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I am not much of an athlete. I played volleyball, soccer, and softball when I was young, but as I grew up I wasn't as competitive in it as my family or my peers were. But when I was 21 I decided that I needed to push myself to enjoy being physically active like I used to.  One night I thought long and hard about what I could do to motivate myself and I decided that I would start running. The only problem is that I hate to run. But if I had a goal to work towards, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. So I decided that I was going to run a half marathon.  I convinced my entire family to join me in running this half marathon called the Cheesehead run. We thought that it would be a fun half marathon. I started running 16 weeks in advance, to help prepare myself.  And boy did I have a lot to learn when it came to running. I ran the same path everyday so I quickly learned the mile markers. I would run down Johnson street, to State St. and then run on the Lake Shore path, and back.  I didn't realize how uncoordinated I had become.  In the beginning, I constantly kicked my ankles, I would stop at all the same points and I tripped and fell three times. (To this day I still have scars).

However, I was determined to get better. I made myself go a mile without stopping, and then 2 miles without stopping and I eventually made it up to six miles before my first stop in the run. For me, this was a huge achievement.

This is where the Dynamic Pattern Theory comes into play. They Dynamic Pattern Theory states: "The system will reorganize, such that when certain environmental and physical conditions are met, a specific stable pattern will emerge." Since I was running the the same path consistently,  my body began to self-organize. Much like a toddler learning to walk, I had to find a way to run that worked best for me while being efficient.  My nonlinear behavior was running a specific distance without stopping. As I became stronger, my runs became longer and with less stops. The order parameters is the relationship between my arms swinging and legs striding. It was the movements that defined running as running instead of walking. lastly, my control parameters was increasing the distance I had to run. Since I was doing a half marathon, I had to work up to 13.1 miles.

Many of those first runs were around two to four miles. On these runs I focused on what stride worked best, when to breathe, how to relax my shoulders and how to stop kicking my ankles. It was a very long learning journey.  I was learning what worked best for me.

I chose this video because this is how I felt like I was running when I first started. I felt very awkward and I felt like people stared at me when I ran because I was so uncomfortable at first.  It took time to find a efficient way for my body to self-organize itself. I focused on one thing at a time. I learned how to relax my shoulders first. Then I moved on to learning how to lengthen my stride and on which stride to exhale/inhale on.  Through these conditions, I was able to develop a stable pattern of behavior.

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Let's be honest falling down in public is super embarrassing, and because I am me, I got to do it three times in the span of a summer. The first and most important fall of mine, happened to be the worst. My poor roommate agreed to run and train with me. One day we went early in the morning to beat the heat of the day. It was a Sunday, so it meant that it was going to be the longest run of the week. We were doing 7 miles. I got into the habit of walking the last mile home. I asked my roommate if he could help me break that cycle, and of course he agreed. So when the final mile came, I slowed down, wanting to walk the rest of the way. But Genaro, being the best roommate that he is, stayed true to his word and tried to motivate me to keep running. So he put his hand on my lower back and gave me a gentle push. That apparently was all that I needed to fall. The worst of it all, is that it happened right in front of an older couple taking a morning walk. They just stared at me and kept walking. I was so embarrassed and Genaro felt so guilty. When I fell, I landed on my knees pretty hard. I tore my leggings, I had bruises and some scrapes. I didn't run  for about a week and half. My knees were so sore.

A about a month later, the next fall happened (again) on the walk home. This time however, Genaro didn't push me. I tripped on a raised surface of the sidewalk. My knees had just healed from the previous fall, and not too long after they got scraped up once again. Once again, I tore another pair of leggings, had even more bruises and scrapes. It was at this moment that I said enough, is enough, I had to do something about this.

I had to be more aware of my surroundings, and what's a better way to do this than to use visual search? Visual search is the process of using visual attention to locate things that might be relevant to you in your environment.  Since I kept falling, I must have been fixating on the wrong environmental cues. Was I too focused on other people, dogs, the sun, or the geese that were always on the path? I wasn't sure but I knew it had to be fixed. So I decided to change what visual cues I was focusing on. I began to look at the ground about four to five feet ahead of me and I would glance at my feet every now and then just to make sure there was no rock or hole that I could trip on.

This picture was taken a couple weeks after I fell for the second time and it's the only picture where you can see my semi-healed scraped knees. This picture means a lot to me because I could have given up after falling so many times, but I didn't. I kept trudging forward. And I know they look like small bruises, but man they really hurt. Since I have changed what I look at while I run, I haven't fallen since. Changing what visual cues I looked at, prove to be very beneficial to my training.

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The week of the race was finally here. I was so excited. I tried to make sure I was preparing everything correctly. I tried to make sure  I was getting enough sleep, drinking lots of water , and was eating full meals that would fuel my body for the upcoming race. I even gave up alcohol for the two weeks leading up. The semester before this summer, I had a class called Intro to Kinesiology". Near the end they had a sport psychologist come in and talk to us about the benefits of mental practice. He defined mental practice as a mental rehearsal of a physical skill, instead of practicing the skill physically. It involves a person imagining themselves performing a specific skill. He swore by it and told us about it helped him with his goals. I thought this was coolest thing ever. And so I decided to try it.

