EVEN COACHES FEEL DEFEATED
DEFEATED
That’s what I feel like. After a crazy stressful year in which I completely changed the major facets of my life, it’s finally evening out. Coaching is on track, job is on track, marriage strong as ever, I even ran two half marathons and my longest distance in 10 years with a torn meniscus. Then WHAM! Covid. In a season in which I was excited to start training for the Chicago Marathon (I know I have plenty of time but I need to test the load on my knee) I’m down for the count. So what now?
Sometimes I think that when things like this happen it’s God’s way of forcing rest. I’m REALLY good at recovery and sleep but not so good at rest. I’m talking the mental, calming the brain, visualization, do nothing kind of rest. So when I don’t get it, my body gets it for me. To be clear I’m not saying God gave me Covid, but I do think that sometimes He puts hiccups in my path when I don’t listen to Him telling me to rest and spend time with Him, putting other things in front. If you aren’t in this frame of spirituality, another way to think of it is this: when the universe is telling you that you need calm and peace, but you don’t heed to the universe’s guidance, sometimes I think Mother Nature heeds the calm and peace for us.
Casey this is an endurance athlete blog? How does this pertain to running/cycling/etc? Great question. It all pertains to mindset. If I feel defeated mentally, I am physically. If I fail to rest mentally, I fail to rest physically. Before a race, all great coaches will tell you to sit somewhere comfortable and visualize your race from start to finish; visualize the terrain, the crowd, the air, and visualize finishing your best finish. This is training your mind to be as strong and confident as your body. Likewise, taking time to rest and spend time in the quiet meditating can help athletes improve mood, sleep (aka physical and mental recovery), concentration and even boost the immune system. The race analogy before is a type of mindful meditation that can help enhance race day performance.
Not sure where to start? There are plenty of apps (Calm, Headspace, even some Spotify playlists) that can help guide your meditation to help assist in the process. If you are like me and can’t get out of your head enough to get in it, start your meditation with a morning dynamic stretch or while doing foam rolling. My morning routine consists of putting on my compression boots and doing my meditation after my morning devotional; since I can’t move from the boots may as well use the relaxation as part of my meditation practice right?
While I’m recovering from the funk, I know it’ll be a few weeks before I’m back to feeling like me again. In the mean time, I’ll be using my meditation time to concentrate on healing, breathing techniques, and speaking life in to my body to enhance it’s ability to get well. And I’ll use this time to focus on getting REST, mentally, spiritually, and physically so that I can come out of this a healthier version of myself.
