TromboneChat

What I have learned running that I should have learned while playing trombone:

You can't change where you are starting from (physically, mentally, emotionally) each day. You can create habits and conditions but when it's time to train you are what you are at that moment. If you can't do everything on a given day that's just how it goes.

Improvement sneaks up on you through consistent, planned and strategic work. One day cannot make you a faster runner.

It is good to know what the best runners can do to stay humble and realistic but it is still possible to be proud of your own abilities. To take "The Joy in Being Able"  (Norman Bolter) http://trombone.org/jfb/joyinbeingable.asp as it were.

If you feel like you need to rest, you should probably rest.

The only logical way to measure yourself is against what you could do a week ago or a month ago.

Having a race to train for gives you a target and a focus.

At the race having a plan that will help you do your best and not worrying about the other runners makes the day fun.

Seeking out the best available idea and advice about training and racing is never a waste of time.

Cross training is healthy and refreshing.

 

Yes to all of that.

I'll add:

* Having the right technique is more important than having the right equipment. (But the right equipment helps.)

* Something is better than nothing.

* You can't cram all your training into the day before the race. (And you'll regret warming up too hard the morning of.)

* "Nothing new on race day": Don't debut a new pair of shoes, or a new shirt, or a new breakfast [or a new mouthpiece/lube] on the day of a race, because it could affect your performance in unexpected ways.

* I will never win the race. But with a lot of persistence, maybe I can come in first in my age group in a tiny local 5K where I'm really only competing against one other person. And maybe that's enough.

* Every now and then, remind yourself why you're doing this.

There are long cycles in running, where long periods of high volume seem to yield suddenly better results.  Trombone improvement seems more constant than that.  Although breakthrough ideas and experience happen on the trombone and not so much in running. 

There are some other good sports analogies.  Biking relates to the balance problem in trombone where you work to stay in the center of where it works.  But even better is swimming and XC skiing, especially skate style skiing.  In skating, you're dynamically unbalanced all the time, swinging from unbalance to unbalance, because if you continue what you're doing you'll crash. 

Trying to thread a scale or arpeggio through the way the horn works feels to me just like slipping into the woods on slick bumpy crusty stuff and avoiding the trees. 

Swimming is a great analogy for trying to learn to do something you can't really observe, inside the mouth you know, although you can have someone film your stroke, it's tough to observe and tougher to tune. 

There are long cycles in running, where long periods of high volume seem to yield suddenly better results.  Trombone improvement seems more constant than that.  Although breakthrough ideas and experience happen on the trombone and not so much in running. 

There are some other good sports analogies.  Biking relates to the balance problem in trombone where you work to stay in the center of where it works.  But even better is swimming and XC skiing, especially skate style skiing.  In skating, you're dynamically unbalanced all the time, swinging from unbalance to unbalance, because if you continue what you're doing you'll crash. 

Trying to thread a scale or arpeggio through the way the horn works feels to me just like slipping into the woods on slick bumpy crusty stuff and avoiding the trees. 

Swimming is a great analogy for trying to learn to do something you can't really observe, inside the mouth you know, although you can have someone film your stroke, it's tough to observe and tougher to tune.