“You don’t get better on the days when you feel like going. You get better on the days when you don’t want to go, but you go anyway. If you can overcome the negative energy coming from your tired body or unmotivated mind, you will grow and become better. It won’t be the best workout you have, you won’t accomplish as much as what you usually do when you actually feel good, but that doesn’t matter. Growth is a long term game, and the crappy days are more important.” Georges St-Pierre
This quote has so much truth in it. During this training block I find I go into spells where I get hit with a big dollop of just wading through mehh. This step repeats, before a breakthrough arrives.
As a side note if your not familiar with the definition of mehh the fountain of all things true, which is Urban Dictionary defines it as:
My Enthusiasm Halts Here. Indicates a lack of interest in the topic of conversation or a statement.
Excited Person: “Hey, the circus is in town, anyone going?”
Disinterested Person: “MEHH”
At the time it’s not easy to see, but the mehh moments are great, as retrospectively you grow stronger after being broken down.
Sometimes when your deep into training, it’s easy to feel like it’s something that has to be endured… until the prize of race day arrives.
And you start to switch off, make excuses because you are genuinely tired and let the mental fatigue make you operate at a lesser level, then your capable of.
So how do you get out of this training funk (cough first world problem). It sounds cheesy and like common sense but hear me out.
In my mind I aim to find the good in each session, and see the small step to the wider picture for my training… yep mind blown right?! I know this is groundbreaking stuff, and there’s more!
I find something to look forward to, or a good takeaway from each run. Even if the run felt terrible it’s one more run added to the training bank.
I treat my weekend long runs, like races, it’s an opportunity to prepare my nutrition, race kit etc. So come the actual race day, I’ve mentally and physically prepared the routine, so it becomes a standard procedure.
So I have my breakfast upto 2 hours before running. With porridge/oatmeal and SiS Beta fuel mix in water, which is approximately 130g of carbs. Basically you need a minimum of 100g of carbs before big workouts/races.
Then I take an SiS gel approx. every 30 mins.
For key sessions I run without headphones/music because I want to stay present when it’s going well or when it feels like the wheels are coming off, as that’s when the workout starts.
This week the weekly mileage is 87 miles.
Manchester marathon is approximately eight weeks away, to see my journey on Instagram follow the hashtag.
#2019projectsub3
Marcus Runs 