462: It Can Be Two Things At Once

Let It Be Enough: Escaping the Comparison Trap in Running and Life

In episode 462 of the Real Life Runners podcast, we dive into the comparison trap and how easily runners can fall into measuring themselves against others—or even against past versions of themselves. Whether it’s pace, fitness, race results, or life circumstances, comparison often steals joy and makes us feel like what we’re doing isn’t enough.

We start by discussing the Cocodona 250 and Rachel Entrekin’s incredible overall win and course record, along with the conversations it sparked around how accomplishments are measured. We explore the mindset shift of “Why not you?” and how often we place limits on ourselves before we even begin.

We also reflect on seasons of transition, from graduations to changing training goals, and the reality that pride, grief, excitement, and uncertainty can all exist at the same time. Sometimes moving forward requires letting go of old expectations and embracing who you’re becoming instead of trying to recreate who you used to be.

We close with reminders to trust the process, celebrate where you are, and build the future version of yourself one step at a time.

02:23 Cocodona 250 Explained

07:13 Rachel Wins Overall

08:24 Comparison Trap Debate

16:52 Why Not You Mindset

21:27 Hypotheticals and Depth

23:38 Gender Gap Nuance

24:56 Celebrate Wins Without Comparison

26:30 Graduation Seasons and Letting Go

30:53 Closed Doors New Training

35:01 Let Go to Let In

37:52 Build Who You're Becoming

39:57 Ironman Grit Over Time

46:03 Two Truths at Once

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Transcript

0:00

When was the last time that you did something genuinely hard and instead of letting it be enough, your first instinct was to measure it against something else? Maybe it was against someone else's performance, or against your own past performance, or against what you thought you should be able to do by now. We do this constantly, and this week two things happened that got us thinking about it a little bit differently. So Kevin and I are gonna have a fun little episode where we talk about these two things and how it all ties together for you as a runner. So, stay tuned. What's up, runners? Welcome to the show today. It's episode 462. That's my favorite number. And I was, like, outlining this episode and thinking about it and thinking of different titles, and now if we decide to go with the title that we're currently... The current working title- Working title Let It Be Enough. Now I just have Let It Be in my head. I do now. Now it's Beatles. Yes. Beatlemania right in my head. It's Beatlemania in your head. Let it be. Perfect. I need to start- Let it be we're a minute in and we're already singing. Let it be. Excellent. All right. So we are gonna be talking, today's gonna be a commentary episode. There is a through line, and I'm gonna see how well it goes. It's gonna be great but there are these two different topics that I think are timely things for us to discuss, both in the running world and in our own personal lives, and I think they tie together, so hopefully you guys will see the connection. And let me know in the comments after you listen to the episode how the connection was. What did you think of this episode? Was it helpful? Did you like it? If you haven't let us- left us a comment recently on Spotify, we would love that. I- we've got a few, people commenting after the last couple episodes, which is so appreciated. And also, if you haven't left us a review on Apple Podcasts, if you listen to us over there, that would be so helpful, because genuinely, y'all, we do this podcast for free every single week for you. We genuinely just try and do our best to put out good content that is going to help you as a runner. And w- if you are not one of our current clients, one of the best ways that you can show your appreciation and, quote, unquote, "repay us" is to leave us a review. It only takes a couple minutes of your time. So if you haven't done that yet, I would ask you to please do so after this episode. So let's start first off by talking about Cocodona. So for those of you that might not be a crazy ultra runner or even understand or pay attention to the ultra running world, Kevin, why don't you start as one of those crazy ultra runners that also watches live feeds of ultra running events on YouTube, live streams, why don't you explain to us a little bit about what happened last week with the Cocodona 250? Yes, 250 miles through the desert. Tell us about what the race is first. this story, even if you're not crazy ultra runner, this story transcended, the ultra world- It did into the general running world, and then was hitting, like- National media. It- It was just on NBC News. It was on NBC News. Yeah. They were just discussing it on, on, like ESPN. the, I forget what the name of the show is. I used to watch it, but they were just chatting about it. Between the Lines? Pardon the Interruption? No, Pardon the Interruption. PTI. and they- Between the Lines was the, musical that our daughter did. Yes. very different concepts. A year and a half ago. Yeah. Very different shows. Yeah. No, but I think that this conversation, th- this event definitely was bigger than just the trail ultra running world. Which I think is what we wanna discuss. Yeah. But so let's get an overview for this. Cocodona has been around for five years, I wanna say. I think you said it was the sixth. This is the sixth running of it. Yeah. Yeah, it's been around for five years. This is the sixth running of it. it is a bonkers event. It starts, north of Phoenix and then winds through these, some of the best trails in Arizona, is the description of it. It connects several major trails in Arizona and ends up in Flagstaff. It's 253 miles or so. It's got, I don't know, like 30,000 feet of climbing and descending. It's, it's- Yeah, I saw one of the, in one of the different commentaries that it was, it's more than Mount Everest. That sounds right. Yeah. Yeah. And it, because you're covering 250 plus miles. for some context, the timeline for it, you have 120 hours to complete it. because y- you can get into the race, anybody can sign up for this thing. I think that they're not quite at a lottery point at this point yet. So 120 hours is five days. It's five days that you have- Five days of running, y'all. