457: The Hidden Cost of Always Trying to Be Better

Ever feel like no matter what you do in your running… it’s never quite enough?

In this episode, we’re unpacking the difference between healthy growth and the kind of chronic self-pressure that so many runners are quietly carrying. We see it all the time—constantly moving the goalpost, comparing yourself to others (or a younger or more “ideal” version of you), adding more to the plan even when your body is asking for less… and still feeling behind.

We talk about how this pressure can start to shape your entire experience as a runner. Your runs turn into tests. Your workouts become something to analyze instead of experience. And over time, that leads to mental exhaustion, inconsistency from burnout, and a disconnect from what your body is actually telling you.

It’s tricky…because it often hides behind the idea of “just wanting to improve.”

We also dive into the hidden cost of tying your self-worth to your performance—and how that slowly strips away the joy that brought you to running in the first place.

You’ve probably heard the advice: “Get 1% better every day.” But we break down why that can create unrealistic expectations. Growth isn’t linear. It’s more like laying bricks or planting seeds—there are phases where things look still on the surface, but real progress is happening underneath.

In this conversation, we invite you to shift your focus—away from constant pressure and toward a more sustainable approach rooted in process, curiosity, consistency, and identity-based training.

We also share some exciting updates, including what’s coming in May and a new way we’ll be supporting you inside the app 👀

If you’ve been feeling the pressure lately, you’re not alone—and this episode will help you take a different approach.

01:33 Growth Versus Pressure

04:34 Signs Of Self Pressure

10:16 Cost One Mental Exhaustion

13:56 Cost Two Inconsistency

15:37 Cost Three Body Disconnect

18:27 Cost Four Joy Loss

21:05 Cost Five Worth Trap

23:06 One Percent Better Myth

29:11 Brick Wall Mindset

29:38 Plateaus Are Normal

30:42 Training Cycle Blueprint

34:57 Overwatering Your Training

36:59 Progress Versus Process

39:44 Identity And Curiosity

44:56 Basics And Effort Training

Join the 30 Day Running Reset and get a plan that will help you build a strong and injury-proof body by combining running and strength training in a way that actually works for runners like you.

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

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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

Speaker 0:00

Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, it's never quite enough? Like you hit your run but you wish it had been faster, or you do your strength training, but feel like you should be doing more. You're more consistent than you used to be, but somehow you still feel behind. We talk a lot in the fitness world about getting better, improving, optimizing, leveling up. And on one hand, that's a really good thing. Wanting to improve is part of what makes you a runner. It's part of what makes you driven. It's one of my biggest core values as a person growth. But when the desire to get better turns into constant pressure, it starts costing you more than you realize. And that's what this episode is about. So stay tuned. What's up everybody? Welcome to the show today. What's up, Kev? Hey,

Speaker 2 1:03

how's it

Speaker 1:03

going? How are you? All right, so full disclosure. Kevin and I recorded this podcast last night and then after we, so during the recording, the dog was all over the place.

Speaker 2 1:13

It was such a smooth recording, so smooth. It was really one of the smoothest episodes we've recorded.

Speaker 1:17

And we totally were able to keep our train of thought throughout the entire episode. And by that I mean we stopped and started this episode so many times that at the end I was like, I, we have to rerecord that because this, I don't think we hit the points that I actually wanted to hit. And it was just the, a whole mess.

Speaker 2 1:33

We, we recorded a 35 minute podcast and we finished and looked at each other and we're like, what did we just talk about? Because we had done it. So many five minute segments that I'm like, I don't know what I just said.

Speaker 1:43

Yeah. So the doll right now is lying quietly at our feet, or not really at our feet, but just a little bit in front of the desk, where we record. So let's hope for the best here.

Speaker 2 1:51

All right.

Speaker 1:52

Alright, so today we're talking about growth and we're talking about this. Always this desire to get better, and I'm gonna frame this by really helping you all understand how important it is to me to grow and to be improving, because I feel like I am definitely talking to myself in this episode because I have. A constant desire for growth and improvement. I'm always looking at things and trying to figure out like, how can I make that better? Where can I improve? Where can I grow? I'm always looking at different opportunities in my life or different situations in my life trying to figure out, okay, where can I grow? What do I need to learn here? Especially when things don't go my way? And we've talked about that a lot on the podcast is everything that we do in our life is an opportunity for growth if we look at it the right way. And that's such a good thing.

Speaker 2 2:39

Yeah, no, you are perpetually all about growth. I sometimes. See opportunities as just opportunities not necessarily have to grow out of everything. Sometimes it

Speaker 2:48

just Opportunities for what though?

Speaker 2 2:49

I'm sorry, wrong word. Okay. Sometimes experiences are simply experiences. Okay. To be had.

Speaker 2:53

Yes.

Speaker 2 2:53

Not something that I have to grow from. And you. Very much like to try to grow off of every opportunity in front of you. Every experience is an opportunity for growth.

Speaker 3:01

Yeah. So I'm actually learning the opposite of sometimes it's okay if an experience is just an experience and I don't have to be growing, and there the jo, the dog is jumping on Kevin again. Here we go. So it's

Speaker 2 3:11

an opportunity for growth.

Speaker 3:12

It's an opportunity for growth and for patients, right? I really want you to understand that today when we're talking in this episode, this is definitely not about settling. It's not about lowering your standards or saying that goals don't matter because all of those things are important. But today we're really talking about the difference between healthy growth and chronic self pressure. So healthy growth says I wanna improve. I'm willing to stay consistent. I'm looking for those opportunities. But pressure says if I'm not improving fast enough, something is wrong. And that difference matters. And it's subtle. Like sometimes it can really sneak in without us even realizing it, without us even noticing that it's there because it can feel very productive. Like I was saying before, I always am looking for opportunities to learn and to grow and to figure out how to be a better version of myself. That is a good thing. And so we can see these things very much as good things, but if. You're constantly looking for this and sometimes I, I. Find myself falling into this trap as well of I have to learn something here. I have to do more. I have to do better. I have to improve this. That can definitely feel like pressure.

Speaker 2 4:19

Yeah. It can feel like pressure and it's so difficult to say, I just want to be consistent when you're not seeing gains off of that.

Speaker 4:26

Yeah,

Speaker 2 4:27

like consistency feels boring and. It's

Speaker 4:30

until you get to a point where it doesn't.

Speaker 2 4:32

Yeah. I think that's the tricky part is it can feel boring at first, but I think that's what we want to dive into. that's what we're talking

Speaker 4:39

about

Speaker 2 4:39

today.

Speaker 4:40

Exactly.

Speaker 2 4:40

Sometimes boring is actually really what we're aiming for because consistency is a huge win. It's just, it's tough to wrap your head around. I'm actually doing the right thing even though I'm not. Seeing the growth.

Speaker 4:52

Yeah. So what does this actually look like? How can this show up in your life? It shows up like rarely feeling satisfied. It reminds me of the Hamilton song, right? Like you'll never Be Satisfied. that was one of the describing features of Hamilton. Even when you're doing well, Hamilton, if you guys watched the show, which at this point I feel like everybody has, but I'm probably biased as a girl, mom of musical theater, girls

Speaker 2 5:16

Plus, I believe its incredibly historically accurate.

