 Hey guys, so a quick little running and life update for you guys here on the Lone Trail channel So if you follow me here and elsewhere on social media, you probably know that over the last few months I've been building up to my first marathon. It's been an exciting process I made huge running games and It's just been overall great until I experienced a big setback which forced me to go from plan A to plan B and Ultimately last week. I experienced yet another big setback Which forced me to go from plan B to plan C so that's where we're at right now and I want to share some of the insights and learning lessons that I've Experienced during this process Which you guys so that you can use them next time you experience a setback because setbacks are inevitable sometimes especially in the sport of running and Marathoning where you're just doing a few races every year and building up to them over a long time You know if anything goes wrong and it will there's always something that goes kind of wrong in a build-up Then you will have to be able to deal with that in a constructive way, so I Guess I'm giving you kind of a life update I'm telling you what happened for me But also sharing some of the lessons that I learned so you can apply them in your life So let's get into it All right, so quick long story short kind of thing I was Going everything was going along very nicely. I was gaining fitness. I was feeling good. I was training. Well, and then Suddenly I started getting dizzy. So I had and it's still on going so for like six weeks now I've been having this busy feeling very strange and and it came out of nowhere and It's not an obvious nutritional deficiency or anything like that. I've done blood tests. Everything is normal And there's nothing that stands out as an obvious Cause although I have many theories, of course, not gonna get into those today, but Point is it sort of made me Have to reevaluate my training. I lost a few training days of even a training week in there But still trained, you know halfway consistently didn't lose too much fitness But it had to it forced me to go from plan A to plan B and and seeing that my sub three hour goal on the marathon was probably not gonna happen and I had to sort of settle with maybe running a little slower, but that was okay But then last week I was hit with a fever. I had four days of pretty high fever and a stomach ache and Probably an infection probably not related to the original situation. I think it could be though. Who knows So that took me out for a week basically and yeah, so that sucks and That means that now we're just three weeks out from marathon And I've just had a week completely off being sick And it usually takes about a week for the body to get back into full swing again And you don't want to just like suddenly hit The body with like heavy training right after a virus infection of some sort So in order to preserve my health and be conservative and not take any risks with my health and I I'm going to have to postpone my marathon debut Unfortunately, I'm I don't feel like it makes sense for me to now Just two weeks out from a marathon start suddenly trying to catch up So that's pretty unfortunate and I will however probably still run the marathon, but I'm just I'm not considering it a race I'm gonna be running it pretty easy and Just to cover the distance as an easier long run, but you know, it's still disappointing. I wanted to run it hard I wanted to run fast and I can't do that or I'm choosing not to do that rather And I probably wouldn't be able to run very fast anyway because because I have I haven't been able to do the race specific training that's very important over the last six to eight weeks leading into a race so That's the situation. I I got depressed obviously when this happened I'm still kind of depressed sometimes about it. It sucks It's not cool to have to go through this and of course the health Situation in general just being sick With a fever, but also having the dizziness is just very frustrating, but that's just how it is sometimes and so after going through an initial phase of depression and sort of rejecting the situation and hoping that I would still be able to run the marathon I've now come to grips with the fact that I am not doing it and That's okay And so one of the big lessons that I've learned in this process is that it's important to have Several goals so several plans plan a b and c so my plan a was obvious But then plan b was that you know, I'll still race the marathon But I'll just not be able to hit my my predetermined goal of sub three or you know Perhaps another version of plan B would be I'm not racing that marathon, but I'm doing another one Somewhere else like a month later, right? That was another one of my plan B's and As as I went along with the the sickness the dizziness. I was sort of Constantly gauging, you know, okay if I'm if I get well by next week I can still make it in time for the marathon But if it takes two weeks, I have to scrap that marathon and do the other marathon, etc so the idea of having several plans and Getting inspired about all of them. I think that's a big sort of takeaway here To not be locked down and it has to be on that particular day Because marathon running and running in general. It's a sport where you know, there are setbacks I mean any sport will have setbacks, which means that you you will have to stay adaptable