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, That's just bonkers, especially for those of us that are doing, like 5Ks, 10Ks. hey. Yeah. No, it's, it's 250 miles. You're just gonna run for five days straight. Which the best part is that they call it Cocodona 250 'cause it's 250 miles, but it's- Yeah 250-ish. When you get to mile 250, you still have a 5K to go, is the thing. That's- That's wild that's the, when, when you're that far and you're ballparking the distance, that's- especially because, like- that's where you're at what you were saying to me, too, there were, as we were following the race, there was different photos and videos coming out of the participants. And there was this one section, I'm sure multiple, but the one that we saw that we were talking about was literally just scaling a mountain. It was just rocks, and there were, like spray painted lines. No, they're spray painted white dots every- Yeah 10, 10 meters, every five meters. Yeah. So there's, like- they're dashes along the rocks Yeah, but it's like the size of a golf ball. It's like a white spot the size of a golf ball sprayed on top of like orange rock. And then if you keep following what is probably the path, there's another sprayed dot, and then a little bit further there's another one, and you're finding these things. So if you are going that fast, you're gonna lose the trail almost immediately. Or if you're going at night. Yes. what if you hit that part of the trail at night? That was one of the things you said when we looked at that. And the thing is that at, when you're going through that section, people are going to be... Like the leaders to last place, the gap between first and last place is over 24 hours- Yeah by that point into the race. Crazy. So you could be hitting it at any point in time during- the day or night. and you said that even s- one of the top runners got lost for, went off course for a couple of miles, didn't she? People get lost all the time- Yeah on these things. Yeah. All the time. There was, there's a documentary about five of the guys that were chasing the record a few years ago, and at one point, one of the guys who the documentary was on, so one of the favorites to win the race, was lost by like- Yeah five miles. And like the video footage is like him going back the other direction and passing another runner going "Yeah, I went the wrong way." Yeah, so as if 250 miles isn't enough, now you get lost, and depending at what point you realize that you're lost, you have to then backtrack. Yeah, so now it's like 270, 275. So crazy. Yeah. Okay. So Cocodona 250 in and of itself is crazy, right? Like we're all gonna just agree that is a crazy event, a crazy feat. No matter who does it, just I think attempting the race is remarkable- Yes let alone finishing it, getting even halfway through it. there are so many people that started the race but were not able to finish it. I think that they did incredible things. Now, the thing that hit the news was that Rachel Entrekken, did I pronounce that correct? Entrekken. Entrekken. Rachel Entrennen, won the race. So this was the first time that a woman ever ran the- or that ever a woman ever won the overall race. She came in first overall, beat everyone else in the field. She has won this race before. She's already won it twice. She- She won the women's side. Yes. She won the women's side last year- Yeah and broke the course record for the women. Last year, the course record for the men was also broken. This year, the weather was somewhat cooperative, which means it wasn't rainy, and it wasn't just, 100 and something degrees all the time. So it was relatively cooperative. And Rachel didn't just win the race. She broke the overall course record by, an hour and 45 minutes. She broke her women's record by, five hours. Yeah. She broke the overall course record by, an hour and 45 minutes. The guy who finished second broke the course record. He just lost by so much that it wasn't even close. Yeah. and I think it's interesting because you are already demonstrating one of the main points of this episode, which is the comparison trap- Yep that we fall into. And it, it's not just comparing to... okay. L- let's place- I think I hit all of the comparisons right there you really did. You d- be- because I think that comparison... maybe we should wait to get into this until we've finished talking about what exactly is going on. But basically, after Rachel won, she, there was a whole bunch of commentary. Obviously, everybody thinks that what she did was incredible. Now, bring in the social media talking heads, right? There's a lot of people that like to point out, like Kevin just did, she broke the record, she broke the men's record, she beat all the men, and there was a lot of comparison to men. And then there was some backlash about that, and then there were people saying, "Why do we have to compare her to men? Isn't what she did just incredible on its own? We don't have to compare it to say how incredible it was." And there was a lot of people that were talking about, when women do things, how they measure how awesome it is based on how it compares to men. she beat all the men here. that was one of the big things that people were like, "Wow." And I think that it's really interesting because there is this natural tendency as humans to compare. what you just said was that she obviously- She won, she completed this 250 miles, but I think that comparison is helpful on one hand because it helps us to undersca- understand the scope of what she actually did. It can give some grounding to it. It, it gives context, right? Because for most of us, we can't even think about running 250 miles, let alone in the time that she was able to do this. And so when you say, "Oh, she won the 250 mile race, Cocodona 250," people are like, "Wow, that's incredible." And then when you start to put some context into it, I think that it makes it... a- and this is, again, what makes something even more incredible. Isn't it just am- amazing and incredible on its own? Does it have to be, like, more incredible? But it is. it, there's a, an element of it, I think, that is when, because she beat everyone in the race, because, like Kevin said, she beat the course record, like some people have no... Most people, I would say, most people have no clue how long it would take you to run 250 miles- No or what that has been done before. So I think some context is necessary to help people understand just how incredible it is, and I think that was part of the commentary too, is does it have to be, like, how, what level of incredible it is? You know what I mean? can it- Absurd can it just be... Absurd. Can it just be incredible on its own? Yeah, and it's nice to have some numbers, but the numbers are just so crazy- Yeah because the distance is so far. And so if you look at, her pace, you're like, "Oh, I could hold that pace for a long time," then yes, you probably could because I think she averaged something like, I don't know, 13:20, 13:30, somewhere around that. And you're like, "I could hold 13 minute miles for a long time." Okay, cool. Could you do it for two and a half days? 