Rediscovering My Grain

Why more isn't always better and how we sometimes need a different frame for training.

I opened the gate with a faint squeaky noise. Overlapping bells rang in the distance. At least a dozen. It was hot. Slight uphill. Enough to increase my effort into the moderate zone. As the gate closed behind me due to the gradient of the hill I saw a bunch of tiny horny silhouettes sitting against the bright blue sky underneath the two lonely trees on the hilltop. A tiny spec of shade. As I was passing the bundle of goats I reached the crest of the hill and the view over the valley was opening up. I couldn’t help myself feeling in awe.

I saw this view several times already. I wasn’t very high up. You could just look over the tiny village of Grainau and a bit further into the valley back to Garmisch where I started an hour earlier.

But it’s those moments that I love so much about running. You go out on paths you know and they are different each and every time. I never met those goats up there. I assume they are there nearly every summer. Yet, it seems I was never passing by during those times.

A few minutes later the sun had uninterrupted access to my skin. The usual 20 minute stretch home without a tree in sight. After roughly half of it I realised I wasn’t thinking anything. I was just zoned in on the rhythm of my footsteps. The countermovement of my upper body while my stride opened up. I observed this feeling for a while.

Natures grain

Running didn’t feel like that since ages. I wanted to be able to access this moment again.

If you love running so much and you can’t do it like you used to do you go through several phases. Right now I’m in the – lets call it – fuck-it-I-build-slow-and-consistently-phase. I start to like it. Running a lot feels like ages ago and therefore every moment I can get I experience with a deep gratitude. I also kind of forgot what it felt like to run over 10 hours a week. That being said it’s not like I’m not running. I do run four times per week right now. On two other days I cycle. And one I rest. I always have one fixed rest day - no matter how much I train. So in a sense I’m back to my previous rhythm. I also added two strength days (not overdoing that for now) and reintroduced a daily mobility routine.

If I purely look on what I do, nothing will change from that in the coming months. Ok, I might add a third strength day and slowly replace cycling with running, but besides that the moments I go out and when I do what is kind of the same every week.

In a sense I have found my grain. What works for my unique circumstances 90% of the time. Sure some weeks I might not get mobility in right in the morning, but mostly I do.

So now it’s about fine tuning said grain. Add a bit more time to some of my runs when I feel like my body handles everything well and I feel good more often than not. No rush. I’m going out every day after all.

Does it really matter if it’s 30 minutes or 60? Yeah for overall fitness maybe it does. But to move my body and feel like I’m someone who takes a step in the right direction more often than not, this is more than enough.

In the end it’s about meeting unexpected goats around the corner, enjoying the unique moment you could just witness and then increasing the chances for more such moments.