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Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!
Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!
#111 - Isaac "fails" to run a marathon and overcomes adversity
Ever pushed your limits and hit a wall, only to find a deep well of resilience you never knew you had? Zeke does just that and more as he recounts his grueling experiences at the Chicago and Indianapolis Monumental Marathons. With each stride and stumble, he imparts the lessons learned on mental fortitude and the essential adjustments needed when tackling such formidable challenges. Join us as we traverse his journey of perseverance, exploring the depths of mental strategies that range from mantras and journaling to visualization. Celebrate with us the milestones of surpassing 60,000 downloads and an ever-expanding global reach while drawing inspiration from the courage it takes to rise above personal setbacks.
Feel the heart-pounding excitement and the crushing disappointments as Zeke peels back the curtain on the raw emotions of marathon running. He shares the intricate dance of nutrition, pacing, and the mental battle waged when the body screams for reprieve. There is solace in solidarity, and as Isaac unfolds his story, you'll find company in the quest for overcoming adversity. Whether it's a marathon, a personal goal, or a Super Bowl comeback, this episode is an ode to the indomitable spirit that turns setbacks into setups for comebacks. Strap in for an intimate look at the power of positivity, the importance of external encouragement, and the steadfast determination to cross any finish line life throws your way.
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Hey, you welcome to the coaching minds podcast, your go to resource from mental training plan. We want to empower coaches with tools and insights to develop the mental side of the game and their athletes both on and off the field. We believe in deliberate planning and execution. That's why we always say make your plan and put it to work at the end of all the episodes, because just hoping you're going to be at your best when it matters the most is not good enough. On this show, we want to dive in to proven strategies and techniques that high performing athletes use to excel, whether that's on the field, in the gym or leading in the boardroom. This podcast is designed to help you and your athletes perform at their best. Zeekers, great to have you back, my friend.
Isaac:Benny, I'm excited to be back here. Dive into some of the things that I've been going through, the practices that I've used as we've talked over all these years. I looked at a picture just the other day of the first episode we ever recorded with, as we're sharing a mic and there's running toilet water down next to us. Those were some good days.
Ben:I don't know that the audience really can appreciate the conditions that we recorded some of those podcasts in.
Isaac:January 8th, 2020,. Man, I'm looking at it now. Those were the days.
Ben:Those were the days when Jake Gilbert walked down and goes. Man from listening to this. I thought it would look a little nicer.
Isaac:That's right. Fake it till we make it. I don't know if we've made it anywhere, but we have advanced from down in the basement to an upstairs office room, so I feel like we've made it. There you go.
Ben:I will say we've had over 60,000 downloads.
Isaac:Okay.
Ben:Location wise, we've had Indianapolis, Indiana, unsurprisingly top city, followed by Chicago, Illinois, Columbus, Ohio, Council Bluffs, Iowa, 772. I would love to hear from our Hawkeye friends, Atlanta, Georgia, followed by Sydney, New South Wales and Calgary, Alberta.
Isaac:Well, we'll first start with the sad news that we've yet to reach Antarctica, and that's always been our goal and we haven't got there. But that is interesting here, in all of those the different areas we've been in.
Ben:The last 10 episodes, the top listen to countries are United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, UK, Sweden, South Africa, Switzerland, New Zealand and Denmark. Some of our overseas friends would love to hear from you. Would love to hear what you think about the show.
Isaac:I think it'd be a blast to have some people from overseas come on to the zoom in to the podcast. It's so great, ben, because it's so prevalent to everybody and it applies to everyone, no matter where you're at, and it is needed.
Ben:Well, zeekers, today we are. I'm welcoming you back, I'm glad to have you back in the studio here. And all the way back in January 2020, you decided you were going to run a marathon and you went through some brutal training. There was some bloody, snowy, icy mornings, some bone bruises, a calf injury. At the end, you said, oh, it went great, the training was great. If you guys have not listened to episode number 59 from back in April of 2021, where Isaac talks about training for his first marathon, I would pause this and I would go back and listen to that and then come back to this episode. But, isaac, let's just dive right in. I know you didn't just run one marathon here this past year. You actually ran two. Take us through a bird's eye view overview of what's been going on since that last episode.