Speaker 5:18

Yeah, I think that there was definitely some of it that obviously the whole thing is not historically accurate, but. The his personality of just how he was constantly writing, writing, never feeling satisfied, always feeling like he has to do more like they talked in the musical about how many papers he wrote, like just, he was always writing, feeling like he was constantly running out of time. So if you feel like you're rarely satisfied, even when you're doing well, or maybe you're moving the goalpost as soon as you hit one that looks like when you cross that finish line, you're like. Okay. What's next? Okay, I could have done that faster. It's not even enjoying the moment that you're in. You're already looking ahead pretty much right away.

Speaker 2 5:54

Yeah. And. Look, there's something to be said for crossing a finish line and looking for another challenge out in the future. But it's skipping over that part where you can pause to appreciate.

Speaker 6:03

Yeah,

Speaker 2 6:04

that's the moving the goalpost. It's I did just run my best race, but what's the next opportunity? I have to do that even faster instead of appreciating what just happened. Like you can have another race on the horizon. You can be like, all right, I am going to continue to train and I probably would like to keep moving faster. But it's that pause to appreciate That, that we kinda skip over sometimes.

Speaker 6:24

Yeah. It also looks like comparing yourself to who you used to be or to other runners or to some imaginary ideal. A lot of times we make up this ideal in our heads of what we think we should be, or if I could just be consistent with what I'm doing, this is what I should be doing, this is what I should be capable of. And we make up these imaginary ideals, and then we compare ourselves to these almost unattainable standards sometimes. And that can be a lot of pressure.

Speaker 2 6:52

Yeah. If I, because it's

Speaker 6:53

not even real.

Speaker 2 6:54

If I was following a perfect training plan and I did it absolutely perfect with absolute perfect recovery along the way, then in theory I could be this athlete. There's way too many perfects in there. And even at that point, math is, or like running is still not a math equation. It's just not. It's not. If you do X, Y, and Z, then you get this result. It's not, and so even if you said you had the perfect plan and you had it with perfect consistency, that still doesn't guarantee the result. And that's the problem of complaining to the imaginary ideal because you made all that up. That's all in your head.

Speaker 7:29

Yeah. It also looks like just feeling like you should always be doing a little bit more. if you go out for. Four miles and you're like, oh, maybe I should do four and a half, or maybe I should do five, or maybe I should do some strides. Strides. Add the strides. Maybe I should just add strides after every single run. And we love strides, right? don't get us wrong here. We're not saying any of these things are bad, but it's that feeling like you should. Always be doing a little bit more like what you're doing now isn't good enough. I see this a lot with new clients as well, until they fully buy into our process and our system. A lot of times I'll look at their training calendars and I'll notice that they're doing more like the run on the. Calendar maybe is four miles and they did four and a half, or they did five, or they ran an extra day that week. Or they're just, they just, there's just more, on the calendar. And when I ask them about it, they often say, I don't think it's enough. And so I, then we have to get into a coaching discussion. But it's not trusting the plan that you're on. It's not trusting that you're doing the right thing and you feel like you always need to do more.

Speaker 2 8:30

And then there's a. Difference between, I don't think that plan lands up with me and the plan never lines up.

Speaker 8:36

Yeah,

Speaker 2 8:36

because for that hypothetical client there, and that there are real ones, but let's pretend it's hypothetical, hypothe hypothetical, but they've got bunch of. Four milers on there and they all turn, Jane, do they all turn into four and a half? If the plan had four and a halfs, you know they're gonna be out there running fives for

Speaker 8:50

sure.

Speaker 2 8:50

It's not that the plan wasn't enough, it's that nothing is enough and that's

Speaker 8:55

sometimes I really wanna mess with people and just put four points, seven, three miles and just say, how will they actually try it?

Speaker 2 9:02

I know exactly who on the team would hit 4.73 miles.

Speaker 9:06

So this feeling is like you're always just chasing the next version of yourself, but never actually letting yourself arrive anywhere. And that also, we have to be careful because there is this thing called the arrival fallacy, which we have talked about in previous episodes because it's true, like you don't actually arrive anywhere. We're constantly on this path and this journey of being a human and growing as a human and just experiencing life and doing the human things. But if we're always feeling like we need to be chasing that next version, without actually just being who we are right now, we're missing out on life.

Speaker 2 9:43

That's why I like loop courses. When I race because you never actually get anywhere. Perfect.

Speaker 9:50

Perfect.

Speaker 2 9:50

you just end up right where you started.

Speaker 9:53

Net mileage zero.

Speaker 2 9:54

Net mileage zero. Like the people who do ultra marathons.

Speaker 9:56

Yes. Tell that to all the backyard Ultra guys.

Speaker 2 9:58

Backyard ultras it, net mileage zero. Total mileage 300. Net mileage. Zero.

Speaker 10:03

Insane.

Speaker 2 10:03

Yeah.

Speaker 10:04

So if that is you, if any of the. Those things that we just mentioned struck a chord, or maybe you could think of your own examples of where you just never really feel satisfied. There are hidden costs of always trying to be better, of not actually just celebrating and allowing yourself to be in the moment that you are right now. And I'm tell, like I said, I'm talking to myself here as much as I'm talking to the rest of you, because I love growing. I love improving. I love pushing myself. But there's all of these costs and I've experienced all of them. So the first cost is mental exhaustion. When you are always evaluating, always optimizing, always scanning for what needs improvement, your brain never gets to rest. And I feel this one big time, this is a hard one for me. not necessarily in my running right now. it definitely, I went through this phase with my running as well, but right now, I see it in other areas of my life. So the way that we, see this showing up and running is that every run becomes data. It's not just. I'm gonna go out for a run today. It's like, how many miles did I get in? What was my heart rate? What was my cadence? What was the HRV? What was the, how much hours of recovery do I need? every run is just data. It's just number numbers. Every workout that you do is a test. can I hit these paces? am I good enough? Am I gonna be able to do this every result? Becomes evidence of whether you're doing enough or not enough. And most of the time it's not enough.

Speaker 2 11:25

Almost every time the answer is this is not enough, but,

Speaker 11:28

and it's exhausting. Like it's completely exhausting.

Speaker 2 11:31

It sounds exhausting. Yeah. The second one I think is particularly dangerous because

Speaker 11:35

are you saying you've never experienced this?

Speaker 2 11:37

no. I've done this.

Speaker 11:37

Oh, okay.'cause you said it sounds exhausting.

Speaker 2 11:39

No, just listening to you to explain it sounds exhausting. Just seem to me rant

Speaker 11:43

about it.

Speaker 2 11:43

Yeah. sometimes rants sound exhausting, but the second one is particularly dangerous in my opinion, is every workout becomes a test.

Speaker 11:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 11:51

that means

Speaker 11:51

because that's proof that you're gonna then be able to do it. if you're training for a race especially, it's if I hit this workout, then I'll be able to hit my goal time in that race.

Speaker 2 12:00

Oh, that's a danger direction that I was not thinking.

Speaker 12:02

Oh, okay. Sorry for interrupting you. Tell me what you were thinking.

Speaker 2 12:05

No, but I mean you're,

Speaker 12:06

because that's the test that I would think about.