'cause that's what she did. She slept for, less than 20 minutes- over the course of 250-plus miles. Yeah, 19 minutes in little dirt naps. Climbing up and down mountains. And so if you look at, the pace per mile- And a lot of, crazy weather things too, right? Yes. there was, because it was in the Arizona desert, it was both hot and very cold at night. Yeah, the overnights got real cold. Last year it stormed, and that, that wrecked a lot of people's... r- There were a lot of DNFs early last year because it rained on the first day. Yeah. And so then people were, like, wet and going through, through mud of the desert. It was just, it was a very weird l- year last year. Yeah. so where do you sit on this whole idea of comparison? I... It's nice to have some context. Yeah. It's nice to be able to look historically. But all of that is comparison. Yeah. I think that you can step back and say what she did is amazing without having to compare it to other people. Yeah. Like- Full stop My high school students all the time, they love comparison 'cause they're high school students. and I also think that comparison is one of the natural ways that the brain operates, and I think that fighting it in some ways is futile because there is this natural instinct to validate accomplishment through comparison. I think that's a very human tendency. Yeah, and my kids love to get me off topic also. So they'll, every year, I think every year I've taught, I've been asked, Jordan versus LeBron, who's the greatest of all time? It's that's not really a good comparison. Like- Yeah her amazing performance at 250 miles, how does that compare relative to, an Olympic 100-meter sprinter? Yeah. they're b- world record-breaking 100-meter sprinter. It's a very different thing. there's not a comparison. They're both amazing accomplishments. Why are we comparing these two things? and it's like comparing m- marathon results, say, f- now in 2026 versus in 1976. These are, again, two very different time periods. The marathon distance didn't change, but the technology and the fueling and all of the science that we now understand about human physiology and training, that has changed so much that these are two different environments that people were operating in. Shoot, just compare it in 2026 to 2016- Yeah before super shoes really took off. 20-- Let's go 2006. I was gonna say, yeah, 20 years might be safer. Yeah, the jumps recently have- Yeah been so crazy- that, that's a whole different topic. But yeah, you don't have to go back that far, and it's that's not the most fair comparison you can. Like a few years ago... Not a few. It was probably 20 years ago at this point in time, with the- Okay, you're like the priest at the homily yesterday The Father John? Yeah, I know so this is actually a totally, funny aside. maybe it's funny, maybe it's not. But he was talking in his homily, and he was like, "Yeah, a few years ago there was this book that came out, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, and it's all small stuff." And I was like, "That was, like, 30 years ago at least." And you said it loud enough that people two pews behind us laughed. No, I did not. You definitely did. Did I actually? Yeah. Father looked over. he did nod. He definitely did nod. But then he did it again, later in the homily too. He said something else that was like, "A couple of years ago," and I was like, "That was at least a decade ago. Maybe 20 years." Yeah, so not a few years ago, but several Olympic cycles ago- Yeah swimmers got those, full body suits. Back in Phelps' day, basically. Yeah. and then they banned them- and said, "No, these... You can literally go too fast," because every record was getting broken, and they were getting broken not by, a 10th of a second. They were getting broken by, 10%. Yeah. They're like, "All right, this is too much." And no one said the same thing when super shoes came out, and so now we just have completely different running existence. Yeah, which is interesting. they haven't brought those suits back, right? No, they banned them. Yeah, and they, and that ban- the international swimming banned them and it still stands? Yeah. Yeah. that seems similar to super shoes, because it's a thing that you put on your body that's going to improve your performance by X percentage. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. W- and I have issues, 'cause it doesn't improve everybody. Some people super respond, and some people don't really respond, and- Yeah. we're gonna do an upcoming episode all about super shoes. Ooh, exciting. So stay tuned for that. We just are in the research phase right now, so we don't wanna do... 'Cause that one requires a little bit more- Definitely some more research on that one background and research before we can give you guys a good one. But- All right. So we... The fact that most people tend to want to immediately, categorize, I think it's because we want to... We like lists, we like order, we like organization. Yeah. The brain wants to figure out, where does this go? And so comparison makes sense- because it allows us to try and line things up. Yeah. Which is helpful, because it keeps it nice and organized in our head. and we as humans are constantly doing this for our own survival. this is just instinctual, because in any society, there is some sort of order. There's some sort of, Essential- essentially a social pyramid where you have to figure out where you fall in that social design so that you know your role in society. At least that's how it's been throughout the years. And now I think there's a little bit less of that, the, but it's still there, and I think that w- so we as humans have naturally been designed to think about things this way. Yeah, it just, it helps us interact with the world around us. Yeah, and this is one of the things that I love about what Rachel said after the race. So they were interviewing her when she was... A- after she had finished and after she had won, and they were asking about, her mental space during this race. And she was talking about, there was one clip that's gone viral on several different platforms and several different angles of this same clip that I've seen. and she basically asked herself one question that changed the game, which is, why not you? Like she said, "I was out there running and I was thinking to myself, w- why not you? Like, why? You've won this thing a couple of times already. if someone's going to win this, someone has to win. Someone has to get first place. Why not you? Someone, i- if someone can break this course record, why not you?" And I love that sense of curiosity because I think that we put so many glass ceilings on ourself without even realizing it. Yeah, and she has enough actual, justification. She, if she opens up her files, she's "Okay, I've won this before." Yeah. "I've set the course record. The weather is cooperating better than it did last year when I set the course record, so I should be able to go faster." At one point well into the race, she and first and second were running together, and he's DNF'd the race before. So she's gotta be thinking like, "I've had more successful outcomes at this race, so I should be pretty good at this. Why don't I just keep doing what I'm doing?" Yeah. And it wasn't, it was less, "I'm gonna go beat this guy," and more, "There's more in me." "Why don't I just keep seeing what my body is capable of?" Yeah. she shut the comparison down outside of anything of what is my body capable of doing. And I love the curiosity. You