“Making Up” is a Myth

You miss a scheduled workout.  What do you do?  More than likely, you’ve rescheduled or attempted to “make up” a missed workout more than once in your time as an endurance athlete.  Coach Laura discusses why “making up” workouts is a myth.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Opening
• 0:16 Important Questions
• 0:40 The Hard Truth
• 4:20 Exercise Restraint
• 8:04 A Seemingly Innocent Habit
• 10:51 What is most important?
• 15:37 Sit with Discomfort
• 16:37 Closing

Transcript

(0:04 - 1:03)
Hello and welcome to the Full Circle Podcast, your source for insights into the science and art of endurance sports training and racing. I'm your host, Coach Laura Henry. You miss a workout that was on your training schedule. 

What do you do? Do you move it to a different training day? Do you double up, do two workouts in a day when you move it to a different training day? You have a bad workout. What do you do? You have a bad race and you don't get the result you wanted. What do you do? It's so, so tempting to quote unquote redo a missed workout or a poor workout or a poor race by either signing up for another race or repeating the workout very soon. 

I'm here to tell you folks that missed workouts are a part of training. They're not a particularly nice part of training. They're not a particularly fun part of training, but they are part of training.

(1:04 - 4:37)
I've had many, many, many athletes over the years miss many, many workouts. And the number of missed workouts literally numbers in the thousands at this point. Sometimes it is possible to change things. 

It's possible to rework the schedule in a given week or maybe over the course of a month, remembering what we've talked about before that what you do now impacts what you're able to do later. That being said, folks, this is really important. Change is change. 

A change to the schedule is a change to the schedule. Don't make the mistake of thinking that doing something later is the same as doing it when it was originally planned. Sometimes workouts are missed by athletes for extremely valid reasons. 

Injury, illness, kids need them, death of a family member, work project that ran late, day just didn't go as planned. It could be entirely valid. And other times, athletes miss workouts for reasons that they feel consciously or unconsciously that aren't as valid, such as laziness, excuses that they come up with, and they desire to make up the workout as a way to make amends, quote unquote, for whatever happened, whether it was valid or whether it was an excuse. 

And especially in the case of when an athlete doesn't get to do a workout because of an undesired behavior or habit, such as laziness, they especially want to make amends for that. It's almost like by doing the workout or attempting the workout again erases the behavior that happened before. And this just isn't true. 

I've had athletes be disappointed with their performances at their races, and particularly A-goal races, A-races, where the priority was really high, the stakes were high, this was the big event that they were doing in a given year. And it is an example. There was one year at Ironman Lake Placid where I had several athletes who did the race that were unhappy with their performance that day. 

And these athletes independently, I might add, asked me about signing up for Ironman Mont-Tremblant, which was taking place a mere three weeks later in the days after Ironman Lake Placid. And I understood why they wanted to do it. They wanted that redo attempt, like, oh, I'm going to get it this time. 

But what it feels like sometimes isn't what's going to actually happen. And while it feels nice to think about getting that redo, it doesn't work the way that emotionally we might hope it does. And I've had this same behavior pop up so many times with different athletes over the years. 

And what I've realized is that athletes truly don't know how to sit with their disappointment, and so they want to redo. That's the actionable thing. That's the actionable step they're trying to take. 

But I want to tell you folks that learning to sit with your disappointment is actionable. Learning how to process it and take the lessons learned from whatever it is, whether it's a workout or a race, and take that forward into future training in racing is actionable. You don't need to be results-oriented on the workout to have it be actionable. 

We don't need to actually do the thing exactly how we hope in order for it to have meaning or significance in our training. So while it might feel like we should, quote-unquote, be able to redo something or, quote-unquote, make up a workout, the truth is that we cannot. The feeling or thought that athletes have about this is deceptive because it's a myth that anything can actually be made up.

(4:37 - 4:55)
If something is missed or poorly executed, it's missed or poorly executed. It's as simple and it's as hard as that. There isn't any control Z in life or sport. 

There's no undo. Go back. We have to move forward in a linear fashion because time in life is linear.

(4:56 - 11:23)
Doing something when it was not originally planned is different than doing it when it was originally planned. Again, going back to how we've talked about now impacts later, if you don't do it when it was planned, the subsequent workouts change and the dynamic of the plan changes then, or at least it should. A good training plan is going to. 

