Ways We Sabotage Our Runs and Races and How We Can Stop It!

#377 - There are many ways we runners hurt our training runs and races and we don't even realize it! This week, I go over a few different ways we hurt our running and how we can either stop doing it or choose something more helpful. 

I also realized after I recorded this episode, that I left off a few, so there will be a Part 2 coming along in a few weeks! Sometimes we are our own worst enemy, but we don't have to be! 

Also, if you haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel, I upload at least one short every week and I'll start adding longer separate videos soon! 

https://www.youtube.com/@martharunstheworld

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(Cont.) Ways We Sabotage Our Runs and Races and How We Can Stop It!

(Cont.) Ways We Sabotage Our Runs and Races and How We Can Stop It!

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Do you enjoy stories of interesting places and fascinating history? Hidden West on YouTube is about the past, present, and future that make Western America such a unique place. Every week, a new video will bring you insightful and inspiring stories showing why there is no place in the world like the West. Welcome to Martha Runs the World, a podcast with a new take on running, fitness, and all things health oriented. I'm Martha Hughes, your host, and each week I present a new topic that is of interest to all runners. Hi, and welcome to episode 377 of Martha Runs the World. Thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it each and every week. One of the things about running I've been thinking about lately is how we runners hurt our runs and our races and what we can do to stop that and to actually help our runs and races. Running is not just a physical sport, it's also mental and emotional. It encompasses our entire selves. And depending on what else we have going in our lives, we can, without even realizing it, sabotage our training and our races. After I started doing research on the subject, and I spent a lot of time on it, I realized just how many of the things that sabotage our runs and races I did myself. And I didn't even realize it. So maybe if we're made aware of the different things, when they start to happen, we can nip it in the bud and create new, better, healthier running habits. And that is the name of the game, isn't it? To be better runners. I'm going to start with things we do that hurt our running when we're not running. How we live our lives away from the road and trail does make a difference. Sitting too much can hurt our running. Now I have to sit for my job. I talk to patients in video conferences, and that makes it impossible for me to stand a lot. But that doesn't mean that I don't try to get up every 30 minutes and stretch or walk around. I have to mentally get myself up every 30 minutes to be active because if I don't, I'm going to sit too long. And sometimes it gets so busy I can't do that. But I try to do that every day that I'm working. And my shifts are 12 hours. It's a long shift. So I get do get myself up and move around. And sometimes I'll just do squats or just lunges or some leg lifts or something like that just to be active and to give myself a break from sitting. I realized just how much sitting for too long was hurting my running when I'd get up and my hips were sore. That's not a good sign. Your hips shouldn't be sore if you get up from sitting. So now I do these things and I just try to keep moving. We were made to keep moving. We were not made to be sitting still for hours at a time. Humans are animals and animals are made to move. Of course, unless you're like a sedentary animal, but humans are not sedentary at all. Humans were made to walk, to run, to keep moving. Now slouching while sitting. If you're in the habit of hunching over your laptop or phone or steering wheel, that can hurt your running. Your arms don't move as freely as they would if you were perfectly upright when you run, if you're hunched over. This happens to me when I'm tired in a run, and I can usually tell when my shoulders are hunched, I have to make a physical and mental effort to stand up straight and look ahead and get my head over my shoulders rather than you know point it out like a turtle. I have to stop that. And I do make a much better effort these days than I used to, that's for sure. Doing arm stretches helps. Hold your hands together in the back and pull your shoulder blades back and hold for twenty seconds. Also arm swings, starting with your arms in front of you straight and swing them one arm at a time, not too quickly, as straight as you can from back to front, also helps. These are things that I do during the day as well. What shoes do you wear when you don't run? With this I'm ahead of the game. I've decided to only wear running shoes and I can do that at my job. In fact, I don't think I could fit in in the corporate world anymore. I just don't have it in me to squish my feet into those torture devices women call dress shoes. I don't get it. Haven't we evolved past the age when Chinese royalty forced girls to squish their feet to make them appear smaller? And this goes for men too. Some of those dress shoes that m that are fashionable for men have the tiniest toe area. That can't be good for your feet. And I know it's not good. And I remember wearing shoes just for fashion, they looked cute, but they felt horrible. And I see these giant heels that women wear. It's like, oh my god, no, that's not good