Speaker 2 12:07

You're exactly right, is This is a practice test. If I don't pass the practice test, yeah, it's gonna be a train wreck. When I get to the actual exam, the actual race, they put a number on me. I was thinking every workout becomes a test. That means that you're never allowed to repeat a workout because heaven forbid you do a workout and then you do that same workout three or four weeks later and it's not faster. Oh, what's that gonna prove to you? Yeah. that proves that things are not progressing. They're not going in the right direction. Fitness wise, you might be in a better shape. You might not be in a better shape for that exact workout, but you're probably in better shape. So when you put workouts to test it, it prevents you from relaxing into the workout. It really prevents you from finishing maybe a rep short if you're just not feeling it that day. Yeah. If you hit every rep. One, the one time you do it and you're doing, let's say quarters, and you're hitting them all at, I don't know, two minutes. The next time, if you're hitting them at two minutes, you're just gonna have part of you that's I better make sure I push extra hard on the last two reps, so I run them in 1 55. Yeah. And you're not getting a benefit out of that. Repeating it even at the exact same paces is going to probably be beneficial for you. Yeah, it's unlikely, if you have a wet towel, it's unlikely that squeezing at once rings all the water out of it. It's unlikely that running a workout once squeezes all of the benefits out of it. So it shouldn't be a test,

Speaker 13:27

right? But oftentimes it is. And again, this just leads to more mental exhaustion. You're not just training physically. You are carrying this constant low grade mental pressure that says, keep going. It's not enough yet. Fix this next, do more. And that kind of pressure really drains the joy from the process.

Speaker 2 13:48

yes. If every. Every workout is an opportunity to prove that you're not good enough. you look at me like, have I ever done this? That was college. Every workout was an opportunity to prove that I wasn't really good enough to be on the team, and that a hundred percent just took the joy out. That's why ultimately I had to quit being on that team because it took the joy of running away. Yeah, because. Every practice was just more evidence that things weren't going the right direction,

Speaker 14:13

right? All right, so that's cost number one. The mental exhaustion, cost number two, which you might not expect is inconsistency. So this is like one of those ironies that. Exists because the pressure to be better can actually make you less consistent. And I like to think about pressure, the pressure that we're putting on ourselves as a backpack filled with rocks. So if you are carrying around a backpack filled with rocks and you're constantly just adding more pressure and more stress to that backpack, adding more rocks to that backpack, everything that you do is going to be harder. And so if you are just having this extra pressure on yourself. You might go hard for a while. You push, you try to do everything perfectly, but oftentimes what we see when athletes are doing this is that they burn out or they pull back, they get discouraged. They have to restart because it's just too much. Like the body's not able to handle it both physically and mentally.

Speaker 2 15:04

Yeah, you can carry that extra load for a little while. Yeah. And you may even make extra progress. You may even see some big benefits because you're taking a mental load with your physical load and. If you can recover, you're going to advance for a little while. But there's gonna be a point where that combo of the mental stress and the physical stress that you're putting yourself through is too much. And your body's not just not going to be able to recover, which is going to then lead to. You being less consistent. Because you just can't do it. And that less consistent is then again, lead you. Oh man. Now I'm all disappointed that I lost my consistency because that's what you were trying to grind out in the first place. Yeah. You can't grind consistently. No, I think the best way to be consistent is to enjoy the constant process. Not grind it out every day.

Speaker 15:53

Absolutely. All right. Cost number three. The hidden costs, of this constant pressure to improve is disconnection from your body. So when you are obsessed with improvement, it becomes really easy to just stop listening to your body. So instead of asking yourself, how do I feel today? Do I, We talked about the stoplight method, a few, episodes back of like the green light, yellow light, red light days. Like, when am I feeling good? Should I just keep doing what my plan tells me? Do I need to adjust? Do I need to take a rest day? Like those are you checking in with your body to figure out how you feel. But instead of asking that, instead of doing those kinds of check-ins, you ask yourself, what do I need to do today to keep making progress? How do I need to push myself today? So instead of responding. To your body and honoring your body, you tend to override it. You ignore the fatigue, you dismiss tightness, you push through those red flags because you don't want to lose progress. And over time that disconnect becomes a huge problem.

Speaker 2 16:50

Yeah. And this is just like a fundamental issue with exercise physiology here. Yeah. Is what do I need to do to keep making progress? taking a nap might be the answer.

Speaker 17:00

Oh, totally.

Speaker 2 17:00

Because progress isn't actually made through the hard workout, through the big lifting session. Yeah. Through pushing yourself up a hill. that's not the progress, it's the recovery that follows that, where you actually make the physical adaptations. So what do I need to do to progress? To progress? Might be off day. Rest day. Yeah. Easy walk, but it doesn't sound like that's what you need to do. That doesn't sound like it's helping you advance further. And so the answer to what do I need to make progress is always going to be I need to push harder. I need to do more. I need to add this thing to it. Today's gonna be another, at least medium effort, probably hard effort. it's the wrong answer. Even if you're asking that question, you could have a good answer to it. The answer could be rest, but that's usually not the answer because it's not from how do I feel? It's, what's the next hard thing I can do to make progress? Yeah. that's really the question. Not just what do I need to do to make progress, but what's the next difficult thing that I can do that will lead me forward?

Speaker 18:02

And your body's giving you information all the time. And if you're trying to force improvement, oftentimes you just stop hearing it because when your body is tired, when it's giving you those signals of Hey, I need to rest. We need to take a nap. You're like, no, you don't. Just push through. You can do it like. Let's just put on our motivation boots and keep moving forward

Speaker 2 18:21

because your body will be able to do that for a while.

Speaker 18:23

Yeah. Like

Speaker 2 18:23

it can in fact suck it up and keep going for a while Until it throws up all the red flags and you definitely cannot keep going forward. But that doesn't sound tough. To be like, today needs to be an off day, but sometimes today needs to be an off day is. The most difficult thing that you can do.

Speaker 18:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:42

And the most way that you can be productive.

Speaker 18:44

Yeah. Hidden cost. Number four is loss of joy, and this is a huge one. We already started to touch on it in some of the ones that we've already talked about, but. When running starts to feel less like something that you love and more like something that you have to do or have to prove yourself through, that's when it becomes all about your performance. It becomes about measurement and comparison in this constant attempt to validate that you're still improving and when that happens, you can lose the very thing that made you fall in love with running in the first place because. Running improvement is not linear. It's not going to be, we are just gonna be on this like straight line in a diagonal upward trend. That's not how running works. there's going to be peaks and valleys, there's going to be plateaus, there's going to be all of this. And if you're constantly chasing progress, you're gonna lose a lot of the joy because plateaus are bound to happen. This is just part of the process.

Speaker 2 19:41

this is the problem. And the greatness of running is, there's so many things that you can measure, and so one of the ways that Joy gets s sapped out of it is there's always another measurement that you can chase. Oh, I'm not going faster. No. I'll just flip it now. I'll try and go further. Oh, I'm, I've, I don't really feel like I can go any further. I've, my body's kind of tapped out on that. Oh. Maybe I can just put in more runs during the week. Maybe I can throw cross training on top of what I'm already doing. There's always something more that you can do. Another metric that you can try to push higher or lower. Yeah. Depending on what the thing is. That's just more metrics that you can chase.'cause there's so many numbers in our sport that you can do. I've got this on, on, on my Garmin app of oh, my current, like chronic. Intensity is somewhere up in the hundreds and it's it's this thing that tracks how my runs have been going for the last four weeks. And you can see whether that's trending up or down. I could use this as a video game that I have to just keep pushing that number higher.

Speaker 20:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:44

But I also as a running coach, know that I need to step back periodically and be like, I've been growing for the last three, four weeks. My body might need to pull back.