Isaac:Yeah, I ran that last marathon and decided to run another one this past year, 2023. This year I was going to run one. In the fall, I was raising money for the National Down Syndrome Society to run the Chicago Marathon. Pretty fired up. This will be good, since we have a lot of Chicago listeners. They probably saw me at my lowest point.
Ben:This was this past fall correct.
Isaac:Yes, this past fall I decided to run in a fall marathon, which is very different than a spring marathon. The weather for those days might not be too different, but when you talk about training, we're training from January to April versus June to October Very different training regimen, like you said. Just a quick view over it. Ran in the Chicago Marathon Absolute disaster, which was very unfortunate, we'll dive more into that. Finished the race, had a three-hour drive home. I was so angry, just furious, and I was just ready to be done. I'm like this is stupid, just very angry. At a very low point my wife was like you need to go run another one. That's the last thing I want to do right now. Let it just kind of sit there for a day or two. The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon was 19 days later from the Chicago Marathon. It was close by Then. I was like, all right, she's right, I got to do it, ran in the Monumental Marathon and had a phenomenal experience, much better. That's where we're at.
Ben:Let's go back to. I remember in the previous marathon, you talked about some of the tools that you used. You talked about having your go-to statement. You talked about having some stuff written on your hand. You talked about having the podcast queued up and having the different whatever you were going to be listening to. You talked about the visualization. That was important. There was some journaling that you did Talk us through this time. What were maybe some lessons that you learned that you kept? What were some new things that you did? What was the training like, getting ready for the fall marathon up in Chicago?
Isaac:This marathon. It's called a world major. There's six world majors. The reason they are that is because they're the largest in the world. There was 46,000 people running, a little over a million spectators there for it. It's just huge event.
Isaac:It didn't take much to get excited about it, but leading up to it, things that I had to do was similar from all the other races. The one race that I ran in Kenosha was it's got to be one of the smallest organized marathons that I've ever ran, but it's still a marathon. It's still 26.2 miles. I still had to come up with a game plan. It was much easier when I ran my first marathon, which was also not a great success, but I ran it in Carmel, indiana, and I was able to go, drive those roads and visualize myself and train on some of those roads. So it was a lot easier to visualize that Much harder in Chicago, just because of the natural size of the city and the busyness, and so I still was able to watch some videos on YouTube of other people running it to see different check marks. You run through the different neighborhoods of the city and so, knowing these different checkpoints like, here's where I need to be, here's what I need to do.
Isaac:I did not get into journaling as much for this year or for the first Chicago marathon, but still going through all those things, having a playlist ready to go. But to be honest, I didn't necessarily need that because the crowd was just so electric the whole time, which was really cool. It was so special. You're talking in the heart of the city. It'd be 10 people deep on both sides of the road, people just cheering like Matt. I mean, that's all you want to hear. You don't want to listen to anything else, but just coming up with a plan. And so I went through all those. I had my nutrition ready to go, so I thought and it didn't go as I'd planned.
Ben:And I know the day before even was a little bit different and there was a little bit of I've got kids, I've got my wife up here. This is kind of doubling a little bit, as family vacation time Maybe plays a little bit of a role in that. Talk us through the day before.
Isaac:Yeah. So the day before you go to if any of you guys have ever ran in a bigger race or a triathlon or something you know you have the Expo, you go there, you go get your bib, you get a shirt, there's all sorts of companies trying to sell stuff and you go check it out. It's a cool event. You get to meet other runners. So we went to do that downtown Chicago. But, like you said, we're in Chicago, I've got my three children, my wife and my parents have come with us and you're in Chicago, like we want to, you know, check some things out. And so we went and we checked out Navy Pier. We went to some playgrounds and checked those out. Lots of walking.
