Thank you. When I was trying, remember when I was thinking about meditation or. Yes. Thinking about what you want.

Speaker 2: 36:33

Re reflection. That was

Speaker: 36:34

the word. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 36:35

Yeah, that was not me. You actually wrote that part. reflection is the word you were searching for, but sometimes you can actually write it down in journaling for people who love the journaling experience, be open to the journal. Even

Speaker: 36:46

if you don't love the journaling experience, there's still so much to gain from it.

Speaker 2: 36:51

You can start, you can put words on a piece of paper. It does not have to be amazing

Speaker: 36:55

or it, or not paper. Like you could also open up the notes app on your phone and dictate into that if you want to,

Speaker 2: 37:01

right? But you have to have something that gives you a chance to reflect, like an actual pause in your day where you're going to be able to. Think about this thing, not just go out and do a hard thing and be like, that was hard and I'm done with it. But actually be able to reflect. You can't gain a lesson if you don't know what the lesson is. Like this is a classic of, when I learned how to teach and it's often reminded to teachers. Tell the class what you're going to teach them. Then teach them the thing and then tell them what you taught them. if you go in and you do a hard thing and you don't actually know what the lesson was at the end of it, it's very difficult to learn the lesson. If you're like, I don't know, I thought the lesson was just run really hard. Then the only lesson you've got is always push harder and always push harder is not the lesson to be gained in most circumstances. Every once in a while that might be the lesson, but in most cases, that's not it. There's a whole lot of other lessons that can be taken care of.

Speaker: 37:53

Yeah, and I think that this was impart important because like for example, our number one runner, this year on our team is a freshman, and she is, she has a natural, she has a lot of natural talent, which is fantastic. And she still has a lot to learn and there are so many ways that we can help her improve. As a runner, she's, it's very exciting. There's so much potential there. And in our second race of the season, we told her, Kevin told her not to go out and try to push as hard as she could. Like he gave her a specific strategy that he wanted her to. Do during the race because there's things that you need to learn in each race. So she went out and she did pretty well with the strategy that you gave her, right? Yes. And so she wasn't out there pushing herself the entire time. She was not trying to pr, she was not trying to win the race even though she did end up coming in second place, which was fantastic. But she could have been competing for first if she would've been actually pushing herself. But she listened to her coaches, which is fantastic in and of itself, and did not, and then came back. In the next race and. She ran today, what, a 20 or 32nd pr? It was almost 40 seconds. Not today, but last week. Yeah, it

Speaker 2: 39:01

was almost 40 seconds. She beat the girl that beat her in the last race that I was like, just, this is gonna be a hard training session, but it's not a race. So if that girl starts to pull ahead, I want you running nice and relaxed and let her go. There will be times, other times in the season where you need to race that girl. And when it came down to the race where both of them were pushing. The runner on our team was like, actually, look at me. I'm in front. that's how that thing played out. Yeah. Because the other girl ran a similar time. Yeah. And the girl on our team dropped 30 or 40 seconds. Yeah. that's what it is every race does not need to go to the, sometimes it's a chance to practice various techniques of racing.

Speaker: 39:38

Yeah. And that's going to help build resilience. Some other things that are very important for you to build resilience are. Is recovery, okay? You have to recover because it is going to be darn near impossible for you to bounce back day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. If you are not getting enough recovery, you are not gonna be able to keep pushing yourself hard. You are not going to be able to keep performing at the level that you want to perform if you are not getting enough sleep, if you're not getting enough rest and recovery and easy days in your week. And if you're not. Giving your body enough fuel like that is a huge thing that builds resilience, is making sure that you are recovering and giving your body the nutrition, the hydration, the sleep, the care, the recovery that it needs, because you cannot build resilience unless you have the. Appropriate amount of recovery.

Speaker 2: 40:30

All right. I really like the next one you have here. Practice gratitude for resilience, and we talk a lot about overcoming obstacles. Can you actually be grateful for the obstacle? Can you be grateful for the bad day, for the struggling workout for the messy days? Can you be grateful for pushing through even though it doesn't look great? That is a difficult gratitude. A lot of people, if you ask the kids on our team, what were you grateful about the race? I bet the kids who PRD would mention the pr. Yeah, I bet very few would mention, oh, I had a side stitch at mile two, but I overcame it and I didn't get a pr, but I, I finished the race still, no one's gonna be grateful for the side stitch at mile two. They might be grateful that they over, that they finished the race. But can you be grateful for the challenge that was presented to you? That's the difficult part. And if you can show grateful gratitude for the obstacle, because the obstacle helps you become a stronger, more resilient athlete and human, then you start getting these crazy breakthroughs because then you never see obstacles as negatives. Obstacles are chances to improve your current situation.

