Good Advice Can Be Awkward

Iā€™m a bit of an advice column junkie, Iā€™ll admit. I have my favorites that I check in on regularly - Slateā€™s Dear Prudence and Care and Feeding , Drew Magaryā€™s weekly Funbag on Deadspin - but the one I drop EVERYTHING to read as soon as it arrives in my inbox is Captain Awkward . It does not matter what the question is about, because every single answer CA gives is thorough, loving, and direct, and I never fail to find an insight that applies DIRECTLY to a situation that I personally am dealing with. 

The running questions Coach MK and I answer each Sunday in our #AskAway sessions are very often coming from something totally unrelated to running (as MK always says in the intro to the Morning Mantra podcast , we are never really talking about the running), so perhaps itā€™s no surprise that many of my lightning-bolt insights about my own running come from people who are not talking about running, at all. In this case, Captain Awkward is talking about weddings , and specifically, how to deal with other peopleā€™s opinions and judgments (in other words, weā€™re not really talking about weddings). 

This past week, someone I used to be friends with in college posted on social media that despite not having run since she was a kid, she was working with a run coach and signing up for a half marathon in November. Send me your tips and your motivation, she said, because Iā€™m going to need it! Currently, there are over 100 comments on the post. Some of them are supportive (ā€œYou can do this! Youā€™re inspiring!ā€) and many of them are more along the lines of ā€œDonā€™tā€ and ā€œyouā€™ll ruin your kneesā€ and ā€œthere are better ways to lose weight.ā€ I had to breathe veeeeeery deeply as I read through them - the original post, of course, said nothing about weight loss, but it hurt to read that people saw her, saw her goal, and assumed that she was taking up running to lose weight.

I have some thoughts about what to do with other peopleā€™s opinions when they are neither kind or helpful, but I also acknowledge that they are unfortunately not going away. Many, many, many of the runners we work with have weathered hurtful comments from the people closest to them, ranging from thoughtless to intentionally cruel. One woman told me this past week that the last time she trained for a half marathon, her family members openly made fun of her, saying that they could run faster in high heels than sheā€™d be running in her race and questioning why she would put so much time and effort into something she was ā€œmediocre at bestā€ at. It hurt to read that, too.

If that is how someone is going to talk to you about your running, then you do not need to include that person in your network of confidantes, helpers, or decision-makers. Itā€™s time to right-size your circle, and this is where Captain Awkwardā€™s not-really-about-the-wedding advice comes in:

Grab a piece of paper and roughly divide the people who care about your [running/upcoming race] into a series of circles, like so:

  • Circle One: You & your [coach, PT, doctor].
  • Circle Two: People whose response to everything you are planning is ā€œSOUNDS GREAT, WHAT DO YOU NEED FROM ME?ā€ and who do not require explanations or justification. All the arguers, I donā€™t care if they gave birth to you from their bodies, get automatically demoted. 

These are the people who get to know what youā€™re doing and hear your updates. Everyone else is on the other side of the moat, and they are kept on a strictly need-to-know basis. I am so glad that my former college friend is working with a coach, and I hope she carves her own path through all the opinions coming her way, because I know from personal experience that doing this running thing out there in the open, taking up space, calling yourself a runner and declaring that you are taking it seriously enough to hire a coach takes GUTS. 

Last perfect gem from Captain Awkward: ā€œWhat I learned that Iā€™d really like to pass on to you: The less I explained and justified it and the more I just did it, the better it all went.ā€

The only people who truly care about your running (as in the running that you , the person, want to do) are you, me, and Coach MK (and, depending on where you are in your journey, your doctor or your PT). We are here to help you carve out your safe space and right-size your circle, and we will always, always, support and validate you. #coachedandloved

You are #coachedandloved and #winningatlife

Coach Sarah

PS: If you like advice columns, you will love my weekly Q&A sessions with Coach MK! Click the red button below for the YouTube repository of #AskAway sessions, and you can join us live each Sunday night on The Fitness Protection Facebook Page (unless you listen to the podcast version already!).

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Weekly Podcast Roundup
This week on the Running Life podcast, Coach MK takes Coach Sarah on a walk through her Training Peaks to show her all the wins that have been building up over the last two months (and even the last two years! Click HERE to watch the session as a webinar on Youtube and follow along (did you know Fitness Protection's YouTube channel houses all our strength demos, podcasts, and livestream recordings?).

Tuesday was DEAL, a mantra for dealing with strong emotions....AND strong toddlers!

Coach MK chimed in on Wednesday with That Isn't Funny, a mantra to cling to in moments when people think humor is an appropriate way to erase people's pain.

Friday's mantra from Coach Sarah reminds us all that There Is Enough love to go around. Coach Sarah loves a LOT of people, and adding more people to her circle dilutes none of it.
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#WINNINGATLIFE
Meet Amanda Cannady ! Amanda is WINNING AT LIFE this week because she powered through 10 ā€œhard sucky milesā€ on a hot day even after her headphones died! THATā€™S WHAT WE CALL TENACIOUS AF!!! Follow her on Instagram and tell her how awesome she is. Amanda, we are SO PROUD of you, and we know you are going to ROCK your half marathon this fall.
And letā€™s NEVER FORGET how much our girl Sara Seeburg is winning at life! Sara is one of our STRENGTH BETA TESTERS, and she greets the day at the track even when itā€™s a sweaty mess down in Scottsdale, Arizona ( follow her on Strava and see what we mean !). We rely on Saraā€™s eagle eyes to look through our materials every month and make sure we havenā€™t missed anything, and if you see a typo or a mistake you can bet itā€™s because we didnā€™t run it by Seeburg first. WE LOVE YOU SARA! 

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