Isaac:I had over 15,000 steps just from that day, from getting on the train, riding it in, walking around, and so, looking back on it, as I said, it didn't go as planned. We're going to dive into that, but it maybe that played a role in the unsuccessful run that I had. But it was worth it. They're, you know, looking at it outside of the run itself. It was a phenomenal experience. My kids had a blast. It was fun riding the train with them, doing all those types of things and they have wonderful memories of going to this race Because, like I said, there were people everywhere screaming and yelling for far too long than I was supposed to be out there. The world record was broken, the guy ran in two hours and 35 seconds, and so they got to see some of that, which is phenomenal. I'm happy for it, but also I didn't go there to do. I did not accomplish what I wanted to accomplish there, and so there's always that part to it. It kind of holds in the back.
Ben:And this is I mean, this is obviously a little bit different. As a, you're a grown man, you're doing this with your family. This is kind of a you know your own personal thing, as opposed to like the Super Bowl just finished up. Sure, you know they've got all these festivities, they've got all this stuff going on, or like a bowl game or like a state championship game, and there's a part of you that wants to take in the sights and the sounds. There's a part of you that you know, wants to maybe embrace this once in a lifetime moment. This moment that doesn't happen every day, but yours, you know that's. It's something to think about. You're saying now, you know you're calling this run a failure. You've said that. You've used that term multiple times. Let's talk now about the actual run itself.
Isaac:Leading up to it getting into the race. It's, like I said, a whole different beast 40,000 plus runners, and so my my time to run was at about eight o'clock and they recommend you getting there at five am, so you have this three hour window before, which is so different. The other two races I had ran I could show up 20 minutes, 10 minutes before the race, and I was good to go, but I had to. I had to get up and ride a train about 45 minutes into the city.
Ben:So you're waking up like four o'clock in the morning.
Isaac:Super early getting ready to go after walking after sightseeing in Chicago for the day.
Ben:Yeah.
Isaac:But felt great, felt really good on the train ride, going in, you know, had had some stuff written on my hand. There was three kids that I was that were like major sponsors, major roles in running for the National Downs. In the side. I had each of their names written on my hand, had my kids, you know, had all those those cues on there of why I was doing it Felt great, didn't know where I was going when I got off the train, but I'm like there's a massive people walking that way, so I'm just going to follow them. And so that's what we did.
Isaac:We got there, have to go through security, get checked in for all that, do that. Then you just wait. I mean I had to wait probably an hour and it was the perfect marathon running condition. As to why the world record was broken, it was low 50s, but before the sun came up it was mid 40s and you don't want to take a ton of clothes with you Because you just don't want to leave it behind. So you're just waiting around and then we then it starts standing?
Ben:Are you sitting? Are you?
Isaac:Well, I was doing more, just some sitting or maybe a little bit of movement getting stretched. I had to. I mean, you had to walk a good ways from the train. It was about a right under a mile from the train to where I had to get checked in. But then I had to go to bag check and then you got to wait in line to go pee and then you finally get to your corrals and crowd. See, I got there and now it's just, you know, there's some people sitting down, some people moving, and then they get going. They play, you know, the national anthem and it was phenomenal. And then, as we're waiting, they start playing the Chicago Bulls theme song for those, the intro, and that just got me like this is phenomenal, that was so pumped.
Isaac:And then you get going and you're running through the streets of Chicago, the over or under bridges, and there's people hanging on the bridges screaming and yelling, and what's awesome about marathons is people just yell. I think that marathons are what society needs to replicate. People don't care what color you are, what size you are, how fast you are, but they're just their cheer and yawn. They don't know your name, but they know you need help and they're cheering for you and it's awesome. So the run starts and my goal is to run it at a 3:30, three hours and 30 minutes just under a 12 or, I'm sorry, just under an eight minute 12 second pace. That's what I'm going for and I'm hanging right around there Feeling good about my plan and it felt great for about 21 miles and then things got ugly and I could feel my legs starting to cramp up and things were going and I have made a strong stance in all of my training. So really it's about three years of runs and training that I will not walk. I might have to go.
Isaac:I mean, my first marathon I was running at 13 minute mile and, yes, that was at a very slow run, but I was making sure that's what I'm going to do. I got to a point in this marathon where I'm like if I keep running, I think I'm going to face plant and my ad doctor cramped up and I'm like that's it. And I actually like moments before I saw a guy in a wheelchair there I'm like that is going to be me if I don't stop running. And I was as mad as could be because I had to stop and I had to walk. I never just stood there, I kept walking, but I was a very, very low point because that's just not what I wanted to do, and so I had to walk for I don't even know how long, because it was, I mean, I was in such a dark place I don't know how long I walked for, maybe 40 minutes or something.
Isaac:I was able to get going again and was able to finish the marathon about the last mile and a half at like a nine to 10 minute pace, and there's you know they got pictures of every. You know there's camera men everywhere taking pictures and there's pictures of me crossing the finish line and everybody are just filled with jubilee. I mean, they're so excited and I just have the most disgusted look on my face, which is a bummer, because it is a good accomplishment to run a marathon, but that's not what I was there for. I came across the line at four hours and 16 minutes, 46 minutes longer than what I wanted, 16 minutes longer than my worst run ever, and it was just really, really bad. And so you know factors, questions that I get a lot are like well, why was that? Because I do think it was the best training I'd ever had.
Isaac:I ran a little bit further in my training leading up to it, usually run up to maybe 20 miles. I got up to 24 and a half just because it was in the summer and I felt good and so I kept running. One day that was a month and a half before my run, so that had no that played no factor into it. I did walk a good amount the day before, but the next run that I did, I also walked a good amount and still was able to do so. So I know that that eliminated that factor. What I've come to, I think, realize, is that I probably just burn through my electrolytes and whatnot faster than most people do, and I did not have the proper nutrition during my race and that's when my body just cramped up. Interesting.
Ben:So what was different, I guess, about the nutrition that you had this time versus times in the past? Are you saying like you didn't maybe replace some stuff from the day before? Are you saying like you were just so excited about being in the moment that you, like, burned yourself out because you were just you started off on fire? Tell us a little bit more about that.
Isaac:Well, I've ran leading up to this or as I'm running the third marathon or the Chicago marathon. I've done three now and one of them was a disaster, being the Chicago. My first one really struggled I went from running seven and a half minute miles to 13 minute miles. And then the one in between. My second one was really, really good and I was really happy with that.
Isaac:And the key factor in all of those was that I had a drink that my wife would. We had mapped out, and she gave me a I call it Isaac's special drink, which was just an electrolyte drink, and she would give it to me at certain spots and I would just carry this water bottle and drink it for a little while and then she'd swap it out at an expo. We had it all mapped out. I did not do that for the Chicago simply because I didn't think it'd be possible because of the crowds, and we just didn't know how easy it would be for her to get around, which ended up being really easy, but I just weren't sure and so I did not.
Isaac:I did not have that with me. I'm now to the point where it's like if I think, if I have that drink with me I could run for hundreds of miles because it's just this magic potion, and so that played a big role. And then I get to my other marathon. I have that 19 days later and run it much better, and so I think that's kind of what I've narrowed it down to of the on-course nutrition, not so much the day before but more so the on-course nutrition.
Ben:So the middle marathon or marathon number two that you ran, yeah, in Kenosha. I know you talked about using the focus cycle quite a bit. Was that something that was present here? Do you feel like you just got to a point where you were so just done, frustrated, discouraged? You called it a dark place that you didn't even try Like was there? How did some of those things go, as you encountered some of that adversity during the race?
Isaac:I think that without the focus cycle, this probably would have happened at mile maybe 17. And so it just got to the point of you know, what can I focus on? What can make myself feel? You know, started positive self-talk and just keep moving. And just keep moving like, hey, you're fine, you've put in all this training, you know what you can do, and just keep on moving. And, yes, it sucks, but, like you know, you just got to endure it. You're going to push through. And so I was doing those types of things and I mean I think that worked for probably about four miles, and just focusing on something other than the negative. Just get up to this hill. All right, now let's just try to get over, get over this turn or get to this bridge, those types of things, and just continue moving forward that way. And I was really trying with those things and it worked, it was good. It just got to a point where I was deficient of the nutrients in my muscles and and you physically reached a point where you could no longer perform.
Isaac:Right.
