STOP

0:10SPEAKER_00:Welcome to Coach Bennett Podcast, where every run has a purpose, where kindness is hardcore, where this is about running, and this is not about running. Where every starting line is a finish line in discount. Where rambling still gets you where you need to be. Where pineapple will never ruin your pizza. And the sodas, adult and not adult kind are always cold. And where there is room on the starting line for everybody. I'm Coach Bennett. Thank you for letting me be a part of your day.

0:43SPEAKER_00:Let's get started.

0:45SPEAKER_01:Welcome to episode 144 of Coach Bennett's podcast. This one is entitled Stop. And you know what? I think you should put like your hand out, like you're a crossing guard, and it's just Stop. And you know what this is inspired by? It's inspired by the world of running. And it's inspired by all of you runners, and it's inspired by coaches and fans and prognosticators. And yes, I said prognosticators. I am almost 100% sure I've never used the term prognosticator in a Coach Bennett's podcast.

1:22SPEAKER_01:In fact, I can't remember the last time I used the word prognosticator. One thing I can tell you is no one cares about this. No one cares about whether or not I've used the term prognosticator or when the last time I use the term prognosticator was, but I will assure you of this. If I can find out when the last time I used the word prognosticator, I will let you know. Okay? So just chalk that up to another thing you don't really care about. This is going to be a series of things I think you can and should stop doing if you're doing.

2:00SPEAKER_01:It seems like we constantly hear when it comes to running, you need to do this, you need to do that, then you need to add this, and you need to add that, you need to do more of this. Well, I'm just gonna give you a whole bunch of things that if you're doing, you can stop doing. And the benefit here is you'll have more time to do stuff that actually helps. You'll have more time to have fun. You'll have more time to maybe even run. Who knows if that's what you want to do?

2:27SPEAKER_01:So we're gonna go through a list of things that you can stop, and if you stop doing them, you're gonna get better. You're gonna start getting better. How do you like that? Stop doing this, start getting better. Ooh, I should have actually entitled this that. So anyway, this is the first thing I'm gonna start with. I was thinking about ending with this, but I'm not ending with this. I'm gonna start with this. Stop diminishing what you're doing. Stop diminishing who you are.

3:02SPEAKER_01:All right. I see this all the time. Now, the reason why I'm seeing this, I think, more than ever, is because it seems like more people are running than ever before. So that means you're going to get more of the good stuff and more of the bad stuff. That's just how it is. I mean, if you imagine that there's 15% bad stuff out there, and then there's just twice as many of everything, well, there's still gonna be 15% of the bad stuff. It's just that the raw number of bad stuff is going to increase.

3:35SPEAKER_01:And when the attention starts to go on running, as it does, because the algorithm is gonna throw it in front of you if that's what you're interested in, you're going to start seeing more and more things. Now the problem here is this it's way easier to engage with the negative stuff. It's way easier to say out loud, in a crowd, publicly, or, you know, if your social media handle is kind of not really you, it's just like a weird, bizarre handle, like, you know, stuffed play bear 3742, whatever.

4:12SPEAKER_01:The point is, you can just feel a little bit more comfortable going negative, especially about yourself. I think we all sadly feel more comfortable going negative on ourselves about ourselves than we do being positive on ourselves and about ourselves. So, from a coaching point of view, to all of you runners out there, and this is about running and this is not about running, stop diminishing what you're doing. Stop diminishing who you are. It's exhausting seeing how exhausted all of you are making yourselves by just belittling what you're trying to do.

4:55SPEAKER_01:I started running, or I'm training for this, or I'm doing that, and I'm slow, I'm not very good. I know this time isn't fast. I know everyone's probably asking why I'm what are you doing? What are you doing? You know, the lesson I usually tell people is this, and I think it's a good one because I think it resonates actually and gets straight to the you know, the truth, the core of why you shouldn't do this. And it's not even about you. It's about the people around you.

