Anxiety and Elite Sprinting

Official Notices
21

Oh I am off to see if I am able to assist a lovely family from Ukraine.

I have some interesting stories to share… get out the popcorn…LOL

Oh, happy day for all the dad’s and parents and people donating their time and energy and cells towards advancing the journey we call living in this time and place.

KINDNESS = that was the one thing James’s father wanted him to pratice outside of what he should or should not do and outside of anything.

Are you doing onto one another as we might like others to do onto us?

We don’t need a book to be kind, put the weapons away and enjoy one another and empathize with one another.

22

I have taken meds for being white but not black yet. LOL. It’s terrible. I never asked to be white or female or anything. I just wanted to play in my parents back yard and look up at the sky and giggle all day and eat cookies and see who I would be able to beat on the swings…

The medicine I have taken for anger has been self care. The only person who ever taught me that was Charles Merrick. Some of you know him as Coach Charlie Francis. I have never been particularly good at self care. He was better at it than I was but i knocked him off his game i suspect as I am a self admitted control freak. ( huge surprise for those of you who’ve stuck around long enough to watch the dust settle).
Anger, especially a continuous dose, has nasty side effects. i know this as I think my anger started after grade 8 and at the start of grade 9. Yikes.

23

I have been juggling the purchase of a new car while dealing with my dog’s surgery.
Shopify has changed many things QUICKLY so it’s Ange go big ( or bigger ) or ange go home. ( not going anyplace yet… Shopify isn’t telling us or you and me what to do or how to adhere. Clearly there are other options ffs)

WHAT IS WORSE THAN HAVING ANXIETY?

( I am not going to tell you that yet. Let’s see if or whom might have the courage to engage with us or me or at least take a shot at answering this. Why not? If I spoon feed you the answer ( we all want spoon feeding in some ways LOL but likely no one is able to admit it with awareness) likely you are not going to think about this as much as I would like to invite you to do so…

24

What’s worse than having any issue ( including anxiety)is NOT knowing you suffer from the multiple facets of *brain health issues.

You have heard this expresssion?

Your best offense is a good defense?

Your best defense is a good offense.

LEAVE no stones unturned people.

On the track or off the track, does not matter until it matters. Fix your shit or it will fix you. Choose what you get to choose NOW.

Why stand on the tracks unless you have to?

I signed up for what I signed up for. It’s taken me almost until now to realize how powerful we are.

This is one of my favorites.

" Our body wants to heal itself. So if we are suffering from anything, WHY are we not healing? What might be standing in the way?

trama
injury known or unknown
inflammation due to poor food choice
inflammation due to undiagnosed tick bite
poor sleep quality ( who snores? / you might want to test for sleep apnea. ( this is why I started practicing nasal breathing to reduce my anxiety. Our breath changes when we feel stress, good and bad stress or change will also influence oxygen to your main hard drive YOUR BRAIN.
the list goes on and on so I will be adding as we go…

I had the best coach in the world coaching me and it’s taken me a lifetime to learn to really relax and breathe properly and have some fun.

Was it because of x or y or z? Fill in the blank for you?

Who cares. Today is a new day and today you get to go pick shit that matters to you. You don’t even have to share it with anyone. Write it down if you want or not. Share it or not. HOPEFULLY, you have at least one person to share stuff with. EVERYTHING with.

Why? well a better question might be why not?

There is no way I could have been all things for my late husband nor should we try this as partners.

We need friends and family and community and organized fun and disorganized fun and education and work and children or not and pets or not ( who doesn’t want pets? LOL)

You want to be your own world record holder? OLY champ or national hero? Focus on you first and get to know how fabulous you are outside of your mom or dad if youve been lucky enough to know them or have them know you. Focus on how you roll and how you could be if x, y and z changed?

DO not lose hope.
Hope is all and be prepared to do the work.

EVERY one, including our pets have some kind or form or duration of anxiety.

WE are going to learn some of the things that make anxiety work for us and some of the things that give anxiety a bad wrap.

( * brain health term I learned from Tana and Daniel Amen. A partnered team who offer enormous free info from their newsletter regarding brain health. Having negative stigma around anxiety or what we no longer wish to call “mental health issues”, does not help anyone except drug pushers and ill informed helpers who stand to profit from YOUR issues. )

Learn your own stuff and do it sooner than later as the more we go get now the smoother life gets today.

peace all. hugs all. chin up and go get some fresh air and take it easy on you.