Speaker 20:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:55

Actually this is gonna be a real difficult week at school. So I know that my, I need to physically pull back because mentally I've got a lot going on. This is a big week in our family. Like whatever the thing is, I can see, hey. Garmin's gonna think that I'm pulling back. I'm not. I've got all these other stressors, but since it only measures my running thing, the metric that my watch is measuring is gonna go down. And that's okay.

Speaker 21:19

Yeah, it's totally okay. And that's a normal part of the running process. And then hidden cost number five, and this is a really sneaky one, and you may or may not realize that you're doing this, but the hidden cost number five is oftentimes we associate. Are worth with our progress. So somewhere along the way, for a lot of people, improvement stops just being about growth and it starts becoming about worth and we don't even realize when we make this shift. But a lot of times we'll think to ourselves, and I know I, I fell in this trap a few years ago. So if I'm faster, I'm doing well. If I'm stronger, I'm okay. If I'm improving, I can feel good about myself. But when progress slows down or stops, it doesn't just feel frustrating. It feels very personal. It feels like this attack on me. Something's wrong with me. I'm doing things wrong. Maybe I'm losing my, sometimes we start with maybe I'm losing my fitness, and then we oftentimes go into, there's something wrong with me.

Speaker 2 22:17

because by the time you've gotten to this, you've probably been running for a while, and so runner. Is so much of your identity. Yeah. That then if running doesn't go well, that part of your identity is not going well. So that aspect of you is doing poorly. So it's not just oh, my running isn't going very great, it's, I'm not doing well. Yeah. Like it, it is so much of who you are. Because. You as a runner can then get connected. It goes to the other one. So like your joy is connected, the measurables are connected, but they're all connected to you as a human. Because the runner aspect is so entwined with you as the person. So if running isn't going well, that means that for some reason you as a human. Aren't actually doing well.

Speaker 22:59

And that's a very scary and dangerous correlation to make, or, connection to make right. You as a human, your running has nothing to do with you as a human. it's great. it's a way that we can get healthier and we can challenge ourselves and do all the things, but we have to be really careful when your worth is attached to your running progress. So let's talk about this idea as we continue on our discussion of running progress. With, we'll just get 1% better every day. Because we've all heard, I think we've all heard this. I brought it up on our team call, today, and there were some people that had never heard this idea, but this is one of those messages that sounds really inspiring and really doable on the surface. Don't focus on big improvement. Don't focus on making huge jumps. Just focus on getting 1% better every day.

Speaker 2 23:48

Yeah. Which. Even just by the end of the week. That's a huge jump.

Speaker 23:52

Yeah. 7%,

Speaker 2 23:54

like 1% better every day. Exponentially growth,

Speaker 23:56

yeah.

Speaker 2 23:57

Is more than 7% by the end of the week. Like it's not a lot more. It's not growing. Like the exponential part of the growth hasn't quite hit yet, but it's a little bit more than 7% every day. That's enormous.

Speaker 24:08

Yeah. and we have to bring in my math nerd here because we were talking about this and Kevin's can I tell you like what that actually means by the end of the year? if you get 1% better every day, like what that actually equates to? And I said, yes, please.

Speaker 2 24:22

So if you tell

Speaker 24:22

us Math nerd,

Speaker 2 24:23

if you get 1% better every single day of the year. then you get a little more than three, 3700% better by the end of the year.

Speaker 24:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:33

People think you get 37 times better by the end of the

Speaker 24:36

year. Yeah. People often think it's 365 times better, but it's not. Or 365% better. Yeah. But it's not, it's more than that because it's compounding.

Speaker 2 24:44

No, it's 3700% better. it's almost 4000% better.

Speaker 24:48

Yeah. Which is insane. and we all know that when we hear that number that's complete. Ludicrous. Completely ludicrous. Like it's not, that's not an attainable number at all.

Speaker 2 24:58

No, because it's the same idea of like when you start lifting, if you start by lifting 50 pounds, whatever the lift is, if you lift 50 and then you do that for a couple weeks, and then you're at 55 pounds, you do that for a couple weeks and then you're at 60 pounds. You're like, oh, every. Every two weeks, I just add five more pounds to this. Yeah. If I keep doing this for three years, I should be able to lift a car. no, that's not how that works.

Speaker 25:20

Unless you're a mom. Yes, because there's different mom strength. Like when your baby is hurting there, you can lift cars. There's all sorts of crazy stuff that

Speaker 2 25:27

happens, but not on a regular basis.

Speaker 25:28

No, I know.

Speaker 2 25:29

Not for five reps.

Speaker 25:30

Not for five reps. That's a one rep max right there. But. So like we understand the intention behind it, right? This whole idea of like just getting 1% better, it encourages action, it encourages momentum and growth. But as Kevin just pointed out to us, that's not how progress actually works. We don't get better in anything every day. We all know that we've got days where we've got high levels of energy and we're super productive, and then we have other days where. We just wanna take a nap and we are not productive at all, and we are impa, lack of patience and all sorts of other things going on. Maybe we're stressed more. You don't even get better every week. if you think about what your progress looks like week to week in any area of your life, not just running, but in any area of your life, sometimes you're trending upward and oh, things are going really well, and then you have a down week. Maybe it's in your business. Maybe it's in your running, maybe it's at work, whatever it is that you do. Maybe it's with your kids. Like I know that with, even in parenting, I'm like, oh, this things are going great this week. Like my relationship is great. And then the next week or the next day or the next hour or even five minutes later,

Speaker 2 26:39

they're teenagers.

Speaker 26:39

They're teenagers, and you're like, oh God, I'm totally failing as a mother, which obviously I'm not. what? Like I know that rationally. But there are these periods of time where we're trying to grow in anything where you don't get better for a long time, you can, you hit these plateaus or you hit these declines and you regress a little bit here, and sometimes your body's doing a ton of the work behind the scenes that you don't see yet. So maybe you are actually getting better. Maybe you are getting better every single day. You just don't see that right away.

Speaker 2 27:10

so this is the thing is. I would like to argue that every time you go out and put in some form of exercise or you take a conscious rest day, you are in fact stacking up bricks. You are in fact building the wall of your fitness. You're building this giant mountain of bricks, which is fantastic, and. It's, you can't always see it. Yeah. if you're trying to build a huge wall that's 30 feet high and you go out and you put a brick down and you're like, all right, I'll get back to that tomorrow. You're not gonna see the progress at first.

Speaker 27:44

because sometimes you're also adding mortar.

Speaker 2 27:46

Yes.

Speaker 27:46

Like you're also adding the cement to hold the bricks together. so you might not even be. See invisible progress with bricks

Speaker 2 27:52

or on rest days you're actually just waiting because the mortar needs to harden. Yeah. Before you can put another layer on. Yeah. Like this is the thing, like if you wanna keep working the metaphor, like there are times where if you want the wall to actually be built big and strong, you are not doing anything to it. Because adding anything extra to it is gonna be too much.

Speaker 28:10

And some days it rains and you aren't actually able to work on the wall.

Speaker 2 28:14

Yeah. So there's some issues. it's not continuous progress.

