If you’re around NP in Boston long enough, you eventually hear someone say, “The stadium never gets easier, you just get better at it.”
It’s a pretty wise statement. The height of the stairs in the stadium never get shorter and a full tour will always be a full 37 sections. (even if we have to creatively repeat exactly 3 and a half shortened sections to add up to a full tour of stairs, like we did today) Just like the grade of Summit Ave. never flattens out, and a 5k is always a 5000m, and a marathon is always 26.2 miles. The hard shit we tackle doesn’t get easier because those things are the measuring sticks against which we test ourselves. We grind and fight to finish sections each week, we pound along all those steps-after-steps to finish the miles each week, and we challenge ourselves to do all the work because it makes us better.
The human body is designed to stand up to challenge, to adapt and learn to be better–it’s what allows us to survive. When we lift something heavy, our muscles strain and eventually feel tired or sore. And then something kind of magical happens–the tiny cells that make up our muscles respond by repairing the muscle tissue not back to where it was, but to just a tiny bit stronger than it was. It’s our bodies’ way of saying, “oh yeah? That’s what you got? Well, that was hard but gimme a second, I’ll be ready for more next time.” This is the process by which we get stronger, faster, fitter…better.
But here’s the thing, you just get better when you continue to show up to do the work. We all know how shitty it feels to run the stadium once, feel sore as hell and then not run the stadium again for a few weeks/months. (who else could barely walk after their first stadium workout??) Or how it feels when you’ve been away from Wednesday workouts for work or family or for fill-in-the-blank #excuses, and then you do your first stadium in a while. You certainly don’t feel like you’re getting better at those freaking stairs.
However we just make incremental progress when we keep running the stairs. When we actually practice week after week. I remember taking erg tests in college–it’s the rowing machine that we used to train on, off the water, and which allowed us to measure our speed as individual rowers. The erg test consisted of 2000m of all out speed, just like when we race the full tour on #PRday. The theory on my team was that as long as you went to practice every day, your time for your erg test would get better each time just because you did the work and you had more practice taking the damn test. Which means, you gotta put in the time to show up regularly, and you gotta be willing to race your face off.
And when you do commit to getting better, you find yourself saying that same wise thing that someone told you early on. It doesn’t ever really get easier, but this whole #community and movement is built on the fact that when you #justshowup, you just get better.
Let’s keep getting better, friends. See you on Friday.
announcements:
remember if you’re #verbaling for Monday and have been to all the Monday workouts at LoveJoy Wharf, make sure you comment on Monday’s album, or on this album on FB with #3for3
Track your time for #PRday in the tracker…here!
