Children's Books and Summer Training

Sam and Dave Dig a Hole and XC Training The other night I was reading my son a book before bed. We were reading Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, I hate to spoil it…but the gist of the story is two guys dig a hole to try to find something interesting. They actually don’t find anything, but as the reader/viewer of the pictures you can see that they keep barely missing digging up huge diamonds in the ground. Every time they get close to a diamond they decide that they should change course as to find something interesting. It’s a fun book to read with my son because he sees they are so close to a diamond and then because they don’t know it’s there they switch it up and end up missing it. My son and I will talk about how it’s frustrating (we are working on expressing different feelings with him) that they come close to getting diamonds but never do. As I was reading it I couldn’t help but think of cross country training.

We are in the heart of summer running. The days are hot. The humidity is crazy. The mileage has grown. The hearts and minds of athletes are fresh and ready for the potential of great things in the fall. We are digging our own holes of training. We want to find something interesting, we want to find success as a team and as individuals.

So often we find ourselves like Sam and Dave, we want that immediate satisfaction, we know there is greatness out there and we want to find it right away. We give up digging if we don’t find immediate success. We change our course. As a culture we are told to pursue the quickest route to the immediate rewards. That is not what results in long term greatness in our sport. In our sport consistency is what often reigns supreme. I was listening to Jay Johnson’s Run Faster podcast the other day. In this episode he was speaking to Steve Magness. Jay ended the podcast with this question to Steve, “What does it take to run faster?” Steve gave three responses and his final response was consistency in training. You put in a solid block of training season after season, you will see results. Thinks about two of the greats in American distance running, Bernard Lagat and Meb Keflezighi, they have stuck in the same system with the same coach their entire career. They have trusted the process. This is a hard concept to accept in this day and age. We want that quick fix, we want to have the amazing early season results, or summer 5K time, or we want an impressive workout to show our fitness. But none of that is as important as running your best at the end of the season. And to do that takes the steady mind set of day after day, steady work. This is not something you can cram for. This is a sport that you have to build for, and be patient in the process.

Sam and Dave never do find those diamonds, because they don’t trust the process, they are looking for the quick find, if they don’t get immediate results they jump ship and change course.

Think about what you are trying to do as a runner and make darn sure you are consistent in putting in the work that will get you to reach those goals.

Fourteen weeks from now you will not regret your decisions to focus on the long term goal.