463: It Doesn't Look Like Anything Yet: What Building a Vanity Teaches Us About Training.

It Doesn’t Look Like Anything Yet: What Building a Vanity Teaches Us About Training

Have you ever been in the middle of building something and thought, How is this ever going to come together? That’s exactly what happened when Kevin and I spent three hours putting together our 13-year-old daughter’s new vanity. Somewhere between scattered parts, a cracked panel, and a backwards drawer track, I realized… this feels a lot like training.

In this episode, we share why building a strong runner isn’t about one workout or one great week. It’s about putting the right pieces together over time and trusting the process, even when progress feels invisible.

We talk about:

• Why skipping foundational work often catches up with us later
• How base building creates support for everything else
• Why sleep, fueling, strength, mobility, and recovery are not optional extras
• How setbacks and small problems mirror the challenges that show up in training
• Why correcting course early matters more than pushing through
• Learning to trust the process, even when it doesn’t look like much is happening yet

The question I want to leave you with is:

What piece of your training are you leaving out right now?

Because every piece matters, and sometimes the thing you’re overlooking is the thing holding everything else together.

03:41 Unboxing The Vanity Chaos

07:21 Skipping Steps Risks

10:28 Teamwork And Coaching

13:21 Right Plan For You

20:40 Recovery And Big Rocks

26:14 Setbacks And Fixing Mistakes

29:41 Fix It Before It Breaks

34:30 Adjusting for Life Stress

35:54 Trust the Slow Progress

46:18 Overnight Success Myth

49:10 What Piece Are You Missing

Gain access to my new secret podcast, Unbreakable: The Runner's Guide To Injury-Proofing Your Body After 40. Click here: https://www.realliferunners.com/secret

Join the Team! -->  https://www.realliferunners.com/team 

Thanks for Listening!!

Be sure to hit FOLLOW on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player

 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one!

Come find us on Instagram and say hi!

Don't forget: The information on this website is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition or to provide medical advice. It is intended for general education in the areas of health and wellness. All information contained in this site is intended to be educational in nature. Nothing should be considered medical advice for your specific situation.