A good coach is going to change the plan. This is where stock training plans can be harmful because since the athlete is responsible for self-coaching in that instance and is responsible for making any edits, a lot of times athletes don't make those edits. They try to just continue on. 

So it creates this illusion that, oh, if I just slide this workout on my training software to a different day, I can just proceed forward and like nothing has changed because visually that's what it looks like on a training plan. But the reality isn't that. It's deceptive. 

So this means that it is super important to exercise restraint when things don't go how you want or if things don't feel the way you want in your training and racing. It's tempting to think that you can do otherwise, especially because in the short term, it really can feel good and or like you actually did something significant or meaningful. However, my observation has been that it can and does distract athletes from long-term goals and it can and does snowball into complications towards achieving long-term goals. 

It's also particularly risky if the making up is via doubling up. So this is when an athlete moves a missed workout onto a different day or even not a missed workout. Maybe they know they're not going to be able to do a workout on a given day, so they just dump it onto... Let's say you know you're not going to be able to do a workout on a Wednesday and there's a workout planned on a Wednesday and you put it on Friday, but Friday already has a workout scheduled. 

So now you're going to do two workouts on Friday. A lot of times athletes think that that's the same thing because they're checking the box and turning it green in the training software. A lot of training software will turn green when a workout is completed within the planned parameters. 

But again, this is deceptive because what the software is showing is not actually what's happening physiologically in the body. What's actually happening in the body is that we're imposing stress in an inappropriate manner when we do this in a way that's unintended per the original plan. And that's hard because then once we start manipulating those stress variables, then that snowballs because all training is a specific manipulation of stress towards a common goal, towards the goal that we want to achieve. 

We're methodically manipulating that stress so that ultimately the stress we impose in the body yields the result we want over time. So if we start manipulating on a micro level that plan via the workouts, the individual workouts, it actually scales up into a very large problem if it's done too much. What actually might be more true is that you have to either reset or delay your training depending on how much you miss or how much your schedule changes. 

Again, what you do now impacts what you're going to be able to do later on. And what you don't do now impacts what you're going to be able to do later on. These are truths. 

When something like a workout is moved, it impacts everything adjacent to it and everything that follows it. So that means that if you move a workout, it impacts the workouts that were planned both before and after actually that workout because everything in a plan does have a purpose. There is actually a method to the madness. 

A workout isn't just a workout on its own. It is something that works alongside the other workouts that are in the plan. And so a training plan is comprised of a bunch of different elements that not only on their own make an impact, but when combined together in a particular sequence make an impact. 

And it's this, that sequencing that is the most important component of a training plan because that over the arc of a training plan, over the long haul of a training plan is what yields results over time. And so there is a reason why things are planned how, and sometimes more importantly, when they are. And so it's not just about feeling good in a specific workout or on a given day. 

It's about setting up other pieces of the training plan so that you get the desired stimulus and therefore desired adaptations over time that lead to successful goal achievement. So if something is moved, it can adversely impact the other workouts in the plan, both in a week and in a month and even over a long arc. And this can snowball over time into undesired results and fewer gains than expected. 

So this right here, folks, is why this is such a dangerous habit to get into because it seems very innocent when it's done one-off by itself. But if this is a habit that an athlete gets into over time, where they try to make up a workout, or if they don't get something done when it was originally planned, they just keep moving it to the next day, but then they don't get it done the next day. So then they move it to the day after that and so on. 

It snowballs down the line and it impacts the totality of the entire plan. And so when athletes are questioning, like, I don't understand why I didn't get the result that I wanted. Did you actually follow the plan that was set? Or did you make enough modifications to the plan that the proper stimulus wasn't applied at the correct time and or too much stimulus was applied at the incorrect time? Because that's what happens when it's a double up to make up situation. 

If you put two workouts on a day when there was only one originally planned, making up quote-unquote something can actually cause something else down the line to either be missed or depending on what is quote-unquote being made up for the entire plan to either be delayed or altered. This is why making up is a myth. It isn't getting made up. 

It's just changing the trajectory of the entire plan. I really recommend that you make sure that you understand what is most important to you, that you ask yourself that question, remembering that a goal is a thing that you have deemed to be more important than other things. What is the thing that is more important to you than other things? When you are facing the temptation to make up either a workout or a race, ask yourself if what you are contemplating doing is more or less important than the big goal, the long-range goal that you have previously said is important to you.

