At work or amongst friends, I’m occasionally bombarded with questions about running, cycling or weight management. Most of the time it has to do with, “how do I approach…” or “I have this pain” or “why can’t I…”. Like most long term athletes we tend to learn and give advice on our personal experiences. Usually, I will tell people that they should see a professional (doctor, weight management specialist or someone of the like), but having said that I will tell people of my thoughts and my personal experiences.

As of late though, I’ve found that I need to start to listen to my own words. I tell people how to workout but then I haven’t been following my own advice for my own personal workouts. Then when I get injured or frustrated, I think to myself, why can’t I follow my own advice?!?!

The other day, I decided that I’ve lost enough weight that I could go for a run. However, I made a promise to myself that I needed to run slow and my goal for the workout was just to relax and work into my run. My goal was to do 10-minutes per mile pace. However; when I looked down at my heart-rate-monitor, I was running 8:30-minutes per mile pace! Oddly enough though, I felt relaxed and I was enjoying my run. My point was that my mind was thinking that the 10-min/mile was going to be relaxing for me but my body was telling me otherwise. I went by how I felt and it reminds me of how many times I’ve told people to go by how you feel. Everyone’s pace will be different according to feeling. That was one of the best runs I’ve had in a long time and it reminded me how much I enjoyed running.

The problem with workouts that I have now a days is that I think that every workout has to be “hard” when in fact that’s quite the opposite. Workouts need to be efficient but effective to an overall goal. Most of the racing season is now over and it’s time to put the body into a different mode. Workouts should not be as intense but they should have a purpose… a goal. So if you’re going for a long run or ride, keep the heart rate lower and there’s no need to be training at “race pace”. So set your daily goals (if you have any) and remember to “enjoy” your workouts versus “laboring” over them.