At the beginning of every run, I imagined myself at the starting line for the half marathon. I imagined myself warming up by doing some stretches and drinking of cup of water before the race. I envisioned the sun warmly shinning down, with a slight breeze. I envisioned the horn going off, signaling the start of the race, followed by my foot pressing hard against the concrete to send me off, and then I would start my run at home. I did this three to four times a week for 16 weeks. I did mental practice at the end of my runs too. I would envision the finish line in the distance, as I would run up to it. I would envision myself picking up the pace as much as I could because I knew it was the end and I had to give it all I got.  I would see the timer, the people surrounding it, and the bottles of water. Since this was my first half marathon my goal was to finish it in 2 hours and 40 minutes.

I completed it in 2 hours, and 32 minutes. Using mental practice I think it really helped me achieve my goal.

Since I have started running, I decided that I actually enjoy running, especially half marathons. It has become something I strive to become better at. It has also become a physical activity that I will continue to do, down the line for many many years to come. Hopefully I can also use mental practice when it comes to running a full marathon one day.

I think this picture best represents mental practice. Homer looking in the mirror, imagining himself super buff and fit, is like how I imagined myself to be strong, powerful and graceful as I crossed the finish line.  By using mental practice  to envision how I was going to run the half marathon, it really gave me an advantage. Quite possibly the advantage I needed to meet my goals.

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Mile 8 became my Nemesis.
At mile 8 it felt like I was hitting my wall. I was sweaty, red in the face, hair was falling out of my pony tail and I really wasn't having a good time at this point. How could I manage to do 5.1 more miles? My brother was at least a mile ahead of me and my parents were equally that distance behind me. I was alone and I was getting tired. I had to find some way to re-motivate myself. I had to finish this. I didn't come all this way to walk the rest. I could do this!

So I pulled up my big girl pants, grabbed some Swedish fish, some Gatorade, and changed the music. The playlist that I was currently playing just wasn't cutting it anymore. I started playing songs like "Another one bites the dust", "Champion" and "Glory", and man was that what made the biggest difference. I did my best to change what I was paying attention too. Before I changed what I was paying attention to,  I was focusing on how tired I felt, the ache in my legs, the fire in my lungs and how my hair wound't stay in its pony tail. I had to change my attentional focus.
There are four quadrants of attentional focus: external broad, external narrow, internal broad and internal narrow.  Using external broad I assessed my environment. I noticed the people I was running with,  the wind that was gently cooling me off and the mile markers. Using external narrow focus I concentrated on my strides. I decided to shorten the strides by a little bit so I could try to get my catch my breath while still pushing forward. Every other mile, I would lengthen and shorten my strides. Once I had decided how I wanted to do my strides,  I used my narrow internal focus to mentally rehearse each step. I focused on my breathing and on which step to exhale on. More often than not, I like to exhale when my right foot touches the ground. I imagined my foot pressing so hard on the ground that I was just propelled forward. Lastly I used my narrow- external focus to execute the beginning of the rest of the race. I put that Gatorade cup down and I propelled myself forward.

Once I got going I intentionally tried to pay more attention to the lyrics of my music and my surroundings. I quickly learned that I could not sing the lyrics and run at the same time because I got way to out of breath, so I sang them in my head. My surroundings were so pretty. The Cheesehead was in a small town that was in north Wisconsin.  This was the most the most north that I had ever been.

I chose this picture to represent this part of the story because it looks like the rock is hurting and is trying to focus, and continue on. This is exactly where I was at mile 8 in the half marathon. I was hurting so bad, but by changing my focus and attention I found a way that made it possible for me to push through. If I had kept the same attention the entire race, there is no doubt in my mind, that I would finished not only poorly, but disappointed in myself too.

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Even though I was sore for three whole days, could barely bend down and got slightly sunburned, for some reason I decided to make it a yearly activity for myself. My family is very competitive and this marathon was a competition between the four of us. Sadly my brother (who plays la cross and didn't train at all) won, and I came in at second place. Just about 15 minutes later than my brother. I was so mad that he won because I trained so hard for this, and he didn't train at all.

However, I used this as my next goal for my next marathon. I had to have the best time in the house. Now that I had finished a half marathon, I believed in myself more. I knew the areas that I could do better on. I had learned what I did well on and what I didn't. This bring us to the characteristics of motor learning. There are four characteristics of motor learning: improvement, consistency, persistence and adaptability. Improvement and consistency is when the individual continues to consistently improve.  As I consistently began to run more, I could feel myself improving. I wasn't as out of breath as before, I didn't need to stop as much I did before and I was decreasing my time.

For persistence, I didn't run that entire winter. At the time I didn't have a gym membership and I hate running outside when it's cold. Therefore, I didn't run until that next May. I had made a relatively permanent change in my skill in running. I learned from last year what worked and what didn't. It gave me the ability to train harder.  I also wasn't starting at square one any more, I started training the next time at a faster pace.

Adaptability means that the learner is capable of performing a skill that is different from the skill they practiced. I practiced running long distance,  and I was able to to transfer this skill to cycling. Running had taught me how to pace myself and when to push myself. Running this marathon was just the beginning of my physically active life. I loved it, so I wanted to find more things I could incorporate into my life and decided to give cycling a try. It turned out pretty well. I picked up easier that I thought I would because I hadn't ridden a bike in over a decade. I think running set me up for cycling.

This picture was the first picture I took after I finished my first half marathon. I love this picture, even though it's not the best out there. I was able to over come the biggest challenge in my life at the time and I felt like I could do anything at this point. It really made my confidence in myself go up. I was no longer afraid of  being physically active and instead I was more excited about how I was going to push myself further. It was the start of a really good and painful (in a good way) journey.