I’ve always been a fan of the ‘do what you can with what you have’ mentality when it comes to training. Airport in the morning? Okay, my morning yoga might get truncated, or, in some situations, skipped altogether because it’s a 4AM wakeup. But I’ll be honest, my usual training schedule when it comes to running? I’ve been pretty “good” about following it to the mile, every day, every week, every month. Until … lately. And honestly? It’s taught me a lot about what I really do consider ‘minimum viable training’ (MVT) and what I’ve been getting wrong.
I’ll admit, I’m a bit of an intense human. And this is where I got into trouble. Sure, I can MVT on my morning routine and even my strength training. But my mileage? My MILEAGE? That hurts. And that’s what happened these last few weeks. My mom was having surgery (she’s doing really well now, so all good!) and that meant going home for a while to help out. On top of that, I had book launch events for a few authors, a ton of work stuff, and a ton of life stuff going on. And that all led to a couple of crappy weeks for training.
Normally, I cram in training. I make the miles happen. This time? Wasn’t an option. That’s all well and good, life happens and sometimes we have to pivot. I had a couple of days where I had my usual 10 miler on the schedule, and that was when I learned that my MVT threshold needed a reset. If I couldn’t do 10 miles, what could I do instead? One day was a long travel day, so I skipped it rather than run at 7PM having just gotten to my parents. Fair enough. But the next day, when I was at the hospital waiting for mom to get out of surgery, I realized yes, a 10 miler right now didn’t make sense. But 30 minutes? I could slip out for that long. I did—and felt much better for it. But it felt wrong to only do 4 miles instead of 10. I could have handled 8, but 4? I admit, I had a moment of ‘why bother?’
Why bother? Because four is still better than zero.
So, I made myself start to lean into that for the week I was home helping out. Some days, I got my full run in. Other days, I didn’t. The world didn’t explode, my fitness didn’t crumble.
It was fine. And it taught me that something really is better than nothing—making the tiny window I did have some days into some kind of movement 1) kept the habit of training in there, 2) kept me from losing fitness and most important 3) let me have that mental break and reset that I needed.
With the busy holidays coming up, it’s time to work out what your MVT is. Is it a short walk? A quick yoga session? Knowing the most minimal you can go—and make it foolproof!—is the key.
Now, the caveat here is that every season can be a season where life is, for lack of a better phrase, life-ing pretty hard. Especially if you have kiddos (we don’t but I see this with friends all the time) or aging parents where you’re one of the primary caregivers. A demanding job that has events and travel attached, and not a set schedule—especially if you’re freelance or self-employed and there’s no steady paycheck to count on.
There will ALWAYS be an excuse to not follow the training plan. So this isn’t a get out of jail free card to always cut workouts short or skip days or reconfigure things. Peter often talks about the idea that 80 percent is a passing grade, and I think that’s probably a good barometer. Are you hitting 80 percent today/this week/this month/this year when it comes to training?
If you’re regularly not hitting your workout goals, ask yourself if the current situation is acute or chronic.
A couple of days/weeks here and there where you’re not getting a passing grade is all well and good and arguably necessary. When it becomes a regular occurrence, you may need to step back and assess if the plan you’re trying to follow is realistic for this current time of life. This ‘MVT’ idea is for acute issues, not for chronic ones. My mom having surgery and me needing to get home and help out? Acute. Training will be funky for a week or two but should go back to normal. If she had six months of rehab that I needed to stay home to help with, that would transition into the chronic category, where I’d talk to my coach about what a new, realistic training plan would look like for the situation.
The tendency to malinger is real, though: I’ve found that since getting back home a couple of days ago, I’ve really struggled to get back into the motivational groove to train. It’s really cold out, and there’s snow on the ground, so that plays into it, of course. But it’s also that I had this weird two weeks of “do what you can” that are making it feel harder to get back to my routinized life. Luckily, I didn’t have so much time off—and didn’t skip things like my AM routine for the most part—so it’s been grind-y feeling but do-able. But I know if it had been longer, I would likely need more of an on-ramp to get back to regular training volume rather than jumping back in. Again, consider this the reminder to talk to your coach about making you a smoother ramp back up if you’ve had a deviation in the schedule.
I hesitated to write this because in the grand scheme of things, my blip on the training radar wasn’t a big deal. But those can be insidious! With the holidays coming up, I know a lot of you reading this will have days where training needs to shift due to family/work/friend obligations, and that’s okay. I think we all need that permission slip occasionally—but remember, even when it doesn’t feel like it, something really is better than nothing.
Need to talk through your training to deal with an upcoming blip in your schedule? Book a call and chat it out with Peter—yes, even if you don’t work with him!