all know that curiosity, if you've been listening to this c- podcast or if you're one of our clients, you know that curiosity is one of my favorite emotions to tap into because I think it's so powerful because our brain always wants to tell us why we should not do th- something, or why this is not a good idea, or why this is going to kill us, essentially. this is very dangerous. Stop doing that. And when we can tap into curiosity and just go into the what ifs in a positive way, that can be so powerful because a lot of times our brain wants to go into the what ifs in a very negative way. what if I try and I blow up? What if I don't finish? What if I push hard and I don't succeed? it likes to go into that negative camp. And- I, one of the things that I like to remind myself of, and also remind my clients of, is your brain's just making that shit up. All of it, right? Like, all the what ifs, your brain is just making that stuff up. And so if you're going to spend some time in negative land and make up scenarios that are not actually true, do not actually yet exist in the negative side, you could also make up stuff on the positive side, because that doesn't exist either. We just have this negativity bias, and so we tend to go to that place. But why not you? What if it all goes well? What if you show up today and you feel amazing, and the weather cooperates, and everything goes exactly as planned, or even better than planned? Like, how much time are you actually spending in that camp? And for most of us, the answer is not as much time as we're spending over on the negative side of things. 'Cause it's tough to live there. Yeah. The brain wants to be like... The brain, in, in its survival-leaning aspect of the brain- is, as things are going good, tends to look around and be like, "Okay, how do I keep it here?" Yeah. "Okay, but what if something starts going wrong?" And this goes back to a couple weeks back of the two guys that broke two hours in the marathon. Yeah. The guy who finished second had never run a marathon before. Wild. They asked him before the race, "Do you think that you could break two?" And he said no. But they also said, "If the pace goes out under two, are you gonna go with them?" And he was like, "Yeah, that's just how you race." And so he wasn't even concerned about what the pace was. Yeah. It was just, "I'm going to go with what the race does- and then we'll see what the results end up being." And that kind of took a lot of the comparison out, is it wasn't about the clock for him. It was simply about getting into a race against the other people in the race. Yeah. So ultimately, where I think we both agree is that Rachel ran 250-plus miles through the mountains and won. Yes. and that is the whole sentence. Yep. It doesn't matter that she beat all the men, and it doesn't matter some of these other things. she did an incredible thing. It doesn't need an asterisk. But i- in a way, I think it makes it even cooler. I don't know. 'cause if you throw the asterisk on it, then you start, then you open it up to the hypotheticals. And- What hypotheticals? Okay, but what if so-and-so ran the race? What if so-and-so- Oh, this is what you were saying. Oh, we should talk about that, because I didn't like it when you brought that up. Okay. then let's not get ourselves canceled. But yes- No one's gonna be canceled here. And if it is, it's you. I'm kicking you off the podcast. Okay, fine. So- in the race- Just kidding, he's staying around in the race, there are some amazing men who ran the race who are very good at running 250-plus miles. Who are super, ultra long-distance ultra runners. Rachel's been successful at that. I argue, don't, I don't argue, I don't fight for this, I just make the observation- no, this is... I was gonna say, this is just a point that you made. It's a point that I made That because of finances- Perspective that you brought in because of finances in the world of ultra running, that there is more talent depth-wise in 100K and 100-mile races than there is in these 200, 250-mile races, in terms of prize money, in terms of, like- I think that they're- the field and- The longer races are also newer, aren't they? In general, the longer races are newer. Yeah. And it's like the... So the depth of field is just not as great- as if you go to, say, the western states in the US, if you go to UTMB over in Europe. If you hit up any of the UTMB races- Yeah the depth of the field tends to be greater. This was a good field, but if you go to the hypothetical world, what if you take some of the best 100-miler men and put them into a 250-miler? They've never done it. Could they do it? Would they do it as well? Yeah. There'd have to be some, adjustments because that's a very different distance to be out there, and there's sleep deprivation involved. You take a lot of the elite men, and in over a 100-mile race, they're doing that in, 14 hours if it's a fast race. To try and run for over 48 hours, you're dealing with a level of sleep deprivation that you're not used to. That women are. Women are always used to that. Perfect. and the argument, that I've seen is as the races go longer, women should theoretically get better because they have greater fat-burning capabilities, and so this race does favor women. That was your argument. That was the... It was you, when we were- that wasn't- discussing this that wasn't my only argument. I just think that women are built to endure- Yes differently than men. Yes. And I do think that, i- it is an interesting as... we need more science, right? the answer is that we always need more science, and we need more, races so that we can actually see how this plays out in real life too. Because some of the science used to say and some of the theories used to be that as the distance got longer, the gap, the eight, the gender gap between male and female performance narrowed and got smaller, and that's why there's women that are able to beat men in longer races. Whereas if you go to, a 5K, a marathon, things like that, in a local 5K, there might be a standout woman that just happens to be able to beat all the men, but when you put, elite men and elite women side by side, the men are always going to win. Yeah, because- There's just go- there is just a gender difference that is there. I- in general, regardless of the distance, there's, I think it's around 4 or 5%. There's just, there's a gap. but there are elite women that can beat elite men. Yes, because at the elite pointy end of it- the distance between being in, the 99.999 percentile and the 99th percentile might put that woman over that guy. Yeah. But anyway, we're getting into kind of nuance and detail, and I think what it all comes down to is- Can we allow accomplishments to just be amazing on their own without comparing them to anyone else, anybody else? The hypothetical th- situations of, what if so-and-so was in this race? Would she still have won? who knows? We don't know. there's so- there's an endless amount of possibilities- and possible scenarios