25

Major tranquilizers are used to sedate certain brain health issues.

Let’s think about that for a second.

Here are 3 things that healthfully tranquilize me and or are effective for Angela Coon. ( I can only speak for me as I am no body or no mind and I am nothing)

  1. love, love making, love talk, loving, love, love and did I mention LOVE
  2. Sex consensual sex, fun sex, sex with someone you like, feel happy about, sex with you as first you need to know how to please you
  3. Nutrient delivery LOL ARE you over fed and under nourished?
  4. dancing, playing, reminiscing, sharing, caring, appreciating, eating, with somebody or alone or with nature

Did I say 3 or 4 or how do we integrate the plan into our day?
Do we integrate these things into our day and play and work?
WHat have you done for yourself LATELY?

26

Are drugs needed for anxiety and depression and are drugs needed and necessary fun stop?

heck yeah. I think drugs are AMAZING for some people. Thank you to science and innovation and technology.

Does Amazon have good reason to prevent people from buying emergency contraceptives?

I cancelled cable years ago now.

Today I am going to stop part of my relationship with Amazon.

I am not sure how Amazon is operating is a good thing for the balance of our happy places.

Thank goodness john carlos and rosa parks had ( have) courage

27

Why does no one want to talk about brain stuff?

It seems to really freak people out.

I met a very interesting man at the car show just before the pandemic. So many amazing cars and I was on a staycation avoiding the large hole in my old roof. I went to swim and have a hot tub and escape with pets and without travel as it was doable and easy.

His son was having issues and I tried to talk about it to him based on my interest in anxiety and how it’s connected with addiction. I could see and feel the shame and concern and that he was not wanting to talk out load about this.

Interesting fact.

Did you know that a great deal of people have had some kind of trauma and or anxiety or suffered loss or grief and pass it off as fast as they ate a homemade doughnut? ( I love homemade doughnuts)

28

Just because we might suspect we have or have had low grade depression or anxiety or another sigmitized brain health concern, does not mean it’s bad.

What’s bad might be not realizing this is going on for you because one of the biggest modes of human’s coping is DENIAL.

Denying oneself on purpose or not on purpose is one of the most common ways to cope.

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Running Velocity High Med Low insensity Chart
Running Velocity High Med Low insensity Chart828×1792 123 KB

Lack of sleep, poor sleep quality, mouth breathing at night or during the day or all the time, over fed yet you are not getting the right nutrients into your brain… I hate admitting this but both Charlie and I operated as though training solved everything.

As athletes training is what we do or did. As of 2022 I train similarly as I did as a athlete but I am not doing the volume as I did when I competed.

I have nothing to sell you regarding my sharing this part of part of the story of my life with and without James’s dad.

I am sharing it because I am able to share it as I believe it’s a much larger issue with athletes and I am not thinking it’s not talked about or discussed.

Why the shame or why are we so quick to talk about training but not so interested in talking about all the parts that make up the training process.

I had a master coaching me and loving me and I still and we still had stuff we had no idea about.

Part of that is that the brain is the new frontier and I believe we will be saying that for a while still moving ahead.

Did you know that the functional medical interested humans are proving that undiagnosed and unchecked anxiety leads to other issues like disease?

I started looking at brain health decades ago when I was frustrated with my son’s dad. My sister told me about a person who specialized in brain health, scanned brains for a living and explained varied issues about how we act and behave as brain chemical imbalances as well as some parts of the brain over work, while other parts of the brain are not working hard enough. Blood flow has a lot to do with the brain operation not surprisingly, hence why insane training for Ange Coon worked so well for her until it did not. I first realized exercise couldn’t solve all my issues after I had my son.

30

I have reposted a graph I have used in the past in various places but I think it’s a good idea to put this graph here now as I comment further on anxiety.
Rest, sleep and quality of sleep is a big part of getting results on the track. Too much anxiety that is not managed prevents us from sleeping well or stops us from fully benefitting from sleep at the right times of day. Our sleep cycles are connected to our natural hormones and as athletes we want all of hormones working for us 24/7. This is for sure something the Euopean coaches and training programs of the past knew so much more about than most countries and coaches as they had government run research.
The point regarding this graph is it’s one small piece but a very important piece to understanding the human body’s natural performance rules. I understand some sports outside of sprinting require a lot of repetition of aspects of their game and or sport. That doesn’t mean that this chart won’t benefit anyone interested in rest, recovery and how best to choose how they train, when they train and how they will use training in or outside elite sport or sprinting.

