A Little Tortoise And A Little Hare
Psalm 138:8 The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands.
I'm healed and I've added running back into my program. With my really short break, I figured that running again would be just a little challenging. Boy, was I wrong. It was hard. With each step, I tried to determine if it was my body or my mind that wanted me to stop. I think it was a little bit of both. This first day of running again was a challenge that I wanted to conquer. As I ran, I continually changed my plan every few steps. I wanted to stop and I wanted to finish.
Stopping and starting can be viewed as interval training. While I usually think of running intervals as exercising with intensity, this time it was my way of completing my task. My couple of breaks, mental and physical, helped me to get to the end.
My thought while running is that I need to combine the strategies of both the tortoise and the hare. The speed of the hare can be thought of as an interval where focused energy is used to advance oneself forward as fast as possible. Stopping wouldn't mean coming to a complete halt, but taking smaller steps forward much like the tortoise. In both cases, the focus is the larger goal and whatever positive moves can be made are.
This tortoise and hare strategy can be applied to any individual exercise session and to attaining larger goals as well. There will be days, weeks, and months were there can be more focused energy directing you toward your goal Other times, there will less effort available or necessary to keep the progress happening.
As the NFL teams get ready to head to training camp, they are entering a hare-like phase of training. During the season, the training decreases. Not quite to tortoise levels, but the intensity and duration certainly decreases. The goal of getting to the Super Bowl remains the entire time, the tactics and effort change over the course of the season.
I'm building to my training camp and increasing the intensity of my exercise. This new level won't last forever. It will be simply long enough to see some more significant changes that will get me ready for the remainder of my season. I'll keep running a little like the tortoise and a little like the hare.
I'm healed and I've added running back into my program. With my really short break, I figured that running again would be just a little challenging. Boy, was I wrong. It was hard. With each step, I tried to determine if it was my body or my mind that wanted me to stop. I think it was a little bit of both. This first day of running again was a challenge that I wanted to conquer. As I ran, I continually changed my plan every few steps. I wanted to stop and I wanted to finish.
Stopping and starting can be viewed as interval training. While I usually think of running intervals as exercising with intensity, this time it was my way of completing my task. My couple of breaks, mental and physical, helped me to get to the end. My thought while running is that I need to combine the strategies of both the tortoise and the hare. The speed of the hare can be thought of as an interval where focused energy is used to advance oneself forward as fast as possible. Stopping wouldn't mean coming to a complete halt, but taking smaller steps forward much like the tortoise. In both cases, the focus is the larger goal and whatever positive moves can be made are.
This tortoise and hare strategy can be applied to any individual exercise session and to attaining larger goals as well. There will be days, weeks, and months were there can be more focused energy directing you toward your goal Other times, there will less effort available or necessary to keep the progress happening.
As the NFL teams get ready to head to training camp, they are entering a hare-like phase of training. During the season, the training decreases. Not quite to tortoise levels, but the intensity and duration certainly decreases. The goal of getting to the Super Bowl remains the entire time, the tactics and effort change over the course of the season.
I'm building to my training camp and increasing the intensity of my exercise. This new level won't last forever. It will be simply long enough to see some more significant changes that will get me ready for the remainder of my season. I'll keep running a little like the tortoise and a little like the hare.
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