that you can put in here. Yeah. Hypotheticals are fun to play with, but they weren't in the race, and she did win- Yeah and that's amazing. And that's amazing, the end. And I think that it's important, and maybe this is the way that we kind of transition to our next topic. I think one of the big takeaways here is go out and do amazing things and why not you? I think that's one of my favorite things that I took away from the whole Cocodona, experience. I sh- I don't know if experience is the right word, but watching that and the aftermath of it is Rachel is absolutely amazing. She is strong. She did something incredible that I can never imagine doing, and there's the comparison again right there. but absolutely incredible, and I think that does open up some natural space for us to say, what are... where am I limiting myself? Where might I want to go out and try to do something amazing for myself?" And because of that, Angie's signing up for Cocodona next year. No way. Get out of here. just because I said I would probably do trails before I would do a road marathon does not mean I'm gonna go to Cocodona. Yeah. No, I think that's exactly what that translates to. Perfect. and so we wanted to take this and talk about this, and, that was a much longer discussion than I realized it was going to be, and also talk about graduation because we've been thinking about comparison and letting go in a different context, which is Kevin had his high school students all graduate last week, and this week our youngest daughter is finishing eighth grade. And I think that there's something about watching people move from one chapter into the next that kind of brings all this into focus for us. And there was this whole concept of allowing two things to be there at the same time, and talking about graduation and seasons of life and cycles, and the gift of letting go and moving forward, and there's just a lot of different topics in here. And I think that's part of what I'm feeling this week. I know that last week we talked, w- our episode was about mental load, and decision fatigue, and stress overload, and how that affects us. And I think that this has been one of the undercurrents for me. Part of my stress overload and my mental load that I was really feeling a lot last week was this chapter that... Oh, my gosh, I might get a little, emotional during this, but is this chapter that is closing because our youngest is leaving, and we've been, oh, my goodness, at this school for 10 years now. our, both of our girls went through here. our oldest started in kindergarten, our youngest started in pre-K four, and now, this community has become such a part of our lives with just the people that we've met, and the school, and the administration, and everyone there. It's been such a blessing in our lives, and it's so strange to think about not being there anymore. And so you get these emotions that are sitting right next to each other. You're feeling pride of, your daughter graduating. Yeah, and she did an amazing job and had an amazing eight, nine years there. But I'm looking at you right now. That pride is sitting right next to grief at the loss of all the time in that school is now coming to a close. Yeah. It's the end of that chapter. These two things are existing simultaneously. Yeah. And they can be completely true at the same time. Such pride and sadness simultaneously. Excited about what is happening and scared a little bit about the future. This isn't- I think that's definitely the feeling of the graduates, right? I think there's a lot of graduates that are so excited to be done, especially those of them Oh, yeah that have been there for nine years with the same people, and they're so sad about leaving those people. our daughter made a comment the other day, "Wait, what do you mean we're just finished with our childhood?" Yeah. And I was like, "Oh, my God." that just, stuck me right directly in the heart, And but it- that's what it is. they're both excited to leave middle school and move on to high school because high school is so fun and so exciting, and also a little scared because it's the unknown and our brains just naturally have a fear of the unknown. So they can be scared and excited at the same time. Yeah. And I've listened to after last week, that was my 20th high school graduation that I've attended, not counting mine. so 21st high school graduation. The number of times that people say, "This is a commencement." Yeah. And that means that this isn't the conclusion, it's the start of something. And it, it- It's both, because it is the wrap-up of one thing- but immediately the opening of something else. in order for something new to begin, something else had to end. That thing had a beginning- and it is now closing, and you have to start something new. You can't start something new while still doing the last thing. It's not gonna work. Yeah. You have to move to the next. And I think that is something that we can see on a much smaller scale when it comes to races or race training cycles. Maybe you've felt this way at the finish line of a race that you've trained months or maybe even years for, or you felt it when you had to take time off of running, or you felt it when you noticed that your body was changing and the old training plans and the old ways that you've been training stopped working the same way. There's a- all of these different transition points in our life, and I think that sometimes we can just move through them without even realizing it, especially when they seem smaller. We can't miss these big ones like graduation, right? that one's just staring you at the, in the face, and it's not gonna move. Whether or not you choose to look at it or not, it's there. But like Kevin said, there's s- things, or there's times in our life when things close, and it makes me think about that closed door metaphor of if you look so long at the closed door, you could miss the door that's opening in front of you. And I think that happens to us so many times when we are trying to hold on to past versions of ourself, like the runner that I was when I was 39 years old and I set PRs in every single race distance in 2019. the fitness level that we had before we had kids, or the pace that we could hold before perimenopause. Like, all of those things are in the past, and I think there's a lot of people, and I find myself falling into this trap as well, that are wishing that they could be back to where they w- used to be. or they are comparing themselves now to past versions of themselves, and that kind of goes back to the comparison trap that we were talking about with Cocodona. I really this closed door metaphor of wanting to get back to where you were is just standing in front of a closed door that is not reopening. Yeah. There are other open doors, and you need to find another door to walk through. And where graduation is clearly the end of a thing and the start of something else, old training plans that kinda stopped working, they didn't stop working all of a