Speaker: 41:36

Yeah. It's super true and also very difficult. Especially I

Speaker 2: 41:42

know it's so easy to say though. Oh,

Speaker: 41:43

I know. But especially when you're in it, right? Like especially when you're in the midst of that obstacle, and I know that there. Is a time and a place for gratitude. And I try to be in gratitude as much as possible, but there are things that are just really hard and I can be thankful for parts of it. I can be thankful for, some of it sometimes, but sometimes it's really challenging to be grateful for all of it,

Speaker 2: 42:08

which gets you to a topic that you like, which is, can you go to neutral?

Speaker: 42:13

Neutral is very good and neutral is a very helpful thing, and I think that, the other. Thing that we wanna bring up here, which kind of gives you an insight into our fifth core value for next week, is, a way to build resilience is also leaning on your community and your support systems, because I think a lot of us are very hard on ourselves. A lot of the time, and we don't always give ourselves the credit that we deserve. We don't always see some of the things in our life as wins. We don't always see just how strong we are and just how resilient we are bouncing back for some of the things, because again, we have high standards or high expectations, or we're just. Hard on ourselves in a lot of different ways, and when you have teammates or training partners or spouses or friends or a coach that can show you and that can help you see just how strong and just how resilient you've been, we forget things very quickly, very easily. Sometimes we forget those really hard training blocks, and when you have someone remind you, Hey, do you realize like what you've been through in the past six months and now you're coming out on the other side of that? It's really helpful because I think that sometimes, especially during the hard times, we put our heads down and we move forward, right? Like a lot of us, sometimes we shut down. Sometimes we cry sometimes, but a lot of times we know we have to keep moving forward and so we put our head down and we just keep powering through. And it can be very helpful to have other people in your life remind you of just how strong and resilient you are.

Speaker 2: 43:46

that's. Really well put. All right. I think we wrap this thing up here to summarize, resiliency is the ability to keep showing up, not because it's easy, but because you have trained yourself to respond to the challenges. With strength, it's knowing that there's obstacles in front of you and that you can take on the obstacles, that you don't have to run away from the challenge. You don't have to run away from the difficulty that you accept that things might not be perfect, that you accept that failure might show up. But you keep getting back up. I saw this on Instagram. I forget whose adorable kid mentioned it, but they were like, they had trained this into their kid because it's adorable. He said, what do trail runners do fall down and then what do they do? Get back up? that's what runners do. It happens all the time. You have bad days and then you keep going. You get back up and you just keep going. That is resiliency.

Speaker: 44:38

Absolutely. And so I would love for you all to take a moment of reflection because that's the word that I perhaps

Speaker 2: 44:45

journal about

Speaker: 44:45

it remembered. and if you want message us, I would love to hear from you as well and acknowledge yourself for the resilience that you've had. Maybe over, maybe it's today, maybe it's over the past week. Maybe it's over the past couple of months. acknowledge yourself and let. Write it down or give yourself props or take yourself out for some frozen yogurt or ice cream to celebrate your resilience or just, acknowledge yourself. Maybe even tell somebody about it. Tell a good friend or your spouse or your. Training partner or your coach or us, how you've been resilient. And then also ask yourself in what areas do I maybe need to develop a little bit more resilience? In what areas have I been maybe letting myself off the hook and I need to get a little bit better about bouncing back through some of these tough situations that are going on in my life? So if you found this episode helpful, stay tuned for core value number five next week, or we will be wrapping up our core value series. And if you haven't yet, I would love for you to leave us a review on the podcast. If you haven't supported the podcast yet, I mentioned this last week, we also have, a new page set up where you can help support the podcast. You can make any donation of a donation of any amount to the podcast, just to help us to continue to reach new audiences and spread the word and, make our productions even better. Find that link over@realliferunners.com slash podcast. That page will also give you the links for you to leave a review and to catch up on any of our previous episodes. And there's some other fun stuff that I have for you guys on that page as well. So find all of that over@realliferunners.com slash podcast. And as always, thanks for joining us. This has been The Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 428. Now get out there and run your life.