Ep 111- Stay In It: Training Through the Summer Chaos

Kat introduces MilesFromHerView and explains how changes to the summer schedule and travel can disrupt fitness routines. She argues that true consistency isn’t about rigidly completing every planned session but about staying “in relationship” with training by keeping the thread even when workouts are modified, shorter, or chaotic. She shares her own unstructured “re-entry” after completing an FKT on the 230-mile Pennsylvania Appalachian Trail (34,000+ feet of climbing) in 98 hours and 41 minutes, noting that recovery and maintenance can feel wrong even when they’re the right approach. Kat reframes the “gray area” as where real development happens and offers four planning questions for the next 6–8 weeks: assess real availability, define what you’re training for, choose what you want to do this summer, and create a backup “good enough” plan so you can adapt without guilt.

00:00 Welcome to the Podcast

00:51 Summer Schedule Shifts

01:43 Redefining Consistency

04:43 Kat’s Post FKT Reentry

06:58 Summer Can Derail Plans

08:09 Plans That Bend

09:00 Four Questions Framework

09:44 Question One Availability

10:10 Question Two Training Goal

11:40 Question Three Summer Movement

13:02 Question Four Backup Plan

14:16 You’re Not Off Track

14:50 Share and Work With Me

15:21 Outro and Subscribe

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to MilesFromHerView, the podcast powered by KatFit Strength, where busy women like you find practical solutions to fuel your fitness journey with authenticity and resilience. I'm Kat, your host, a mom of two active boys, a business owner, and an ultramarathon runner, and a strength trainer in her 40s. With nearly two decades of experience, I'm here to help you cut through the noise of fads, hacks, and quick fixes. This is a space where we celebrate womanhood and motherhood, all while building strength and resilience and reconnecting with you from a place of self-compassion and worthiness. Whether you're lacing up your running shoes to go out for a run, driving your kids to practice, or squeezing in a moment for yourself, I'm right here in the trenches with you. Let's dive in Welcome to MilesFromHerView. I am Kat. We are just jumping right into this episode if you're like me, my kids are about to finish school. And with the end of school comes the change in schedules. Maybe your kids are already off from school, maybe your kids are home from college, maybe your kids are adult children, and now you have potentially grandkids that are staying with you in the summer. There's going to be something in this episode for everyone, because we are going into the summer months here in the States, and with that it means more travel. So we're gonna dive into what it means to be consistent with your training plan when consistency with fitness goes wrong I'm going to use myself as an example, and then you can glean from it. So let's start by looking at a program. When you engage in a fitness program or a fitness routine, program means you are given something or maybe you wrote your program or it's professionally programmed, or a fitness routine where you attend classes Doing the program or routine exactly as is one side of the coin. And then there is staying in relationship with your training. So those are two different things. And what I find is most people associate doing your program exactly as is, or never swaying from your routine, attending the same classes on the same day at the same time, week after week, as consistency. However We wanna shift that to staying in relationship with your training because when you are someone who is very driven and goal-oriented, and you want to maintain that fitness routine or maintain that program in your life, but a schedule change comes in, summer, kids get out of school, or you have a lot of maybe business travel or vacation travel that can challenge this notion of, am I a consistent person? Am I succeeding at my training plan? Because consistency does not mean your week looks identical every week. It doesn't mean you hit every session, every rep, every mile planned. What it actually means is you keep showing up. You keep the thread even when training looks different, shorter, slower, modified, maybe a little chaotic, you don't cut the line and just walk away. So that's it. That's where you're staying in relationship with your training. And it can sound very simple, but when you're actually applying it to real life, that can be really hard because our brains want to categorize it. Was it a good week or was it a bad week? Am I on a track or am I off a week? And binary thinking is where a lot of us lose that plot, where we start to feel like we are not that ideal fitness person in our head. I'm gonna go into what is happening in my training right now because it is really relevant even if you've not... you don't have to be doing what I'm doing, but I am going through this right now and as someone who is in the business, who understands this and who has been relationship with fitness my whole life, I think you might be able to draw from this. So if you've been following along, you know I just completed the P- Pennsylvania Appalachian Trail where I did an FKT, so it was two hundred and thirty miles and over thirty-four thousand feet of climbing, and I completed it in ninety-eight hours and forty-one minutes. Honestly, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done and one of the greatest experiences of my life. I completed that about, I'm gonna say it was almost... It wasn't even three weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago And now that I'm on the other side of it, which sounds like it should feel amazing, and in a lot of ways it really does, but this part of coming off something massive that nobody talks about, and that's the re-entry. My training right now is unstructured in a way that it almost never is. So I'm choosing to ease back into it intentionally. I'm listening more to my body and than more than I'm following a plan. So some days it looks like a slow, easy run, or I'm going out for a walk, or a short lift, or mobility. And some days it's just general life movement or nothing. The truth is, it feels so weird. Even though I know exactly why I'm doing it this way, even though I know this is the right approach, and even though by any measure I'm being consistent, I'm showing up, I'm moving, I'm recovering, it still feels like I'm doing it wrong. But it doesn't look like my normal That feeling is something a lot of you may understand, even though the circumstances are different. Maybe you're coming back from injury, maybe you had a big race, and now you're in the foggy post-event stretch. Maybe life just got complicated and your training took a hit, and now you're trying to find your footing again. So whatever brought you here to this place where your training doesn't look like it should, I want to say something clearly. The gray area is not where you're failing. The gray area is where real athletic development happens. It's the messy, modified, life is happening sessions that most people never count because they don't look right on paper. They count, so count them. Now we're gonna layer in, summer Because here's what summer does. It doesn't arrive all at once it slowly creeps in. It comes through the side door while you're busy with end of school chaos and travel plans, and schedules are shifting week by week, and before you've even made any real decision about your training, it's just quietly fallen apart. Not because you stopped caring. I wanna make that abundantly clear. It is not because you stopped caring. Because