Achieving Maximum Improvement

Tomorrow will mark the end of my first 3 weeks of my new training plan.  I talked to my buddy Brant on the phone this morning and we were talking about how my training was going and I'll tell you the same: It's going really good.  I really feel like it's exactly what I need to be doing.

I'm basing a lot of what I'm doing off of the training plans in the book Daniels' Running Formula.  It's a book that explains really all the specifics of training; why you do easy runs and why you do them at a certain pace, what pace to do them, what's the purpose of the tempo/threshold run, how fast to do repeats with how much rest and why that's how you should do them and on and on.

I've been doing two workouts every day, 3 miles each for a total of 6 miles each day and 36 each week.  I don't run on Sunday, it is a day of complete training/running rest.  I run at 7:34 per mile and that's how it's been going.  I've consistently been hitting my times easily and I feel really, really good.  I've had a couple of realizations as I've been following this plan.  In high school we went on an easy run or a long run and I couldn't tell what pace we ran it, nor could I ever tell you if my coach ever told us how fast to run.  I think when I was a Freshman I probably went to slow, but as I got older and started running with the faster guys I think those "easy" runs turned into hard runs.  I think there's a common misconception out there that in order to get really good you have to train incredibly hard as often as possible.  That may work for people like Steve Prefontaine, but for most that's a good way to get frustrated, injured, depressed, sick, and fatigued.  On the same token, if you go so slow all the time then it'll be hard to see improvement and you won't see even close to the results you're wanting.  I feel like Daniels' Running Formula does a good job at explaining what you should be doing and why.   I know I already said that, but I'm realizing that there's a balance to achieve for maximum improvement.

Not too hard, but not too easy at the same time.  That's how it's gotta be with everything, even the hard stuff.  Let's say you have 3 hard workouts one week.  Each hard workout has a specific purpose.  One is to improve speed, another to solidify race-pace, and the last to improve anaerobic endurance.  Well, if you go too hard on the speed, then you may not be fully recovered by the race-pace workout, and unable to complete the set. Maybe you were going to do 7 x 400 m, but because your feeling really tired, by #4 you're falling off the pace, which means you shouldn't be doing them etc.  Anyways, if that doesn't make sense, sorry, ask me some questions, but I think that explains it.

So next week I'll be doing 4 miles in the morning, 3 miles in the evening with a 9 mile long run on Saturday.  The long run shouldn't be more than 25% of the total weekly mileage, so because my total weekly mileage I want to be about 44 miles,  I shouldn't do more than 11 miles on my long run, and since I have been doing 6 miles every day, I thought it would be wise to start out at 9 miles.

On top of that, and I probably need to do a separate post on this, but I'll be testing my new maxes for push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups, along with increasing my plyometric duration time and the time I spend doing trunks, or core strengthening.

Good night.

The Ruling

So I thought I would give a brief explanation to the picture I put on Facebook earlier.  It's a picture of the women's current world record holder in the marathon, Paula Radcliffe, who also happens to be a hero of mine.  I hope to meet her one day, like next August.  The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for track and field) ruled that they will not recognize any marathon record performance by a woman who set said record in a race that had men.  So in order for a record to be legit, it has to be an all-woman race or a race where the women start ahead of the men, like they do, I believe, in the Boston Marathon, where the elite women start 45 minutes early.  Anyways, I think the whole thing is poppycock, ridiculousness. And that's all I'm going to say about it right now because I'm going to bed.  Here's a picture that describes how I feel, it's of Paula Radcliffe--I love it.

Welcome to Idaho Falls

I thought you would like some video action.  Idaho Falls is a cool little town that I'm really enjoying.  This video shows us on our way to the Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner starting from the house:

And then there's this video.  All I know is that if I fail in everything else, I will have succeeded in producing one of the world's cutest, coolest and most adorable kids.  I did like 5% or less of the work, thanks Amy! :)

"Amy, oh my gosh! I got an email back from Dr. Jack Daniels."