Speaker 28:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2 28:17

But you just keep going out there as often as you can without the goal of, oh, I have to get something in. But as often as you can with keeping balance on other things in your life and be like, I'm gonna keep putting some bricks down. I'm gonna keep stacking these up. That's fantastic. And it might be real small things and the whole idea of. Get 1% better. When you're starting new at something, you can, yeah. That's get 1% better pretty quickly.

Speaker 28:41

Beginner bias. Yes. Yeah. Like when you are new at something, you make big jumps and big adaptations pretty quickly

Speaker 2 28:47

and, but I think that helps people get into the thing. Yeah. It's a matter of then flipping off of that, I'm gonna keep making progress and it's gonna continue to be this rapid.

Speaker 28:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2 28:57

Because if you get to this plateau. And you're like, oh wait, this is not working. Like you start questioning all the things. You're like, wait, am I actually building a wall? What am I doing with these bricks over here? Yeah. am I actually getting in any sort of fitness? Am I getting stronger? It seems like I'm stuck. And you start questioning, is the plan working for me? Is my body just rebelling against me? Yeah. Maybe. This was fine. I'm just, I'm not cut out for this type of physical activity. Maybe I'm just getting too old to do this thing or this was working. I should now flip and try something new and different. Yeah. that's a problem because if you're stacking bricks to make a wall and you're like, not sure I'm doing this, and you start stacking bricks some other area, and you're like, Not seeing the progress, and you start stacking bricks in a third area. Yeah, you're never making a wall. You're laying a lot of bricks, but you're putting them in different places, so you're never gonna be able to look back months from now and be like, oh man, look at the wall that I've built. Because you didn't, you made a little pile over there. A little pile over there. A little pile over there. Yeah. You never made a wall.

Speaker 29:56

Yeah, and if we have this expectation that we always need to be improving, even just a little bit, even just 1%, then those seasons where we're plateauing or we're regressing a little bit, or we're not seeing any of the progress, can often feel like failure. And that's not a fun place to be, and that's when you start, a lot of times stacking little bricks in other places. But what progress actually looks like is ups and downs. It looks like steps. It looks like plateaus. It's not linear. It's more like what Kevin was saying, like laying the bricks is just, that's just showing up. That's putting in effort. It's repetition, it's allowing your body, the time and the rest and the recovery to adapt. It's knowing that sometimes your progress is going to plateau and you have, and this is the hardest part, you have no idea. How long that plateau is going to last. that's the

Speaker 2 30:45

worst part.

Speaker 30:46

That's the worst. because sometimes it's like a week, sometimes it's a couple weeks, sometimes it's a couple months. Sometimes it's a whole training cycle where it doesn't look like you're making progress. But like Kevin said, if you're putting in the reps. And you're stacking those bricks. we teach a concept of training cycles inside of our coaching program where we have one main focus. We never ignore any area. We're always doing easy running, we're always doing some speed. We're also always doing strength work and mobility. Like we always have those foundational pieces in place. But depending on what you're focusing on, you're gonna turn the dial up on one area, turn the dial down on other areas, and then In that kind of a cycle, say you're in a strength building cycle. Where you're focused on building muscle and you're not really focusing on your running performance as much and you go out on a run it, your runs might feel worse, because your legs are sore and tired from your strength workout the day before, your pace might be slower. All of a sudden you might feel like you need to walk, and the initial thought that people have is, oh, no. I'm getting worse. I am slowing down. Maybe strength training isn't for me. maybe like this is supposed to be making me stronger, but it's actually not like I, I'm slowing down. I'm getting worse, but that's. Okay. what you're experiencing in that cycle. you're not supposed to be getting faster when you're in a strength building cycle. That's not the focus. But when you put these cycles together, you have a strength building cycle, and then we move into a base building cycle where you're building mileage, and then you move into a race training cycle where you're starting to work on speed. Then all of a sudden, those previous cycles that you did, those, all those bricks that you laid. Prior to that can all come together and then you can actually see the progress that you've been building for months or years,

Speaker 2 32:30

right? Because will, each cycle can have a different focus. They're all still connected to each other. They're all intertwined. It's all still building the same. Goal.

Speaker 32:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:40

You're not stacking bricks in one area and then being like, all right, I'm done with that. Now I'm gonna go stack bricks over there. Like it. Everything is connected because you never leave anything behind. Even though you may be leaning more heavily into speed, more heavily into distance, more heavily into strength. Everything still stays there. So it's all still connected, so well,

Speaker 33:00

maybe it's not just a wall. Maybe you're building a house Excellent. and you're working on one wall at a time.

Speaker 2 33:05

Yes.

Speaker 33:06

And then at the end, when all the walls are built, then it comes together to actually look like the house.

Speaker 2 33:10

Yeah. And you've actually created a thing because there is a big plan. Yeah. You just have to be able to step back enough. To see what that plan is.

Speaker 33:18

That blueprint.

Speaker 2 33:19

Yeah.

Speaker 33:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:20

Another metaphor that I think is really great for how progress actually works is the seed. When you first go out and plant a seed, you don't wake up the next morning and being like, alright, let's see it. Like it's not a magic bean. There's not gonna

Speaker 33:33

be, I'm sure Jack and the beans stock. That's exactly what I was thinking.

Speaker 2 33:36

Not a beanstalk showing up the next day. it'd be neat, but we're not really expecting that. Jack wasn't actually expecting that. True. he actually didn't plant them. Very surprising. Mom threw'em out the window.

Speaker 33:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:46

but

Speaker 33:46

we go, mom,

Speaker 2 33:47

you're not expecting that you have to go out there and water it and care for it. You have to assume that there is stuff happening below the surface. Did you ever have the science project back in like second grade where you have to make the seed, but you keep it like inside of a wet paper towel? I don't know if I did that in second. If you could see the roots going.

Speaker 34:03

Yeah. I don't know if I did it in second grade, but I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 34:06

it's that one

Speaker 34:07

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:07

That allows you to see what's happening below the surface. And it's tricky to do that with running. It's tough to see all the things below the surface and people try and do it. They try and get watches and rings and all sorts of metrics on their body. Yeah. But then that just goes back to what we were talking about before is you're trying to always find some performance metric That you're improving at.

Speaker 34:29

Yeah. Whereas, or at least tracking

Speaker 2 34:31

Yeah. That you're tracking

Speaker 34:32

something like, we're doing, I know we're doing something here.

Speaker 2 34:33

Yeah. Yeah. this number is moving in the right direction. Whereas sometimes what you really need to do, Whether I was able to see the roots come outta the bottom of that plant and then the leaf come out the top, or I put it in the dirt and I keep putting water over it, it's still gonna form roots. It's still gonna start growing up. Sometimes that's what we need to do with our running, with our training. We just need to sit back and be like, all I. I'm just gonna trust the process for a little bit. Yeah. I'm just gonna let this thing happen and I'm not gonna worry whether it's getting better or worse. I'm just gonna let it go and see what happens down the road. That's might be, it's a calming thing and at first you might get real nervous about it.

Speaker 35:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2 35:09

cause you're not. Carefully checking, but I think ultimately that will help you calm down and get there.

Speaker 35:15

Yeah. This is really reminding me how I've really struggled with this idea of patients basically my entire life, because when I plant seeds, I tend to over water them. Like I plant the seed and I'm like, maybe it just needs a little bit more water. Like I wanna see it grow. And so I think that if I add more water to it, that will make it grow faster. But that's just a bunch of baloney. And what I have done many times in the past, not just once, because clearly I didn't learn my list the first time, is over water the seeds and then just drown them. So that they don't actually ever have the ability to take root, and that's what we're doing in our training as well. A lot of times we're just over watering, just adding more and more, but it actually just leads to nothing happening.

