What is the definition of progress? How do you measure it? What happens when you don't progress as expected? When starting college I hit a ton of unexpected barriers and frustrations which stalled my progress. Here I'll share my initial reaction, how I dealt with it and what helped.
How do you define progress? I personally cling so tightly to the times I am running. I've spent the year trying to change this but it's a really hard thing to do because no matter how many process oriented goals I make, I always have another goal in my head: a PR. So I cannot tell you what I have done to fix this, because I am still working on it, but I can tell you what I have done to make it easier and how I've learned to measure progress in different ways, even if I only half believe it.
In high school, I PRed a lot, which was awesome but it also made the transition to college harder. I mean it makes sense once you learn how to race and how to push yourself, the PR margins get smaller because there are so few things to do but build fitness. I knew this in high school and I always knew it was coming but I don't think I was ready for it. Maybe I didn't think it would ever happen, but I definitely know I expected to keep improving at the rate I was in high school.
*For context: every year in high school my mile improved by a minimum of 4 seconds a year, my 2 mile by 20 seconds, and 5k by 10 seconds. Looking back, it's a little embarrassing that I expected to continue this progress but I did and that's fine, we move on. *
My freshman year of college I had a tough transition. The school work load, living a new life, harder workouts, more stressful races, the list goes on. Long story short, it took a while to adapt and these barriers created an extra mental strain which took away from my running. On top of this I also was a little low on iron in the spring.
With all of these difficulties, I PRed once in cross country, and not at all in indoor or outdoor track. My sophomore cross country season, I again did not PR and wasn't really doing any better than the year before. That indoor season I finally PRed once, and again during the outdoor season. I had never gone an entire season without a PR so, to be honest, my initial reaction to this was not the healthiest, but I've learned to deal with it, so I'll tell you what I was thinking and what I've done to help.
All the reasons I listed above, were not at the forefront of my brain at the moment. At the end of my freshman year I noticed my body was changing and I started questioning what I was eating. Not much changed that summer except I became more focused on what I was eating. That next fall when I still wasn't getting better, I looked at the things that had changed since high school and somehow set my sights on food and weight which honestly probably changed a lot less than the other factors I've already mentioned. However that little voice in my head (we call him Ed) was persistent and convincing when saying this was the reason I wasn't getting faster.
The most important thing I needed to realize is that you do not stop growing when you leave high school. Maybe you're done growing height wise, but a woman's body continues to develop into your early twenties. Learning this was honestly really helpful and important to remember when going into college. I think the "freshman 15" is such a stupid phrase, because yeah, its normal and healthy. We are not done growing in that stage of our life so society putting that negative connotation on that phrase doesn't help, well it certainly didn't help me.
Another thing I learned to accept—only once I started feeling the energy deficit of my actions—was that if I need to restrict my food intake to obtain a "goal weight" and an "ideal body" it's not going to help my performance. My "ideal body" is whatever it is when I honor my hunger and properly fuel. As much as I would like it to not be true, there is no way that trying to change your body to run faster will end in success. It will result in overbearing food thoughts, body image obsession, low energy, more injuries, decreased bone health to just name a few.
So how do I define and measure progress now? Focusing on the smaller things and trying to stay patient, knowing the times will come with small improvements along the way.
Things I focus on instead of time:
- Forming stronger relationships with my teammates and supporting them more in workouts
- Improving my relationship with food (creating smaller goals to work one step at a time)
- reducing my pre-race nerves
- appreciating feeling strong during and after a workout
- appreciating recovery runs (I still struggle with this one)
- Separating life from sport to focus on all aspects of my life
- Staying in the moment and focusing on effort (I'm still bad at this one)
When I work on these things, yes its true the end goal is to get faster, but that is the sport so its not going to go away. However, noticing there is a lot more to the sport is something I have found really helpful to:
- get out of my head and reduce the stress towards PRing
- allowing myself to enjoy the sport for EVERYTHING it has to offer
- enjoy my life as a whole because there is more to it than running
I know a lot of this piece focused on food and body image, because that has been my journey related to this topic. However if you are working on shifting your priorities in the sport and this has not been your journey, I still think focusing on all the little things will still help allow you to find the joy and appreciate the sport to its fullest!
As always, feel free to reach out if you have questions or stories to share!
Happy running,
Emma
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Comments
Thank you so much for sharing! This is such an important topic that’s not talked about enough. You’re going to help so many people with this blog :)
This is great! I love getting to hear your perspective on all things running!
Thank you so much for sharing this personal topic with us🤍 I think there are more athletes out there struggeling with this topic than we can imagine