About a week ago I sent Dr. Jack Daniels (read my posts about what I'm doing with him: Post #1, Post #2, and Post #3), one of the world's leading exercise physiologists specializing in running, an email.  Most of you know that I coach myself.  I have been since the Summer of 2003 until the present.  For most of my life I haven't known how to properly train and as a result have over-trained and injured myself repeatedly.  Anyways, this will be short, but he emailed me back telling me he is a very busy man, but suggested some things and told me to get back to him in a few months when I had done what he suggested.

Most of you know I don't really have the money to afford a coach of any kind, so I'm using Jack's book, Daniels' Running Formula, to help me train.  I got a little scared a week and a half ago because I wasn't sure I was doing things right, so I had this idea to ask Jack.  I figured the worst thing that could happen is he could say no.  Well he didn't and I have a simple but awesome email from him.  Ask and ye shall receive--it's true.

Jennifer Toomey: Part 2

Alright, life is crazy, but I had to write this post and put some closure on this whole thing.  So basically what it comes down to, cutting to the chase of Jennifer Toomey, is that her story, I think is even more incredible than what I'm trying to do.  Maybe...

Turns out she was a really good athlete in high school and college, but not in running, nor was it anything close to running.  Jennifer Toomey was a diver.  She was a state champion, then went on to dive in college.  It wasn't until she was 27 (in 1998) that she started running.  Her friend made a bet with her that he could beat her in the Boston Marathon, so she started running.  She joined the local running club, was noticed by the coach as someone with quick strides and in 1998 ran an 800 meter time of 2:14.  2 years later in 2000, she had dropped her time to a 2:00.38 and placed 5th in the Olympic Trial semifinals.  In 2004 she was incredible.  According to Jen Toomey's USATF Bio: "she became the only athlete ever to win the middle-distance double at the USA Indoor championships. Toomey won the 800 and 1500m at 2004 USA Indoors, then placed 4th at World Indoors in a personal best time of 1:59.64 with an American record for 1,000m under her belt as well (2:34.19)."


Anyways, I guess the fact that she won a state championship in something in high school kind of disqualifies her from Ed Eyestone's theory.  But at the same time, she did it in diving.  I don't know a ton about diving, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of carry-over from it to running, just saying.

Jennifer Toomey: Part 1

On my wall there is this page from a Runner's World magazine.  It's a runner spotlight of Jennifer Toomey.   The date on the page is April 2004.  I've kept it all these years and it's meaning more and more to me.

When I talked to Ed Eyestone, he told me that he didn't know of anyone who had ever done what I was planning on doing from my situation, and what I mean by that, is that Ed hadn't ever heard of someone who had never made it to State in high school, or who wasn't a state champion, or who hadn't made the college team, but had made it to the Olympic trials and the Olympics.  Well, my dear friend Ed, have you ever heard of Jen Toomey?

I had, but I had forgotten.

How to set effective goals

I'm currently on Principle 7 of Jack Canfield's Success Principles which is about goal setting.  I'm actually semi-obsessed with it at the moment which is why this post will be short, but oh so sweet!

There are two elements you want with a goal to transfer it from a good idea to a real-deal goal.  How much, by when?  That is the criteria and here is my example:

Good Idea:  Win a gold medal.

Goal:  I will win a gold medal in the 5,000 meter run in the 2012 London Summer Olympics and I will run 5,000 meters in 12:55 in that same race by Saturday, August 11th at 8:00 p.m. British Summer Time [BST] 2012.

Some of you may be asking, is that his goal for reals?  Yes.  Go big or go home is my motto.  I really believe it's possible.  Canfield recommends reading your goals every day, 3 times a day.  One of the things that stood out to me from the chapter was this:  "When you write it all down, your subconscious mind will know what to work on.  It will know which opportunities to hone in on to help you reach your goal... Read the list one goal at a time.  Close your eyes and picture each goal as if it were already accomplished.  Take a few more seconds to feel what you would feel if you had already accomplished each goal...Your brain wants to close the gap between your current reality and the vision of your goal" (Success Principles, pages 52-55).