5:26SPEAKER_01:If you go off and you run a 5K and say, I just did my long run, it's only 5K, I know it's not very long, it's because I'm not very good. Just imagine the person reading that or hearing you say that is someone that's maybe on day two of their running, and the farthest they can go is five minutes or seven minutes. And here you are talking about your 30, 40-minute run, your 5,000-meter run as not being good, not being good enough, not worthy of celebration, not worthy of appreciation.

6:05SPEAKER_01:Here you are saying these things. What do you think that says to the person listening? Other than, geez, I thought I wasn't good, I'm horrendous, I'm terrible. This person is telling me that 5k isn't enough. This person is telling me that 12-minute mile pace or 14-minute mile pace or 7-minute K pace isn't enough. To who? Who is it not enough for? And and and when did you start making these arbitrary rules about what's good and what's not? What is good to you?

6:42SPEAKER_01:What are you comparing yourself to? The standards to get into the Olympics? Maybe the world championships? Maybe it's the podium at a major marathon. What are you doing? The only comparison you need to make is to who you were at the start of the run. Are you better? And that doesn't mean faster or going further all the time either. It just means did the act of this run make you better? If it did, game on, celebrate that. Just think about the people around you.

7:15SPEAKER_01:Because I'll tell you what, as a runner, people are watching, people are paying attention, and not in a way that you think where they're looking at you and saying, he's going so slow, she's not going far, they don't look like runners. No. There is a small, small minority of awful people everywhere. But the overwhelming majority of people that see you run by are thinking, I wish I could do that, I should do that, how can I do that? They are impressed by you, they are inspired by you, they are motivated by you until you tell them that what you do is not enough.

7:51SPEAKER_01:Until you tell them that who you are is not enough. It's funny that these people who don't know us get so inspired and motivated by what we do and yet we don't. That is so silly. So, stop diminishing yourself. And another way of putting this is appreciate what you do. Don't depreciate what you do. Alright, next. Stop running too hard. Please, my people, stop running too hard. Now, before you know team hardcore gets all up and and and you know upset about this, let me say, I'm not saying don't run hard.

8:33SPEAKER_01:When you're supposed to run hard, oh yeah, baby, let's do this, let's go hard. And if we're supposed to go really hard, let's go really hard. But if we're not, if we're not supposed to go hard, if we're not supposed to go really hard, don't go hard. Don't do that. Your easy runs are supposed to be easy. That's why they're called easy runs. Okay? The point is, you're not proving anything other than the fact you don't know what you're doing when you run harder than you're supposed to.

9:11SPEAKER_01:Let's just do the opposite. Let's say you're supposed to do a hard workout and you just take it easy. So let's say you're supposed to do eight four hundreds at your mile pace, your 1500 meter pace, you got a minute rest. This is a tough workout. It's a legit tough workout, and you just jog it. You don't run hard at all. You run easy run pace. No, are you are you doing the right thing? Are you doing the smart thing? Are you doing the intelligent thing?

9:40SPEAKER_01:Are you following the plan? Are you running the purpose of this workout? No. You'd have no problem saying, that's ridiculous. Why would someone do that? They're supposed to run hard, they should run hard. Well, why do you not maintain that same integrity when it's time to run easy? So many people just run so hard and they don't adjust the effort to easy when the easy run is feeling too hard. They grind. This doesn't make you tough, it makes you stupid.

10:16SPEAKER_01:Remember, those in-between runs, those runs between the hard workouts and the long runs, that's the glue that keeps the entire training plan together. It's your recovery runs that are going to help you build the endurance, build the strength, build that perseverance trait, build that discipline trait. That's what's going to help you recover from and in anticipation of past hard workouts and future hard workouts. It's those easy runs that are going to give you the foundation over the course of your entire running journey, which I hope is a lifelong journey.

10:54SPEAKER_01:It's going to build that foundation so you can do harder and harder things. But in order to do harder and harder things, you need to maintain the sanctity of those easy runs being easy. So stop running too hard. Yes, this means you may need to adjust. Okay, you can be and should be your own best coach. I mean, the reason why I write the guided runs the way I do, the reason why I do this podcast, is not so you have to run with me. No, it's it's so you can become your own best coach.