Speaker 2 35:56

that was my towel metaphor before is repeating a workout. Yeah. And doing it with the same times does not mean that you're not progressing. It just means that you haven't squeezed everything outta that workout for the first time. You can repeat a workout month upon month.

Speaker 36:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:09

With the same times, and probably continue improving off of

Speaker 36:11

it. But we don't see that as improvement. Like it's the same times. Are you telling me that that's improvement? Yeah, because now you're becoming more consistent. Like maybe you, the first time you hit those times in the workout, it was more of a struggle for you, and the second time you did it, it wasn't as much of a struggle for you. Like you're starting to become more consistent. It's it. Easier for you to hit those times, and maybe not. Maybe sometimes it's you have a bad day because you didn't sleep well or you haven't fueled well, and that workout used to, Hey, last time you did it, it felt pretty easy. And this time it felt way harder.

Speaker 2 36:41

Yeah. Or you lied to yourself the first time and you told yourself that, I. I was struggling with it, but I think it was like a seven outta 10. And this time I, yeah. Effort wise, that was pretty hard. It was like a seven outta 10, except the first time it was a nine. And you were lying to yourself and we're all really good at perceived rate. What? RPRP? Rate of perceived decision. Like it's a good measurement, but there are definitely times. Post-workout that you lie to yourself.

Speaker 37:07

Oh, a hundred percent.

Speaker 2 37:07

That you're, if you were really honest, yeah. That you're like, all right. That was like an eight or nine. Even though it was supposed to be a seven, but it was supposed to be a seven, so you're like, yep. Seven.

Speaker 37:16

That was a seven. Yeah. So this is where we can get into trouble, like when we focus on. Progress as the only goal, and specifically if we measure that progress by one or two metrics, then we're going to be disappointed. Because if the only reason that you're doing this is to see measurable progress all the time, it's just not gonna happen. Like you are definitely 100% going to experience some sort of disappointment because eventually your progress slows or it plateaus, or that improvement becomes uncertain. we all are getting older every single day and we don't. None of us know at what point we're gonna stop getting faster. Because there is a point, like there is, there comes a day where you're gonna hit a PR in a certain distance, and that's going to be the fastest time that you will ever run that distance.

Speaker 2 38:05

Yeah. And you don't know it until you're well removed from

Speaker 38:08

it. Because for a long time afterwards you're still trying to hit it. And then you never get back to it. And I know that. You and I have talked about this and your comment was like you hit one of your prs when you were, what, 15 years old or something?

Speaker 2 38:22

my mild

Speaker 38:23

16.

Speaker 2 38:23

My mild PR was 17.

Speaker 38:24

Yeah, 17. So

Speaker 2 38:26

most of my PRS of things. Short and on a track.

Speaker 38:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:30

Were when I was 17 years old.

Speaker 38:31

But did you know that was your pr probably not. Like you went on and ran in college, you probably assumed that you were gonna get faster in college.

Speaker 2 38:39

I, yeah, because I figured that I would run a mile, but it never occurred to me that I wasn't fast enough to run the mile in college.

Speaker 38:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:46

So I never raced a mile. If I had tried, if I had all outrun a mile in college. I probably would have a faster pr. You

Speaker 38:53

probably would.

Speaker 2 38:53

But I never did it. I never ran the 800 in college because I was nowhere near fast enough to keep up with those guys. But I could have done it. It would've been neat.'cause then it would've started with a one.

Speaker 39:01

Yeah. Yeah. But that's the thing is, if that's the only thing that's keeping you in the game, you're not gonna stay in it long enough to actually get to where you want to go. And that's where it's really important for us. To shift from, I'm doing this to get better. I'm doing this to see improvement. I'm doing this to challenge myself and see how good I can get at this to, I'm doing this because I love the process and I love who I'm becoming because of this process. So it's a shift from progress to process and even one step further to identity. And this is where it becomes sustainable. This is where it becomes more fun. this is where we can bring back all those hidden costs that we talked about before of the loss of consistency, the loss of joy, like the mental exhaustion. this is where we can start to get rid and let go put that backpack with all those heavy rocks down and just do it because we love it. it's for the love of the game.

Speaker 2 40:03

Yes, for the love of the game, and I know you love bridge thoughts. Sometimes it's a lot to jump all the way from, I'm chasing progress to, I just love the process.

Speaker 40:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 40:13

And there's a spot in the middle where it's I wonder and it's curiosity essentially is how good could I be at this point in my life? Yeah. It stops the comparison to you from. The year before, five years before, before kids, like it stops that comparison and just puts in a curiosity for at this moment What can I do? And then that helps. I think just lessen comparison in general. And moves into I appreciate the process.

Speaker 40:40

Yeah, absolutely. And I agree like sometimes it is a big jump to make because there are some weeks that you're not gonna feel stronger. There are some weeks that you're not gonna wanna do the process. this is sometimes I wake up and I'm like. Why am I doing this again? what? Why am I training for this? Because right now I'm not in a season and I haven't been in a season for a while of racing and really trying to push myself to see how fast I can get. I am in the season of consistency and just doing it because this is what I do. I love the rhythm of the training, but there's of course going to be days where I don't feel like showing up, like I don't feel like doing the thing, and I have to remind myself that. This is who I am. This is what I do. And that's why

Speaker 2 41:20

not me. I just leapt outta bed this morning, just super excited.

Speaker 41:24

5:00 AM Woo hoo.

Speaker 2 41:25

The alarm went off at 5:00 AM but I didn't get up until five. Like your alarm went off and I was like, oh, shoot, I really have to get going. I did not wanna get up and get going quickly.

Speaker 41:33

No, I

Speaker 2 41:33

didn't. I had to.

Speaker 41:34

I definitely did not either this morning, like my alarm went off at 5 0 5, but I definitely stayed in bed till five 15. my, I was moving slowly this morning too, Here's the fun shift. Okay? If you can shift from. Chasing progress to enjoying the process and really doing it for the joy and for the love of the process, and you can start to let go and release that need for constant progress. A lot of times what we see is that progress comes easier. Progress is actually made because you've actually released that pressure of needing the progress and you've just. Leaned into the process. And so the progress becomes the natural byproduct.

Speaker 2 42:16

Because when you enjoy the process, consistency's better.

Speaker 42:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2 42:19

And if I mean above almost anything else, improved consistency will most likely lead to progress. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that it's gonna be immediate, but it takes some of the pressure off. And when you release the pressure, you're able to actually make the next step, To go back to that 1%. If you have to get 1% better every day, that's gonna become such a huge hurdle that you need to overcome. And you know me, I love putting the big giant goals out there. But when you're trying to say, what can I do by tomorrow? 1% better. Okay. And then what? By the next day, another 1% better, that starts feeling like a lot.

Speaker 42:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2 42:56

It just, it feels really big.

Speaker 42:58

Now what if it was just, I'm gonna do the same thing I did yesterday?

Speaker 2 43:00

Yeah.

Speaker 43:01

or I'm gonna do the same thing I did last week.

Speaker 2 43:03

Yeah. Progress will probably follow. But what if I just do the, what if I just repeat last week because I enjoyed last week's training runs.

