 Alright guys, today I want to talk about my strengths and weaknesses as a runner. The things that are making me better equipped to be a runner, maybe get competitive one day, but also the things that are holding me back maybe permanently or at least at the moment and how they interact and you know just to give an overall picture of me as a runner, pros and cons, strength and weaknesses, let's get into it. Alright, so we all have strengths and weaknesses, that's inevitable. The question is how we work with those strengths and weaknesses. Let's jump right in, I have some notes down here, I'm gonna peek down at them at times and we'll start with a strength, actually what I believe to be my biggest strength as a runner and that is my motivation. My motivation is sky high, it's borderline obsessive, I am obsessed about running, I love it, it's interesting which we'll get into, I've always had a passion for running actually, looking back at my childhood, I was always interested in the idea of running, I used to watch it on TV with my dad, he was a runner and so running has always been a part of my life, I've always been somewhat interested in it and in the later years it's really become a great passion of mine. So my motivation and the resultant drive to succeed as a runner is probably my biggest asset because it means that I don't need motivating music to get out there, I don't need to kick myself in the back in order to get out, I am motivated inherently, I need to almost motivate myself to not run, so in order to hold me back from not training too much because if I could I would just train all the time, I absolutely love running and I love training, so my motivation is my biggest asset and I think compared to a lot of other runners it's really a big strength for me. Another one of my big strengths is my structured approach to training, I'm very good at planning, I love planning, I've always been good at planning, making lists, laying out a plan, that's one of my big strengths because in the sport of running and actually in any endeavor you do, if you want to be successful you got to have a plan, you just got to have a plan and the ability to sort of gauge when to do something and when not to do something is really key and it's something that's become a profession for me now of course as I'm launching my running coaching business, I'll put a link to it here if you're interested in training programs, online coaching, anything like that, it's one of my skills that I value in myself and I believe it's really key in succeeding, of course in most cases elite runners will have a coach doing that part and then they will just be the athlete and whether or not that's a pro or a con for me that I'm actually self-coached, I don't know we'll see as I progress as a runner if I at one point maybe I will need a coach but I do like the idea of coaching myself, I'm very maybe I'm a control freak to a certain extent, I do like to be in control of my own training, I don't know if that's a strength or a weakness, maybe it's a weakness actually perhaps but yeah my skills in terms of planning, training structurally and of course being very goal-oriented, having very clear goals, that's some of my strengths as well. All right so let's go through some weaknesses, we'll go back and forth a little bit but here's the biggest weakness I believe that I have and that is that there's something wrong with me okay, I don't know, I don't have a diagnosis or anything like that but my whole life I've struggled with certain issues like I cannot tolerate stress as much as my brother Mass for example or other people that I encountered seems to me that my body particularly I think my nervous system is not quite where it should be okay so my whole I had epilepsy as a kid so I did have a brain injury from a traumatic fall that or the fact that I was actually almost dead or I was dead when I was born I like my heart stopped and there might have been some brain injury I don't know but whether it's from there or from the fall either way I do have a brain injury and I did have epilepsy as a kid whether or not that still plays a role today it could be certainly there is something wrong with me I don't know how how how else I would describe it I have to be very careful to monitor my blood sugar that doesn't get too low that sort of thing I have to be very careful not overexerting myself especially if I'm in the sun all day or something like that I don't tolerate heat as well as other people I have to take great care to recover well and to sleep a lot I need a little bit more sleep than most people do I think at least compared to my brother I definitely need about an hour or even more 90 minutes more than maths per night so this sort of plays into how my nervous system maybe is not functioning at optimal capacity and of course this is this is unrelated to nutrition per se because I was this my whole life and I have been eating differently in the past but it has actually improved when I shifted to a vegan fruit based diet I definitely most definitely have been getting better but I'm still not a hundred percent so I think that's a weakness in the sense that I have to be very careful when it comes to training and I do think it's related to the nervous system could in later years it could also of course be related to x-ray bar virus or it could be related to some sort of immune situation autoimmune even we don't know but I tend to think that it has to do mostly with my brain and nervous system but anyway so that's a big weakness for me it holds me back from training hard I don't think I can train as hard as someone else so I have to be careful which brings me to a strength actually that I've written down here and that is uh where is it conservative training approach right because I have to back off a little bit I can't do the hardest hardest training I can't do like three or four hard session per week I tend to do better with like two workouts per week but I do think that's a strength actually in the long run no pun intended it is a strength because what you see a lot of times with runners that push and push and push and really train super hard is that yeah they may have great success over the course of a few years but they typically burn out it's very common in the sport that you know you get into over training syndrome or you simply just burn out or you lose interest which is actually just burning out in most cases so I think it's a strength for me that I'm holding myself back a little bit and training conservatively working to build that mileage and that intensity and that fitness over over many many years even decades because it allows me to progress healthfully and I believe it will allow me to have a long career without destroying my body so yeah it's a strength conservative training