sudden. They gradually stop working, right? And maybe parts of the plan even still work. And so it's tough to see it as a closed door, but ultimately it is. It's a plan that doesn't work for you. It's a plan that needs modification. That door is shutting, and you need to find the new door to go with, go through. And it took me a while to figure this one out. Yeah. I was like, "Oh, I can just modify things and adjust things." no, I need a new way of looking at this. And it's still under the same umbrella of training plans. Training theory is training theory. Yeah. But it's a whole different approach to what I'm doing now. And as soon as I stop trying to be like, "Oh, but maybe I can still use this thing from when I was in my 20s." I, I can, but I can't apply it the same way. just 'cause it's a hammer doesn't mean I get to still bang things with it. Maybe I can still use the hammer as a tool, but I'm using the claw. it's got different ways that it's being applied in my training now than what I needed it. I have a whole set of tools that I can use for a training plan, that I can use for a whole training block, but the way that I put them together, the way I structure it, what I need for myself is completely different. One, I'm doing different distances, but even if I was still doing the same distances, I would probably have a very different approach to training right now than I did a decade ago, let alone two decades ago. Yeah. And I think that what you're saying here is a helpful way of looking at it, because the scientific principles are the same, that you still need progressive overload, which we talked about in a recent episode. Ah. Excellent. you still need strength training. You still need different effort levels in your training. So the training principles and the scientific principles are the same. It's just the way that it all fits into your life and the different ratios of those things in your training might need to change because your life is more full now, maybe 'cause you have more stress and you have other things going on. And I think that's really where things start to change, because the scientific principles aren't changing. Despite what all of the perimenopause and menopause gurus on social media wanna try to tell you that you need a very special menopause plan now and a menopause diet and a menopause e- They're trying to put pink on everything or put the word menopause on everything and make you think that your body is completely, different than it was, a couple decades ago. Yes, it is different, okay? Our hormones are changing. But some basic scientific principles do still apply, and I think that is important for us to understand. The, those principles still hold up, but you need a new plan. And you can't have a new plan- Yeah while still wanting to run your old plan. Yeah. you can't start the new thing, to go broad on this, you can't do the new thing while still staring at the closed door. because we have to progress. No matter what we're doing in our life, I think it's really important for us to progress because- One of the things that comes to my mind when we talk about letting go, we talk about closed doors and those kinds of things, is a saying, and I don't remember where I heard it, which is, "Let go to let in." Because I think that so many times we try- are trying to hold on to things, and when we're trying to hold on to old ways of doing things or old ways of thinking or those, that kind of thing, we don't have room in our life for the new stuff. And if we let go, we are able to let in more joy, more, beneficial ways of training, more beneficial ways of thinking. That's the requirement for growth. In order to grow, we do have to let go of the ways that we used to do things. We do have to let go of past versions of ourself. And not to, not in a bad way. It- they're just those... I like to think, back on those versions of myself and in gratitude because those versions of me are what allowed me to evolve into the person that I am today. Yeah. everything comes with gratitude. I'm grateful for what I did in my 20s. I'm not doing that now. It's not gonna work for me, but that got me to where I am right now. the amount of volume that I ran while I was in college changes how much volume I need to run right now. Yeah. it's a whole different base that just exists for me. Yeah. And I think that, going back to Rachel, she didn't win Cocodona by running the race that she ran a couple of years ago. She- No, she did not she ran the race in front of her, and this was a different race with the body and the preparation that she had right now. And some would argue she was much better prepared now because she's already done it a few times, and she's in better shape, and she has more experience. And, those things I think are true. Her results definitely tell that story. And also, I think she was able to release the past versions of herself that maybe had doubt, right? think about how much confidence she has also built, and if she was still the same Rachel that ran this race a couple of years ago, would she have been able to complete the race the way that she did this year? Would you have, would she have gone as aggressive early on- Yeah if she was not even confident she could cover 250? if she didn't already have the experience behind her. she knows- because of those experiences, she's now a different version of herself. She's now a new version of Rachel that was allowed to, or that, gave herself permission to go bigger. Yeah, because I can fall back if things went poorly- Yeah 'cause over the course of 250 miles, things are gonna go poorly. Oh, for sure. And it's okay, these challenges have come up. I overcame them, and I still ran a successful race, so if I push and issues come up, I can still navigate them and still run a successful race. It gave her the courage. It gave her the vision to be able to move forward to try something. Yeah. and that's ultimately what just shattered the course record. And so how can we apply this to our training? So- To bring this home, there's a couple points that we wanna talk about. The first is comparison. We've talked, I think, a lot about comparison, but there was one more point that I thought it was really important to make because this is one of those things that I see- often see in social media. Because we have said already in this episode that your training is not a competition with your past self or, with anyone else. And your job is not to beat who you were. But this is something that I'm seeing all the time is like, "Just be better than you were yesterday. Just, my only goal is to beat who I was, is to be better than I was, last year," or last month, or whatever it might be, is this whole idea of being better than you used to be. yeah. we talked about this in detail a few episodes ago, the 1% better- Yeah episode. that's such a baloney statement. And so I really love this reframe of it's not your job to beat who you were. It is your job to build who you are becoming. And these are very