Time to get back to work running. Continuous interval run today and excited to survive it. 2 mile warmup, 3 miles at 5:45 pace, 6X 800 at 2:30 pace, 6X200 at 1:10 pace, 4X100 balls to the wall, 3.4 cool down. Warm up, cool down and 1/4 mile in between intervals done at 7:30 pace.
Amazingly enough once again dealing with the same "competition" issue that I heard last spring. My youngest daughter's soccer team is making the shift to non-scoring. My oldest daughter's annual Mile Race the fourth and fifth grade do every year is this year changing to participation only. It's confusing to the kids and I've racked my brain the last three days trying to answer my 9 year old's questions about it. I wrote this to the Principal:
The Mantra "Winning is Everything" is false, but so is the ever increasing belief that competition is harmful; that participation is the heart of sports. Participation is great, but it’s hardly what sports and especially life are about. The problem is misconception of success, of greatness. Success is not the same as achievement. Success lies in the process to achievement. If achievement is winning a race or doing the impossible, success is believing in yourself, training for the impossible, and running that race with everything you have, every time. Achievement is a goal, an endpoint that one strives for. Success is what you could have right now, this instant, each one of us, no matter what our condition, weight, pace, goal or path towards that endpoint. It’s the understanding that you are ever changing, endless striving, completely uncomfortable, more stupid than every person you meet, and have only just started being what you want to be. It’s fun. Replace achievement with participation and you lose success.
Kind of a mix of what we runners think about and talk to each other about. | 