Laura Smith Writer

Road to the TCS NYC Marathon: 3. Training in the Moment

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It is summer and I am a teacher. Which means that I do not have income coming in, but I do have hours of free time to focus on my training. Less than one month from now I will return to my hectic schedule: waking at 4am to attempt a morning run, a full day of teaching followed by coaching, and concluding with an evening of planning and prepping for the next day of classes. Which leaves me very little time for marathon training. And even though I still have almost a full month of smart (stretching, biking, icing, massage, and yoga) training, my mind is already thinking ahead to the days when I might not have the time to complete those activities that keep me happy and injury free. For example, I have been sleeping 8 full hours per night. I have been warming up for my runs and stretching afterwards. I have been cross training and foam rolling. In other words, I have been training the smart way. And it feels good. Injury pain has subsided a bit and I have energy throughout the day. The question is: How does one take care of one’s body and work more than full time while training for 26.2? In the absence of the answer to that question, I also need to know how I stay in today, enjoying every minute of self care and recovery that the summer months afford? 

The Berkely Institute of Well-Being has a great blog post about staying in the now which includes 14 tips to stay present. The article by Tchiki Davis can be found here. Davis explores ways to practice mindfulness, and includes videos and exercises to help us to stave off anxiety and return to the present. One of her tips is to practice gratitude. This simple act of fosusing on what one is grateful for returns us to the present moment. Today I am grateful for this working computer, the ability to write and share my journey with you, this porch on which I sit, and the glorious summer day I have in which to write (and train). While practicing gratitude for the present moment this summer day, I can also look at how I can lessen my work load a bit, so that I can continue the healthy habits I have cemented during my vacation. Can I assign fewer gradeable assignments for the first few months of the school year or do I really need to be coaching in the Fall? What might my life look like if I attempted balance? To be continued! 
 

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● About Me

I wrote and published my first blog post on May 26, 2009. I was about to turn 36 and had been accepted to Mount Holyoke College as a non-traditional student, on my way to completing a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Medieval Studies. I had managed, finally, to know what general direction I was traveling. As a self proclaimed voracious reader I knew that I needed a vocation that would allow me to engage daily with words: reading words, writing words, and hearing words. I also needed to eat, so I navigated my way to a teaching position and I began to fine tune my craft. I love to teach and I love my students, but I also needed to continue to hone my own literary technique, voice, and style. I continued my education in order to delve deeper into literature, making connections, and most definitely, writing. I gained more confidence as a reader as well as a writer of both creative and analytical text. That first blog post in 2009 is short, the writing average, and the topic mundane, but as I continued to learn from other writers I began to understand that to become a better writer I needed to write more. Each time I write and release a poem, a post, or a story, I hone my skills. I invite you along for the ride, for this journey of mine as I attempt to wrangle a wealth of ideas and competing directions into an organized freshly paved path to publication. I might get distracted along the way, but sometimes those detours lead us to amazing views and new friends. 

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