Transcript

0:00

So what do furniture making and your training have in common? This weekend we put together a new vanity for our daughter, and of course, I just couldn't help but think about how this connected to training. And there's probably some things that you can already start to see connections with, and hopefully some that maybe you didn't see, because I could see some before we started, and then there was a lot of things that happened during the process that I thought were good lessons as well. So welcome to the Real Life Runners Podcast, episode number 463. Let's get started. What's up, runners? We are building furniture this weekend. Oh, wow. Now you're giving the intro? I was like, "Let's get started." I don't even know where that came from. Yeah. I've never said that before. I don't know, but then you didn't- And then you jumped in. But you didn't give us a what's up, so I, I just went for it. Okay. So what's up, runners? Welcome back to the show. There you go. There we go. What are we talking about today? we're talking about building furniture and running- Yeah simultaneously. I was trying to figure out outside of our podcast what building furniture and training have in common. I feel like it's somehow connected to the Amish, but- The Amish? Because the fur- they build the furniture. Yeah, they do, but do they also run? I don't know, but they don't listen to podcasts, so- Yeah I feel like we're- Technology's not their thing gonna be hard to offend. Yeah. So I named the podcast It Doesn't Look Like Anything Yet, because that is definitely how we felt when we opened the box of this vanity that we are going to assemble. Now, to set the scene, we have a 13-year-old daughter who just graduated from eighth grade, as you all know, because we just talked about that on our previous podcast And so it's this transition phase for our family. Definitely for her, definitely for our family. And one of the pieces of this transition phase is her bedroom. her bedroom has been, let's just say in a transition phase of its own for the past few months. And, I think that middle school is an interesting phase of life, period. Because I was h- having this conversation today with another mom who has a daughter that's also 13, and she was telling me about her daughter's room. And we were talking about that phase of life of just being a teenager in middle school, and how so many of them are holding onto their childhood, and then they're in this in-between phase of, growing up and not wanting to grow up. And I think that sh- shows itself, and they tend to collect a lot of stuff because they still have stuff from childhood. But they also want older kinds of things, and they just end up having a lot of stuff. End up with a lot of stuff- Yeah because it's essentially, multiple years of transition. instead of actually just transitioning and being on the other side, you just spend middle school perpetually transitioning. Hanging onto the younger aspect and then trying to also get forward to the older aspect. So it's, yeah, it's an interesting multi-year transition period. It is. And so we are now in the process of redoing her room to make it look and feel more like a high schooler's room, like more of what she now wants as a high schooler moving forward. And part of that is a new vanity, because she just has more beauty products now and more things. And so we ordered this new vanity on Amazon, and it came in a big box. And we open this box and of course, it's in every single little piece. we have to put together the entire thing. So think of Ikea, right? Ikea furniture is the, What's the word I'm looking for? the go-to here. it's like the cliche of- The cliche that's- of these guys. Yeah. But this was not Ikea. One, because none of the pieces had fun names to them, and the end result wasn't like a Smorgasbord or whatever their furniture is called. Yeah. but it was so many more pieces. I didn't know this was happening. I- What do you mean you didn't know it was happening? I knew that there was a room transition. I knew that she wanted to get a vanity. But I came home one day and there was a box in our garage. And you're like- Sometimes things like this happen at our house and you're like, "Hey." Guess what? It's "Do you see what was in the garage?" And I'm like, "I don't know, a big giant box." And it didn't occur to me- it was a vanity, 'cause on the outside it didn't say anything, it just said SKU- and then had its number to it. I'm like, "I don't know." Yeah, there was no picture or anything. some big thing on the outside. And so yeah, I'm picturing that this is gonna be like a project, we're gonna have to put the thing together. And- That box got opened and there were so many pieces inside Yeah, so many pieces. So we spent three hours yesterday assembling a vanity. Three hours. And so we had no idea how long this was going to take. and Kevin and I would say in general are pretty handy. we're pretty good. We've put together a lot of things before together. I'm incredibly handy. You are. I think you are. there's some things that you need to look up on YouTube, but overall I would say you're decently handy. Yeah, I think your favorite thing that I'm good at is, hanging things in straight lines. Oh, Lord have mercy. Don't get me started on that. So anywho, we had all of these pieces, right? So we're taking out all the numbered pieces and we get them all out of the box because of course the first piece that you need is, a third of the way or two-thirds of the way down the box. So we have to unassemble the box just to get to all these pieces. So- I think that, as I was looking at all these unassembled pieces around me, it made me think, "Okay, how does this all relate to training?" And so today we're gonna be talking obviously about the vanity, but also about how all of it relates to running and to training. So the first thing that we, I think, all think of when it comes to vanity, people are like, "Okay, they're probably gonna be talking about how we have to follow the directions." And yes, that is important. It is the first thing that I looked for when we were opening the boxes to make sure that we had the instructions. And so I think it's interesting to ask yourself, are you the person that looks for the instructions? Do you scan the picture, skip the instructions, and try to figure it out as you go? Or are you someone that takes the instructions and reads them front to back in completion before you even start the project? Or are you somewhere in between, where you take the instructions and you go step by step? I like the step by step, but that's because I grew up on Legos. sometimes you could look a couple steps ahead and be like- Yeah "All right, I could do this step because it's like, it's a parallel step. I can do these things simultaneously." And we did that. We did. and with running sometimes there's there's things that have to happen in order, but there are ways that you can do things simultaneously. And there were three of us working on this, so it's not like we had to complete step one before we did step two- before we did step three. there was a couple of us working on step one and two, and then someone jumped ahead and did three because three was unrelated. You didn't have to finish one and two before you could do three. And that's also how training plans work is you can do some of these things in parallel with each other. Yeah. And I think that, it is important to follow the steps because when you skip steps in furniture assembly, sometimes you end up getting to step 14 and you realize that step 6 was load-bearing and now you have to undo the work that you already did. Or as anybody who's ever done a lot of furniture self-assembly, this was entirely with those funky screws and the cam locks. Yes. So if you put the wrong wall on first, you can't cam lock in all the other pieces. And then you're disassembling all this stuff. So if you're jumping steps, you have to be well aware of what you're jumping. And be like, "All right. Can I actually do this? Will I still actually form a worthwhile structure?" Yeah. People do this with training plans. They're like, "I wanna get to the race. My race is in six weeks. I-" I've got a 12-week training plan. Can I skip the steps? It's you can ki- skip some of them, but it might not be the most stable piece of furniture you have. Yeah. It might not be the most sturdy training plan you have. It might open you up towards more injuries. So what is it that you wanna get out of it? Yeah. And so some of the steps that we often see runners making are that one that Kevin just mentioned, which