Right now I'm working on 101 goals, so that's what I'm going to get back to right now.

The Wall of Greatness

So I know I need to put up more pictures and do more videos, so here is a post with a vid.  Next week I'm thinking of doing pure video.  Like a vlog, you know?  We'll see.  Anyways, this is a video of my wall.  My video explains the rest:

How's Your Training Going?

I think the question that people ask me most often is "How's your training going?"  In the past I would have responded, "Oh, it's going okay, I'm running good times, working really hard, but I'm not exactly where I want to be."  But right now I can answer and say that my training is going better than ever before, and this post is about what I'm doing and why.

Okay, so I was overtraining, have been.  Last week I did a total of 36 miles.  Monday through Friday I did a 3 mile run in the morning and another in the afternoon with a light warm-up and cool-down.  My pace was a consistent 7:34 per mile.  Sometimes I went faster without really meaning to, so I slowed down.  Other times the wind was strong, so it slowed my time down, but I did not speed up, or at least I tried not to.  On Saturday I ran 3 miles, stopped, stretched/rested for 5 minutes, then did another 3 miles.  I have not been sore, or at least not running related soreness.  I was incredibly sore though in my chest because I needed a max performance for push-ups so I could plan accordingly for my circuit.

I have been tired.  I was going to bed pretty consistently at 9:30 p.m. and waking up at 6 a.m.  So in theory I should have been getting good sleep, but my son is still having trouble sleeping through the night, so even though my total sleep time is pretty good, it's filled with interruptions.  I'm not complaining, just explaining.  Amy has the worst of it, because my son refuses to let me put him to sleep.  We're working on solutions to that problem.

So in review, I'm really enjoying my running, it's going so good.  I feel fresh for each workout although I'm tired and I'm excited to see what happens in the next few months.

A Letter of Opposition

This post is actually an email I just sent to a friend.  I sent him an email last night wanting to make a friendly bet and he responded that he would be happy to do it, but that he wanted to warn me.  He wanted to warn me that I wasn't going to be able to do what I wanted; achieve my goal of going to the Olympics.  I thought about putting the message he sent me, but didn't want to do it without his permission, but didn't want to ask.  Suffice it to say that he warned me that I was setting myself up for the biggest failure and disappointment of my life if I was really set and had my eyes on running fast enough to qualify for the Olympic trials and Olympics themselves.  Here's the message a accompanying picture:

"My friend,

Got your call, got your message, but I don't feel like talking on the phone for now.  Nothing personal, but I just don't feel ready.

I don't hate you or have any hard feelings towards you or your words.  I want you to know that I am very grateful for our friendship, and for your friendship towards me.  I am grateful for your frank and brave words.  I know it takes a lot to say them and I am grateful.  I consider myself warned.  I consider myself more warned, or just as warned as anyone in the history of the world who embarked on a seemingly impossible journey, was told they wouldn't be able to do, and then did it.  I've gotten it from two very reliable sources, you and Ed Eyestone.  With that said I want you to know that I factor in the chance that I may not succeed with my dream.  I realize that there are factors beyond my control that may limit my ability to achieve my dreams.  I may go on my afternoon run in an hour and get hit by a car, be paralyzed from the neck down, and not be able to provide for the needs of my family and then never be able to do what I've always wanted to do.  At the same time there are things that I take into consideration that push me every day towards my goal.

