How to Train (and Function) in the Face of Uncertainty
I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers here, because this particular moment in time, during the pandemic with the virus-that-shall-not-be-named-but-you-all-know-what-I-am talking-about, is clearly an unprecedented one. Pre-pandemic, certain “rules” applied: it was really up to YOU how hard you worked, how smartly you trained, and when you trained and with whom. If there was a will, there was a way!
I have aimed to keep up the same running rhythm in terms of relative lengths of runs for days of the week.
Of course, everyone has extenuating circumstances that may have interfered with training in some way—maybe you truly are overwhelmed with work, maybe you have a small baby, maybe you are particularly injury-prone or just can’t handle a certain number of miles per week on hard surfaces. Whatever may have been a limiting factor for you in the past was likely nothing compared to what we are all dealing with now. It used to be that the gym was there, the pool was there, the special boutique fitness studio was there, and all of these places were open and just waiting for your motivated self to strut through the door each day, even if it took a whole lot of creativity on the part of your time management to get there. In the past, our training groups would be there. Our local races would be there. You just had to show up or sign up or text someone to meet up. Usually with our old “extenuating circumstances,” we could at least get our workouts in if we only prioritized them enough or managed our time well enough.
Now, though, so much is beyond our control. I know I am in particular feeling the loss of the pool—this is by far already the longest I have been out of the water in probably 15 years or more—but I also really miss my Monday night group at my Cycle 45 class at UVa IM-Rec (HI, LADIES!), running with all my students in my UVa Running for Fitness class (“Today is a Friday run! Downtown mall out-and-back!”), and going to my fairly set calendar of amazing spring races that I looked forward to on an annual basis. Suddenly, training is not so simple, and this might be all the more frustrating for people who thought they had their training systems largely figured out. (I know my finely tuned cross-training heavy plan has been hit hard both by no pool and no indoor spin bike.) Those who maybe haven’t worked out as much in the past are suddenly finding new fitness goals and getting outside—I know I have never seen so many people going for walks before—but those with established groups and routines might be feeling especially adrift right now. What do we do now?
You might also argue that the most important thing is to just survive all of this! Agreed. But if you can find some way to add a little structure into this chaos right now, it might really benefit your mental and emotional state in the time being too. I know and have known for a good while that I really thrive off structure and being around other people: this present situation of relative loneliness and lack of structure is very very difficult for me. I needed to find ways to ensure I make it out of all of this intact in ways other than the physical ones too. This blog started as a post centered on how to continue to train successfully, and quickly evolved into including how to succeed right now in ways other than the physical ones. Because ultimately, the health of our bodies in our sports also depend upon our mental and emotional health too.
I have done a lot of thinking about what I can do to make my daily life feel more meaningful right now; in case you too are trying to navigate these uncharted waters, here are the points I have found most beneficial in providing me with some much needed structure and support.
1. Establish a weekly routine.
You know how everyone is joking about how no one knows what day of the week it is? I actually really understand that—I don’t think I ever in my life have been so legitimately confused about whether certain events happened today or yesterday. (In my previously very structured weekly routine, it was basically impossible to forget what day of the week it was! Monday was A, B, C, Tuesday was X, Y, Z, etc.!)
I have been trying to explore more interesting local running routes than I normally am able to run!
You may not be able to have the same degree of organization to your daily schedule, but there has to be something you can control. In this case, it actually might be your training. To the best of my ability, I have tried to maintain the same type of weekly workout rhythm that I was used to in the past. Of course, there is no other cardio but running now, but I have held myself to: taking Mondays off from running like I usually do, going for my longer-ish runs on Tuesdays and Fridays, and doing my long runs on the weekend days. This sounds like a very simple thing, but it has helped me feel less like I am living in the movie Groundhog Day. Make sure that every day actually is a little different; do what you need to do to feel like you experienced a real “week” instead of thinking “wow, this doesn’t feel like a Friday at all!”