life just didn't leave the room, because life doesn't stop. I know I'm feeling it, and from the conversations I've been having with clients and other individuals who have been replying to my email newsletters and to the podcast, I know I'm not alone. Travel's picking up, schedules are shifting, and the routine that held everything together during the spring is just starting to loosen at the edges. For those of us who rely on structure, that's me, this area can feel very uncomfortable. And what I wanna offer you instead of panic is intention. Training plans that hold up over time are not the rigid ones. They are the ones that bend, the ones that adapt to your schedule, your equipment, your energy, your season. That's the plan that actually builds something durable, not just physical strength, but the mental piece too. The confidence that comes from knowing that you can keep going even when conditions are imperfect. That's the plan that I provide with my clients. I work closely with them to make sure their plans adapt and bend with them as much as possible. The way it is structured always allow for them to be right where they need to be, never behind, never feeling like they are trying to just keep up with a program, that they feel right in step with a program. So I wanna get practical, and- I want to provide you with tips so that you can evaluate where you're at and bring this into light. So if you're in a position, open up your calendar and look at the next six to eight weeks. Really sit down and look at the next six to eight weeks, and ask yourself these four questions. If you don't have your calendar now, save this podcast and come back to it at a time where you can go through these four questions to help allow yourself to have the plan that adapts with you in a time of unrest where the schedule doesn't look as neat and clean. So question number one, what's your actual availability? Not your ideal availability, your real availability. What do your weeks actually hold? Work, family, travel, commitments. Find the pockets that are consistent, even if they are small Three 30-minute sessions a week is a foundation. Work with what's real. Whatever you have within that, go from what you have. Number two, what are you training for right now? Define it. Strength, aerobic base, maintenance, sanity, all are valid. They lead to different choices. Know your answer so you're building towards something intentional instead of just trying not to lose ground. This is a big one here because... And I'm gonna jump back to myself just to give you a little example and context here. I'm in maintenance. I'm in recovery. I don't have any races on the horizon, and I really wanna take this unstructured time, not because I'm burnt out, but because I'm in maintenance mode. I have a date when I'm going to get back to my typical training. And you can have, in a calendar year or over a couple years, times where you're focused on different elements of fitness, strength, aerobic base, maintenance, sanity. There's many other components to it. So knowing what you're training for right now is huge. I have a couple clients who message me and say, "Hey, I'm gonna pause for the summer because I want to be in maintenance, and that is huge. I welcome that. There are some clients where they are like, "I have more time right now," and they're going to step up their training. So understand what you are training for right now, define it, and then you can build towards it. Number three, what do you actually want to do this summer? And this matters more than people credit-- give it credit for. If you love being outside in June and July, build a plan that honors that. Running, hiking, cycling, swimming, it all counts towards something. Choosing movement that you're drawn towards in the season means you actually do it. I would argue, too, please make sure there's some strength training there because you can slowly lose gains. But you can downshift that. You can have a shorter lifting session, or you can do it outside. I know for myself, and this is based on my unique environment, I will pull my dumbbells outside on the patio and strength train outside because I love being outside and I don't wanna be inside. I love summer months. When you're in the northeast and you have colder months, it's not always appealing to be outside in the cold, so I get it. People wanna be outside more. I have clients being like, "I wanna incorporate more running, more walking." With that, and if a client has worked with me for longer, I know their habits and we make sure that when we're in the colder months, that they are set up for success that their body can handle getting outside more and running, cycling, swimming, all the things, so that we reduce any risk of soft tissue injuries. Number four, what's your backup plan? Because something will always come up. Life never stops and Life is very unpredictable. A week you thought was clear suddenly isn't. It happens to me. What's your vision of training you can execute when the original plan falls through? Decide that now. Is it a 20-minute circuit? Is it a long walk? Is it a single heavy lift? Know you're good enough, so you're not making that call when you're already tired and overwhelmed. And this is one that is huge. We don't always think about what if we can't or what is the good enough. So what is your good enough? I think if we own our good enough and we make peace with that, it reduces that friction between the guilt and shame. Surely, we potentially maybe could have planned, but we need to erase that question mark of the shoulda, coulda, would'ves which put us in shame and guilt and knowing, hey, this is my good enough. Define it. It gives that binary aspect to the brain of this is good enough. Boom, done, period. We move on. So it allows the brain to show up that, hey, this is still consistency in my fitness plan. I wanna leave you with this. You're not off track. You're just in a season. And for me right now, the season is recovery and re-entry after the biggest athletic effort of my life. For you, it might be summer chaos or coming back from something or just trying to hold it together when life is loud. Whatever it is, if you're still showing up in some form, you're consistent. Even if it doesn't look like your normal, even if it feels off, keep the thread, bend the plan, count the gray area sessions. That is the work. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a woman in your life who is heading into the summer and needs permission to stop measuring herself against a perfect week that doesn't exist. And if you're looking for a training structure that actually is built to flex with your life, hop into the show notes, book a call with me. I would love to chat with you. And if you have questions about this episode or other general fitness questions or something you would like to hear on the podcast, message the podcast. I read every single email. Until next time, take care of yourselves Thank you for tuning in to MilesFromHerView, powered by KatFit Strength. If this podcast inspires you, don't keep it for yourself. Hit follow or subscribe to stay updated on the new episodes and leave us a review to help more women and moms discover this space. Your feedback fuels this podcast, and I'd love to hear what's working for you or what topics you want to dive into next. You can connect with me on Instagram @KatFit Strength or share this episode with a friend who is ready to embrace her strength. Remember, fitness isn't about perfection. It's about showing up for yourself and finding strength in every step of your journey. Until next time, keep moving forward one mile at a time