approach let's do another weakness one that's not so serious but still nevertheless is a weakness and that is my ankle mobility my ankle mobility especially on my right ankle is not good it's not super bad but it's not optimal either in terms of dorsiflexion so that means that I cannot write like when you're running you want to move you want to have a forward lean starting at the ankles and the more you're upright because of poor ankle mobility the more you'll move up and down vertical oscillation rather than forward when you're running and this affects your running economy so in some cases you can you can stretch you know the Achilles you can work on that mobility and you can improve and it actually goes away or you know you'll improve your ankle mobility but in some cases which I believe is the case in my situation is that it's actually limited on the front of the ankle by two bones bumping into each other and you can't do that much about it but maybe you can though there are people that say you can and I have been trying but I don't know we'll see over the next few years if I'm able to work on it and actually improve it maybe with the help of a physiotherapist we'll see could be able to turn that weakness into a strength but another small weakness is my varicose veins okay I don't know can show it to you I don't know if you can see it when I put my foot upside down but back here I don't think you can see it now but back here I have some really crazy varicose veins I'll put a picture actually so you can see it there and I don't know how I think might have come after I did knee operation like 15 years ago I think it appeared after that but it might also be related to my poor diet in my teens eating a lot of fast food meat and dairy and all that stuff but it's also probably genetic my dad has it in the exact same spot my grandfather has it as well so could be a genetic weakness and it means that I cannot transport blood back from the calf as efficiently to the heart probably a weakness but probably not a huge problem either let's do a strength now so one of the big strengths for me is my active childhood I was super active as a child I was always running around always playing and that's good and of course we have gym we call the gym it's basically PE class physical education once a week obviously at school I biked back and forth from school every day I walked back and forth every day we did I did plenty of different sports as a small kid and then eventually I started doing taekwondo which I did for 10 years almost a little more than 10 years I got the black belt when I was 16 and I was an instructor there for several years as well black belt instructor and yeah it was fun and and really really helped me I believe in developing a foundation of fitness strength mobility coordination huge from taekwondo and and we also did meditation and things like that so I believe it helped me a lot that the years I did taekwondo and and I also did a little bit of running as a child not not actually training but I did run around a lot and my dad was running marathons and stuff like that and sometimes he would take me along and we would run these little fun races for kids and stuff so I was you know introduced to the sport at an early age which is definitely a strength and yeah I used to like sprinting and so I was sprinting a lot in our you know in our little neighborhood with the other kids as a when I was a kid and we were just sprinting and all the whole time and I was actually one of the fastest sprinters actually I've almost never been beaten in a sprint in my whole life which actually you know could be seen as a strength because it's running after all but it could also indicate that I'm more fast twitch muscle fiber type of guy which which is not good if I want to get into long distance running marathoning which I am of course so possibly a weakness I don't know yeah my sleep and my health I believe is a strength and but I also said just just earlier that it's a weakness that I need more sleep because of how my body works and and stuff like that I'm a little bit more sensitive to things and stress but I do believe it's the strength that I prioritize sleep because so many athletes out there they do do not prioritize sleep and recovery as much as they do training but you cannot have gains without recovery all right so training and recovery goes hand in hand it's the same thing so that's the strength for me that I prioritize sleep it's also a strength that I prioritize recovery in general huge strength and just health overall I'm totally a health nut obviously and I'm into healthy living healthy nutrition healthy habits I don't do much unhealthy activities and so that's certainly a strength as a as an athlete for sure and that of course ties in with my my diet which I also believe is a strength my nutrition plan you know eating a high carbohydrate diet great for runners essential actually for any endurance athlete a lot of fruit which is full of antioxidants and nutrients and it's really our human natural human food right we are fruit divorce by nature really and so a high carb diet lots of plant foods all plant foods actually I'm a vegan obviously and I do believe that is a strength you'll recover better in my opinion and you'll just overall get better nutrition as long as you of course do take certain supplements which are necessary not because you're a vegan but just because of the way we're living in today's society I do believe some supplements are essential and I do take those supplements so overall my health recovery nutrition plan is just very solid and I believe is a huge strength for me as a runner back to some weaknesses um my age right I did get started pretty late as I said I've always been running a little bit but I had a huge hiatus from any type of sport in my 20s so I was just not doing anything literally I was just smoking weed and eating I was a vegetarian actually but I was not eating healthfully and the weed was a benefit to me I believe I evolved a lot in those years spiritually mentally emotionally I learned so much about myself I didn't feel like I had an abusive relationship to the herb and it was a good time of my life but but health wise and and fitness wise it was really not that good my health and fitness went down the drain and so that's a that's a problem of course because I did build up a lot of base fitness in my teenage years and as a child with the taekwondo and overall just being active and I lost a lot of it I think in my 20s but then I got back into it and since I was 30 I've focused on running especially the last two years I've had a good consistent block of training and I've made huge gains as you know on this channel as you follow me here and so but I am 33 now I'm turning 34 in just a few months and that means