2. Find creative ways to be social.
I have spent a lot more time on the phone talking to people, because I really might lose it if I actually didn’t. Especially if you are coming from a profession or lifestyle (like that of a student) where you saw many different friends in many different spheres all the time, it is important to find ways to keep interacting with people in some way. I know, I know: virtual interaction just…..doesn’t always quite cut it. But, there has to be something you can do. Here are a couple very easy ideas:
schedule a regular FaceTime chat with a friend who you used to regularly see
do the same core workout or other fitness challenge with one of your training buddies
watch a Netflix show at the same time as a friend so you can text/talk on the phone about it
exchange recipes with your mom for a meal, or you can both cook the same dish
get a group together for a virtual book club
Basically the “recipe” for being creative and social while still remaining socially distant is: do [insert fun activity here] and do that at the same time your friend does this in a different location. This means you have something in common to be social about, and it makes you feel less alone when doing said activity.
3. Find creative ways to do what you are used to doing.
I think that also, unless you are discovering you actually rather disliked your old job or whatever it was you were doing before this whole situation began, it is probably fairly important that you now do something fairly related to what you did before. (Side note: if you are finding that this pandemic is revealing you actually were not enjoying your old job, now might be a time to think about how to remedy that. I know, easier said than done, but worth thinking about since we have a lot of time to think right now!)
Sigh, I never realized just how much I like and need to be around other people until all of this hit. I used to think I was half introvert, half extrovert because I sometimes needed some alone time when coming home after a long day of teaching classes. However, I now, looking back on my past self, it was probably just very natural for me, whatever my level of extrovert/introvert, to need a little breather after teaching all day before launching into another social adventure. Even extroverts need to recharge!
The first couple weeks of all of this social distancing I spent experiencing waves of despair unlike any I had ever felt before. I knew I would be in trouble mentally if I didn’t find a way to keep teaching (and in a way, entertaining!) people. I realized I really like making my students laugh as well as helping and educating them. (You know how some people detest public speaking? I am the opposite: I actually love it.) Teaching really is just a lot of fun for me. I have a lot of fun being around and helping other people.
Enter: Instagram TV and my new Runners Love Yoga TV project to the rescue! If you’ve noticed I’ve been making more little IGTV videos than usual: you would be right. I made the first one of these, on a “Walking Mobility Warmup,” because I really wanted my Running for Fitness students at UVa to have a way to warm up without access to our Mem Gym track (we usually do 2-3 laps at the start of every class). This led to me making a whole bunch of other videos with them in mind—this had the benefit for me of making me feel like my normal self for a while, AND it also ended up benefiting a much wider audience since more people than just my 20 students watched them (and that made me happy too):
6 (More) Running Drills in 7 Minutes (where I also got a little elaborate with the choreography),
4 Hip Strengthening Exercises to Help Your IT Band (which I filmed in front of the Rotunda for them)
4 Core Moves Inspired by Swimming (can you tell I made this in the throes of missing that sport?)
A Runner’s Intro to Gliders in 3 Minutes (because I couldn’t believe so many runner friends I talked to didn’t know about these!)
Filming videos like this was really the only thing that was bringing me some kind of mixture of joy, stability, and a sense that I was teaching like I was used to and needed to.
While my UVa Running for Fitness class inspired my increased IGTV presence, at the same time, my UVa Yoga class of undergrads inspired my new Runners Love Yoga TV project. I wanted a way to continually share good, new yoga class content with them, and I was determined to not do this through Zoom, because that is how they are getting far too many of their classes right now, and I wanted it to be a useful, beautiful experience that could be tailored to the individual. I also wanted to get the audio for online classes really, really right. This was actually great, since it gave me a project (which ironically I really needed!), and again, more people than just my 25 yoga students could benefit from it. Along the way, through all of this, it was funny to me how motivated I could be in generating all of this content when I had my real people students in mind. At the new RLY TV site, you can stream yoga anytime, anywhere (even to your Roku or Apple TV like our old site), but I can also much more easily update the content every day or every week to keep adding to it. So far, I have added 14 new videos to the 12 that were already in the previous library:
The Energize Flow and Yin Yoga Collection of 6 videos (3 more flowing vinyasa ones, 2 yin yoga, and 1 which combines traditional core with yoga!)
