The Muse and Views

Last September I joined a HIIT (high intensity interval training) gym in Calgary called The 80/20 Hub. Three times a week over the last 6 months, I was through the door at 6am for a hard 45 minutes to start my day. Aside from strengthen our body, the gym’s main coach and owner, Deb Sousa, also encourages us to work our mental muscles, pushing past our own brain barriers to bring us past the finishing line rather than giving in just shy of our goal.

In the final round of our sessions, you’ll often here her words of encouragement:

“Come on, guys! This is it. Your last ten. Make them your best ten!”

Today, I ran my first race in over a decade with the Jugo Juice 10Km race as part of the Calgary Marathon. I’ve been sick the last couple of weeks and not training. As race day drew nearer, I was questioning myself as to whether the race would chase away this head cold, or help it settle in for a longer spell. By Saturday, I had decided it didn’t matter either way. I signed up for the race in January, and whether I was going to walk the whole thing or if I could muster the energy for a jog, I was going to make it through.

When you run frequently, 10km does not seem like a long way to go. Heck, even on a good hike day, my dog Beiken and I can come home with some energy to spare. But I haven’t been out hiking, nor have I been training much in the last 4-6 weeks for this. Towards the halfway point in the race, my breathing figured itself out, but my calves were starting to tighten. Around the 8km marker, they were screaming for mercy. Without endangering myself for a pulled muscle, I slowed my pace, but I kept up the slow jog as much as I could.

Not willing to give up, but definitely feeling like maybe I had done enough and earned the right to walk the last km, Deb’s voice popped into my head. “Come on Wendy, 1km to go. Make your last ten your best ten!” And while I was nowhere near the pace I started with, I persevered in my little jog, picking up whatever steam I could on my way to that finish line.

Like I said, my speed was nowhere near what I had started with. In fact, I don’t think you could categorize me anywhere close to “speedy”. But the mental strength I gathered to make that last km happen when I was ready to take a leisurely stroll through the last 10% of the course brought me into that zone of being at my best.

See, your “best” isn’t always about the same physical measurements. You won’t always beat your previous time or score. For me, it’s more about pushing myself just a little bit further when it would easier to take my foot off the gas and coast through the final stage when I’m “almost” there.

I’ve been coasting a lot lately in many areas of my life. Maybe it’s time to pick up the pace a little and make my next ten, my best ten.

Tagged: calgary marathon, jugo juice 10km, mental strength, Motivation, perseverance, race