is jumping mileage before building base. I can't tell you how many clients have come to us throughout the years and put in a training plan request, right? Because when you join the membership, basically we help you with whatever goal it is that you are working towards, and we love it when people have long-term goals, and we can help you build properly towards those long-term goals, and we can have multiple training cycles to work towards it. And sometimes we get wonder- clients like that, and sometimes we get clients that pop into our membership and say, "I have a half-marathon in eight weeks and I haven't trained for it." And it's shoot, that's not the most ideal situation. And they realize that. they w- that's pr- one of the things that prompts them to join the membership, right? Often the lighter they're in the first place. Because they're like, "Oh, crap, I haven't done anything," or, "I haven't done enough. Now I n- actually need some help here." And so we can help, but there's only so much that we can do at that point in time. and I'm very transparent and very clear about, this is not ideal. This is not the way that we would recommend doing it, but this is what I think is going to be the best plan considering the circumstances that we have right now. And if we really were time limited on this, we could have created a vanity that was standing on the wall. It just probably would've been missing some drawers. it would've been missing some pieces. It still would've been, technically, if you stepped back and you looked at it, you'd been like, yeah, it's a new vanity in the room," but it wouldn't have been the most ideal version of it, and that's what happens when you try and rush things. Or if you try and skip some more important steps inside of training, if you're trying to skip the strength training, if you're trying to skip on the recovery, if you're trying to skip out on some of these key foundational pieces- Yeah then that's I'm gonna build this vanity, except it doesn't need a back wall, does it? yeah, it kinda does, 'cause that's the wall that adds the stability to the back of it so it doesn't all just- Yeah cave in on itself. Yeah. That part's super important. And so skipping steps doesn't mean that step disappears. It just means that- Most often you're going to me- meet that step again later, usually in the form of an injury, a plateau, or a breakdown that seems to come out of nowhere. But most likely it's because there were some steps along the way that were skipped. Yeah, and like there's- Or a foundation that wasn't built there's a reason why this comes with directions. Yeah. There's a reason why it's not just like a picture and like a page that says good luck. the directions are there because the people who m- made the furniture know all the mistakes you're gonna make along the way, and so they're like, "Look, here are all of the steps that you need to do. This is the best way to put them together." It really is like the furniture version of progressive overload. Yeah. You have to get in, you have to start at level one- before you can do level two. You can't just, you can't super overload yourself right off the bat. That's an injury waiting to happen. But like Kevin said, there are sometimes things that you can do in parallel. For example, one of the things that we were working on with the base of the vanity, we allowed our daughter to start working on the drawers, because the drawers needed to be assembled separately anyway, and then once the drawers were assembled, they then went into the vanity. So those things could be done at the same time. It, you didn't need the vanity to be done before you started the drawers. No, and that's an excellent like side tangent here of working with a team- is super helpful. Yes. Because we were all able to get the thing. I don't know how long this would've happened if it was just one of the two of us. especially because a lot of those pieces, that were bigger and that you needed to be like screwing things and making sure that things were aligned up properly, it was definitely a two- much, much easier as a two-person job. Yeah, it was just much easier. Yeah. It could have been done. It just would've taken longer- and possibly need to be unscrewed and redone and undone and redone. Yeah. It would've taken a lot longer before it looked like we were actually creating a vanity. Yeah. And my thumb would've ripped to shreds. Oh my gosh, I know, especially using those, what, the hex, what- The little Allen wrench? Allen wrenches. Yeah. Why do they all have Allen wrenches? Like, why not just use screwdrivers? Because Allen said that they were supposed to be there. Yeah, 'cause he s- set, he set a contract with Ikea and all furniture assembly companies like that. Way to go, Allen. Way to go, Allen. You're a gazillionaire now. I bet he is. Yeah. But I think that, that is important and it's not something that we were even planning on talking about, but teamwork does make the dream work when done correctly. Like- Oh, you said it. I did it. but it is one of those things that you c- we- one of- one person could have done this. It would've just taken a lot longer. It would've taken you a lot longer to both figure it out and assemble it because you would have been having to do all of the things. And then there are some steps that are just much easier when you have someone there assisting you, and I think that's what a lot of runners do with their running, is they just try to figure it out on their own. They're like, it's just running." It's like, "Oh, it's just a vanity." It's I can see what that looks like. It's y- we're gonna have to build this structure and let's build some drawers and I'm sure I can figure it out. And all the holes in it really were pre-drilled. Yeah. So without directions, you could've looked at it and been like, "Oh, I put this type of screw in that hole and this type of screw in that hole." And I could, you could get this thing done, but it would've taken a couple of days to put the thing together. the way that a training plan works, there's been so many people that have followed similar training plans. It's not that there's only one way to go through a training plan, but there's a way that coaches have figured out over decades of coaching- Yeah that this seems to be the most optimal way. Or they get an athlete that sort of responds to different types of training differently, and they know how to adjust things slightly. Like it's having that fallback of a coach, that fallback of the directions that say, "This is gonna be the way that m- makes the most sense to put all the pieces together." and so your training plan is the instruction manual. It is the instruction manual from years of science and experience and coaching that you are then benefiting from. You have to also make sure- that you have the right training manual or the right instruction manual for the piece that you're trying to put together. I think that this is another mistake that runners make, is they try to follow the wrong set of instructions, and they don't get to the desired outcome, and it's because they weren't following the plan that was right for them all along. They're trying to fo- follow someone else's instructions. All right. So this is gonna stretch the metaphor a little bit, but this is a lot of the, the- We're doing a lot of dubbing here, so it's all good. All right So really, I'm straining the metaphor, but there's some stuff that hits social media of, "Oh, I've got a brand-new workout routine, and this is the one that's going to change your life." And then if you have an understanding of the history of running theory, you look at that training plan, you're like, "That's not a brand-new training plan. That's 1950s." Yeah. Or actually, that's from the 1920s. that's a really old training... That training plan is 100 years old, but it hasn't been done for a while- Yeah because in the 1930s, people figured out that there was a better way to do it. In the 1960s, people figured out that the '50s plan didn't work as well. So sure, it looks new, but it's probably a really old plan. I don't need the instructions for the dresser that used to be in the room. I need the instructions for the current thing in front of me. I need the best operating manual with what is actually in front of me. I need to be able to work with the body that I have. I can't still train with a training plan that worked with my 20 years ago body. I need the training plan that works with my current body. I like it. How'd I do with that metaphor? That was good. All right. Yeah, I don't think that was too far of a stretch. But I looped it all in. you looped it all in. All right. Part number two is that every piece matters. So what happens to the finished vanity if even one small part is missing or misplaced? So as we were building this vanity, okay, because honestly, actually, we should probably tell the story of the dollhouse because the dollhouse- Okay. We got our daughters a dollhouse for Christmas, and by we, Santa. Santa brought a dollhouse. Santa brought a dollhouse to our daughters. And so if you are listening to this podcast with little ones in the car, you might wanna pause it, skip it, come back, because we're gonna tell a little story here, and I don't wanna ruin anything. So- Santa, brought our girls a dollhouse, and so that dollhouse stayed in, in its box in a back closet for, until Christmas Eve. 