2 quick vinyasa classes: “Core with Your Yoga Blocks” and “Everyday Flow: Balance”
2 relaxing “Nightly Wind Down” classes for pre-bedtime (and which I am going to continue to expand as a series! They were making me fall asleep!)
4 “Pose by Pose” Tutorials on (so far): 1. sun salutations, 2. moon salutations, 3. Warrior I, II, and High Lunge, and 4. Warrior III, Half Moon, and Revolved Half Moon
All videos in the new catalog here! The best part may be that we now have subscriptions, so you can easily stay up to date on new yoga content as I keep adding to it!
Teaching in various online outlets has been really helpful in making me feel like I am doing meaningful work.
One of the only things I am actually really excited about during this time has been how I can now add weekly yoga classes to Runners Love Yoga TV—I’ve already got quite a few more ideas in mind for classes, from the “Nightly Wind Down” themed ones to adding a new “Friday Flow” every single Friday from here on in. These ways of making my pandemic life more closely resemble my old life—which I REALLY LOVED—has been my saving grace through all of this. Whatever you are doing right now, if you find yourself missing your old daily or weekly routines, find ways of cultivating whatever it was you used to do. I promise you will start to feel a whole lot better if you were feeling awfully down like me.
In some ways, the next point is a lot like what I’ve just described here, but for important reasons, it needs to be its own bullet point.
3. Find a project to pursue.
I’ve actually seen quite a few memes or captions floating around Instagram over the past couple days to the effect of: it is ok if you are not taking this time to start a side hustle, paint a masterpiece, etc. etc. That is true, that that is very very ok. YOU HAVE TO DO YOU (ESPECIALLY) RIGHT NOW. We are all different people in different home situations and we all have different ways of dealing with the present pandemic. I don’t have 3 children I’m currently trying to home school (thank goodness — also, my thoughts are with you if you are currently managing or trying to manage that…I just have a husband who I love but leaves his clothing literally everywhere!). With this pandemic, I was feeling quite deprived of my normal sense of usefulness: I was so used to my teaching schedule and interacting with people. Just running around the house picking up my husband’s towel from the floor for the third time in a day (side note: I did this yesterday) was simply not going to cut it. At the end of the day, I knew I needed ANY KIND OF PROJECT to feel purposeful. It was not going to benefit my mental health to sit around reading all 4576 articles on COVID-19 that come out every day.
Know what you are trying to juggle with the current world situation: if you are also in the category of people who may lose their minds before this is all over if you don’t give yourself something real to try to create, BY ALL MEANS, please find yourself a couple projects. They do not have to be large. They might be very small, but I think, in general, most people tend to do a lot better if they are feeling like they have meaningful work to do. (Academic inside-joke: can you tell I am a Victorianist who read a lot of Ruskin?) Right now, that meaningful work may be learning how to cook a particular casserole (still working on this one myself), it may be planting a small garden (I have ordered a bunch of flowers), it may be finally getting a certain floor of your house organized (please send tips if you master this one). Someday, I imagine that literature classes may talk about poems that were generated during the pandemic.
The point is: your project doesn’t need to be a particularly grand scheme, though it also may be just that. Think of this time (if you can; I know it is hard) as a sort of “summer vacation” (minus the swimming pools) where you get some time to finally do X, Y, Z, that you have been meaning or wanting to do. Maybe you are going to read a book every day or learn a new yoga pose every day. Whatever you are doing, find an opportunity to use this time to get X, Y, Z done, which under normal circumstances you would never have had the time to do.
In sum:
To make what feels already like a way-too-long pandemic feel hopefully a little shorter, take charge of what you can take charge of right now. Those things you can take care of include not just your physical health but your mental and emotional health in dealing what may be a 180 degree turn from what your daily life once entailed. Find ways to bring structure to your training and your life. Cultivate creativity in your social life and those habits and routines you may deeply miss from pre-pandemic life. Find ways to channel your energy into outlets that give you the satisfaction of meaningful work, whatever that work may be for you right now. Also: this might be a good time to add in a little extra yoga. Keep breathing, keep moving, and keep finding ways to feel like yourself right now: your self after this is all over will be very grateful that you did.