When I was 17 years old I ran two significant personal bests in Washington state.  Early in the season, before I was injured with severe IT Band tendonitis, I ran a mile/1600 meters in 4:39.  I also ran 400 meters in a relay in 53 seconds.  Now I know I've brought this up before, but what's interesting to me is that when I was 17 I ran those times.  Do you mean to tell me I peaked at age 17?  That my Senior year in high school, where I was sometimes a whole year younger than my competitors because of my summer birthday, that I was running my fastest times I would ever hope to run for the rest of my life?  I REFUSE to believe that the fastest running of my life came at age 17 in high school.  I loved my coaches, they were and are great men, but as far as their knowledge of the best training plans and methods of training, it was alright.  I trained myself during the Winters and Summers.  A lot of times I pushed myself too hard during the Cross and Track seasons, which I believe was a contributing factor to my consistent ability to injure myself successfully.  I distinctly remember one session of 400s during Track season.  It was POURING down rain, as it often did, but we were doing a hard set of repeat 400s.  I think we did around 16.  My buddy Chris and I felt so good that we decided to do more despite the quickly cooling climate and the incessant down-pour.  We tore our shirts off and did 2, 3 or maybe 4 more as fast as we could.  My coach was standing by, letting us do it.  Knowing what I know now, that was a dumb move by me.  I'm pretty sure I got sick the following day or week.  I overtrained.

Well that's what's been going on for the past 5 years.  A combination of intense circumstances mixed with a high dose of prideful overtraining and I haven't really improved the way I would have hoped. My immediate success with triathlons and marathons are pretty good indicators, I think, of my potential.  My first triathlon I ever did was an Olympic distance and my time was 2:24 and 3rd place overall.  I trained seriously for that for about 3 weeks.  I actually trained on a mountain bike, borrowed a buddy's road bike the day before the race and raced on it.  I attached a picture of my training plan that I still have, I took it with my phone, but hopefully you can zoom in and see the specific days' plans.  Anyways, my point is that I have never really known how to train.  I've blinded myself and been prideful thinking I knew what I needed to do, but until now I have been shooting in the dark, but every time it has led to overtraining and injury.  We'll see what happens, but I feel very confident that by training properly I will be able to achieve, or at least start achieving my true potential. I finally feel confident in training and by reading have realized why I need to do certain workouts a certain way, at a certain speed, at a certain intensity etc.  You should know that since I haven't been doing that, I probably/definitely wouldn't see the results I expected.  If that takes me to the Olympics, which I believe it will, but I won't be devastated if it doesn't, then so be it.  Love you."

My Current Training Plan

Okay, I just want to start off with this.  My wife and I usually have some type of green smoothie as part of our breakfast.  We've been giving our son, who's 19 months old, a little as well.  Sometimes he likes it and other times he doesn't.  Well this morning we had eggs and toast along with it and he was dipping his toast into his green smoothie--definitely more daring than I.  He was eating it, funny kid.

Alright, so I thought it would be good to tell you exactly what my training plan is currently and how I came to doing it.  So I started reading Daniels' Running Formula as I've mentioned in previous posts (What do Deepak Chopra, Jack Daniels and Jack Canfield all have in common? and I'm going to rest) and I realized that I was overtraining; pushing my body too hard.  I thought that as long as I was eating incredibly well, getting more than enough rest and thinking positive thoughts that I could push my body as hard as I wanted to and I would become incredible faster than normal.  Well it turns out that plan didn't work so well.  I was getting tired, my foot started to feel stress-fracturey. (Meaning like I felt a potential stress fracture coming on.  How could I even know this? You may be asking.  Well I had a stress fracture in both feet two years ago from going to fast, too soon, without a strong enough base of training and before I even saw a doctor and he confirmed it I was sure it was a stress fracture, but anyways...) So I felt like that, started reading the book, which then shifted my running, training paradigm.  

