If you are familiar or have a GPS gadget in your car or in your iPhone/Android Apps (not in your Garmin Forerunner watch), you would know about the word.

Once you set your destination on the said GPS and push the button “GO”, you are “locked” to the said place and the GPS will do the rest for you by taking the fastest route (or sometimes, the less traffic route) and it will lead you exactly to your destination. However, if you miss a street or a turn, a voice of a lady would be be audible and you would hear the word, “recalculating”!

The word, Recalculating, will warn you that your GPS will correct your mistake and finally, bring you on course to your destination.

At this point in my running career as an average runner, I am on a “recalculating” mode after missing a “turn” or missing an “exit” along the highway. In long distance running, those “missed turns and exits” could be similar to mistakes in training; injury; plateau in competition; wrong choice of running shoes and apparel; wrong coach; wrong attitude; wrong company of running friends; wrong goals/objectives; boredom; wrong values; wrong choice of races; wrong focus; or simply, wrong choice of living the life!

So, “recalculating” mode would mean to me as rest and recovery; change in training; change in one’s strategy in racing, nutrition & hydration; changes in Race Directing; changing in one’s attitude; changing one’s values; changing one’s outlook in life; or simply said, completely “overhaul” of what I’ve learned and doing before. Recalculating is Changing!

With my running and preparation for my next race, I have embarked on a different approach which I’ve been doing for the past one week. This kind of training will take me at least 3 months to determine and test if it is working for me. I hope that the duration of 3 months would completely bring back my aerobic endurance base. I really need PATIENCE in this kind of training.

Give me three (3) months before I could post in this blog if I am improving or not. Knowing that running is an experiment of one, I hope this kind of training approach and philosophy will guide me towards more years of living and be able to fulfill my “dreams and bucket list” in running. (Note: It does not mean that I will be out from blogging from those 3 months!)

Let us find time to think and ponder on the quotation below: