Below is the email I used to send my Life Time runners the day after our group training cycle ended (i.e. the day after the race). Bookmark this and return to it whenever you need!
We always knew we felt better for it, hell- we are better for it, but now we can smile together at a glimmer of insight that reminds us that there is far more to running than we even understand. – Kristin Armstrong
Many of you have already written or texted to ask what's next, and here is my answer: rest.
An old coach told me once that you can only be 'excellent' in any one area of your life at a time, and the name of the game is to ensure you aren't less than 'good' in any other area (family, work, etc) because once you become 'bad' (bad parent, bad friend, bad employee, bad spouse) you just nullified your excellence. I find this to be remarkably true. Training sucks up a lot of time and we have to make hard choices in order to stay on track. You guys have been excellent for the past 4 months. For the next two weeks you need to rest, reconnect, revisit and reevaluate.
Week 1 starts now, and this week's theme is 'reconnect'. I want you to call every friend/family member or person you have missed or not been able to see since you started training, and I want you to have drinks/coffee/dinner with them, tell them what training was like and if it was worth it and would you do it again. If that includes your kids, do something special with them. Schedule a date night to thank your spouse/partner/significant other for supporting you to the finish. Reconnect with who you love.
The following week, week 2, The theme is 'revisit'. I want you to revisit every physical activity you couldn't do while training. Have that fourth glass of wine on Friday night since you won't have to run for 2 hours at 7am on Saturday. Try a Crossfit class. Play soccer or softball with a league. Tailgate inappropriately at your kids' baseball game while wearing your race medal. Go do yoga, swim or take a hike up a 14er. Revisit everything that you used to do that got squeezed out or that you wish you had time to do while you trained.
By the end of week 2 you should have had enough conversations about the past 3 months and enough fun that you've missed to re-evaluate your goals and decide where to go next with your training journey. I hope this time leads you back to me, but I accept that it may not. 2 weeks is the minimum time it takes for the benefit of a workout to present, and thus 2 weeks is the maximum time off you can take without seeing steeply diminished returns (especially before the holidays start- we need to get running in the schedule pronto if we are going to stay on track!). By June 1 you should be able to decide whether or not you want to set a time goal for your Fall race, run a longer distance, follow me to Philadelphia, or if the only running you want to do includes screaming and heading in the opposite direction whenever you see me coming.
This email is long enough, so I will cross my fingers that at least 3 of you read it all the way through. I will send 'next steps' training options around later this week, as well as a save-the-date for the seminars I will host over the summer.
I hope you are RESTING today and plan to wear your medal to work tomorrow. You should be PROUD- you earned it!!!!!!!
High Fives all Around! I LOVE COACHING YOU and cannot thank you enough for choosing to train with me this cycle. :-) I am SO, so incredibly, deeply, wildly proud of all of you!!!!!!!!!!
Coach MK Fleming is the founder of Fitness Protection, LLCwhere she coaches all kinds of runners for $29 per month and gives marathon plans away for free. Click here to download her most popular training plan, Tenacious AF!