I calculate that in order to get where I want to be I need to peak around May.  That gives me around 36 weeks for training.  Daniels recommends to split the training into 4 phases.  The first phase is a relatively easy phase where all you're doing is easy and long runs.  You start out at a certain amount of mileage that you feel comfortable doing, and then if the amount is feeling easy/manageable then every 3 weeks you can increase 1 mile onto your weekly total for every workout session you're doing.  If that doesn't make sense, read my post on For the Beginner, Beginner: How to Get Started. So I had been doing 8-12 miles daily and I knew that I could semi-comfortably do two workouts of 3 miles a piece 5 days a weeks with a six-miler on Saturday morning.  36 miles each week.  In 3 weeks I'll bump that up by a maximum of 10 miles, we'll see when we get there.

Now for all my runs I run at the same pace, for now, and that is the E pace of 7:38 per mile.  Based on my most recent time in the 5K of 17:38 I score about a 58 on Daniels' scoring system called VDOT.  He's got another page that then calculates according to the VDOT what the E pace (or Easy Pace) should be.  It also calculates what the tempo run pace should be, what the marathon pace should be, interval training pace for different distances and repetition training for different distances should be.  So I run 36 miles per week at 7:38 per mile.  I really want a GPS watch, but for now my system of MapMyRun.com with my good Timex watch is working fine--I just feel a little restricted that's all.  There's a little more as far as stretching and a circuit/plyometric/calisthenic workout, but I'll get to that tomorrow or something. Peace. 

Prove Them Right, or Prove Them Wrong

As I'm writing this I'm listening to Paradise by Coldplay.  Love it.  I love music, and I love new music.  I hope I continue to love new music.  Alright, today was awesome.  I woke up this morning and did not want to get up.  The little guy had trouble falling asleep for whatever reason so we took desperate measures and went for a car ride.  He fell asleep and I had some good one-on-one time with my sweetheart.

Anyways, so that made this morning tough, but it was good.  I'm waking up at 6 so I can get a little snack in before I run at 7.  I read scriptures, like the Bible and Book of Mormon for about 30 minutes.  Great way to start my day.  I actually ran faster than I should have when I did my morning run.  I wasn't paying attention to my watch; just running comfortably.  It felt good.  I had to wear long sleeves and light gloves.  It's getting cold.

I feel very confident that if a combination of books has the answers to help me achieve my dreams then it's Daniels' Running Formula, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and The Success Principles.  I feel really good about them.  I go into more detail on my post about choosing them.  Today I focused on The Success Principles.  There are 64 principles.  I move on to the next one when I feel I have adequately accomplished the previous principle.  I have done a lot of them already because of last summer, but I'm going through them again so I can say, "Alright Jack Canfield.  I have done everything you said and here I am."  I will either prove him right or wrong.  I expect to prove him right.  We will see; time will tell.  It always does.

Quinoa Explosion and Dog Chase

Today has been great.  Let me break it, break it down for you.  For those of you readers just joining us for the first time today, I welcome you.  You may or may not know who I am; my name is Caleb and I want to be a pro runner.  There's more that goes with that, like wanting to go to the Olympics, shatter world records and such, but I love running and want to do it for a living.

Today I started a training plan from Jack Daniels' book called Daniels' Running Formula.  I went for an easy 3 mile run this morning, approximately 7:34 per mile pace and then I did the same thing in the afternoon after work.  I work at this awesome place called Teton Running and I have awesome co-workers.

So this morning on run #1 I was running down 49th towards Holmes, like a good boy on the left side of the road so I could see the cars (before they hit me) and out of the corner of my eye, as I pass this black thing on the ground it bolts up into attack mode, bears it's teeth as it growls, barks and oh, this gets better, chases.  My instinct tells me to 1. Run faster and 2. Cross the road a.s.a.p.  It's a good thing there weren't any cars because I swerved to the other side like nobody's business and outran that black devil.  I wished a silent prayer, which I later took back, that that dog be hit by a car.  It scared me so bad and could have caused my premature death.  Anyways, who knows, I probably woke him up and he, or she, probably thought I was attaching it.  Anyways, I recovered and finished my run.

