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Your monthly dose of positive from the POSITIVE RUNNING MOVEMENT®
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Newsletter, April 30, 2019

"My dream is to make this world a running world. A running world is a healthy world. A running world is a wealthy world. A running world is a peaceful world. A running world is a joyful world.
There is freedom in running. Go and run and your mind will be free. That is what is needed in the whole planet."

Eliud Kipchoge, World marathon record holder & 2019 London marathon winner
Welcome to the latest monthly newsletter from the POSITIVE RUNNING MOVEMENT. We trust that your year is going well so far, and that your running and life is good for you!

Here in Estes Park, we have had Spring feel like it has truly arrived, with humming birds having landed and already amazed us with their aerial antics! Then today we are in the grip of a snow storm, with up to over a foot of snow forecast by tomorrow morning. I hope that your weather has meant you have had the chance to enjoy adventures outdoors too!

We are excited to bring you more news on our program, tips for focusing on your positives as an athlete, as well as inspiring positive running stories, news on our positive running camps, positive running pictures, and more.


Our positive running story this time is on Kriste Peoples. Kriste is a women’s trail running coach from the Front Range of Colorado. Kriste is a trail runner herself, outdoor enthusiast, founding and immediate past leader of Outdoor Afro, and founder of Black Women’s Alliance. We recently asked Kriste if we could interview her and share her positive running story. Check out the result of our interview below.

Our positive running tip for this newsletter is on how meditation helps you to reprogram your mind. Mindfulness is a hot buzzword these days, yet it is scary how much of our lives we live on autopilot without even realizing it! We explain how meditation helps us become more mindful, and, also shares three tips from one of the masters of meditation, and a firm favorite of ours, Andy Puddicombe from Headspace.

Our inspirational video this newsletter also features Andy Puddicombe, and a brief introduction to meditation. It always amazes me how Andy has the skill to take someone from anxious to calm in just a short space of time. We hope you enjoy this video!


We bet you are interested in finding out more about how activacuity can help you find your positives -  we invite you to find out more by visiting activacuity.com.  

Wishing you and yours a wonderful month of May, and hope that Mother nature is sending you signs that Summer is coming around the corner! We wish you all the best for 2019 and beyond!


Get engaged with your positives!
Terry Chiplin, Estes Park, CO, USA - Visionary behind activacuity® and the POSITIVE RUNNING MOVEMENT®
Inspiration - positive running story and positive running pictures
Positive running story - Kriste Peoples   
Our positive running story this time is on Kriste Peoples, a women’s trail running coach from the Front Range of Colorado. Kriste is a trail runner herself, outdoor enthusiast, founding and immediate past leader of Outdoor Afro, and founder of Black Women’s Alliance, which promotes sisterhood and wellness through outdoor activities, workshops, and retreats. Check out the result of our interview at the link below.



Read more
Share your positive running pictures!
We want to see your positive running pictures, and we bet that everyone else does too! Send them to us, share them on our Facebook page, or just tag us on your positive running moments when you share them on social media with #positiverunningmovement. In the meantime, here is a very positive picture to whet your appetite!



#positiverunningmovement
Positive tip of the newsletter

How meditation helps you to reprogram your mind

Following on from our tip last newsletter that covered our "predictive mind," this time we explore more on the science of brain function.

The idea that the brain has evolved to become a highly efficient organ is now well established. In order to maximize energy usage, it makes sense to make as many processes as possible unconscious - this makes a ton of sense and has helped our species to evolve in a way that is unlike most of our fellow planet inhabitants.
Many of our thoughts are repeated every day, on automatic replay as the same neural pathways become activated. This can mean we often make automatic selections for much of our life. One example if this where you park your car for a run, or at a shop. It is highly likely that you pick the same spot, assuming it's available, most times you got to this place. Not that there's anything special about the spot that you have chosen, it just feels right even, though there may not be any credible reason to feel any attachment to this particular spot.
To give you an idea of how much of our time is spent unconsciously functioning, a Harvard study found "that the average person spends about 47% of their day on “autopilot,” conducting automated behaviors while thoughts wander from the task at hand." A part of that nearly half of your time may be response patterns that you don't necessarily want to keep. This is where meditation is so important, as it gives us an opportunity to be more mindful, and to reprogram unwanted thoughts and behavioral patterns.

How does meditation help?
Meditation helps you develop mindfulness as you learn to concentrate your attention on a single object. For many people the breath is a good place to start, as it's something we normally do unconsciously, and then develop the skill to be able to focus mindfully while resisting distracting thoughts. By becoming more focused, and mindful, we can open ourselves up to the full experience, making the mind itself the new center of your attention. "This is called Open Awareness or Introspective Metacognitive Awareness and involves closely observing the inner workings of your mind."

How does this help you get off your autopilot?
"Many of the benefits of meditation come from increased metacognition through mindfulness training. By becoming more aware of how your mind works, you gain more control over your own internal mental machine. And the beauty of this practice is that it is not contained to your meditation cushion. You can learn to become mindful throughout daily life."
An example might be that you are getting stressed out about a run, and don't really know why. By using a mindful approach, you realize that you are anticipating the run being more challenging than you can cope with, yet the reality is that you have successfully covered tougher terrain before now. There might also be other reasons for becoming stressed about this run - you can use a mindful approach to deconstruct each component, and enable you to start altering your mental code, and to begin to build new neural pathways. You become less stressed, and over time re-program your mind to anticipate fun and adventure rather than something to be anxious about.

“If we pay close attention to how our habits are set up, we can break them.” — Judson Brewer, Ph.D.