(11:23 - 13:10)
Ask yourself how the choice you're contemplating might impact your big goal. If you don't know how it might impact it, then the best choice is definitely to chanter your inner Elsa and let it go. If what you want to do is more important than your goal, especially if what you want to do is in a makeup race, then you can reprioritize things. 

We always have the right to change our minds, folks. That's so important to remember. Nothing is set in stone. 

The path to our goals is in sand because the goals we've set are typically set in stone. If we cast the path in stone, the goal turns to sand. It becomes movable. 

So we want to make sure that we are having a very fluid and adaptive pathway to get to our goals. And even if the goals themselves change, no matter what the goal is, it is always set in stone. That's the thing that we've deemed to be more important than other things. 

That's the most important thing. So we can reprioritize. We can change the path. 

We can change what we're doing. We can have events that happen that force us to reevaluate what's important to us and what we want to be working towards. This is perfectly okay, as long as we're actually reevaluating and reprioritizing and not saying one thing, doing another, and thinking it's something else. 

More often than not, asking ourselves these questions, is this in alignment with my goal? Is what I'm contemplating doing more important than the goals I've set for myself? Asking these questions will force you to confront the reality of what you're contemplating. And it sometimes will force you to realize that what you're contemplating is not as important to you as that bigger goal, and that what you're actually seeking to do is to feel good in the short term. But remember folks, short-term gains don't necessarily indicate long-term goal achievement.

(13:10 - 13:44)
It can snowball into that, but it doesn't always. So we want to be really careful and make sure that everything that we are doing in the short term is serving that long-term purpose. What is more sustainable and what will last longer is if you implement behaviors and practices that will yield happiness and contentment over the long term. 

Don't sacrifice that long-term contentment, happiness, goal achievement for immediate gratification. This is like the equivalent of eating M&Ms when you've had a bad day. It feels good in the moment, but it's not best over the long haul.

(13:45 - 14:17)
Trying to make up something can also backfire as you may or may not actually get what you're seeking out of what you're making up. Or if you're in the context of a race, if you're trying to redo a poor race performance, you may not get the performance that you want at that makeup race. So it's really important to consider that if you decide to move forward with a makeup behavior or a re-registration of a race, if you decide to move forward with it, do so only if you are okay with any outcome that may happen.

(14:19 - 17:21)
Not only having the perspective that if you do this, you will get what you want. You need to be okay with any outcome because any outcome is actually possible. The outcome that you want is possible and the outcome you don't want is possible. 

And if you're going to proceed forward, you need to be okay with either of those outcomes. So if you're contemplating making up a workout or trying to redo a race, ask yourself, what happens if this makeup workout or this makeup race doesn't give me what I want? How will I feel then? What am I going to try to do then? And this is why it's really important to learn to sit with the discomfort, to learn how to take the disappointment and the discomfort of a workout that didn't go how we planned, of a day that didn't go how we planned, and to apply the lessons learned, the lessons gleaned from that discomfort into future decisions. Let that inform your future decisions, your future behaviors, your future training, your future racing. 

Learning to sit in disappointment and discomfort is actually a really valuable training tool. Something might not magically be different the next time you do it. In fact, I would say it's not going to be magically different the next time you do it. 

It will only be different if you learn along the way and if you apply the lessons that you learn to future situations. Making up workouts or races is a myth. It is a very pervasive myth. 

It is a lie, quite frankly, that we like to tell ourselves, but it is a myth. If you have a poor performance or a missed workout, or if you have a poor performance in a race that was really disappointing, learn to sit with that disappointment. Learn to sit with the reality of what happened. 

Learn to accept that what happened in the past is in the past and that all you have control over is the present and that what you do in the present then informs what the future is. You can't undo the past, but you can make choices about what you do in the present. Learn how to leverage that and move forward productively. 

Ask yourself important questions. Ask yourself, why am I seeking to do what I'm doing right now? What am I afraid of? What am I uncomfortable with? And asking yourself those questions is what will lead to greater gains, more self-awareness, and more contentment in the long run. That was another episode of the Full Circle Podcast. 

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Thanks for listening.