for your feet. No, and I won't do it. I just won't. I love wearing my uh topo athletics to work, and I wear them to work, I wear them to I casual, I wear them running. And I don't go to any fancy places, so I don't have to dress up. I'm not gonna go out to eat at a fashionable, expensive restaurant. No, that's not me. No, no, no. Take me to a burger place, that's fine. I'm good. You're too busy to be consistent. This is a big one for me. My job is demanding and the hours are rough. So sometimes I don't get the training runs in I need each week. For me, I know this is temporary because I will be retiring next year. Less than a year and a half, I will be retiring. When I retire, I will be consistent with my running. I know that. But until then, I need to add to my savings and my money, so I need to work a lot. I really, really do. And I know my running will sacrifice a little bit. I think that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make because I need to have enough money to retire because I'm not going to be working my whole life. It's like, no, that's not happening. At least not at a job where I'm working for someone else. If I have my own business or some something, that's an entirely different thing. Um perhaps you ha also have made a sacrifice for your family, your job or something else as well. So you realize that you, yes, you aren't getting the runs in that you need, but it's worth it to make that sacrifice. Just make it worthwhile. Don't put your running aside because it's something you think you have you should do, not because you have to do it. Think about it a little bit first. We can't do everything all the time. I know with media and ads and society tells us we should be able to do everything, but we really can't. You have to pick what's really important to you. If something's up in your family or your work that you have to focus on that right now, then focus on that right now. Running will always be there for you. I like to call running our best friend, and it will always be there waiting for us when we go back to it. It's there. Sure, you might have to work up to where to the uh distance and the pace you had before. It's not going to come automatically for you, but it's worth it, I think. Being able to do everything all the time is a trap, and it really is a trap in our world today that is set up for us. Don't fall for it. You can't do everything. Just pick what's important, do that important thing, get through that, and then you can run. Now, during our training runs, we can do a lot of damage that we don't even realize. Run too fast. If you're running too fast in all your training runs, then you are har hurting your running. I like to go by the 80-20 rule. In fact, I like it so much I'm gonna do a whole show about it in the future. Run 80% of your run slowly and 20% quickly. So focus on going slowly. Even the sprinters run their run slowly. Of course, their slow pace is faster than I'll ever be, but it's still slow. If you watch my YouTube short released on Saturday, you'll see there's a lot of pressure to run fast. I'm gonna put a a link on YouTube and I'm gonna talk about my YouTube channel in a little bit, so stay tuned for that. I don't know why it's pushed to run fast all the time, and I don't know why that's that's a thing. It shouldn't be a thing. And I know a lot of young runners, new runners, think that they have to run fast. You don't run fast. If you're a new runner, run slow. And if you think you're running too slow, that's probably the right pace. So run slow and even if it's uncomfortably slow, keep at that uncomfortable pace because that will help you in the long run. Skipping rest days. Unless you're a very experienced runner and can run a mile a day and want to be a streak runner, try not to run daily, take a day or two off a week. I myself can only run it optimal four, maybe five days a week, but I could never run every day. That just isn't how my body is designed, and that's just not how not how I'm designed. I'm definitely not a streak runner. So I suggest taking a rest day, and one day per week should be without strength training, without anything really, really physically demanding, maybe a walk, or if you do yoga, maybe that, but something that's not super demanding. Your body needs the rest, your muscles will not grow, your body will not recuperate without getting some downtime. That's very important. Poor hydration and fueling. It's important to be hydrated on the day of the morning of your your training runs, not only but the day before as well. If you have a long run coming up, make sure that you drink plenty of water the day before, and make sure that you pro you try to eat as healthy as you can the day before your training run. It's really, really important. And don't skip eating. Okay, on your short runs, it's fine to run fasted, or starving, as I like to call it, which is really what it is. It's okay if you run three or four or five miles fasted, but I would say anything six or over, you really should eat beforehand. I'm not uh a proponent of fasted running. I saw a running coach on Facebook said something along the lines of always run fasted. Uh no, not always. No, that's a that's a terrible thing to say. Because he went back and he walked it back later after people told him that he shouldn't say that. And you should never say always. You can't say that every person should do things all the same, all the time. That makes that statement incorrect. Some people can do that some of the time. Not even some