you know I am old in the sense of sport but I do you know Kipchoge he says he's 34 but I think there's a lot of people agreeing that you know he's probably more like 40 and Kenesisa Bekele is 37 he just ran a almost a world record at the marathon I definitely believe it's possible for me to reach peak fitness at around 40 so I have six more years to really build my fitness towards the peak of my life which would probably happen around 40 and then we'll see if I'm able if I'm able to be competitive in some some way or another most of all I just love running so it's okay anyway but I would like to be competitive of course wow this is becoming a long video but all right if you're still here with me I appreciate it I really appreciate you watching these videos if you maybe if you're interested in more exclusive content because if you're still watching it means you're a fan probably of the channel and of the content and if you want more I actually do monthly Q&A videos over at Patreon I'll put a link to Patreon here you can sign up you get access to exclusive content you pay like five dollars or whatever per month and you get access to that it's like a little inner insiders club if you will maybe you'll be interested in checking that out and of course if you're still watching and you haven't subscribed you better subscribe let's do some more and then we'll finish it up so let's do a strength understanding physiology that is a huge strength for me I think because I do pride myself in being quite intellectually advanced I guess academic I don't know I've always been into learning and reading and over the last five years or so I've been totally interested in physiology human physiology anatomy as well biochemistry a little bit and now in the last few years exercise physiology which means that I have a very thorough understanding of why we do certain things in training and how it affects us and how we can modify the training to give us the best possible result from a physiological standpoint and so I do believe that's a strength because it means I'm better able to coach myself as I said earlier there I'm not just a coach who's coaching myself and others you know I do coach others as I mentioned just a reminder the link is in the description if you want to check out my coaching website so as a coach for myself and others it's important for me to understand why certain things are done okay so I do believe that's a strength that I understand the physiology aspects of things um let's do a weakness and then we'll finish up with a strength so yeah my my I'm pretty tall that's a weakness I'm I'm 183 183 centimeters I think it's about six feet it's pretty tall which is not a great thing if you're going to be a marathoners you know marathoners are usually a little bit shorter I have large feet huge feet they're like size 46 47 which is like 12 12 and a half I think in the US pretty big and again if you want to run fast marathons and stuff you want to have as least as the least possible weight on the ends of your extremities so your feet the lighter they are the better and so we're all trying to get as light as possible when it comes to shoes well if your foot is huge it will weigh more and that would be like having a heavier shoes so you know ideally I would have smaller feet but I don't they're also very wide which makes it difficult for me to find running shoes that fit I do find that the hoca shoes especially the wide versions they fit me quite well and some of the ultra shoes also fit but I've come to enjoy the having a little bit more heel to toe drop lately actually partly because of my ankle mobility it sort of allows me to come forward a little bit and not stress that ankle joint as much yeah I mentioned earlier my sleep I do have poor quality of sleep I think it relates back to my nervous system and the way my body works which means that I need more sleep so that's a that's a weakness but as I said earlier I think that's sort of that that is this has forced me to prioritize recovery I need to prioritize recovery I need to prioritize sleep I need to prioritize diet and nutrition because if I don't things are not really going very well for me okay so in my teens and even early 20s my health was not really good I was sick a lot I was not I was tired all the time and I think this had had to do with the fact that I didn't prioritize all those as other aspects whereas some other people might be able to get away with less sleep and just taxing their bodies more I couldn't so the fact that I can't do that means that I have to prioritize it but but at the end of the day I think that's a strength because it gives me an edge actually prioritizing recovery as an athlete we'll finish up with the last one on the strength side of things and that is my willingness to go all the way and that comes back to the first point which was my motivation I'm willing to go all the way okay I am super inspired and motivated about this journey as a runner and I want to take it as far as I possibly can okay that is probably the biggest strength there is almost when you look you know maybe you could say physiological things like muscle fiber composition and you know VO2 max and stuff like that is more important and in a sense it is but if you don't have the motivation if you don't have the drive if you don't have the willingness to go all the way all that stuff is useless you know so much better to have a physiologically weaker athlete that's super motivated than a physiologically stronger athletes that that's not motivated at all I feel like my English is really bad in this video I don't know why okay but you get what I'm saying right so like the best either way motivation and drive is it's really key and I have tons of it so that's it I I enjoy this journey as a runner I love having you guys with me of course here documenting my documenting my journey and I don't know how many actually watched this video to the end if you did please leave a comment tell me you watched the video to the end it will make me so happy to hear that even though I think most of most of the viewers probably didn't but that's okay share some thoughts in the comments maybe about strengths or weaknesses that you have as a runner or if you have some thoughts about some of the strengths and weaknesses that I have feel free to share in the comments that's it for today as I've mentioned two times already my website as a running coach is down below and if you're interested in me coaching you I'll help you to get to where you want to go if you have any goals running goals you want to run a race you want to run a specific time we can get really down to business make a plan all the details I love that stuff hit me up on the website if you're interested in that all right thanks for watching have an awesome day