Alright, then I'm in my little office in quiet meditation, just BEING, as Deepak Chopra says, when all the sudden I hear this sizzle-like sound, as if someone has lit a firework and this POP!  I had put some quinoa, peanut butter, honey and soy milk mixed with hot water over-night for a pre-run and post-run snack/meal--Well first of all it was a little nasty, which is what usually happens when I experiment and second it exploded.  I have no idea the chemical reactions that were taking place, but it might as well have been baking soda and vinegar because the lid flew off, which I didn't even know could come off the way it did, hit the ceiling and landed 6 inches from where I was sitting AND some of the nasty quinoa concoction flew out and landed on my desk.  Yes, it was cool, but I learned my lesson that I will steam quinoa from now on.  Or soak it, or sprout it.

Now it's dinner time.  Amy is making black bean and kielbasa soup.  I love that girl and I love the food she makes.

Next Week: Phase 1

This is gonna be quick because it's bed time, and speaking of bed time, my new bed time is going to be 9:00 on the dot.  I think my performance will be directly tied to several factors, one of those being recovery and bed time/sleep time being very connected with that, but that's not necessarily what this post is about.

After realizing that I have been training less-effectively for some time I have revamped my training, split it up into four phases and Phase 1 starts next week.  I've been resting and recovering from my over-training.  next week I will start many things and among those will be running twice-a-day, 3 miles each time, totaling 36 miles next week and then increasing every 3 weeks.  I probably won't be running any races for at least 6 weeks even though I want to see next Saturday where I'm at race-wise, but I have to remind myself of the goal:  The goal is to produce very fast times next Spring during track season.  So all of my training, everything I do revolves around that purpose alone, for now.

For the Beginner, Beginner: How to Get Started

A good friend of mine named Katie sent me a message on Facebook.  She wants to do the Portland to Coast relay next year which is a walking relay from Portland, Oregon to the Pacific Coast.  I read the info page on the website and it says that you will end up doing two legs of 5 miles each, so a total walking distance of 10 miles.  This would be my advice for anyone out there that is thinking about starting, but where starting out running isn't practical, or at least not purely running:

1.  Consistency.  Pick a few days out of the week that work best.  If each day is the same as far as convenience and schedule goes then I would pick 3 days out of the 7 to just begin.  You can work up to as many days as your body permits.  I recommend just being very consistent in the days you choose, like forming a habit.

2.  Start by walking.  Pick an amount of time that's comfortable for you.  You want it to be enjoyable.  That's something that I'm learning right now.  I have entered a lot of my own training plans to find I'm overtraining and working my body too hard.  It becomes unenjoyable and many times ends in injury or illness.  So pick an amount of time that's comfortable.  A goal of 15 minutes of walking 3 days a week for the first couple weeks will be great to get started.

3.  Increase gradually.  As time allows you can increase the time spent walking, or the total mileage walked per week.  The book I'm reading, Daniels' Running Formula, suggests sticking with a certain amount of time or mileage for 3 weeks before increasing.  If you're feeling really good then Daniels recommends increasing in the following way:  For every workout you're doing increase the total weekly mileage by that amount in miles.  It didn't make sense to me when I first read it, but after reading it a few times I understood.  Say your total weekly mileage is 3 miles.  You walk a mile, 3 days/times a week.  Now say you're doing 3 workouts per week.  You would increase your total weekly mileage by 3 miles.  So for the following 3 weeks you would want to total of, at most, 6 miles.  If you're still doing 3 workouts a week then you're probably doing 2 miles each time. After 3 weeks, if you're feeling good and you want to increase, then you would do the same thing. You would again increase by 3 miles, 1 mile for every workout = 3 miles that you could add to your total weekly mileage, making your new total mileage goal 9 miles per week.  Daniels suggests that you don't increase by more than 10 miles every 3 weeks.  Now if it's too much, too soon, back off.  Listen to your body.

4.  There are definitely other factors that play a part.  You want to be hydrating properly.  I wrote a post about this a year ago and you can find it here.