'Cause what are we supposed to do? it was a huge dollhouse. It was like four feet, four foot high by four foot wide. It was a huge dollhouse. Yes. You cannot assemble this- it was four by four. Yeah, you cannot assemble this ahead of time. So here we are on Christmas Eve after the girls go to bed, assembling the dollhouse. Allen wrench in hand. Oh my gosh, assembling this dollhouse, which was huge. And so we're putting this together. It's late. Obviously we wanna go to bed, and you're getting through it, and then all of a sudden it was missing, wall E. Yeah. It was missing one of the side walls- One of the walls of the entire house. Not like a middle wall that separated rooms, like one of the side walls of the entire building- didn't exist. Just wasn't there. And I'm like w- the number of times that we looked through the pieces and it, Kevin was just like, "Angie, it's not here." I'm like, "It has to be here. It has to be here." And so we assembled it. We were able to actually assemble the dollhouse without the wall. Like it was- Because I'm an engineer and I'm gonna make that work it was good and it worked. It, but it was missing one of the walls. There was some elf power on that one. And so we did tell the girls that one of the elves must have made a mistake and forgotten the wall, and, Santa, they would be sending the wall from the North Pole, which they did. I think you, you actually wrote a note in your elf handwriting- I did and let them know that wall would be returning. That wall was being delivered in five to seven business days. Yes. So anyhoo, we've been through this scenario before. So this time with the vanity, we're going through, and this is one of those scenarios where, do you check every piece before you even start? Because we did not. we, like unpacked the box enough to get to the first piece, and then we started assembling. Oh, I had full faith. And so we got to piece number 10, which was the main desk of the vanity, and Maddie looks at me and she said, "Mom, it's broken. It's cracked." And I was like, "What?" And so I look at this and there's this huge crack along the width of the vanity desk And I'm like, "Okay, let me take, let take a look at this." And so I'm l- check- checking this. I'm, like, trying to bend it. is it actually busted? Is it just a surface crack? Is this the f- the top of the vanity? Is it the bottom? Is this even gonna show? And so I'm trying to assess the situation to figure out what we're gonna do here because we had already put together at least an hour's... It... we were already at least an hour into this vanity assembly- I have no idea when we discovered this. We were far enough in that time- You were out of the room time had lost all meaning- Yeah at that point. So yeah, we were well into it. Yeah. Just for some clarity here, we're working with, melamine, so we're looking at, plasticky covered particle board. Yeah. And it turns out the crack was through the plastic- but had absolutely nothing through the wood part itself. Yeah. 'Cause I came back in, you're like, "This seems superficial," and, you were trying to, literally trying to crack the board. Yeah. And I'm trying to wiggle it a little bit, and you're like, "Go for it because if it cracks, then we'll just get another one." And- Our daughter got this look on her face like, don't crack it." "We're going to use this thing." 'Cause she was fine with that crack because it's the underside. It was the underside, so you wouldn't even be able to see it. Yeah, so- Which is great. Thank goodness. and that's what we ended up doing. it worked out just fine. And so it, but every piece does matter. And so I think that this is one of those things that like thank goodness this piece was not missing. It was cracked, but that crack was not going to really affect the h- the piece, the finished piece as a whole, which is excellent. Yeah. and if you wanna then take this metaphor to like us, the body is a little bit more forgiving than furniture. Thank goodness. if we were missing a couple of the cam locks- it's just not gonna hold together as well. If we're missing a side wall, it's not gonna hold together as well. The body compensates. The human body. The human body- Yeah compensates for missing pieces. Yeah. So the body is much more forgiving. But that's a, both a gift and a curse. Yes. That's what I was gonna say. it's got this positive that if you miss something, the body kinda takes care of it, but it only takes care of it for a while. And it just hides a weakness that you can get away with having the weakness until you strain the body enough that the weakness pops up. Until you can't any longer, right? Yes. Like your body just naturally finds workarounds, so if you do have some weakness in your glutes, a lot of times your lower back is going to kick in and help out, or your hamstrings are gonna k- kick in and help out. And it, that can get you to a, to an extent, depending on what you're training for, that can be okay until it's not, until those muscles get overworked and you end up developing the injury or the pain because the original muscle's not doing its job properly or because there's a restriction present that your body's not really able to work through anymore. Yeah, my body was totally fine with whatever weaknesses it had through all of high school when I was at like 40, 50 miles a week, but when you ramp that to 80 to 100 miles a week, m- my knee was like, "I don't know what you're doing, but this is not gonna work." And it wasn't the knee's fault. it was a weakness in glutes and hips and, we've talked about that a lot. But it was a, it was other weaknesses. But that's not the only, it's not just muscular weakness that people leave out of their training plan. People forget fueling. People forget sleep. People forget mobility. They just completely block out all sorts of recovery. They're like, no, I've gotta make sure that I hit the important pieces of my training plan." "How far am I running? When are my strength days?" But that's not all of your training plan. Yeah. If you're not actually recovering, recovery is such a key important part of the training plan. If you're missing that, that's like if, it literally would be like if we put this thing together and just put screws, but we didn't cam lock anything together. It seems stable, but is it? Yeah. It's held together. It is not stable- if you don't cam lock it. 'Cause those cam locks pop out sometimes too if you don't get them all the way, turn the full 90 degrees or whatever they're supposed to go, right? So- On the other hand, when all pieces are in place, when your sleep is protected, when your fueling is dialed in, when your strength work is consistent, and your recovery is planned and intentional, the whole thing works the way that it's supposed to, and it's noticeably different. Even if you start taking one of those pieces and improving on that piece, like I know so many clients that have come in and s- actually started to fuel their body properly, and they just see a huge improvement in all areas of their training because now they're giving their body what it actually needs. Yeah, and these can seem like bonuses, that the training plan is what should be written down on the piece of paper, but they are critical to it. Yeah. it's trying to put together a thing, like I said, without cam locks, without putting the drawer pulls on the drawer. W- you're not opening those drawers without a pull on the front of it. And sure, that was some extra work, but the drawers literally don't function without them. your body doesn't function if you're like, "Eh, I'll just, I'll get in some sleep." "I'll provide my body with some fuel." No, it needs all the things- Yeah in order to actually take care and make the progress. and then there are the pieces, like that were at