Long term perspective
Thoughts on running sustainably
“Happy, healthy, and excited to race.”
During my run today I listened to a Singletrack podcast episode featuring Joey Berriatua. Around the 45 minute mark, they get into a conversation about long term growth and perspective. Joey talks about how in high school, he wasn’t focused on winning the State meet, he was focused on getting five healthy years of running in college. His coach helped him train to create a base that would allow for that, and if top results came along the way, even better. But it wasn’t the end goal. Then in college, he trained in a way that would set him up to go pro and continue progressing for years after. The goal for each race was to arrive at the start line happy, healthy, and excited to race.
My end goal isn’t to do well at Western States this year, or Worlds, or any other individual race. I don’t really have any single, specific, result-based goal for my time as a trail runner. Of course there are things I think would be cool to do, but I wouldn’t sacrifice long term health and happiness for a win at any race right now. Here are some measures of success for me in this sport:
Continue racing at the highest level that I can manage for at least the next 4 years, hopefully longer.
Take advantage of this time of life and the opportunities I have in trail running to explore the world with my friends and family.
Continue finding ways outside of racing to embrace my love for real mountains.
Finish what I start. I’m not saying death before DNF, but I am saying that if it’s worth putting months of effort into training for, I better give it my best shot.
Be physically and mentally unbroken enough that I can do fun adventures outside with Marshall when he’s older, like my dad did with me.
If I get to the end of my competitive running days and can look at these bullet points and say I did them, I’ll be happy. I think training with that mindset keeps me from pushing into extremely risky territory, and takes a bit of pressure off any given race. I’m doing enough that I’m giving myself a solid chance, but I’m not doing any crazy self-experimentation. No revolutionary workouts or Strava-server-crashing mileage. The funny thing is, if 2020 me could see 2025 me’s training, I would say it’s crazy. And 2015 me would have said the same thing about 2020 me. The body adapts, and the mind forgets. Keep a long term perspective and remember that each year builds on the previous years. I’m excited to see what 2030 me is able to throw down.
Yass man,
LONGEVITY 💪🤘💪
Long term perspective is what is the most important thing because the gains we accumulate over the period of years is what we can't see and the Journey is what we all have. Everything perishes including all the wins, trophies, course records, belt buckles but all we make is the relationship with the people we love and even with the people we don't know. I am training with this approach as well that if someone asks me what race you want to win? I am straightaway like I don't man, it is just that I want to line up at the races that intrigue me & then try to give it all my out there and then whatever the result pans out, I am content with that. I recently ran a 24 Hour Track race on Mrach-1. Then on 17th May I ran a 19 KM trail race with 1800 meters of ascent and next day on 18th May I ran a Road Half Marathon with 650 meters of ascent and completed it in 1:43 coming 2nd. All these races are totally different but I ran them not thinking of short term as running after all is fun stuff.