Breaking through
A story about frozen toes
It was COLD yesterday on the beach team.
I stared down the mean Lake Michigan on the way to take down a session of barefoot beach sprints but didn’t realize how nasty the air would be too!
During this 4 miles, that included a 1 mile warmup and 1 mile cool down, with 10 x 160m sprints in between, I got hit with cold rain, snow, and ice falling from the sky.
Did I mention that I was doing these sprints barefoot? My toes FROZE!
It was so cold by the water that I never took off any of the layers I generally ‘shed’ right before running, or certainly after the first mile warmup. Not yesterday.
Let me share quickly what went through my mind, the battle against the elements of my own choosing, and then we’ll unpack the meaning of the experience for analysis and reflection together.
1.THIS IS COLDER THAN I THOUGHT
When I feel something in my body that’s a bit riskier than I originally anticipated I checkdown into a type of survival mode. I wasn’t worried about injuring my toes due to cold exposure, but I’m also aware enough to recognize the possibility of injury.
2. HEIGHTENED AWARENESS OF RISK
After my toes turned red in the first couple of minutes and I recognized the temperature of the cold wet sand and the damp cold air would make it difficult to warm those toes, I began hyper focusing on them.
3. EXPERIMENTING WITH FEEL
I’ve had cold toes lots of times, I’m Canadian team. So I began going through a checklist in my mind of this to notice. Could I curl my toes? Was that a sharp tingling pain, like needles? How’s the rest of my body temperature?
4.DEPLOYING STRATEGIES
I kept all those layers on for a good reason, to keep the blood pumping in my entire body hoping it would eventually get to my toes. That’s a mind and body strategy. The feeling checklist gave me psychological security that I was only experiencing discomfort and not risking serious injury.
I finished the run, toes were cold, but they’ve certainly seen worse days inside winter boots. It took a few hours for my internal body temp to rise back up, but overall, a good dance with the cold.
Feeling it ‘viscerally’
I was on a coaching call with one of my guys and naturally the conversation turned towards this type of ‘breaking through.’
He’s training for a 1/2 marathon, isn’t a runner, has no history of long form cardio, but wants to try something new and have fun along the way. When discussing our goals for the race, I added in one element he wasn’t planning on focusing on: Doing a good job, or TRYING.
His head is in the right place, he just wants to complete and have fun along the way, but I added in the ‘quality’ element to bring out an important element of physical challenge. That’s the CHALLENGE part.
He’s fit enough to cover the distance today. But in trying to have a ‘good race’ he’ll be pushed into proper discomfort and risk, the goldilocks of racing; not too hard, not to soft, JUST HARD ENOUGH.
That got us talking about our gratitude for being able to push through the pain in exercise. He loves weightlifting, and appreciates the soreness a day after leg day as testament of his good work.
There’s something powerful about feeling the physical pain of our effort and resolving in our minds and determining in our wills that we won’t allow it to stop us.
I truly believe people get addicted to exercise because of this CONQUERING feeling over self. It’s hard to feel like we are ‘breaking through’ in so many areas of our lives, but not in sports and exercise.
I feel that intensely, viscerally, and incorporate that experience into my self identity and self belief.
It’s unlikely there’s a day where having frozen toes and moving through them is the most important thing, but knowing that I can determine what’s just discomfort and what’s serious danger and risk and then move safely through the adversity is a skeleton key to moving through ALL adversity.
The truth is in the training team.
The Takeaway
Listen, you don’t need to go full on crazy and start battling the elements like I decided to do yesterday. But there’s something to be said about wanting it to be good and deciding to stick it out through adversity.
When you power your fitness with love, through the spirit, and aimed towards your best potential you unleash a powerful part of yourself; passion and interest.
These help you take down gigantic obstacles while making the proper sacrifices along the way.
If I didn’t love trail running, I’m not interested in sticking out the 4 miles on the freezing beach. Because I genuinely enjoy the activity, I have an internal stake in getting better. When I do it, I want to do it WELL. That means I will subject myself to the necessary discipline to grow through discomfort.
Think of the guitar player who practices the same scale over and over and over and over for hours so it becomes automatic to his hands when he goes to crank out a solo. And why does that player discipline himself, because he loves playing guitar and wants to make beautiful music.
The key takeaway to ‘breaking through’ is to employ the heart, to let love determine the course, and then smash through HARD when resistance comes.
So if you’re finding it difficult to find consistency in exercise, my guess is you don’t have passion or interest on your side. Without them it’s near impossible to ‘break through’ because when you feel the visceral pain of your effort you’ll think “TOO RISKY” instead of “JUST THE RIGHT TYPE OF DISCOMFORT”
Fix it by doing activities you enjoy, that push you physically, that make you want to get better because you enjoy it.
Pretty soon you’ll be the one they call crazy. GOOD!
Happy Training Friends.