the end, that were optional pieces. Yes. And I think that's one of the things that we have to think about too, because there were these little plastic pieces with screws, and I'm like, "Kevin, what the heck are these? I feel like they're just supports." They weren't, there wasn't, there were no pre-drilled holes where they were supposed to go, and there was also the wall strap that you can put s- to, to strap the vanity up against the wall so that it doesn't fall over, the safety strap, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so- We skipped that one. we shouldn't tell people that 'cause that's like- We skipped that one we don't have little kids anymore, so that's a good thing. We all, I, there's, it's unlikely that an earthquake is gonna hit. That's true. That doesn't happen in Florida. Or that our daughter's gonna try to climb to the top of her vanity. Yeah, we should tell her not to do that. We probably should tell her not to do that. But the little plastic things in the back, I was like asking Kevin what they were, and I'm like, "They look like they're just reinforcements of the back," because the back of the drawer was just a very thin sheet of plastic. So he's "Yeah, that's what they were." And I'm like, "Okay, so then we don't even really have to do them." And there are pieces of training that are like that, that are more of the optimization. 'Cause Kevin was like, I started, I came in and he was like, I'm just gonna put them on." And I'm like, "Oh, okay, you're gonna do it?" And he said, "Yeah, they do add extra support." And they do. so if she slams the drawers or if she overstuffs the drawers, they will add an additional level of support, and so I think it's worthwhile for me to put them in. And so the same way that you don't need every piece of the training plan, if you're really pushing the boundaries of what your body's capable of- you really need to make sure that you've got all the nooks and crannies of the training plan dialed in. Yeah. you need all the pieces. The extra support. Yeah. you talk about do we need enough protein over the course of the day. Is it an exact perfect window after your workout for when you need the exact amount of protein? No. No, it's not. But- But if you have all of the other pieces already dialed in, then nutrient timing might make a bit of a difference. Yes, but it's only once you have everything in. Yeah. This was the extra piece once the vanity was perfect and completely assembled. Yeah. Then it was like, yeah, this is gonna provide a little extra support. We didn't start there. Yeah. this wasn't step two. But this is what so many of the social media influencers are pushing nowadays, is they're taking these tiny little pieces of ways to optimize your training, and they're making that the whole story. Because eventually you run out of things to talk about. we don't 'cause we just repeat ourselves over and over again and tell you how important sleep is and easy running is and strength training and mobility because these are the main pieces. These are the big rocks. And if you're not consistent with the big rocks, the other pieces of optimization don't really matter. So if we didn't have the drawers assembled properly, and if we didn't have the back of the vanity- inputted the right way, those tiny little plastic pieces weren't gonna do anything. Yeah, no. And, but you're right, that it's what people on social media like to do. They like to come up with whatever supplement stack, whatever thing w- honestly they're selling, is going to then help optimize your training. And it might make a difference, but is it gonna make as much of a difference as just going out and running? Is it gonna make as much of a difference as adding in a second day of strength over just one? It's definitely not gonna add as much of putting in a first day of strength versus zero, I'll tell you that much. Definitely. the big pieces of going out and running and lifting during the week is what you need before you're like, "Eh, maybe I need to make sure that I have this exact, anti-inflammatory supplement." Yeah. it might do something for you, but not as much as the foundation. But it's also not gonna do much for you if you're missing a big piece. Yeah. Because I think people are trying to optimize without the foundation in place, and then you're not really going to get much benefit at all. So if I don't run at all, you're telling me that I can't just drink gallons of tart cherry juice and that's gonna make a difference? No. Okie dokie. It will not. And then, moving on to our next lesson, we've got those setbacks, those times where, you know, we, things got put in the wrong place. So basically, we were assembling the drawers, and we got to w- a point where we thought we had everything in place, and then we go to insert the drawer in at the end, and Kevin realized that he had put the track of the drawer on the wrong side. he had reversed the left and the right sides. Yeah. It turned out I had added the piece to number 13 that was supposed to go on 15, and then one to 15 that was supposed to go on 13. I go to try and drop the drawer in, and I'm looking at it, I'm like, that's not gonna work." And it could have. I could have tried to kinda s- lift the drawer in upside down, but I'm pretty sure if I did it, it just would've constantly slid back out. I coulda kinda rigged it to make sure that it did go, but I didn't. I stopped and said, "I'm going to have to unscrew these pieces and flip them." Yeah. And that's all I would have to do. I could have tried to, make it work, possibly break something, and then we're in a whole heap of mess. Yeah. I was like, "All right, no. Just undo these four screws, flip them to the other sides, put it back in, and then move forward." So what was your first instinct when you realized that you had mixed these two things up? I was thinking of screaming with profanity. Or just leaving it, right? Like you clearly had just offered that option of "I could just try to like rig it or leave it here." That was my second thought. Yeah. Screaming a profanity about- I don't know how he- That was first. So frustration. Yes, let's go with frustration. Because I don't know what hour we were at by that point. Yeah. By that point- It was towards the end, 'cause that was like when it was time to actually just put all the drawers in and fin- be finished. like the, the- So we were probably about three hours in almost. So the thing looked like a vanity. It was in its final location. Yeah. And I'm bringing... I've already put in most of the drawers. I'm bringing over like the wide drawer, like the, just short, wide- The belly drawer you like to call it a belly drawer. I'm not sure I know- Is that not what anybody calls it? I... please let us know. Some- I need everybody who's listening- to let us know if anybody else refers to this as a belly drawer. I, is this not what people... You didn't call it this? You were the first per- I will now always call it a belly drawer because I love you dearly. So this is the drawer that pulls out in, into your belly when you're in a desk. Is that not what is it called? So if you're sitting at a desk and you have like three drawers in a stack on one side, and then you have a drawer in the middle that's kinda long- A long one it's like long and shorter than the other ones. Th- is there anybody out there who calls it a belly drawer? Is there anybody who has a different name for it? Is there any- Please let us know, genuinely. DM me on Instagram. 