Ben:Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, so did you figure this out in the moment, make a plan, put it to work and then go run a marathon 19 days later? Was it just kind of blind luck, like, let's go through the second one? So here you are, you know you're pissed, you're frustrated, you're sad, you're whatever those emotions were that you experienced in that dark place. How did you kind of battle out of that? How did you kind of decide, you know what, let's go do this again, let's give this another shot.
Isaac:Sure. So, like I said, I was ready to be done, I was so angry. My wife was like you've got to go run another one and it took, like I said, about a day or two. And then I was coming around to it and just started reflecting, right, look back on my performance and why did I struggle? And really, just I think I narrowed it down to that. And, looking back, so then I'd ran three marathons and thinking like, why did two of them not go super well, but one went pretty well? And narrowed it down to just, on course, nutrition. So I thought, okay, if I can, if I can have this, and then then let's go do it, this drink and let's go do it. And so then just had to, kind of had to rebuild my mind because I was so discouraged, and start thinking about, you know, my success We've talked before about a success board and kind of just built this success board in my mind Like, hey, remember you did this so well.
Isaac:This summer training was so good and I didn't want to waste that training because I just completely failed. And it's like man, I've been running for 20, 22 weeks and it all comes down to just one day in October and it was a failure for that day. So how can I use? You know, what can I do?
Isaac:So I went back, signed up to run the monumental marathon and then started just mapping it out again, like what's visualizing? And these were streets that I knew just growing up in Indianapolis and just thinking over those, like how, like what can I do? So mapping those out, coming up with a plan, and I like to break the marathons down into thirds, and so I would break it down like that, and so eight miles, 16 miles on the 24 mile, and then the last two, you just get across the line. I mean that's what it comes down to. And so I started visualizing those and seeing my run from that aspect and it all worked out. It was great. I was able to execute that plan and make a good experience of all that training that I'd had.
Ben:So when you're saying failure because you know we talk a lot about failure is only like it's only failure if you stop, you know, like talking about the chiefs, for example, just won the Super Bowl this past week. You know there were some quote unquote failures along the way where you know they had six regular season losses. They had to win two road games in the playoffs to even make it to the Super Bowl. There were some. There were some times, you know, especially after you know, like a red zone turnover, where it's like well, that drive was a failure. They're looking like there's no way we're going to be able to do this. They're star tight end. It looked like he loses his cool and goes crazy on the sideline to the head coach and you know but but at the end of the day they kept going and they didn't quit and those were just kind of steps along the journey.
Ben:So you know the. Would it be fair to say that all of these times that you've been saying failure, that really what you're talking about is you didn't accomplish your goal in that marathon because you wanted to, you wanted to be able to run the entire time and your body physically would not allow for that to happen. Sure, so that, so that was, that was where you came up short. But then you grow from that move on. I mean you still finish that race even so. I mean, at the end of the day, as you reflect back on it now, how do you, how do you view that quote? Unquote failure.
Isaac:Completely different, completely different than in the moment, which we all you know, that's for all of us Travis Kelsie was angry because he's not on the field, right, and he was mad in the moment. Looking back on it, you know he's pumped and so happy because of the final outcome. I was, I was very, very angry, as we, as I've noted on here, but looking back at it, yeah, I see, I see the whole picture as as a success Because of what I learned from those failures and, like you said, it's a failure is only a failure if you stop. But it just helps for my testimony of the running and what it what I've learned from just running Really in these last four or three years, of just what, how I can apply it to life and those types of things. And and I had a setback and now I understand that my setback in running is nothing in comparison to the rest of our lives. But I had this setback and and Another opportunity was coming and I had to kind of, you know, burn, flush and burn that that Terrible time and just prepare myself for this next one. And now, looking back on it, it was a great experience. It was an awesome experience running through Chicago to say that I've ran in a world major. But then it also made running the monumental that much greater. And to when I, when I finished that I got across that finish line, I mean it was like euphoric because it's like I Just failed this.
