I can’t be your trainer
Thursday, June 11th, 2009Over the past two and a half weeks, i’ve gotten carmen running with me. Carmen’s friends are impressed. They tell me they’ve never seen her run before.
anyway, it’s been going pretty well. we’ve been running three times a week. started at 20 minute runs and have worked our way up to 25 minute runs. actually, i should say that we started out with two back-to-back ten minute pieces and have worked our way up to one consecutive 25 minute run. We’ve progressed decently.
Are we where I think we should be after two and a half weeks? not really. I’m impatient, i know. We haven’t quite gotten to doing core work, push-ups, and squats that i’d like to introduce. We haven’t gotten to the stuff that really hurts. I’d love to get there, but i can’t be her trainer.
I can’t be her trainer because trainers need the latitude to make you cry.
Maybe it’s the militant way I was brought up in sports, but the only way i know how to get results is by breaking down the walls of rational thought. Crying is a pretty effective mean to that end. It’s like breaking a horse . . . almost. It doesn’t sound nice, I know. And it’s not that everyone has to cry. It’s more about being able to push them to that point.
The thing is, I know if i do make her cry, i’m the one that’s going to be hurting in the end, and maybe even our relationship will suffer. how much can you love a guy who makes you cry all the time? well . . . i guess she could develop some sort of stockholm syndrome or something.
anyway, the other day, it sorta happened. we got into an argument right before our run and i sorta left her in the dust for a good half a mile as i ran off some anger. eventually i calmed down a bit and realized what i was really doing. suddenly, this image of what she was experiencing, what it was like to see me running further and further away from her, popped into my head and my better nature came through. It wasn’t the sort of crying that you want to see, though. it was the “my boyfriend is a dick” crying instead of the “i’m so tired i’m going to puke” cry.
It also wasn’t a pleasant experience. We usually chat about our day while we run. It was total silence yesterday other than the occasional “watch out for the dog shit” signals. We didn’t talk much the rest of the night either. All-in-all pretty uncomfortable for a while.
We did, however, run a whole lot faster. We got about a minute thirty past our usual halfway point landmark, which means we found three extra minutes in a 25 minute run.
Was it worth it? The irrational in me says yes–it would have taken multiple weeks to reach that pace otherwise. Imagine how fast we could have run if it was the puke-crying! The rational says no–look at the cost! Inner conflict is so lame. We smoothed things out eventually. I think the cornish game hens i cooked up for dinner helped a bit. cooked in bacon fat with pearl onions.
moral of the story: maybe there are other ways to get people to perform, but making them cry sure is effective. and, no, I can’t be your trainer.
sub-moral of the story: i can be a real dick.
June 11th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
So, we’ve got that deal going on at home too.
Catherine was upset with me for setting a 1k goal for jumping rope for her. Not crying upset. More anger upset.
Kettlebell dude gave her 2k. She doesn’t cry for him. She just is now angry at me and at herself now for asking him.
I still didn’t get free.
But you can be her trainer, if you figure out the goals. Her goals probably aren’t yours. You might not be “work-out” buddies cause you’ll want to run at different speeds (kettlebells at different weights solves our issues) but you can be her trainer.
Just like you’re pushing yourself farther than you’d feel comfortable physically, in order to improve your fitness levels…you can push yourself further as a “trainer” and be her trainer for what she wants to do, instead of what you think she needs to do.
Last night, Catherine confronted me with “I’m doing more kettlebell workouts than you thought I would do!” And she was right, but I didn’t want to give her 100% satisfaction. For the same reasons you’re talking about here. Where you need to keep on breaking through what you think you couldn’t do and proving to yourself you could do it (like being her trainer…).
“Yeah. You are doing more than I thought you would do. But not as many as I want you to do.”
June 12th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Man, that’s a tough one. I had a similar experience with Tiffany and snowboarding. She said she wanted to learn how to snowboard so we went up to the mountains. I would slowly slide next to her, watching her fall over and over and over again. She took any tips I gave her and took them as me not being supportive. I’m not really sure what she wanted me to do as I was spending my day just riding next to her. After a lot of crying and a lot of frustration, i just gave up and let her ride with one of our friends. He gave her the exact same tips and all of a sudden she was receptive to them. This was especially frustrating because I’m used to “fixing things.” When I see a problem, I want to help fix it. When I had some time to reflect, I realized that sometimes I can’t be the one to fix it, even if I do have the solution. Hard thing to accept, but just one of the facts of life I guess.