'Cause I am- Or if you're a team member, put it in, in our team chat 'cause I am so very curious of the answer to this. But anyway, I'm trying to put this thing in, and it doesn't go, and I'm looking at him like, "Dang it, this is upside down. 100% this is upside down." And my first thought was, in fact, great frustration. My second was, "Can I put it in upside down?" c- instead of dropping the wheels in from on top, could I slide them in from underneath? Would it still track correctly? Or would it just come out and hit your belly? Was it gonna hit me in the belly? I was not worried about that. I thought it was gonna slide forward and then drop onto my toes, quite frankly. And so- Because of all the times that you're gonna sit at Ma- her vanity. When I often, like- When you're doing her makeup, your makeup at her vanity. I've often thought I needed a vanity. so anyway, for, two seconds I tried to see if I could slide this thing in from underneath, and then I was like, "All right, I have to fix this. I have to put these in and undo it," and I move forward. And I think the same thing happens with training plans. If it's not going well, a lot of times we try and just push through. Yeah. That, that first sign of an injury- Just rig it in there that's not an injury, but it's like something doesn't feel quite right, do you push through? I probably could have shoved the drawer in. It just wouldn't have gone well. Nobody sees anything over here. it's weird why it's making that- Don't look, Angie. Angie, look over there. Look, it's a butterfly. I, I don't know why it's making that clunking sound every time you slide the drawer in. Or what I was nervous was I was gonna be able to get the drawer in- but it would never slide. It wouldn't come out. It was just going to be permanently in. Yeah. So I stopped and fixed it, and it took a little bit longer, but it didn't take forever. And I think the same thing happens when these, injury niggles show up. Yes. Take two to three days- Off often. Not always. Sometimes there are types of injuries that you can go through. But just forcing your way through it is likely going to cause a much bigger setback than taking two days off- Yeah three days off. Yeah, and I think that is a really important thing. Sometimes we just need to take a step back and calmly assess because I think the first instinct that comes up is that frustration or "Oh, God, not again," or, "Oh, God, this is not working the way that I want it to," or, "Oh, God, I've already spent three hours on this. Can't I just be done already?" So we would spend three hours, but what if you're like week 10 of a 12-week training plan? exactly. I've spent 10 weeks on this. My race is coming up remarkably close. I need to g- I need to get through these next- Yeah two, two weeks. No, you probably need to take a couple days off. and you'll be fine, and it won't affect your training at all, and would probably benefit you. Exactly. that could be what happens here as well, right? So those times where those little setbacks occur are not times to freak out. They're just times to take a step back and say, "Okay, what do I need to redo here?" What isn't going the way that I need it to? What can I assess so I can figure out what to do next? What is my next best step? because if some injury comes up, it depends on where you're at in a training cycle. Yeah. It depended on where we're at inside of building the piece of furniture. I needed to calmly look at it and be like Do I have to take, several things apart? Because if we had to disassemble half of the vanity, I may have just tried to figure out how I can- I was gonna force that thing. W- I may have been like, "All right. Should we disassemble this entire thing, or can I run to Lowe's and get a new piece that goes on the left side and suddenly it slides right in?" which was gonna be more worthwhile? Yeah. Because completely disassembling this- 'Cause we've done that in the house in various projects as well. Yes, we have. Yeah. and it works. So it depends on where you're at inside of this. If you're in, a general maintenance plan and injuries come up, you probably need to steer a little bit more, in all likelihood, towards strength training. Yeah. Because that's a highlight of an area of weakness. If you're a couple weeks out from a race, maybe give it a couple days' rest, and then alter the training plan so that you can successfully get to the race. maybe adjust what the goal of the race is. see how this is. You need to figure out what's going on with your body, what's the general outlook of the training plan, and what kind of timeframe are we working with. But I think the big key is really trying to catch things as early as possible and figure out what you need to do to correct it, and adjusting before that injury becomes a full stop. and all of that requires calmness. Yeah, for sure. if my opening response of frustration was not helpful at all. Wasn't it screaming profanities? That, which- Was it? which you adjusted and said frustration. Frustration. So that's what we're gonna say. It was frustration. Like when that wall was missing 'cause the elves didn't bring it. Yeah, exactly. So there are times in your training plan where maybe you just need to redo a week. maybe it's not time for you to progress on. Even though your training plan says you need to add mileage next week and your body's saying, "This was a very stressful week for me. We don't need to, we don't need to add more. I just need another week to adapt to what we're currently doing." That is a very good idea, being able to redo that week or redo that phase. Or, I mean- God forbid you actually not run the race that you signed up for. like I think that is a choice too, and that's a very hard choice to make. Oof. But sometimes that is the best choice for your long-term health and longevity in the sport. I know. That's just a really hard choice, though. For sure. And one of our clients, shout out to Sarah, recently made this choice for herself. she had a 50K planned later in the year, and she, it's still months away. There's plenty of time for her to train for this. But she took a step back and realized how much else she had going on in her life. She's moving across the country, and there's so many other things going on in her life. She decided that's not gonna be the best choice for me to do this right now. And that's a tough choice to come to, but oftentimes it's a very good choice. Yeah, and this is one of the differences between building the piece of furniture and the training plan, is other life stresses are going to affect your training plan. if we were trying to build this thing while simultaneously, I don't know, making dinner, Or buil- Or deal, d- dealing with company at our house or dealing with a dog barking as we try and record a podcast, or we were trying to record the podcast while building the furniture. Ooh. that would- With the dog barking. none of this would've gone very well. If the dog was in the room while we tried to build the furniture- Oh my gosh like- That would've been a hot mess. Yeah. g- 'cause he would've been climbing on all the pieces and sniffing and messing up the bag of screws and- And I promise you, I would've just jammed that drawer in and that would've been it yelling profanities along the way. Yes. Like the sailor that I am. Yeah, so you could've forced the drawer, and it may have worked for a while, but at some point that would've caught up to you. it would've failed eventually. Maybe not at the beginning, maybe not the first couple of months, but down the road, especially after she loaded all of her makeup into that drawer- Oh, yeah and now it has all of the weight on top of the poor track, the wrong track that it's on, it's going to catch up to it eventually and break. Yes. And the same thing is gonna happen in your life, especially if you have a whole lot of external stresses in your life. Yeah. Those are going to affect the way that you train. Yeah. Those are going to affect all, how you can progress in your training because it's gonna change the way that you recover in your training. All right, moving on to our fourth takeaway, trusting the process when you can't see the progress. And this is a big one, and this is really why I named the episode what I did because, yeah, we can understand that, the things that we've talked about so far, I think, but I think that this is one of the big things, is that when you're sitting there, when I found myself sitting on this hard tile floor in my 45-year-old body for hours at a time and just looking at all of the pieces surrounding me, and my butt was sore and I had worked out yesterday. I did squats yesterday. So I was already stiff. And I, at that point, like we had worked for a good hour And I was looking around, and it still looked like a pile of pieces. And so I had no idea how long this thing was going to take. I thought it would probably take us a couple hours. My was, my guess was, like, two. It ended up taking us a little over three hours, like right around three hours, with three of us working on it. And there wasn't a point where you just could stop. you had to just keep going. we could have. I made a joke 'cause I wanted to go in the pool. It was Memorial Day, and so my goal was to put the vanity together, and then for all of us to go and relax in the pool for the afternoon. Your goal was to be in the pool at 3:00. Ish. And we started building the vanity at 2:00. as, as soon as we started building at 2:00, I knew that 3:00 was not a thing, but I was thinking, 4:00, 4:30. Yes. Yeah. We got in the pool at 6:00. Yes, we did. 