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EVERYONE benefits if and when able to perform low intensity exercise. Movement creates blood flow to our brains and more and consistent and frequent blood flow to the brain is now proving to be associated with improved wellness.

32

One of my favorite easy workouts for your off day, tempo days and NON speed days.

push up / sit up workout

2 sets of 10 x 100m on grass
Modified 2 sets of 6 x 100m ( not more than 5 minute break between sets)

10 push ups
20 varied sit ups

( today I did 2 sets of 6 x ~ 100m but only did 6 push ups)

if you are a competitive sprinter this workout will be easy.

The workout addresses your cardio fitness as well as your strength ( push ups) as well as core ( sit ups) as well as your running abilities mixed with these two exercises.

It’s highly modifiable for masters runners and great to get into shape or maintain your fitness.

33

An easy way to add medicine ball into your training

use a lighter ball and once you have jogged for 10 or so minutes you can take chest pass, side pass, over head pass and single arm left and single arm right ( think about shot putt throw or arm pull movement when you perform this easy exercise) and do 3 to 5 sets against a wall or a tree.

Today I did 3 sets of medicine ball once I jogged. I did not end up doing my usual drills of butt kicks and a skip or running A’s as it went very well Monday and my right foot needs a break right now.

I did
20 x chest pass
20 side left
20 side right
10 x single arm left
10 x single arm right
20 x overhead

I mixed in donkey kicks with trail leg left and right as well as side leg raises. I was a bit stiff and tight from not too many lunges on Monday.

back to the tree with my second set of medicine ball

30x chest
20 x over head
20 x single arm right
20 x single arm left
20 x side left and right

Another set of donkey side and kicks and rotations as before

Last set of med ball

same as last set but 100 chest pass against the tree
( my medicine ball is 4 lbs)

Early on when I first met Charlie I did a LOT of medicine ball work within the warm up similar to above but with him opposed to against a tree or cement wall. We would do the power speed drills and weave the medicine ball into that routine.

I love using the med ball to exercise and I prefer the leather as it’s nicer to use and I love how it’s complimentary to lifting weights.

34

When I first met Charlie and did a few workouts with Ben and Angella I was introduced to “their” warm up.

I actually thought to myself how cool it was that I was jogging faster then they were in the warm up and thought, "how could they be that good if I was already beating them in the warm up runs… Oh my goodness fricken me… I did come from a small town and I do think of myself as pretty smart but I will never forget that moment as it reminds me of some of what lots of athletes do not understand right away… …

Warm ups are LOW intensity. Ultra low.
easy, nothing needs to be forced and you should not have to try hard you just need to keep moving and don’t stop and save the stretching for later. If you are too tight and feel the “need” to stretch, do more after your training when you hottest and the most loose to prepare for next day.

The entire hour warm up for many ( outside of becoming an elite athlete) will act as a fitness builder. Another way to think of this is … if you are not able to routinely do a track warm up for 45 to 55 min each day because you are tired, you might want to look at your fitness.
Strides and drills and all the little exercises you may do are all supposed to be easy, work towards getting you warm and hot and loose and mobile. Squats, lunges in a warm up might be okay once you are far enough into your competitive years but outside of fall and or spring training those exercises can cause a fair bit of tightness and injury for young and or inexperienced or out of shape athletes.

Keep moving in your warm up, make sure you are dressed to allow your body to get and stay warm and mimic movements in the warm up that are movements you need as a sprinter.

And there is no shame in not being fit ( yet). But did you or have you done the work to prepare yourself to be fast and to perform speed 2 to 3 x a week?

( I have met people on track teams who run track and compete and think they are fit but can’t perform easy low intensity workouts like 2 sets of 2 x big circuit or 2 sets of push up sit up workout I just listed.

The reason hockey, football, basketball, tennis and soccer players at elite levels turn to track coaches for training is the combination of speed, power, flexibility and endurance all need to be performed to run, hurdle and jump or throw.