Serious Running Blog

I give your running work out a 7 out of 10.  Does that rating of your run make you feel better?  Do you need someone giving you positive reinforcement?  That’s fine, we all love some positive reinforcement but do you need it during or right after your workout?  You should be doing it for you and how it makes you feel afterward.

I have found that the things that make people the most happy in life are achieving goals they set for themselves.  Maybe your goal is to run a marathon and accomplishing that will give you great sense of achievement.  A more fit body is good goal to have.  You can get pretty good positive reinforcement from other people with a fit body.  Make achieving your goals your positive reinforcement.  But how do you determine what your work out should be in order to achieve those goals?  Make a training plan, track it, and accomplish it.  Tools to help you along the way are coming soon to this site!  Be excited.

Your daily workout and run is your own workout and run.  You set your daily goals, but the only person that can tell you whether or not you really achieved them is your body.  Someone recently told me that non-verbal communication was more important than verbal communication, which I agree with; however, they told me this over IM, right after arguing the value of text messaging over speaking over the phone.  I’m not sure how reliable the source is.

So how do you rate your workout?  You can post your workout on the web and wait for comments from other runners.  Or you can find your target heart rate and monitor it as you exercise with neat-o gadgets.  I however am of the old school line of thought and agree with Mr. Tom Petty when he says, “You Gotta Listen To Your Heart.”

So what are you listening for?  Muscle soreness.  Muscles soreness comes from minor tears that you get from intense work outs.  Runners usually feel muscles becoming sore 12-48 hours after their run so it looks like you are going to have to wait a bit for the daily rating.  What happens is that the tearing of your muscles is part of an adaptation process which leads to you being able to achieve higher stamina and strength.  These improvements in your level of fitness come from the stressing of the muscles and then them recovering.  So push yourself in your intense runs then make sure that you take enough “rest” days to allow them to recover.  When in doubt, listen to your heart…which is a muscle of course…a love muscle.  Happy Valentine’s Day!

To Be Stong You Must Feel Strong…well, really you need to feel sore.