It’s time to get back in shape.
Since the Sun Run in April, I’ve been spending a lot of time relaxing. For two months, I took a complete break and didn’t run at all. When you push so hard for too long, the sport wears on you mentally and physically. It pushes you past the point of enjoyment, making you lose sight of long term goals. That’s not what running is about so sometimes it’s best to take it easy until that fire comes back.
During that two month break, work took me from ocean to ocean. I spent a week (each) in Vancouver, Mississauga, Saskatoon, and New York. New York is the craziest city on earth, with pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists all ignoring traffic signals. There’s so many people, too many for my liking. The purpose for this was to work the Brooklyn Half Marathon expo, America’s largest Half Marathon. With over 27,400 finisher athletes, it’s a race that I would highly recommend.
After all the work travel, I got back to the sport that makes me who I am. The past seven weeks have been strictly base training and easy running. At the beginning, everything hurt and everything sucked. It was pure awful, but a little bit of persistence and patience goes a long way. My approach during this time period is to focus on the day to make tomorrow better. Going from in-shape, to out-of-shape, to in-shape can be tough, so I made a chart with the finest tools Microsoft Windows can offer, Paint.
As you can see from the above chart, there are many phases to an athletes program. Throughout the year, if you keep training at peak levels, you will burnout or get hurt. After goal races, it’s best to take some down time to let the body recover. During this period, your body will tell you when it’s ready to get back to work, you don’t tell your body. From there, I like to hit the gym, put on muscle, and incorporate some easy running. As the run time increases, the gym time decreases. You’ll start to feel an improvement in fitness throughout the training cycle then on race day, you’re ready to rock n’ roll.
Currently, I’m at the jacked camp/base phase. There’s a few races coming up, including the Edmonton 10K on August 21st. My race schedule has been updated and I’ve added a Shoe Closet tab as well. In there, you’ll find the footwear I trust for specific purposes and the cool colourways they come in.
*(Rule 40 censored)*
Within the next few weeks, you’ll begin to see multiple sports on your TV screen from a place in the world that’s not North America. From Calgary, AB, three athletes will be representing our city: Mathieu Bilodeau (50K Race Walk), Maria Bernard (3000M Steeplechase (not a horse racing event)), Jess O’Connell (5000M). Canada is sending a strong team to a random place, so make sure to tune in and cheer along!
Trevor Hofbauer 