of the people can't even do that all the time. It's just a really incorrect statement, and maybe he did it without thinking, maybe it works for him, and he felt great, and he thought I wanted to share it and say, hey, if it works for me, it can work for you. Well, not necessarily. Everyone is different, and everyone has to do things a different way. So if it works for you, that's great. It will not work for me, and I know it won't work for the majority of people. The majority of people cannot run a long run faster than and have a good run. That's just a fact. So make sure you eat right, make sure you have a light breakfast before you go out, and make sure you bring food with you on your runs. It's really important to do that. Make sure you bring hydration, and if you need a hydration mix, bring that with you. If you like tailwind or something like that, hammer heed, or if you want a powder or something. I like noon personally. I take noon tabs with me because I think they're great. And then I usually take a snack with me to have during my run, and that gets me through. But you have to do something, you have to take care of yourself and know yourself well enough to know what you need. Over striding. This happens a lot with younger runners and newer runners, but I see it all the time, all the time in San Francisco. These young runners, they're just bounding. They look like elves jumping. It's like you don't have to do that. That's really, really incorrect way to run. I think they watch track stars and elite marathonners and think that they're running the same, but they're not. The thing is that those elite marathoners are actually taking small steps. They just look like they're not because they're very fast. But their cadence is really, really high. And if you're bounding like that, your cadence is really, really low. And it's good to measure your cadence if you've never met measured your running cadence. Cadence is how many steps you take in a minute, and it's good to have a high cadence, a cadence of 170 to 180 is optimal. So using your running watch, count your foot strikes for 30 seconds. So let's say, okay, you can you you can either count like one, two, three, and then times by four or two, four, six, whatever you want to do in times by two. And and that will give you your cadence. So like I said, 170 to 180 is optimal. If you're anything lower than that, you might want to work on taking smaller steps. It will help you in the long run, it will help you from being injured, and it will give you a better running experience. Doing too much too soon. We runners are impatient. Yeah, I'm impatient. I know that. I'm just like you. Um, most people these days, running or not, are impatient. But running is one of the most difficult sports to master. It's gonna take you a long time before you get good at it. You can't rush it. Some people can just now there are very few people that can just take up running and they're good at it. Usually it's because they've been active in another sport. So, like if you've been riding a bike for a while and you want to run, then you might be f be a better runner faster than someone who just got off the couch and did nothing for a few years. It's gonna take time though. You have to give it some time. So go out slow, do some intervals, walk, run, walk, run, and do that for a while. And there's some really good guides. Uh, couch to 5K is an excellent, excellent um guide to get you running. Take your time though. Running is worth it. You're gonna be running your whole life, hopefully. So it's worth taking the time to learn how to do it properly. You don't want to get injured. Negative self-talk. This happens to all of us. We can feel like we don't belong, we can feel like we're not runners, we can feel like we're too slow, we can feel like this is never gonna work for us. And it it's if you run, you run, that's it. If you run, you're a runner, that's it. Everything else is just noise. So don't listen to any don't listen to that little uh voice in your head that's telling you you can't do it. You can put that aside, put it away, and get out a louder voice telling you, yeah, you're doing it, you can do it, you are doing it. Now, not being flexible with your training plan, this is really, really important. Okay, like with me this weekend, um, it's now it's now the weekend Sunday, so I'm gonna go out for my run. But yesterday I was supposed to get a long run in, and for some reason, these long work days of 12 hours, I had to work three 12-hour days in a row. And I did some extra work because of overtime. Yeah, overtime is good money. But Friday night, the last night after the three days, I had insomnia. And sometimes it happens to me where I just get insomnia so bad I can't sleep. And it was quiet. My neighbors, who are usually noisy, were quiet. It was a perfect night for me to get some extra sleep, but I couldn't. I got like three hours of sleep. That's it. So I was burnt out yesterday. I knew I couldn't get my long run in, I knew it wasn't going to happen, so I settled in four miles and I got that done, and I went home and took a nap because I was so tired. So I have to be flexible. I'm going to get my long run in Friday because I'm not working Friday. And that's just I'm working all weekend, so I'll do it Friday. And that's just how it's going to be. I can't, I don't have any choice. That today, uh, the day after I run is not a good day for a long run. I'm going to go do some trail running up in the headlands today, though, so that will