11:34SPEAKER_01:You should need me a little less after every single time we get together, whether it's on a guided run, whether it's you reading something I write, or whether it's listening to this podcast. You should need me a little less. It doesn't mean we need to hang out less. It doesn't mean we can't do this more and more and more. The point is you need me less. You may want to hang out with me more, and I think that's awesome, that's cool, I want to hang out with you, but you're going to need me less because you're becoming a more intelligent runner.

12:05SPEAKER_01:That to me is how I measure the quality of a runner. Too often, whether it's apps or training plans or even how we talk, we we measure the experience level of a runner by their pace or how far they can run. You know, like if you run X amount of miles a week, or if you run at X pace, if the faster and the more you run, we equate that with more experience, or I should say, a more experienced runner. That is some malarkey, some stone cold malarkey. It's just not true.

12:39SPEAKER_01:Experience should be based on intelligence. That's all it should be based on. How intelligent of a runner are you? And an intelligent runner knows I shouldn't run hard on my easy days. All right? It's hard enough to run easy as it is. Don't make it harder. Because all you're doing is making recovery harder, which is my next thing you should stop, which is stop ignoring recovery. Oh, baby, stop ignoring recovery. Let me just tell you, recovery, the need to recover, and how you recover, that's it's like the icing on the cake.

13:14SPEAKER_01:Great running is so much fun. But the way to great running is to make sure that you are recovering great from that great running. And the way that you recover, it's the best. I mean, the the best way you can recover is to get a great sleep. Oh, I love sleeping. Who doesn't love sleeping? I'll tell you who doesn't love sleeping. People who can't sleep well or people who don't sleep enough. So I can't solve for whether or not you sleep enough. You have a life, you have responsibilities, you have obligations.

13:44SPEAKER_01:I I can't find you two extra hours in a day if they don't exist. I can help you sleep better though, and I even have a podcast on sleeping. I think I may have two podcast episodes on sleeping. Go listen to them, they're really good. If you sleep better during the hours that you have to sleep, you will recover better. So I'm this isn't about me saying, hey, you need nine hours of sleep, and you're like, dude, I have six. Okay, let's work with the six.

14:12SPEAKER_01:Let's make those six higher quality. It's the same thing with everything else. The fluids you're taking in, the fuel that you're taking in, how you're dealing with stress. You know, our inability to deal with stress in a positive way, in an efficient way, in a durable way, leads to us having weakened immune systems. And when we have weakened immune systems, we have to take some of those energy stores and focus on not getting more sick instead of putting it into our running.

14:43SPEAKER_01:So if you want to just be a complete runner and say, I don't care about my immune system, well, you do, because your immune system is gonna dictate how hard you can push and how good you recover. And if you can push harder and recover better, you're going to run better, which means you need to take care of your immune system, which means you need to deal with stress in a better way. And if you can do all of these things, because it's actually fun, laughter, being around people that that make you laugh and make you feel comfortable, make you feel safe, that aids recovery.

15:15SPEAKER_01:Eating makes you a better runner. I'm not talking about eating the right foods. Eating better foods will help you recover even better. But first and foremost, you have to eat enough. Eating should be fun, eating should be social, eating should be something you enjoy. All right, it's not a penance, it's not a punishment, it should be something that you enjoy. So make sure you're eating enough. Like that's just a great way to recover. Eating enough.

15:43SPEAKER_01:It's like a car. You have a lot of different fuels that you can choose from, right? When you go to a gas station. The most important thing, though, is that you get enough fuel. The quality of the fuel we can deal with later. Right now, let's just make sure we have enough fuel to power this vehicle so it goes where we want to go, right? That's what you need to focus on. It's the same thing with all the different aspects of recovery. The benefit here, and the best part about recovery, is that the higher quality the recovery, the higher quality your running will be able to be.