'Cause I still wanted to do the pool. So the pool was definitely shortened, but there was one point, like I said, where w- I'm just looking around and there's just all of these pieces. And it just felt like it... We had already been working for over an hour, and it still, there was still so much left. And I think that is such a big parallel to our training because we're going out and you're doing the thing. You're running. You're lifting. You're putting in all of this work, and you, it takes time to see the progress. Most of the time you do not feel stronger a couple of weeks in. S- a lot of times you feel weaker. You actually feel worse than you did when you started. But this, sometimes you get that, that first week- that you feel good because you make those quick adaptations- and you gain some coordination, but then it feels like you stagnate- for so long. It would've been like if we had built the, the stool first. Then "Look at us, we've done a stool." It's done. Yeah. But we still had the entire vanity. It's that illusion that you've made good progress, and then there's so many pieces that still have to go. Yeah. And to me, that's what happens a lot with strength training- is the jump that you get from, from workout number one and two to workout number three is like- "Oh my God, I'm making huge progress." And then four feels the same, and five feels the same, and six feels the same. Yeah. You're like, "All right. I d- apparently am not-" Whoa, what the heck? making the progress." And this is one of the most psychologically difficult parts of training. I don't think that we really talk about it enough, is that phase when it, you're doing everything right and you just don't see any changes yet. Yeah. Because progress is so nonlinear- Yeah in endurance running. it's happening, but so much of the progress is the coiling of a spring- Yeah before it actually goes, and you can't really see that in endurance training. you can't see the mitochondria being made, the capillary, capillarization- of your muscles. It's it's small. It's literally microscopic things that are happening. I was like, literally the microscopic level. you actually can't see the things. On the cellular level, there are subcellular pieces being built. Like the little mitochondria are- Little, teeny powerhouses of the cell. I said it but those are smaller than the cell. Yes. those are inside of the cell. Yes. Yes. As we all know, they're tiny little factories inside of the cell. Yeah. That's what they are in the textbook. intracellular. Come on, Mr. Biology Teacher. You, I know you taught biology for, a year or two, right? Yeah, I taught- How many years did you t- teach biology? I don't know. Too many. Yeah. People keep asking me how many years I've been doing this. Cellular pieces. I'm like, "I don't know. All of them." All of them. Yeah, so your body's literally doing all sorts of things on a cellular level, and you just can't see it because it takes time for those highways, those capillary networks. It takes time for the red blood cells to be built to make the oxygen delivery more efficient to the cells. All of that takes time, and this is what trusting the process is all about. Trusting the process requires that we follow the steps even when you can't see the outcome Even when, like, when you don't get that immediate feedback, it's staying consistent even though you don't see that payoff, or you don't feel stronger, or you might even feel weaker in the process, and resisting the urge to change everything just because it doesn't feel finished yet. Yeah. One of my favorite things about building this vanity is that our daughter helped us. And not because she felt that she had to. Not because- I really liked what she said about this today. Yeah. N- I don't know what she said today, so you- Oh you may repeat part of mine. I will let you know. but she didn't do it because she felt bad that we were gonna do it without her. She wanted to have some responsibility in the building of the vanity. she had to go through the process. Yeah. She didn't just wanna sit back and have the vanity built. She wanted to be actually be connected to it. Which, to me, is amazing, because that's the boring process. Yeah. what she wanted was a vanity, and what she then signed up for was building the vanity. And that's fantastic, because it was a slow, painstaking process. Yeah, and that's basically what she repeated today, is that she didn't want... Like, when she... She told me, "When I sit at my vanity, I wanna sit there and know I helped to build this." And I just thought that was such a cool response. Yeah. I just thought it wasn't like, "Oh, I feel guilty that Mom and Dad took all of their time to do this." It was like, "No, I helped in this process, and I helped build this thing. every time I sit at my vanity, I'm gonna remember that." Yeah. To me, this is why the process is so fantastic. Which is why racing is awesome, and times and a clock are neat, but it's the training that is so rewarding. if climbing Mount Everest is awesome, but you could just take, a helicopter up to the top and drop yourself there- Yeah I assume, it would not be anywhere near as rewarding. You'd still get a cool picture, but you didn't do the difficult part. She enjoys sitting in front of the vanity, one, 'cause she has what she wants, but two, she had buy-in to it. The process and going through the slow part is what makes it so rewarding now that she's reached this side of it. And I think that's one of the toughest pieces about training, is that you don't know how long it's going to take. You can't always see the finish line. Even when you have a race, and you technically have a finish line there, you have a date that you assume your training is going to be finished by, you don't know if everything is going to go smoothly. You don't know if you're actually going to be ready by that date. We just have to keep working, There is no guaranteed timeline for when your body will adapt, especially if you've been working towards a bigger goal. There are a lot of people that have big goals, and they try for it. And even if you have a race on the calendar and you don't achieve it that first time, and you try for it again, and you don't achieve it that second time. And so you genuinely have been trying for that goal, not achieving that goal, so you don't know how long it's going to take, 'cause a lot of times we're like- I think I'm ready. I think we're, this is gonna go well. I'm gonna go finally get my sub two-hour half-marathon, or I'm finally gonna get my BQ time. I'm finally gonna get this thing, and then it doesn't happen. And then you have to make that decision, do I wanna keep going even though I don't have any guarantees, and I really don't know how long this is going to take me? Yeah, and that's when you have to actually enjoy the plan. Yeah. you can't just enjoy the outcome. You have to enjoy the experience of the training. Yeah. I think that professionals actually have a good parallel on this one because there are pro athletes that'll go into an Olympics, and then world champs the next year, and the next year, and then another Olympics, and their times are almost the same for across, a four-year period. Yeah. It's just... and they're training as hard as anybody in the world, and their times are relatively stagnant. And they still have to get out there and put in the work. And maybe they're dropping a minute- Yeah over the course of a marathon over the course of three or four years. And that's huge. And they just keep showing up and putting in the work because they get to a point where they have to enjoy what they're doing. Yeah. That, that the running isn't entertaining enough. and that's like with the vanity, we just had to keep screwing in the cam locks, cam lock, cam... we had 16 different piece A to screw into the thing. And then you're putting all these things together, and it still looks like all these separated pieces. And then you get to step 14, where you take the top piece and the bottom piece, and you drop the top on the bottom, and boom, it looks like a vanity. Yes. in that one step. That was not step 14. That was step 34. 