I plan on doing another post in the near future on how to get started with running.  For now, let me know how that goes and I promise to do more posts on the same subject.

I'm Going to Rest

So I've been reading the book Daniels' Running Formula by Jack Daniels which I mentioned in my post on Monday.  The more I read the better I feel about everything.  I have realized that I was overdoing it, last week and probably in previous weeks.  The section I read today that really hit me was called "Step 5: Include Planned Breaks".  I'm going to quote straight from there:

"Runners should take a few weeks off occasionally as scheduled breaks from training...Although runners are often reluctant to take breaks, most breaks are beneficial in terms of overall development."  I will pause here to say I have been training pretty consistently ever since my buddy Tim suggested we run together around January.  My original thoughts were to train as hard as possible for as long as possible.  I'm realizing that that would have led to the demise of my dream.  Anyways, I'm trying to say that a combo of things this last week, my body was asking for a rest, so late last week and up until today I have been reluctantly giving it one, but today when I read what I read I realized I need to take it easy and really rest.  I will continue:

"Continuous exhaustive training (which is what I was doing) can place too much wear and tear on runners' bodies and have an adverse psychological effect...Breaks in training also allow little injuries to heal, ones that might not have been serious enough to interrupt training but that could have become much worse had hard workouts continued...Many coaches and runners don't want to take time away from running, especially when things are going well, for fear of losing fitness.  Such individuals tend to be pessimistic types (like myself, but not anymore!) who figure there will eventually be an unplanned setback that will serve the same purpose.  I don't think you should ever plan on unplanned setbacks, because that's a pretty sure way for a serious setback to occur (bold added for emphasis)... Often a training break offers a great opportunity to carry out a strength program or to learn more about stretching and relaxation...Your breaks play an important part in helping your body and mind rebuild for the next season or phase of training."

Olympic Trials Qualifying

Okay, so honestly I ran out of time today to do a few things and that's why this will be short, but the reason I ran out of time was because I found the qualifying standards for the Olympic trials.  They're not quite as fast as the standards for the Olympics themselves.  This is a link to it here.

The 5,000 for the A (automatic) qualifier is 13:33 and the B (provisional) qualifier is 13:50.  I read a lot of Daniels' Running Formula today and I'm putting together a training plan so we'll see what happens.    

What do Deepak Chopra, Jack Daniels and Jack Canfield all have in common?

(The last paragraph explains everything you need to know about this post, feel free to skip to that if you'd like, but I promise it won't be quite as fun!)

I encountered a hurdle, a moment of truth, an instant of indecision if you will.  I got some positive opposition last week that made me think about what I'm doing.  In my post on Thursday, Smarter not Harder, (which was my last post because I didn't post on Friday or Saturday--I'm sorry, but you'll know why I didn't post those days in like t-minus 1 minute and 45 seconds, depending on how fast you're reading) I was already feeling a little down.  The positive opposition told me that I couldn't run as fast as I'm planning on.  It told me I couldn't make it to the Olympics.  Really, if you think about it it's near impossible.  Maybe some of you, if not most, if not all of you have not taken the time to examine exactly what I'm trying to do.  Let me shed a little light:

I want to make it to the Olympics.  From what I understand, in order to go to the Olympics you have to run an Olympic A or B, but because everyone in the U.S. can run the A standard, an Olympic A qualifying standard by the time of the Olympic trials to go to the Oympics--on top of placing in the top 3 at the Olympic trials.  My goal races are the 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter runs.  The Olympic qualifying standards for them are as follows:

