The beautiful, wonderful and just plain lovely Mel (she makes me call her that) comes running with yours truly and our 2 sons (our daughter is usually snuggled up in bed) on Monday and Friday mornings bright and early (5.30 am or thereabouts).
We run with one of the leading Gold Coast personal trainers Chris from Chisel Fitness, who has been doing a bit of work with Jack and I (2 days a week) and Mel on Tuesdays.
Anyhow, the run involves a warm up of a 2.4 km section – at the start of the run is a rather large hill called Woodgee St.
Elevation profile of the warm up run Mel struggles up Woodgee. She runs as far as she can, then walks what she can’t. She’s never been able to get to the top without stopping.
Until today.
Today I couldn’t do the run (I crashed my bike yesterday and was a recovering from terrible grazes and cut and bruises…..okay, okay, I got a little scratch!) – and sure enough I get woken at 6.45 am by a very proud Mel saying “I ran up Woodgee, I ran up Woodgee!”
Why couldn’t she, for just once, wake me with “Woooohoooo! I’ve made you Eggs Benedict, French Toast and a coffee just how you like it. Would you like your massage now or after you finish breakfast in bed?”
But nope.
What I get is a sweat soaked 42 year old woman in stinky running shorts and t-shirt shaking me awake with a shout!
I have to say it was easy for her to run all the way to the top of a hill she saw as only slightly less daunting than climbing Everest wearing a bikini and high heels, wielding a toothpick.
Here’s how she did it:
- She has run twice a week for 6 weeks
- She’s gotten a little bit stronger with each run
- She has Chris with her encouraging her the whole way
Bit by bit she worked at it. Got better and did it.
I’ll digress here for a moment.
The Stair Running Incident Of 07
Last week we were in the middle of a rather harder stair running session. You know the song “Stairway to heaven”? Yep?
Well, this is the stairway to hell. 6 times.
Mel was half way up the stairs on the 5th set and was, to my eye anyway, walking. So I said an encouraging “Run Mel.”
Well, that’s what it sounded like to me. That’s what I had in my mind. That’s what words my tongue went to say. Those are the words I heard. And those words sounded encouraging.
But no, apparently they weren’t the words I uttered.
What I really said was “Get your fat ass up the stairs you lazy old cow. Mooooooooooo.”
I said “Run Mel.”
Mel heard “Get your fat ass up the stairs you lazy old cow. Mooooooooooo.”
Back to Chris
Anyhow, back to Chris’ encouragement.
It’s interesting to watch him in action.
There is never any hint of negativity. Not a hint.
No:
- Push harder
- Run faster
- You’re doing that wrong
It’s all:
- You are doing great!
- Perfect!
- Amazing stuff!
- Great form!
- Fantastic!
And yes, Chris does speak with all those exclamation marks.
He doesn’t throw in one “Get your fat ass up the stairs you lazy old cow. Mooooooooooo.”
Not one.
And it works really well. Really, really well.
Well enough for Mel to conquer a hill she never thought she’d run up.
The point is this: People respond very, very positively to positive stuff. We all respond even better to super positive stuff.
People don’t respond as well to criticism.
Give it a try.
Try this one for starters:
Find you spouse/partner/loved one and say this when they do something for you:
“Thanks, that’s a great job. I really should say more that I appreciate what you do – you work so hard to make my life better and I don’t say “Thanks” enough. So thanks – you’re a wonderful, wonderful girl/boy/woman/man.”
Anyway, Mel ran up the hill. And her husband is an insensitive pig.
I think that covers enough farm animals….if I keep talking I’ll be hoarse. I’ll keep talking if I want, I’m not chicken.
Okay, bad jokes. They must be getting on your goat. I know I’m feeling a bit sheepish.
Definitely the end.
Cheers
Brendon
P.S: I just checked to make sure the links worked and have just seen on Chris’ personal training site that he mentioned Mel on his blog.
A women runs up a hill and gets 2 bloody blog posts written about her!