16:20SPEAKER_01:So think about it. The better you eat, the better you drink. The better you're merry, and the better you sleep, well, the better you're gonna run. All of these things are awesome. I'm not asking you to do a longer plank. I'm not asking you to stand on your head. What I'm asking you to do is to enjoy life a little bit more when you're not running. By eating, drinking, being merry, and sleeping like a champion. These are these are like the best parts of life.

16:50SPEAKER_01:So make sure you stop ignoring your recovery. Too many of you, and yes, I'm talking to you right now. I know you're like, is he talking to me? I'm talking to you. I see it in workouts. You're totally locked in, focused on the running interval. And then when it comes to the recovery interval, you just check out, you drift away. And the reality is if you focus on the recovery, if you take that recovery just as seriously as you take the running, your running will improve because you'll be coming to the line every single time for a new interval, a little bit more recovered.

17:28SPEAKER_01:And if you're a little bit more recovered, you've got a little bit more power, a little bit more energy, a little bit more strength, and all of that will dictate how well you can run that interval. So you can either show up with less or show up with more of the good stuff. I always think it's a good idea to show up with more of the good stuff. Alright, next, stop being so serious. Now listen, just like I said, stop running so hard doesn't mean don't run hard.

17:55SPEAKER_01:Stop being so serious doesn't mean you can't be serious. Of course you can be serious about your running. I want you to be serious about your running. I also know that if you're only serious about your running, then you're never going to seriously run as fast as you can. You're never going to be able to seriously run as far as you can. Because it just becomes too serious. You need flexibility. When you're serious, you're rigid. Okay? Just think about it.

18:25SPEAKER_01:Think about you personally or someone you know when they're very serious. Do they seem very loose? No. And in order to navigate long term this thing we call running, you're going to need to be flexible. You're going to need to make adjustments. You're going to need to make changes. You're going to need to switch directions. You're going to need to change your goals. You're going to need to be flexible. Which means you can't be so serious about everything.

18:57SPEAKER_01:Yes, I know that we had a long run plan today. Guess what? It's lightning out. We're not running today. You can't lose it. You can't. You have to be flexible enough to say, does it really matter in the big picture, whether it's today or tomorrow? There are only a few times when something is set in stone, like a race day. You're probably not going to change the date of the New York City Marathon. Okay, it's it is what it is. But we can change the date of our six weeks to go long run if you have a work trip.

19:32SPEAKER_01:We can change the day that we're taking off from today to tomorrow, because tomorrow isn't going to work for a day off. And in fact, today would be the better one. We're not going to be able to run ourselves away from bad races, tough runs, confusing moments in our training where we're wondering, am I getting better or am I not getting better? That's part of the gig. That's part of sports. It's one of the best parts of sports. There are no guarantees.

20:03SPEAKER_01:And if you're going to be doing something that has no guarantees, you have to have the ability to change directions or change the goal or shift your mindset when things do not go as planned. And listen, this can be in both directions. Sometimes we're planning for something, and guess what? We get better than we thought we were going to get. Okay, you're gonna have to shift, and your your mind is gonna have to be malleable. Ooh, another good word there, malleable enough to understand you have made a fitness jump.

20:37SPEAKER_01:So what you once thought was good enough for you is now no longer good enough for you. You have surpassed yourself. Welcome to the surprise show. One of the best parts about this sport that we can surprise ourselves. The point is, stop being so serious. The other aspect of this is when you're so serious all the time. You are blocking out fun. Fun wants to be a part of your running. Fun wants to be a part of your recovery. Fun wants to be a part of your life.

21:10SPEAKER_01:If you allow it to be, fun will not force its way into the run. That's not how it works. Fun has to be allowed into the run. Fun is like a vampire, but a vampire that doesn't like bite your neck and suck your blood and drain your life force. It's the opposite. It like bites your neck and gives you life force. It doesn't give you blood. I mean, I don't do vampires have blood? And that'd be gross if I phrase this as the vampire bites you and then gives you the vampire blood.