27. Yeah, right? But even when, once you finally drop that top, the top onto the bottom and it looks like a vanity, it's still not stable, right? Yes. You still have to go in and tighten all the cam locks. You have to put all the drawers in. And then when you step back, that's the moment that it all comes together. So there's finally that payoff. There's the satisfaction, the perspective on all the work, The whole process finally comes together and you have a completed vanity. Yeah, and this is when you actually get to the race. You've gone through the training plan. You've made it through the highs and the lows and the borings. I- Lots of borings people talk about the highs and the lows- Yeah but what about the borings of the training plan? There's so many of the borings, yeah. That was a lot of what happened here. sitting on the hard floor trying to screw all these things together, it's so repetitive. So much of running is, and now you have to go out and get in 45 minutes easy, an hour easy. that's so much of what the running is. Yeah. And it's not the most exciting thing, but that's the part that, that builds you. That's the part that actually takes you on most of the journey. Yeah. There are some highs, there are some t- some rough spots, but a lot of it is just that you have to keep doing the thing. And when you get to those highs, the moments that you do start to feel that change, where you notice that, you have a long run that feels amazing, or you hit a race goal that you have, or your effort feels lighter, or you s- add another plate to your strength training, barbell or dumbbell or whatever it is that you're using and you go up in a weight, those moments only happen because of all of the steps that came before it. The directions that you followed, the pieces that you didn't skip, the drawer track that you redid, that you assessed and went back and decided to switch over. The hour one work that was done without that visible reward, that's what allows that- finishing product at the three-hour mark to finally come together. that's the overnight success. Yeah. You're like, "Oh, man." I love the overnight successes. "That person came out of nowhere." Yeah. No, they didn't. They know that they didn't come out of nowhere. Their coach knows they didn't come out... Their coach has been working with them for the last six years. Yeah. They were not an overnight su- overnight success for the last six years. But this is the time that suddenly, their name became more well-known. Yeah. This is the time that they finally got that time to drop down. Look at Rachel Entrick in, we just talked about the other day- Yeah on the podcast with Cocodona 250. Sure. She's been working for a very long time. Nobody knew her, and I shouldn't say nobody, but especially people outside of the r- ultra running world- Yes didn't know who she was- Yes until- She was a much more niche name. And then suddenly she became a national story. Yeah. And b- but how many years has she been working, right? she has won the women's side of the race for the last couple of years. Yeah. So not just has she been a participant in the race she's won. She's been the best. She's been the best on the women's side. Now she just became the name that everyone knows because she won overall. Yes. Yeah. So in... And she's still, I don't think that she changed her training all that much. That's the bonkers part to me. because it's just she keeps building and building. Yes. she just- she has years of base underneath her. Yeah underneath her. Keep stacking bricks. The bricks just keep looking the same, and the wall just keeps getting bigger- and her ability just keeps growing. and she becomes smarter in the process also, I think. like- When you're going for 250 miles, you're gaining a lo- a lot of knowledge along the way. There's a lot of knowledge. There's a lot of what your body responds to, what it doesn't. You- she, I'm sure, has gained knowledge about the course and what she can expect versus the first time she ran it. there's so many other things that you gain along the way, too. Yes. So right now, to wrap this whole thing up- Your training could look like a pile of numbered pieces on the floor, and that's okay because that's what the beginning looks like. That's even sometimes what the middle looks like. The, it doesn't really matter, 'cause I think some of you listening are like, but I'm not a beginner. I've been doing this for a decade." Yeah, but it depends on what you're working towards. It depends on what your current goal is, and what are your current expectations, and what is going on in your body, like age-wise, hormonally, there, life-wise, other stresses that are all affecting the way that your body is responding to its training. So if you just stay the course, if you follow the directions, like that training plan exists for a reason. Try- don't skip the steps, right? Make sure all the pieces are there. Make sure you're also paying attention to your fueling, your strength, your sleep, your recovery. All of that hardware matters. Yeah, and if you ever have to go back and redo something, this is not a failure. This does not mean the training plan was completely wrong. it's just a hiccup. It's part of the building process, and that's okay too. It's okay to have to go back and redo a step. It's okay to add a couple of weeks to the training plan. It's okay to change course slightly along the way because you see that there was an issue- with the original plan. Yeah. So one question that we wanna offer for you to take with you today is, what piece of your training are you currently leaving out, and what would your vanity look like if you put it back in? Ooh, I'm leaving out mobility right now. Yeah. 'Cause it's my least favorite thing to do at the moment. Yeah, I think I could probably add in some more mobility as well. but I think that that's- It's a great question for all of us to answer. Yeah. No, it's a wonderful question- 'cause we've highlighted a lot of the different pieces, and I just, I particularly noticed that one today. Yeah. 'Cause I got caught at a light towards the end of my run. And just when the light then turned green and I went across the intersection, I'm like, "Why am I hobbling across the intersection?" And part of it was 'cause I was really hot and dehydrated, but my legs just weren't moving correctly. Yeah. So I think that is one area that I need to start looking into. Yeah. Absolutely. So what is that area that you need to start looking into? Let us know. Would love to hear from you guys. Leave us a comment on Spotify. If you listen on Spotify, you can go and leave a comment under each individual episode, so I would love to interact with you guys there. or you can send me a DM if you like Instagram, and, make sure you're following us on all the platforms- at Real Life Runners. Yeah, let us know if it's called a belly drawer. Oh, yes. Kevin really wants to know. You can also leave that comment. That will be funny, if you left that comment under the show for, the next person that comes- Perfect and looks at the episodes. Like- especially can you imagine if, it's a new listener and they start reading all of the comments, "It's a belly drawer. It's a belly drawer." Yes. Yeah. They're gonna be like- Yes "What did these-" 'Cause that's what they're all going to say "I'm pretty sure... What is the... Isn't this a running podcast?" Yes. "I'm not really sure what's going on." If you guys found this helpful, please leave us a comment, leave us a review, share it with a friend. Anything that you can do to help spread the word, we would be so appreciative. And also, if you are listening to this episode in the month of May 2026, I am running a special on our membership. So if you want help putting together all of the pieces, that's exactly what we do inside the membership. I'm running a special, on the monthly rate, and also a bigger special on our annual rate. So if you go- head over to realliferunners.com/team, you can get all the information. Thou- those special rates are good until May 31st. Yeah. Your annual special is bonkers. You should head over to- It is. It is bonkers realliferunners.com. It's- You should- It's too big I'm not gonna tell you right now what that rate is on the podcast because this is, this podcast is going to live on for years and years. but let me just tell you, it is worth it. So if you have been thinking about becoming a member of the team, inside the team, we go over all the pieces. There's nothing that we don't look at. We look at your mindset, your training, which includes running and strength training and mobility, your nutrition, your recovery, nervous system regulation. So much of it. we look at you as the whole person, and we give you customized plans that will help you get to where you want to go. And you've got coaches that really actually care about you. You're not just a number here at Real Life Runners. So check it all out, realliferunners.com/team. and hopefully we will see you guys there and, hear from you in the comments. So as always, thanks for joining us. This has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 463. Now get out there and run your life.