The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
New year's resolutions check-in:
How goes it, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble, @falling-star, @Tollund_Man4 and @self_made_human?
Hooray, you meditated (once!) as you said you would. Consistency is key.
Have been doing it more consistently these past few days.
How has it played out? What instructions have you (attempted to) follow?
I am following the mind illuminated instructions. In the morning sitting for 15 minutes and focusing on the breath. In the evening doing a walking meditation where I focus on the soles of my feet when I walk.
Have really noticed how off the rails my mind is while doing it!
Great. TMI is solid, though be aware that it appeals to + sorta traps the kind of detail oriented autist that populates forums like this one. Don't get too cerebral or strict about the whole thing.
To meditate is to discover the ludicrous chaos and insanity that 99% of humanity walk around enveloped in. They're locked into a box with a lunatic and what's worse, they nearly always identify with being that lunatic instead of observing it detachedly.
Think I've learned from endurance exercise that the most important thing really is just putting in the time. Details can be important, but what matters in this case is just sitting more.
Yup. There are no shortcuts. There may be some similarities between endurance training and meditation. Some distress tolerance and stick-to-it-ness helps.
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How long did it take you to train for a marathon? I was pretty proud of myself for even making it to the end of a 10k last year.
I got into running at the very start of Covid, and ran my first marathon in May 2021.
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I have been training seriously since I was 10 in various endurance sports. In high school and college this was about 10 hours a week with lifting and cross training etc. I do about the same now. Starting from zero, it would probably take a few years of this to be ready for the marathon.
That makes sense. I've been strength training for about that long and it's a lot easier than running.
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Congrats, always a huge accomplishment.
Just reading up and seeing that we were both at Boston! Congrats, even though it wasn't the day you wanted, that's still a solid bit of late race management. I was ~10 minutes slower, a shade over 2 minutes positive split, and my quads have never felt so awful during a race that actually went pretty well. They weren't kidding about those downhills eventually adding up to quite the tax.
Congrats! That's a real solid time, hope you auto qualified for next year!
I'm looking forward to Chicago in the fall where it'll be completely flat. Hoping to feel a lot better in miles 20-24 (miles 24-26 are always terrible).
Yep! I am sufficiently old that it's an easy and clean qualifier. I'm not sure if I want to go back straightaway or head somewhere a little smoother next spring. I'm coming off three marathons in 11 months and my current inclination is absolutely to shift gears for a bit and hit the track over summer. Part of me wants to go back to Boston immediately because it really is an incredible course, but the other part of me just wants something straightforward and fast like Glass City. Luckily, we don't have to make that decision till September.
Chicago's great! Have you run it before? The logistics are so much simpler than Boston if you stay downtown. Easy walk to the start line instead of a bus ride and meandering around for an hour.
I strongly dislike the "wait in line, take a bus to the start, meander around for an hour, race, wait in line, take a bus somewhere else" races.
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I have not, but the parents still live there so logistics should be much easier.
Boston is my default every year now because all my MIT alumni track friends do it so it's a good way to stay in touch. It is unfortunately at an annoying time of year (I wish it was a bit later or a bit earlier) which makes it hard to do other fast marathons.
Yeah, I think the Boston decision next year is going to come down to how many club friends I have going. If we have a solid group, I'd love to go again. If it's going to be largely a solo activity for me, I'd just as soon time trial something simpler and faster in the Midwest.
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