21:39SPEAKER_01:Maybe the vampire does give you the vampire blood, and that's what makes you a vampire. I have to like read up on my vampiric stuff. I'll tell you what, I read all of well, almost all of the Anne Rice novels. They were so good. You know, interview of the vampire and the vampire listat and all those. There was a period of time. I'm wondering when this was. It might have been Might have been in college. Jeez, man, when I had a break and I didn't have to read a ton of history and literature stuff, woo! I went straight into the Anne Rice stuff.

22:09SPEAKER_01:It was so good. I would actually do that again, and then I could actually, you know, get back to knowing my vampire lore, and then I'd figure this out. But my point is, fun is like a vampire, you need to invite it in. That's it. And then when you invite fun in, like a vampire, when you invite a vampire in, the vampire has like all of its powers. It's the same thing with fun. When you invite fun in, fun is at its most fun. So stop being so serious.

22:34SPEAKER_01:Have some fun. And I'll tell you what, if you can allow fun to be a part of your running, your running will not only be more fun, you will also have more fun running the hard stuff. Oh my goodness. So if you can have more fun running the hard stuff, that's another way of getting better. What's up? That's a cheat code right there, even though it's not cheating at all. Okay, another one. Stop feeding trolls. Yeah, I'm talking about online. Stop feeding trolls.

23:00SPEAKER_01:My just timeline, or whatever you want to call it, is inundated with people trying to just rage bait you. They're saying dumb things. And a lot of times it's these like fitness influencers. I don't even think they're even fitness influencers. I think they're trying to get attention, eyeballs, volume of looks, whatever the measurement is, the metrics for these sites. They're trying to get you to engage with them. Because when you engage with them, the algorithm says this is an important person.

23:35SPEAKER_01:So I just want you to think about what you're doing when you engage with idiots. You're making the algorithm think these idiots are important people. They're not. So when you see someone say something like, if you're not running for at least two hours, you're not really running. Or if you were an average high school runner, you should be able to run under 230 for the marathon. I mean, what in the world are these people talking about? I'll tell you what they're talking about.

24:04SPEAKER_01:Nonsense. And you engage with them. Because guess what? It's just a troll saying things. So you come in and engage. Don't engage. Just block. Just block and move on. It's like if you hear someone yelling obnoxious stuff on a street corner, the last thing you want to do with your day is say, hey honey, let's not go out to dinner. I'm gonna go talk to this person. That person just wants a crowd to come and listen to them. Because a crowd attracts a crowd.

24:35SPEAKER_01:That's what you're doing. You're inviting more people to ruin their dinner date by going over and listening to this complete and total troll. The best thing to do is to walk over the bridge and ignore them. They're under the bridge for a reason. Okay? Let them stay there. And I'll tell you what, the best way to deal with them is to ignore them. Your eyeballs, your attention, that's oxygen for them. Now imagine what happens to a troll that doesn't get oxygen.

25:06SPEAKER_01:Okay. The last one. We're ending on this one. Stop believing you can't. Now listen, I'm going to I'm going to put in a little caveat here. Alright? I'm not one of those coaches that thinks you can do anything. I'm I'm not. I don't believe that. I mean, I I tried to run very fast in the mile. I knew I was never gonna set the world record in the mile. There was nothing I could do to set the world record in the mile. I couldn't have cheated and set the world record in the mile.

25:38SPEAKER_01:That's how fast the world record is, and that's how talented I was not. I was talented for sure. I I think I had a hard time believing what my potential was, and I struggled with that. And I think one of the reasons why I didn't get closer to my potential was because I didn't believe I could get close enough to my potential. I thought my potential was out of my potential range. I wished I didn't believe I couldn't do X. So this isn't about believing you can do anything.

26:12SPEAKER_01:It's about believing you can do something you haven't done before. And I think sometimes people confuse that. And I think sometimes people give the wrong message. Like if you believe you can do it, you can do it. Maybe, maybe, maybe not. My point is that maybe, maybe not. Those are pretty good odds. So instead of saying I can't, maybe it's maybe I can. It's not you definitely will. Like I said, no guarantees on the other side of the starting line.