be fun. That'll be about six or seven miles. So that's all right. And I'll get my long run in Friday. So you just have to switch things around. If for some reason something comes up, there's an emergency in your family, you can't run, you have to move it to another day. You have to be flexible with things. Don't let one day ruin everything and say, oh my God, I can't do it. My training's gone. Forget it. I can't do anything. Because it can happen. You can't horribilize something, or you can just adjust, move things around, and make the best of it. Now, sabotaging races. I'm going to come out and say it. I've never felt 100% ready for any race I've done. There's a couple reasons for that. Okay, there have been maybe two or three times when I was able to actually follow my training for a big race. As my last thing I said, being flexible with a training plan, things come up in training, especially when you're when you have a long training plan for a long race. If you're taking three or four months out to train for a race, things are going to come up in your life. Sometimes there are emergencies, sometimes there's family crises come up. Um, I remember one time my my dad, when my dad passed away, I had to move things around and I didn't get the training in for the marathon I was doing. And things happen. I still did it. I was very happy that I did it, but I wasn't as prepared as I wish I was. You know, the it things happen. I keep seeing these titles of these books, and I'm not going to read them because I think it's silly. These authors say that you need to have the mental fortitude to keep going and to not let things drag you down. Well, easy for you to say you probably have a family there helping you, taking care of things for you, or this is your job, and you don't have a job like my job, or something like that, or you don't have a life like my life. I mean, it's really easy for these authors to say that because their profession is what they love. Stuff happens. It gets annoying to me when I read that even though I'm working very hard to make money for retirement and can't run as much as I I need to, when an auth a book author is telling me how how weak mentally and psychologically I am. Really? Is that the case? Is that really the case? Because I can't get out there and do the running that I'm supposed to? Am I really that weak? I'm putting in 12 hour days, buddy. And I'm sure people other people are going through similar things like me. They have families to take care of. Maybe they're a single parent and they've got uh kids to take care of, so they have to work a lot and they have to do the things at home and they're they're doing it by themselves. It doesn't help when some author who has a whole family to help him, who has great support, tells them that they're mentally and emotionally weak. But I'm digressing, okay? The thing is that I've never felt 100% completely ready for a race, and I don't know if I ever will. I always think that there's something else I can do. And maybe that's just the negative uh self-thought in my brain telling me that to make me not do as well or to make me um not perform as well as I as I should. And maybe I need to wipe out that brain and say, okay, I'm ready. I'm I'm ready as I'll ever be. So maybe that's it. You have any ideas? Because I I don't know. I'm thinking about that as I talk. So I don't know why this didn't come up when I was writing this, but it didn't come up until I started talking about it. I'll have To think about that on my run today. The old saying is accurate. Don't try anything new on race day. This goes for clothing, food, routine, everything. And you can include nutrition to hydration the day before. One thing that has hurt me in past races is eating the wrong thing the day before. My stomach is sensitive, and I have to be really careful about that. I just really, really have to be careful. Um, another thing you don't want to try new on race day are new running shoes that you've never run in before. And I'm not talking about the new running shoes that are the same make, the same brand and the same style. That's fine. But if you have the same brand but it's a it's the new style, the new year's style, it could be a completely different shoe than the one you're used to. So don't try that new on race day. That's not a good idea. Not having a race plan. It's super important to have a plan down if you're going to run an important race. If it's your first half marathon, then have a proposed pace you want to run. And that's plan A. And that's this goes for any distance. Your half marathon, your marathon, your 50K, whatever. You want to have a plan A for yourself. And if that doesn't go well, then plan B. And if that and if you that doesn't work, then plan C. And it's okay to have plans D and E, especially in longer races. Have plan E should be if all else fails, do this. And I've done that before. I did that before to 50K. Everything else failed, and I did plan E and I actually finished the race. And also figure out your pre-race organization, what time you're going to get up, have everything ready, what you're going to eat. And then also plan after the race, too, what you're going to have ready. If do you need to have your um your massage gun ready? Do you need to have uh hydration ready? Is the race gonna be prepared to have hydration for you? I've done a 50k where they didn't have any water at all left at the end of the race. And this is a true story. They I had a warm coke. That's all they had. They didn't