Speaker 43:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:12

I'm gonna just do that thing again. That's gonna be fine.

Speaker 43:14

Yeah. Nothing's wrong with that.

Speaker 2 43:15

There is nothing wrong there. If you enjoyed that week. Go do that week. Your body's not gonna be like, you didn't change it up enough.

Speaker 43:21

Yeah,

Speaker 2 43:21

I'm not adapting for you.

Speaker 43:22

Your body does not need variety all the time.

Speaker 2 43:24

I don't know why your body has that voice, but that was your, the voice of your body.

Speaker 43:28

I love all the voices. we all have good voices, so instead of just trying to be better all the time, and again, I'm gonna remind you. We love being better. We love growth. We love improvement. Just not all the time, just release the need or the, that idea that I should be making progress all the time. So when you start to feel that and notice, when do you. Feel that pressure? Are you feeling pressure from that need to be better all the time? Because when you feel that instead what you could focus on is showing up consistently, letting some runs just be enough. Like not worrying about the pace, not worrying about the distance. Just going out and enjoying the run. imagine that, like I talked to, one of our clients, did the Cherry Blossom run the 10 miler? In Washington DC last week and she texted me afterwards and I didn't even realize that she was doing the cherry blast. I'm like, she texted me the week before and was, and told me she had a 10 miler, but I didn't realize it was that one. And I said, oh my gosh, that one's on my bucket list. I would love to do that race. And she's you definitely should. Funny thing, I forgot my watch. And so I forgot my watch and I put my phone away'cause like she put it in her pocket or her like little, what's it called? Whatever pouch.

Speaker 2 44:41

Yep.

Speaker 44:42

So she, I put my phone away. So I just ran by feel and vibes. And she looked at her times afterwards and she was within like a couple of seconds for every mile split or every 5K, 10 K split, whatever it was. And it was like, yeah, because she was just out there enjoying it and actually connected and listening to her body, which was she was so happy.

Speaker 2 45:01

Yeah. Sometimes taking the phone away where you get the feedback Yeah. Allows you to actually get feedback. And because you're not. That consistent from step to step. But over the course of a mile. Yeah, over the course of 5K, you probably can be remarkably consistent.

Speaker 45:14

Yeah. So if you can focus on doing the basics well, showing up and making sure that you're getting your runs in, making sure that you're getting your strength workouts in, not worrying that your weight is the same as it was last week, that you didn't go up a little bit in your weight because. Progressive overload does not mean that you are increasing your weights every single week or every single time that you're doing the same lift.

Speaker 2 45:37

I really thought that's what it meant. I really thought that meant that every time, no, I go lift weights. Some. I have to either do one more rep or increase the weight. I thought that's what progressive overload meant.

Speaker 45:47

progressive overload is also effort based training. Like we should also be paying attention to our body, and so should you make it a little bit harder, you can do that in various ways. You can do that with weight, but you could also do that with one more rep. You can also do that by slowing down the repetitions, like doing the same number, but doing them a little bit. Slower.'cause your muscles have to work harder.

Speaker 2 46:08

But that's the pace of my reps. I don't track carefully. So I don't remember how the pace of my That's

Speaker 46:14

gonna be a tougher one.

Speaker 2 46:15

Exactly.

Speaker 46:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2 46:15

Like I don't remember the speed that I was lifting with three days ago,

Speaker 46:19

which is why it doesn't actually matter. So progressive overload is a great concept to use with alongside. Effort based training because it doesn't matter really how many reps you did or how many weight, how much weight you did last time, or the exact tempo of your lift. It matters if you get yourself to the point in the workout today where. I probably only have one or two reps left in my tank. Like I'm taking that pretty close to muscle failure regardless of what the weights and the reps are. That's how you progressively overload your body.

Speaker 2 46:50

Yeah. So it's quite possible that I did 10 reps last time and I do eight reps this time, and it's the exact same weight. But at the end of both of them, I feel like, ooh, I might have one or two more if I really get it out. Yep. Because maybe today. I just don't have it.

Speaker 47:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2 47:05

Maybe there's other

Speaker 47:06

stuff and you're building strength both times. Yeah. That's the cool part about it. It's not like you built more strength on the day that you did 10 reps at that weight and you're building less strength on the day that you do eight reps because you're still taking your body close to failure.

Speaker 2 47:18

I know. Just mathematically it feels like a failure.

Speaker 47:21

I know, but it's not. So instead of focusing on. That kind of mathematical failure, you can just focus on Okay. Listening to my body effort wise, I'm getting myself to that point. That's a good thing that I'm checking this box. I'm doing the right thing here.

Speaker 2 47:34

Okay. I have a question for you and it's on topic, but it's not outlined. Okay. so let, it's

Speaker 47:38

okay. I can answer questions on the fly.

Speaker 2 47:40

I know, but you love when I go with these ones. You said that, hold on. you scrolled on me here on the outline. You said that. Instead of trying to be better all the time, like if you're feeling the pressure Of trying to fe to be better all the time. What if you're not, what if you're enjoying trying to be better? Great. All the time. Can we live in that zone? Oh,

Speaker 48:01

enjoying trying to

Speaker 2 48:03

be better. What if you're enjoying chasing the improvement?

Speaker 48:06

A hundred percent.

Speaker 2 48:07

We can just live in that for a little while, right?

Speaker 48:08

A hundred percent. Yeah. Like I think that's I'm glad you brought that up.'cause that's not really what we've been talking about during this episode, but I think that if it's fun, joyful, and enjoying that, like you're, you have a sense of enjoyment, then absolutely.

Speaker 2 48:20

You just, you have to be willing that when you. Lose that enjoyment That you're able to flip a switch and move into all these things. Of doing the basics, listening to your body.

Speaker 48:29

Yeah. Be, and I think that we can be enjoying that process for a while. We can enjoy chasing those things like that. Could be very. not enchanting.

Speaker 2 48:38

Fulfilling.

Speaker 48:39

Yeah. but that's enticing maybe is the word I was looking for.

Speaker 2 48:42

I like enchanting.

Speaker 48:43

I like enchanting too. It reminds me of Taylor Swift.

Speaker 2 48:45

Thank you.

Speaker 48:46

yeah.

Speaker 2 48:47

He's so girl out of me that is the song that was playing in my head as soon as you said enchanting.

Speaker 48:52

I love it. But yeah, no, I think that if you are enjoying it and it doesn't feel like pressure, there's nothing wrong with it.

Speaker 2 48:59

Alright. that's fantastic.

Speaker 49:00

Yeah,

Speaker 2 49:00

it's like almost the complete opposite of what we've been saying all episode long, but it's,

Speaker 49:03

I just think that it's important for us to know that there are these hidden costs that we might not recognize. And that's really the point of the episode.

Speaker 2 49:09

Yeah. But a lot of if you really are enjoying that, yeah. Be willing to recognize there may be hidden costs, so keep tuning in. Making sure that you are truly enjoying it. Yeah. That you're not just no. I'm definitely enjoying this, and just gritting your teeth every day. And lying to yourself.

Speaker 49:24

because there's some people that enjoy it, and then those plateaus, they, it doesn't bo they don't bother them.

Speaker 2 49:30

Yes.

Speaker 49:30

they're like, okay, this is part of the process and it doesn't bother them, but it's when you're, when you have that need for improvement every single day or constant improvement, then that's when those. Those things can show up and be problematic.

