Tuning your Progress

In completing my interval training plan for the Snowman Trek today, I was reminded that the pursuit of a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal; Collins & Porras, HBR, vol 74, 1996) can be inherently emotionally exhausting because of its required characteristic of being emotionally compelling. My experience in “doing stuff” has taught me that progress need not result in exhaustion and a subsequent surrender of one’s goals, or huge reconstruction of milestones to stay on track. I have found that by remaining aware and present, I am able adopt a certain natural rhythm that defeats exhaustion. I operate neither in an agitated state of stressful excitement, nor in a flagging state of waning energy. I find my natural “Middle Way” and continue apace.


The notion of the “Middle Way” in the Buddhist tradition derives from a story (actually there are a number of similar stories) about a musician adjusting the strings of his sitar. When wound too tightly, the sitar strings produced a sound that was high and tense. When, in turn, the strings were wound too loosely, the sound was low and lacked vitality. It was when the strings were wound somewhere in the middle that the most lovely and harmonious of sounds was produced.


So, back to my training day . . . one-and-a-quarter-hours in duration, executing lactate threshold intervals. I devised a plan of mixed fifteen-minute intervals (two each) of running and rowing. What I hadn’t anticipated was that the heat and hills would quickly push my run intervals to the top of my training heart rate, while my rowing intervals would have me operating at the lower end. Overall, I wanted to see 70% on my heart rate monitor. What I was blinking up at me instead was 96% at the high end of my running and 60% at the low end of my rowing. I decided not to fret the heart rate, just go with what felt right in my training. For the duration I stayed aware of my body and fully present in the experience of the intervals. And at the end of the hour and fifteen minutes, my heart rate average was a lovely 76%! My body had been able to find the “Middle Way” when my mind let go of the fight to make it so. I had settled into a propelling energy by becoming aware and letting go of my expectation of a certain number on my heart rate monitor.

So it goes in working toward our goals. When we get too caught up in perfectly executing the plan (especially when there is a qualitative factor), we start to feel tense and anxious. Not enough attention to where we’re going and we lose the energy to achieve. It’s when we can relax into the “Middle Way” – trusting the “feel” at times -- that we can come back to the harmonious center. I found the “Middle Way” today when I became fully present in the intervals and let go of focusing on the upper and lower limits of my training heart rate. In what experience can you be more present? What can you release to find your “Middle Way” in the journey toward your BHAG?

Snowman Training Notes: Interval training of 15 minutes outdoor running, 15 minutes rowing on a rowing machine, 15 minutes of running and 15 minutes of rowing + three, five-minute transitions. Total training time: 1:15.

Thought for the day: “I like to find the rhythm in things.” ~Tiko Kerr