Your body is a System

Written by Caitlyn Bintz Ashton

#tiptuesday – hey Highland City Striders– your body is a wonderland!

JK JK JK your body is a system!!

Much like a car that needs fuel, and to turn off, and maintenance, and repair to function at its best.

Your body is a system. Training as an athlete is a system. If you want to continue to improve and reach new highs in your running, you need to look at all the factors of the system, pay attention to areas that need help, and if most components are in good shape then work on optimizing. Similar to the car mentioned before, there are many factors when it comes to training & racing to be able to perform at your best:

– building endurance

– Building speed

– Strength training

– Nutrition/hydration when not running

– Nutrition/hydration on the run

– Recovery

– Maintenance

– Sleep

– Mental

– for all my ladies: hormonal cycles and changes can be a factor!!

Included some helpful cheats in the images below to reference for what each of these mean.

Many of you are starting to train for fall races. One thing that can be helpful for you as you embark on your next training season is once a week evaluating how you are doing in each of these categories. You can just quickly jot down how you would rate yourself in each on a scale of 1-10. If you are doing really well in most areas, but 1 or 2 categories are scoring way below the others, then you know where you need to focus heading into the next week. After a week of focusing, check in with yourself again and rate how you are doing. This can be a great feedback tool and as you focus on more than just the running piece over time, you will start to optimize your needs specific to you! YAY!

This can also be a helpful tool if you are doing workouts and racing often- you may have a day where things don’t necessarily go well or according to your plans. That’s a great time to take a look at all of these factors and see if something is off. We often want to just lean into training harder when something doesn’t go well, but that’s not always the best way to improve, and can often lead to injury. Next time, instead zoom out to look at the full system and see if any of these areas rank low. You will likely have causation for your challenging day!

Accountability! Share below something you are currently focusing on and trying to improve for not only running but you as a living, breathing, wanting to enjoy life organism