Isaac:19 days ago I got everybody telling me you should not run a marathon 19 days apart. And I'm like why, why, why can't I? And so I had some. I had some people that Out of the right part of their heart was like you probably shouldn't do this. I'm like I've read books about dudes that on seven different continents like why can't I go run at 19 days apart? And so that was just good to battle through that. And it's great to know like, hey, if you want something accomplished, you go get it, doesn't matter what comes up, it doesn't matter that you have failed. You failed a hundred times at this certain task. If it's what you want, you go get it done, doesn't matter what other people are telling you love that.
Ben:So talk to us, just to you know briefly, I know we we were discussing the the evening of the Super Bowl. We were talking about just some life lessons. Talk to us just a little bit about what you've learned through all of this that you apply to the rest of your life sure I've.
Isaac:I've the lessons that I've learned, I think are they're excellent? Not for me, before my kids. I mean, we talked about Comer, right. He had said if, if Something needs to be done to be great to get to something, well, you got to go put in the work and and he knew what it took to get to run a rim to rim to rim. And his daughters saw that and they know, if this is what needs to be done to be great, well, then you got to go put in the work and and my kids have seen that, which is cool and they're really young.
Isaac:But my oldest daughter, she's six and she knew of the times where I had to get up early and I was gone in the mornings to go train and I can talk With her about that. She's just learning basketball and so I can talk with her like hey, if you want to be good, like these are the things you got to do. And so there's those parts that I've learned, just stuff, like no, like I feel like I'm busy, but I know, you know what. I have to get up early If I want to get this stuff done. I got to get up and get done and I don't know if, before Marathon running, I would have had that mindset, I would have been like, well I'm, I don't have enough time today to get that done. But with this training that just taught me you make your priorities and you get up and you get them done and then you have the rest of the day to go to go do whatever you need to do. And I mean, I was during all this training I was also coaching golf for the first time and and golf is Busy on Saturdays, you know you have all-day events on Saturdays and but Saturdays were my long runs.
Isaac:I was like, well, that means I got to get up at 3 30 and run from from 4 until 6 30 and then I got to be on a bus at 7 15, like that's what I got to do To get this work in, and then I'll worry about the rest of it later. And so I had my mindset on something. I had my. That was what that was. What was so hard during the Chicago marathon was I had my mindset on this and I'd put in all this work and Didn't make it and didn't reach to my goal, as we said it, to that goal at the moment. But then it made it all that much sweeter, accomplishing it 19 days later. And so those are just some of the lessons I've learned of having to push through hard times, finding time to get stuff done and Just a mental battle that you can have, and people may be telling you, I, that you shouldn't do something, but if you've got your mind set on it and you've got the determination, you can go do whatever you want to do.
Ben:Love that, Zeke. Well done. I appreciate you coming on here. I appreciate you just sharing a little bit about your journey, some of the times that you came up short and how you kept pushing through that. So thanks for joining us today.
Isaac:Absolutely Always a good time, benny, you know that.
Ben:If you found value in today's episode, we would love for you to share it with a friend, with a coach who might benefit from the discussion. If you're curious about taking your team's mental game to the next level, visit mtpacademy. One thing that came up we're doing this with an entire athletic department at one of the schools that we work with and a coach made a great point. He said you know they with strength and conditioning. They brought a strength and conditioning coordinator in so that you wouldn't have to. You know, during football, do push, pull, and during basketball season, do bigger, faster, stronger. And then during track season, do you know your uncles work out from your garage Like they wanted some consistency. They wanted to say what's the best way to physically train our body and get bigger, faster, stronger? And they brought in one of the top strength and conditioning coordinators and this kind of gives them that same thing, applying it across all sports within the entire school. And now they have common language between teams.
Ben:You're you know you're coming up with a go to statement in the spring. You know, going into the fall sports season, oh yeah, I need to do this. I need to have this ready. Like Isaac talked about today, you don't want to find out in the middle of competition or in the middle of you know that big moment that you didn't have something that was as simple as an electrolyte drink ready to go. So if you're interested in learning more about that, I would love to have a conversation with it. You can hop over to mtpacademy or go to mentaltrainingplancom slash podcast. All the contact info is on there. You can fill out a request, you can give us some ideas of topics that you would like to learn about and, until next time, make your plan and put it to work.