5,000m A: 13:20
5,000m B: 13:27
10,000m A: 27:45
10,000m B: 28:05

Okay, yeah, those are fast.  Now, my personal bests are kind of far off those times.  I just ran a 5K (5,000 meters) on the roads a couple weeks ago.  Pretty flat course.  I was feeling pretty good.  I did run all out, as fast as I could and I ran it in 17:39 and this was my post about it on I Wept and I Raced.  I ran a 10K (10,000 meters) on a pretty downhill course on July 25th in a PR/PB time of 35:13, (read about on My Craziest Pre-race Experience Yet, video version and written version.)  Okay, so for the 5,000, currently I'm 4 minutes and 19 seconds off of the A standard.  In the 10,000 I'm 8 minutes and 28 seconds (check my math) off the A standard.  Now, if I was just leisurely jogging these races that would be one thing, but it's another that I'm running close to 100%, if not 100%.  Going to the Olympics (in the words of the man I sat in front of on a train at Disneyworld) "is a a tall order" to say the least!

Okay, so back to the topic which we're on, but I've written a lot.  The reason I didn't post Friday or Saturday is because I've been reading, thinking and doing other things.  Amy finally came up from Utah and my brother's girlfriend also visited who I hadn't met, so it's been busy.  But anyways, to answer what do Deepak Chopra, Jack Daniels and Jack Canfield all have in common? Answer: Currently they are my coaches.

Deepak Chopra is this cool Indian guy who wrote a book called The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success which after listening to it on my old, ghetto iPod and then reading the book, I feel deep down that his stuff is one of the things that will help the most.

Jack Daniels may or may not be the Jack Daniels you're thinking of.  This is not related in any way, shape or form (as far as I know) to the whiskey.  According to Runner's World he is the "World's Best Running Coach", or at least that's what it says on the cover of his book Daniels' Running Formula.  Now I don't know how true that it because Kenya, Ethiopia and Morocco kind of dominate the distance running world, but 1. it's the best I have, referred to me from a great source and 2. as I've been reading his book and thinking about things it feels right.  Right now, "feeling right" is what I'm going off of, and that feels right! LOL, love it.

Jack Canfield is the author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul phenomenon and he has a book called The Success Principles which I started reading as part of a Mastermind Group a year ago and then dropped out of the group, but finished the book.  It felt right back then, but the timing was off--story of my life!  And it feels right now.

So the current plan of action if I were to summarize it into a concise and clean paragraph:

Drop my current time trials.  Train smarter not harder by following Daniels' Running Formula.  Focus on the event I plan on running in the Olympics: The 5,000 meter run.  Put into practice Chopra's and Canfield's success principles.  Attack!  (If you skipped ahead, go back and read the whole thing for this to make more sense, but if you don't care, this is all you need to know.)  Good night!

Day 4: Smarter not Harder

Today has been an eventful day.  Very important things have happened.  Let me tell you about them...

Teton Running Company called me this morning and I was offered a part-time position.  I promptly accepted it.  Who knows all the reasons, I'm sure there are several, but I think part of it had to do with the fact that I had detached myself from the outcome.  I did a post on it yesterday entitled Detachment and you're welcome to read  it.  Anyways, that was awesome.

Next:  I did two workouts.  I was not happy about the second one.  I was feeling a little discouraged, tired.  But I went anyways and it ended up being a good run.

Next:  My plan today was to do my next 400 meter time trial.  I went to the library with my mom and when I got home the plan was to take a little nap, take my brother to the high school to set up for the Welcome Back dance, and then I would do my time trial at the track.  Well I was feeling really tired first of all.  Second, I didn't have any spikes because they were in my wife's lost piece of luggage that was then returned to my wife in Utah.  Third, when I went to take a nap I couldn't sleep.  I had tons of thoughts going through my mind.

To make my long thoughts short I realized that I need to train smarter, not harder.  I decided that I need to take some time to figure things out, specifically what my next steps are with races, my goals with training etc.  So I decided to train as my blog title says: Smarter not Harder, which I think may be the title of a book.  Anyways, my plan therefore is to ease off and train harder as I feel better. I plan to read the book that Ed Eyestone recommended, Daniels' Running Formula, and take a smarter approach to my training so I don't get injured or sick.  You know?  Over.