have any water. It's like, really? Really? But it happens. Anyway, moving up in a corral. This is a big no-no to me, and I've seen it so many times. I've seen runners do this. It's one reason I stopped doing the San Francisco hot chocolate because it was so disorganized, and they just let anyone go to into any corral they wanted to. And maybe it's better organized now. I certainly hope so. But that was the last year I did it, and I don't remember the year. It was this was back before um before COVID, so maybe 2018. But I just I I was um I was just disgusted by it, and I just stopped doing it. But don't go into a higher corral than than you're placed, because you're placed in that corral for a reason. And if you go into a higher one, they may be running faster than you, and you will be tempted to run faster. And if you run faster than the pace you're used to, you're gonna be burned out and you might not even make it to the end of the race, or you may be walking at the end of the race. This is a definite danger. Now, not being prepared. This goes into the race plan, but not being prepared, if you're traveling for a race, make a list of what you need to bring before you leave. And if you're staying in a hotel, make sure and have everything ready for that early race day morning. Everything, the coffee near the coffee maker, food, clothes, your bib, whatever you're going to need, make sure your watch and phone are charged. If you need a headlamp, make sure that's either charged or you have extra batteries. Don't be like me on the one race I did. Have everything ready, and that includes post-race uh things as well. And letting a small problem during a race turn into a big one and that can derail your race, that's also a um another danger. If you get a rock in your shoe, don't let that rock stay in your shoe or pebble. It'll feel like a boulder probably, but don't keep running. Stop as soon as you feel it and take it out, because it may turn into a bigger problem. If you start getting hot spots on your feet, stop at the first aid station you can to get some tape put on them. Get things taken care of as soon as you can. Because you'll feel better, your feet will feel better, your whole race will feel better. Do everything you can to defer any problems. If you have an injury before the day of the race, see if you can defer because there's nothing fun about running with an injury, if it if you're runnable, obviously, because you may make it worse. I saw this there and I thought about this. This is a really good one. I saw this online. I got all this stuff online. I did a lot of research, I spent a lot of time on this, but this is one I I hadn't thought of, and this is actually very good. Don't make excuses in advance. If your training isn't going the way you want it, don't start making excuses like um you've already DNF'd weeks before your race. If you don't think you can finish your race, you can defer. See if you can defer anyway. Sometimes you can't. If not and you feel okay, try to finish it. But don't give up beforehand. Don't turn up your training the week before your race. There's a myriad of reasons why our training goes sideways. And we all know those reasons reasons. I don't have to go over those. But sometimes we just need to um to just accept our training or lack of training and just go for it. Again, if you don't think you can, defer your race. But don't try to do all of eight weeks of your training the week before your race. The week before your race should be one of rest and one of eating too much food and just one of being cranky because you're not running as much as you did. That's what that is for. It's not for uh making up for your training that you missed. Don't start the race running too quickly. It's like being in the wrong corral. Many runners have a tendency to start their races way too fast. On a trail race, when you all start together, don't be at the front of the line unless you're you are really fast. Just go slow. Everyone else will be out like sprinters. And I know our competitive drive kicks in and we want to go fast, but just remember, all those people who went out too fast, you can pass them up later in the race. They'll be walking or they'll be totally out of juice, and you can pass them up because you didn't do that. Think of that. And don't celebrate your race before the race is over. Ah yes, those runners who at the last aid station are happy the race is nearly over, but they forgot that there's four miles left, including a nasty hill, and it's the middle of the afternoon. Yeah, that's not good. So they had better chill on the celebrating, get through that last four miles, and finish celebrating at the finish line. As I mentioned, I do have a YouTube channel. I put in each episode there because some people like to listen on YouTube. I also put in a lot of shorts, short videos on there. So I I think you would enjoy the short videos. I'm also going to start putting in a little bit longer videos, just regular ones, maybe five, ten-minute videos in there. So you can check those out. I haven't started doing the five ten-minute videos, but I'm going to start doing that, I think, um, in the near future. But yeah, check all that out. That I will put the link is in the show notes so you can uh check that and see what's going on. Okay? And that is it for today, and thank you so much for joining me. I truly appreciate it. I always do. My email is MarthaRenserworld at gmail.com. And until next week, let's tie up our shoelaces and go for a run.