26:43SPEAKER_01:The point is, can you have enough guts and courage to believe that something that's out of reach can one day become within reach? And yes, that means you need to have honest conversations with yourself. Where are you right now? What can you commit to? That's fine. That's great. You can do that with yourself, you can do that with your coach. It's essential you have these conversations because the goal is to set yourself up for consistent success. Now, consistent success doesn't mean only success.

27:15SPEAKER_01:There will be failure on the way to success. Absolutely, even ultimate success. The point is, can you set yourself up to experience consistent success? Because if you experience consistent success, there's a better chance you're going to keep coming back to the starting line knowing there's the possibility that you will fail. Maybe you can, maybe you can't. But if you can set yourself up intelligently, coherently, with a great training plan, or just with the right mindset, then you're going to have a better chance at achieving consistent success because the opposite happens with consistent failure than with consistent success.

27:50SPEAKER_01:If you're consistently setting yourself up for failure by trying to do something that right now you cannot do, not maybe you can't, maybe you can, you just cannot do. Like for instance, I ran with my daughter today. I'm in Washington, D.C. I can't stay with her for an entire run. Her easy pace is like my tempo run pace. And if we're being honest, it's more like my race pace at this point, like a 5K race pace. So we were running and we were like 20 minutes into the run.

28:18SPEAKER_01:I said, you need to keep going. I'm gonna turn around and walk back. And when you finish your run, you can just run by me and you know, we'll do a selfie and a hug and all that good stuff. But I can't run with you anymore. Now, if I went into this saying I'm gonna run the entire six miles with her, no, I can't do that. I physically cannot run six miles with her when she's running her easy run pace. I can't do it. And I wasn't gonna make her run at my pace.

28:44SPEAKER_01:I I don't want her to run at my pace. I want her to do her run that's best for her, which means I can run with her for about 20 minutes. And it's basically like a very, very hard tempo for me. So I basically went in and said, I'm not running easy today, I'm running a tempo run, and I can do it for about 20 minutes, which is not as far as she's going. So I can't run with her the whole time. I set myself up for success. This was something I knew I was capable of doing.

29:11SPEAKER_01:And if I can push to the outskirts of what I'm capable of, that's how I'm going to improve. So that's what you need to do is stop believing you can't, start believing you can, and that starts with you being honest and a supporter of yourself. It starts with you setting yourself up for success. It starts with you trying to make sure you're consistently achieving success. And if you can do that, what you're gonna find is that your success progresses along with your fitness, which means I can go twenty-five minutes with her maybe next time.

29:49SPEAKER_01:Maybe I can go thirty minutes with her next time. Am I ever going to be able to run with her at her pace for her easy runs consistently? No. This girl has far surpassed me. I'm never going to catch up to her again. I used to have a lead on her, she caught up, and she went by me. My goal is not to try to run as fast as her, as far as her, as well as her. My goal is to try to enjoy runs with her for as long as I can without setting her back. And without setting me back.

30:22SPEAKER_01:And that starts with me believing I can. I just need to know what I can and cannot do, and I need to factor in a nice healthy dose of maybe I can, maybe I can't there too, which is just code for belief in faith, taking risks, and being open to surprising myself. So, there you go, a whole list of things you can stop doing, which will help you start doing better things. Alright, that's episode 144. And thank you as always for listening. Thank you for rating and reviewing.

30:54SPEAKER_01:Thank you for being a part of this community. And thank you for listening to Coach Bennett's podcast. Now you go take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I'll meet you on the next starting line. Thank you so much for listening to Coach Bennett's podcast today. And if you haven't already subscribed or set yourself as a follower to the podcast, I really hope you would. And make sure you check out the show notes, because in those show notes, you're gonna find a link to Coach Bennett's newsletter and all the social media sites I'm on, like Instagram and Threads and Cameo and Blue Sky and Tw Nope, not on that one anymore.

31:31SPEAKER_01:So all the ones I am on, you're gonna find it in the show notes, so check that out as well. And as always, thank you again for listening to Coach Bennett's podcast. Until next time, you keep taking care of yourself and each other.