Here are three tips to help you learn to meditate, and open up the possibility of developing new neural pathways and becoming more mindful (from our friends at Headspace):

  1. Don’t think about it, just do it - It may sound obvious, but meditation only works if you actually do it. It works even better if you do it on a regular basis—and even better than that if you follow our tried-and-tested approach. When it comes to meditation, just a very small commitment can lead to very big changes. Sure, reading and talking about meditation can be inspiring, but the magic happens when you sit down and close your eyes.
  2. One day at a time - Just like learning any other skill, meditation requires practice. It’s not about doing as much as possible, but rather regular, consistent practice which will allow your brain to rewire itself. So it’s worth remembering that this is a skill for life, something which will continue to develop and evolve for as long as you continue to do it. But it might feel a bit more manageable (not to mention fresh) if you take it just a day at a time.
  3. Motivation is everything - A limited mind is a limited practice, so think big. When you sit to meditate remember that it is not just for you, but also for all those around you—the people you interact with every day—and even the people they then interact with (a sort of ripple effect). If you remember to do this then you’ll find it much easier to meditate. Not only that, but your meditation will have a much greater sense of meaning and importance for you.

One of the services we can provide is an interview to highlight areas where you could learn to change the way you think, and anticipate joy and adventure! Contact us to find out more.

SEND US YOUR IDEAS FOR POSITIVE TIPS
Join Trail Sisters!
We encourage you to register for the Trail Sisters bi-weekly newsletter! You benefit from exclusive offers, and save 15% at the TS store too.
Positive inspirational video
Our inspirational video for this newsletter comes from one of my favorite meditation teachers, Andy Puddicombe from Headspace. This short video gives you an introduction to meditation, and how quickly the technique can change you from being anxious to being calm and mindful. We hope you enjoy this as much as we do!
Positive running camps in Estes Park, Colorado
A short video that shows how much fun we got up to at our women's running camps in 2018! Enjoy watching, and we look forward to seeing you in 2019!
Registration has just opened for for our 2019 positive training camps in Estes Park! Each camp is founded on positive running, and includes guided imagery sessions.
Here is the schedule for our women's running camps for this year:
Beginner women's compact running camp - May 30 - June 3 - sold out
Beginner women's full running camp - June 17-23 - sold out
Advanced women's running camp - July 15-21- sold out
Intermediate women's full running camp - August 5-11 - sold out
Intermediate women's compact running camp - August 21-25 - sold out
Not sure which level of camp is right for you? Details are on each link to help guide you through the options.
A short video that gives you an idea of the kind of trail entertainment you can enjoy at one of our trail running camps -  we look forward to seeing you in 2019!
The schedule for our 2019 co-ed trail running camps are as follows, registration is open:
Spring camp - May 15-20 - 1 spot left!
Fall camp - September 11-16 - 5 spots available
If you have any questions on any of our camps, feel free to reach out and contact us, we would love to hear from you!
Take the Clean Sport Pledge

Clean Sport Collective is a community of powerful voices comprised of athletes, brands, events, clubs, fans and public to support the pursuit of clean sport and athletics through the absence of performance enhancing drugs. The badge to the left shows my pledge to the Clean Sport Collective.

With the help of their partners, the Collective works together to bring the importance of clean sport to the general public through awareness, testing, industry advocacy and restoration.
Awareness is the first step. Our sports do have a problem with performance enhancing drugs, but together we can fight for positive change.

  1. Go to the Charters Page and find your charter
  2. Sign and submit the pledge that corresponds with you
  3. Show your support for the Collective by purchasing Clean Sport gear and donating
  4. Share the badge on your social media accounts with the #cleansportco
Vacation Races and Lucid Images - positive race pictures

This series is brought to you courtesy of Lucid Images, an event photography company dedicated to capturing moments in the most natural way possible, striving to make each photograph unique enough to tell its own story. They've teamed up with Vacation Races, an organization that stages half marathons in different national parks to showcase the beauty of our natural world.
Active at Altitude is the Official Training Partner for all the races in the 2019 Vacation Races series - check out more details on the series and the training program options available at this link.
activacuity - the first guided imagery app for athletes!

Why guided imagery?

Guided imagery is a gentle yet powerful technique that focuses and directs the imagination. An imagery session involves all the senses, and mobilizes unconscious and pre-conscious processes to deliver conscious goals. As a listener, you are empowered to use your own imagination to create a detailed, complete experience to move you towards a goal that you have determined.

A session can involve visual, auditory & kinesthetic (movement or physical feelings) imagery. When you use your imagination in a directed way, you create neural patterns and connections in the brain, in exactly the same way that you use drills to improve your running form, and create new neural pathways to your muscles.

Your mind is one of your greatest assets, and yet it is also one that very few athletes pay much attention to.  Mental training is at least as important as physical training, and should be part of a daily training regimen for all athletes, regardless of pace level or ability. The daily sessions contained in activacuity™ provide a mechanism to train the mind, develop new neural pathways with a positive focus, and result in enhanced focus, confidence and performance for all athletes. Use activacuityon a daily basis, and create a positive support system for your physical training and performances.

activacuity® for enhanced focus, confidence, spirit, athletic experience & performance for all athletes

GO TO ACTIVACUITY WEBSITE
Sent from ESTES PARK, COLORADO, the home of the POSITIVE RUNNING MOVEMENT™

Thank you for being part of the movement and look out for our next newsletter!
Copyright © 2019 activacuity from Active at Altitude, All rights reserved.


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