Week 6 - Marathon Training
Hear me out on this point: there is a difference between discipline and work ethic. Both are admirable qualities, both necessary to achieve gains in athletic progress, both factors that are flexible (unlike pure talent) and therefore honed by a growth mindset.
Week 6 - Training Record
Monday - 6.1 mi Easy
Tuesday - Off
Wednesday - 6.9 mi Easy
Thursday - 7.5 mi Easy
Friday - 7.6 mi Easy
Saturday - 10.3 mi Long Run
Total - 38.4 miles
As for the difference: when we hear speak of work ethic, we associate it with a regimen that does not take a day off of work, a mindset that is never satisfied, an insistence that hard effort today will render a greater ability to put in a harder effort tomorrow. I am a product of this protestant work ethic—one that insists that no one is watching, and even if anyone is watching, no one going to praise you for your work. My stoic ancestors on my father’s side were eastern and mid-western farmers. I imagine them in diligent husbandry—day after day, toiling, laboring. Their reward? Not attention, not glory, just the reinforcement of habit.
Discipline, on the other hand, is attentiveness to the work habit. Discipline is the knowledge of what kind of work must be done. Discipline is the ability to adhere to the work that must be done above the work that a driven personality wants to have done.
If it requires work ethic to show up day after day and complete the necessary workouts, then it is discipline that knows when rest is needed when the body craves to produce sweat.
Discipline is also the measure that keeps us mindful of caloric intake, attentive to quality sleep patterns—and aware of when it is and is not the best time to donate blood.
Week 7 - Training Plan
Monday - Easy + 8 x 100m Strides
Tuesday - 3 x 12 min Tempo Intervals (7:05)
Wednesday - Easy
Thursday - 5 x 1k @ 5k Race Pace (4:12)
Friday - Long Run (90-100 min)
Saturday - Easy
Sunday - Off
Target: 43-46 miles
That was my error, and now I am paying for it. I donated blood at my church on the Wednesday prior to running a 10k race. The work ethic went unchecked. The inherent need to provide resulted in a disruption of performance progressions. Work ethic is what drives us to donate blood; discipline is what prevents us from donating at the wrong time.
Experience is the greatest teacher, but the tuition is expensive.
I focused on being disciplined this week. I wanted to run six days, but my body needed recovery after the 10k race on Saturday. I was anxious on Tuesday when I didn’t run. I didn’t sleep well that night. I was anxious all week after assigning myself easy runs for each day. The trick is to listen to the discipline, not the anxiety. Discipline is patient, rational, calm; anxiety is impatient, irrational, rowdy. Anxiety tells me I want to be better, I want to be faster. Discipline tells me just to breathe. Adaptations will take place. I cannot force them. I cannot rush them.
As hard as it is to put in the workouts and mileage, the harder work is knowing how to breathe.
So this week I focused on breathing.
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