Speaker 2 49:42

That makes sense. And that's your last point on what do I do when this thing happens is yeah, anchor in your identity as runner, not your identity as the outcome. Don't tie your identity so much to the performance network metrics as much as just the process that you're doing on a daily basis.

Speaker 49:56

So instead of asking yourself, how can I be better today? Which is a fine question, as long as it doesn't. Put pressure, I think that's a great question to ask yourself some days.

Speaker 2 50:06

It's a great question as long as you're open to all the possible answers.

Speaker 50:10

I love that. A, I love that question, right? I, how can I be better today? I think it's a great question to ask on some days, but there are some days that question's gonna just feel overwhelming and filled with pressure.

Speaker 2 50:22

If that question leads to pressure, then how can I show up like the runner I want to be today Yeah. Is a less pressure filled thing. Because I think the first question, if you've really brought into this whole identity and I'm disconnecting from the outcomes, then how can I be better today? Might be, I'm gonna go take a nap because that will make me better over a long time horizon.

Speaker 50:45

Totally.

Speaker 2 50:46

But if you're chasing outcomes, how can I be better? Always looks like a difficult step. Always looks like a harder workout. Always looks like lifting more things, running faster, running farther.

Speaker 50:55

So to bring this around to you guys, if you're listening to this and you want to reflect on where you might be. In this process, a couple of good questions to ask yourself is are the following? So number one, where in your training are you constantly trying to be better instead of just letting what you're doing be enough? And I think that's like one of those double-edged swords. We always have to be careful, right? because again, it's important for us to want to be better at things. It's important for us to chase improvement And also it's good for us to let, let things be enough, but not to the point of apathy. there's always like slippery slopes in both directions.

Speaker 2 51:34

Yes. Yes. Not to the point of apathy.'cause apathy, then you've lost the process. you're not doing the thing at all. You're like, it's fine to be here, I just won't do anything. No, you still are doing the things. You're just doing the things for the sake of the things. that's really what it is I'm not chasing. Getting better. I'm doing the thing because I like the thing.

Speaker 51:52

Yeah. And that kind of leads to the second question, which is, are you still in love with the process? Or maybe not still maybe take that out. are, do you like the process? Do are, do you love the process or are you only attached to the progress? Like, where are you on that scale? if you had to have, if you imagine like a timeline of just a number line with progress on one side and process on the other side. Like where are you on that scale? maybe it shouldn't be a number scale, because the process often leads to progress. So they're not like polar opposites. But I need a better metaphor there.

Speaker 2 52:27

If you had the, if you were able to keep score of your running And there's a million different apps that will keep for, keep score for you in a whole wide variety of ways. But if you were able to keep score. Would you still do the thing if you covered the score? would you still play basketball if you were, if there wasn't a competition? there's a lot of people that love the sport, they just go out and shoot around because they love it so much. Yeah. Would you keep running if, and we had this discussion. Several years back when there literally weren't any races. Would you keep training if you couldn't race? And a lot of people flipped over and they're like, I'm doing this virtual race and that virtual race because they needed to see something. They needed some validation to it. Yeah. But what if you couldn't. What if races were taken away or there were races, but no one measured the distances.

Speaker 53:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2 53:15

And there's no clocks.

Speaker 53:17

Yeah. welcome to my life. that's literally what I do right now. Like I haven't raced really since 2020. 2019. 2019 was like my big year of racing and it's crazy to me to think that was seven years ago. Like I had this realization the other day.

Speaker 2 53:31

That was not seven years ago. It's fine.

Speaker 53:32

I know. I had this realization the other day and I said, no way. But like really since COVID, the real, the only races that I've really done have been our high school, 5K.

Speaker 2 53:42

It was, it's fine. It was like two years ago.

Speaker 53:44

Yeah, but that, but I'm totally okay with it. because I love the process. I love just showing up. I love the training, I love meeting with my friends or going out on my runs by myself or with my dog or along the beach. Like I just love being that strong and healthy person and I'm really trying to. Up my weights and challenge myself in the gym right now.'cause I think it's really fun to see how much weight I can lift

Speaker 2 54:08

and I'm just trying to stay ahead of you inside of the gym. but I, it's weird'cause for a while I avoided races.

Speaker 54:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:15

I did races, few and far between and I still do them few and far between, but I. Am excited of the concept of doing more. I would like to do more races. And it's been a long time since I've had that thought.

Speaker 54:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:28

Of I would like to race more often.

Speaker 54:29

I had a dream last night that I was gonna do an ultra.

Speaker 2 54:33

Interesting.

Speaker 54:34

I know, right?

Speaker 2 54:35

I feel like there's very specific ultras that you would actually sign yourself up

Speaker 54:38

for. I think it would be I could see myself, and I think I've said this before, I could see myself just skipping the marathon completely and going straight to a trail ultra.

Speaker 2 54:47

No, that makes much more sense.

Speaker 54:48

Yeah, that's much more me.

Speaker 2 54:50

You could trail ultra. I think on less training than you do a marathon also.

Speaker 54:54

Yeah. And there would also be a lot less pressure. Like I would put way more pressure on myself to do a road marathon than I would a trail ultra.

Speaker 2 55:01

Yeah. No. Everything about you running a trail, 50 K sounds like a more enjoyable process.

Speaker 55:05

It also just sounds like me. that's just something like, ha heck yeah. Like I'm just gonna go endure and be rugged and. go have fun in the mountains. Yep. On trails. Let's do it. Alright you guys. so all that to say,

Speaker 2 55:17

Angie's running an ultra

Speaker 55:18

pro progress,

Speaker 2 55:20

that's the takeaway that I just got.

Speaker 55:22

Progress is amazing. Chasing and progress is fantastic. Just don't let it be the only thing that you focus on when you have those periods of time where you're not making the progress that you want. Focus on the process. Focus on your identity. Because that oftentimes will lead to more progress. And even if it doesn't, you can still find a lot of joy and satisfaction in it.

Speaker 2 55:44

Oh yeah. Find the joy.

Speaker 55:45

Find the joy. All right. If you found this episode helpful or if you just liked it, I would love for you guys to please leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify because your comments and your shares, they help us to reach new runners, and that's really our goal is to just reach and help as many people as possible.

Speaker 2 56:02

Or

Speaker 56:02

just

Speaker 2 56:02

tell somebody.

Speaker 56:03

Or just tell

Speaker 2 56:04

somebody. Just tell somebody about it.

Speaker 56:04

Yeah. Tell someone, Hey, have you listened to the Real Life Runners podcast? which is, we've got some really cool updates, in the wings. I haven't. Release a lot of information, but just know that over the next month there's gonna be a lot of changes happening around here. There's gonna be changes, there's gonna be updates. I've got a new five day challenge that I'm launching in May. I've got a new app that I'm launching in May. So there's a lot of really cool things that I'm working on. On the horizon that's gonna be here sooner rather than later, which is really exciting. So make sure that you stay tuned. Make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast or you follow the podcast to plan on which app you are, listening to us on. If you are not yet on our email list, head over to real life runners.com and scroll down the page and enter your name and your email address so that you can get all of our updates and be on our email list, because that's really the best way to. To stay updated on what's going on in our world. and as always, thanks for joining us. We know that your time is your most precious resource, and we are so grateful that you decided to spend it with us. This is the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 457. Now, get out there and run your life.