and Flexible with your training and a lot of times elite runners will not Actually, they won't actually decide which race they're doing Before like just a few weeks out or they might even sign up for several races and take the one that's most appropriate Depending on how their training went. So you've got to be flexible with training Psychologically, it's hard to have a setback And I don't know what to say about that other than you just have to give a time and you just have to accept The situation do your best to just accept the situation. Don't reject it. It is what it is, right? And here's an important thing to know The fitness that I built up over the summer leading into towards this marathon, it's not lost, right? It's in the bank. I've deposited kilometers in the bank and that's Helping to build my fitness now. I'm not race ready. I haven't done the last few weeks of the build up I haven't been able to You know, do the all the very very race specific training that's been the final week So I'm not sharp and ready to race But the base fitness with capillaries the mitochondrists the heart all those sort of base fitness Aspects they're there. I've built them up and they're there now That means that even though I've lost a little bit of fitness now from a week off and from inconsistent training last month I'll still be able To keep building on that and take it with me going forward so In the grand scheme of things and you got to realize I have a big long-term plan So if I'm missing this marathon, that's not the end of the world because there's More marathons to come and I'm probably doing a marathon next spring instead and I'm gonna crush it, right? So so going forward. I'm looking at the long-term Situation here and realizing that I can keep building on the on the fitness that I've already built So that's what I'm gonna do over the winter my plan then is to do an extended base training phase where I'm just taking My current fitness over the last few months that I've built over an extended base Marathon specific base phase and I'm just taking it with me going forward and I'll keep building I'll keep building the volume over the winter. I'll get up to 100 110 120 Maybe even 130 kilometers per week by the summer. I'll be going to miss and France next week That's a good place to train. That's where I was gonna do marathon Of course, I'll still do the marathon probably as an easy long run Which will be again part of my big aerobic base building phase over the winter and then after Christmas I'll come home for Christmas and then I'll go to La Palma on the Canary Islands And that's a great place as well to just run in the mountains between the volcanoes And just build that aerobic base like like a champion So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take my current current fitness and bring it forward with more volume Easy running build up that body build up the strength and then we'll just add a little bit of a race specific Build up, you know, eight weeks, 12 weeks Next spring and then we'll be ready to to hit it Then instead and we'll be crushing three hours. No doubt. I'm gonna go sub three In the spring instead. That's probably for certain. I think So as you can see, I'm actually quite excited about my current situation. I've been able to Turn around from a disappointment and frustration To something like, you know what? That's okay I'm gonna go and I'm gonna do my best in just building A strong base because that's the main thing right for me at this point early in my career I want to build a strong base. So the fact that I'm not able to race this autumn sucks But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't even matter And as long as I can get my health back and I can get this dizziness thing under control Which hopefully will happen soon I'll be fine. So takeaway When you're hit with a setback be flexible have a plan a plan b in a plan c Look at your possibilities and accept your situation moving forward And realize that just because you're losing a week or two or three or even a month of training It doesn't mean that all the training you did was in vain You're bringing it with you going forward and it's all part of the Deposits that you're making into the aerobic bank accounts that you are building for For decades to be honest And and that's all good. Anyway, let's wrap it up. It's a beautiful Autumn day here pretty cold But beautiful very beautiful And yeah, I'm excited. I'm having a week off now It's the last week was a week off because I was sick and with Fever and everything and now I'm taking another week off training completely just to reset relax Make sure the body is healthy and then next week we'll start that slow build up Or base face, I guess you could call it In this France and just get serious about some volume Alrighty Thanks for watching Right if you I just want to mention a few things I guess a few plugs at the end here if you're interested in monthly q&a videos You should check out our patreon page I'll put a link to it here or in this and in the description as well Where we post monthly q&a videos and other little snippets updates As well as Coaching of course on mgjcoaching.com. There's a link in the description. So if you're interested in coaching I'd love to help you out with that So check out the links in the description and subscribe if you haven't done this already. Have an awesome day. See you around