different goals with very different training implications. Yeah. and races are entirely different experiences if you're just trying to see who you're going to become through the training and the entire race itself. If you can cross the finish line- Yeah proud of the journey that you've taken over the past few months, then the clock matters a whole lot less. Which is tough for me to say as a running coach- Yeah because there's still a clock. There is. And it's tough to not look at it and do some comparison. But at some point in your training journey, those times are gonna start getting slower. Yeah. the last two races I ran slower on the, on my most recent 100 than I did the one before. But my disappointment was less in the clock and more in the experience. Yeah. Somewhere along the- It was who you were during the race. Yeah. I became grumpy and couldn't get out of my grumpiness. The main reason I would like to do a race sooner than later is I wanna have a fun race. Yeah. And I did not have as much fun in the last one as I should have. Yeah. That's why I'm itching to race. One of my friends and training partners just completed her third Ironman. That's awesome. Full Ironman. Absolutely incredible. I just read her race recap today. It was, her race was on Saturday. And it was a suffer fest. my, my poor girl, like she suffered and sh- it started early on in the race, and so we were starting to suffer. She said 26 miles into the bike ride she already knew things were going south. And- Oh, you got a lot of miles to go still oh, you got 112 miles on the bike total, and then you have a full marathon that you're running. there's a lot of space there, and she ended up walking a big chunk of the marathon. And she was i- in one way very disappointed with herself because she, going into the race, she felt good. she felt like her training was on point. Garmin, Lord Garmin gave her training readiness status of "You are ready," whatever that... I forget. She posted a picture of it. But then, and then "You are race ready." you are good. her training went well, and that day it was just so hot. the heat played a huge role- Yeah in, how the race ended up playing out for her. But she could easily compare herself to past performances, and she was so looking forward. She, the first time she ran an Ironman she did, like she felt good. The second time she did not feel good, and so she was really hoping this was gonna be her, redemption race, and it was not. But she finished, and she walked a huge chunk of the marathon, and she still finished, and I think that just says so much about strength and grit. she was vomiting. She was puke and rallying. she, none of her nutrition was working. She was literally just throwing it all up. Yeah. And she was able to keep going. And so sure, she could easily compare her time, because again, that's that easy metric that's right there in front of your face. And it's the one that other people ask. Yeah. during walking a whole bunch of that marathon, she came to terms with what was happening. And she realized, "This is such a huge emotional growth for me." Yeah. there was such a low point, and within the race she had to have mentally brought about redemption of- I'm doing it because I'm gonna get to the finish line. Yeah. And then- Like she said that at one point she realized that she was gonna have to walk for four more hours. Yeah. And she didn't know how she was going to do that, but she did it. Yeah. She just kept... All she said was, "I just kept moving forward." Yeah. And as that's happening, you have this personal journey of this is amazing what I'm doing. It's gonna take four more hours, and somehow I'm gonna find a way to do it and it's gonna be awesome. And then you go to work the next week and people are, and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I-" Like how did the, how'd the Ironman go? How fast did you go? Yeah. Like how fast was it? And you're like The funny thing about Iron- it's far less about that. it is, and then also people have no idea what that even means. that's the funny thing. the people at work that are asking you, "How long was your marathon? Did you win?" like- You could make up a time for an Ironman- You, it doesn't even- most people don't know They don't even understand it. But- My, my students, 'cause they're high school kids, they're all about the comparison, so any time I've run a really long distance, they always ask, "How long did that take?" And then, because they want me to do the math for them, "How fast is that per mile? How fast is that per lap of the track?" Yeah. And when I break it down to that level, and they ask these questions, and they're like, they're cutting questions because they're things that I've overcome and brought about and brought such pride to me. They're like, "Oh, did you have to walk during the race? Do you run the whole thing, or do you take walking breaks?" And I had to take a walking break, and like- at the time I overcame it and it was a big emotional thing to overcome that and to be able to walk and to be able to keep pushing, and the kids are like, "Yeah, but did you have to walk?" And I'm like, stop comparing my race." Yeah. I know, but that's the funny thing, 'cause people that are asking a lot of times have never done that before- and don't know what kind of physical and mental stamina it r- it requires to be able to do something like that. And to be able to w- to start walking, knowing that walk is going to continue with some running intervals for the next eight hours. that's a lot. So I think that we have to be very careful about the comparison, and really why we're doing it. I think it's important for us to notice when our brain is doing this, and I'm just gonna say this sentence again, because I just think it's really important. So your job is not to be who you were. It's to build who you are becoming. Because if it's helpful to you to think about past versions of yourself and be like, "I'm gonna get better," great for temporarily, but then I would love to invite you to sh- start to shift over into who do you wanna become, and one of the things that we often say inside of our training team, like with our members, is, "I'm doing this for 80-year-old Angie." "I'm building 80-year-old Angie's body. that's who I'm doing this for." And I've heard people say, "There's two people that I want to impress in my life, eight-year-old Angie and 80-year-old Angie," and I think that's such a good way of looking at things. Yes. another aspect of what this means for your training, if you are still trying to train like you did at a completely different stage in your life, whether that's an age stage, different hormonal stage, different levels of stress inside of your life, you're not sticking to discipline. You're not gritting it out and you're so tough. You're just resisting reality. This is just stubbornness, and that resistance is taking up energy that you could be using to train smarter and actually move yourself forward. You've decided that you're just gonna dig in and this training plan has to work because it worked before. And if you just opened up, instead of trying to bang your head against the closed door, if you just looked to the left or right, there's an open door that you could walk through- Yeah where there's a whole lot more possibilities. There's always an open door. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There, there really is. So consider letting go- and moving into the open door that actually exists. Have a training plan that works. Have a training plan that makes the most sense for your body- Yeah that will allow you to continue to train successfully, to race successfully. And to me, at this point, racing successfully i- includes the clock, but it includes joy. And that, to me, is racing successfully. Yeah. Let go to let in. Stop holding on so tightly to the past versions of yourself. The other thing that I want to summarize here is two things can be true at once. You can, if grieve the runner that you were and be excited about the runner that you're becoming. You can honor a hard training block and be glad that it's over. You can feel proud of where you are and hungry for more. There are so many people that think that they can't have that. They have to dislike who they are right now. They have to dislike this body. They have to dislike their current results. That's the way, that's what's gonna motivate them and push them to do more, to get, quote-unquote, better. But two things can be true at the same time. You can be grateful for where you are right now, and I would even argue that gratitude is even a more powerful force than the resentment or the hate or the disgust or the dislike or whatever you think that you need to do. people, I see this all the time with body image, people that think that they can't appreciate and love their body for what it is right now because it doesn't look the way they want or it doesn't weigh what they want, so they have to dislike their body in order for them to have the motivation to get the body that they want, and that just is not the sustainable way for change. I think that you, we have to be able to hold two truths at the same time, of being proud and loving and thankful for where we are right now, and we are also allowed to want more, and that is a good thing. Because these are not contraindications. Contradictions. Contradictions, not contraindications. These are not contradictions. They're the full picture, right? And it's important for us to look at both sides, that two things can be true at the same time. I really think you just need to run for a really long distance through the woods sometimes because the amount of thoughts that you have to simultaneously hold is- is mind-boggling. Yeah. Because it's like I am both- So angry at my legs for not working correctly, and so proud of my legs for still allowing me to at least walk- and continue to move forward. Yeah. And you have that thought simultaneously. Yeah. upset and grateful for your body at once. Yeah, it's wild. So ask yourself right now, what door are you still standing in front of? What closed door are you still standing in front of waiting for it to reopen? And what other door might be open already that is just waiting for you to walk through? What version of yourself are you still trying to hold onto or run back to? And what would it feel like to just turn around and see what is ahead instead? Are you able to let go to let in? Are you able to let it be what is? Let be, let it be. Let it be. I'm gonna have to do it again. Honor it. let it be enough. Rachel's accomplishment at Cocodona 250 was enough and incredible in and of itself without any comparison, and so is your journey. Wherever you are, like, you are enough. Your journey is enough, and you can still want to move forward and make progress in your life and in your running. Yes. Graduation is enough, and it also opens the door for what comes next. But you have to celebrate what is currently happening- Yeah and not just leap to the next thing also. Yeah. you can appreciate what is currently happening. It is enough. You don't have to compare it to other things. And then once you appreciate, you can then move forward to the next thing. Yeah. That's really important because I think that especially when we have those contradicting emotions or the full-picture emotions of, have the sadness, we do wanna just be done with it. okay, let's just... This is a time for this to be done so that we can move on to the next thing. But I think it is very important for us to be in both sides of things and appreciate the present moment and the full picture of the present moment right now and then move forward. Excellent. All right, you guys. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and share this episode with a friend. And also, if you wanna join one of our free trainings, I've g- I'm running free workshops every Tuesday and every Thursday. So on Tuesday, we're talking about the nervous system and how your nervous system really controls everything that's going on in your life. So if you wanna sign up for that one or check out the details, head over to realliferunners.com/brain. And if you wanna know more about strength and mobility for runners, you can check out our Thursday webinar, which is over at realliferunners.com... Oh, gosh, I haven't said this one in a while. realliferunners.com/, what's that one? March. That's what it is. It's still March, because I started running that, That webinar in March, so that's still what the URL is. Excellent. Realliferunners.com/march. So check those out, if you want to go deeper in any of these things. And as always, thanks for spending your time with us. This has been the Real Life Runners podcast episode number 462. Oh, wait, before I say our closing line, I do wanna tell you that I'm running a special for the membership in the month of May. I actually forgot to mention this. so our membership right now, we are running a super special, especially on the annual memberships. So if you've ever wanted coaching from us, if you like our podcast or love our podcast and connect with the way that we think about training and the way we think about life and how everything connects to running, go check out the website, realliferunners.com/team. That is going to give you all of the information about the membership. We would love to be your coaches. it's time, right? you've been listening to this podcast for a couple of years now. You have gained benefits. You've made some of the changes that we've talked about in the episodes, so you've already gained benefits from our free stuff. Imagine what you could gain if you actually invested in yourself and invested in some coaching and some training plans and strength training and all of the things that we talk about, and give you the exact action items that you need every single day of your training. So check that out, realliferunners.com/team, to make sure that you get in on the May special. All right. Now get out there and run your life.