26Sep

Comfort Zones and Documenting Learning

Posted by: teachtuscon Categories: in action
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I am a list maker… to the extreme… I will even add items to the list after completion, in order to be able to get the satisfaction of checking it off. 😉 One of my strategies in life is to try to prioritize and do things that allows me to check off more than one item on my “to do list”. I simply like to create/tweak tasks, so they can serve to tick off more than one checkbox…at a minimum of two, preferably more than that.

Documenting learning is always on my famous to-do list. So is making my learning visible and shareable with others. I like to practice what I preach, push myself out of my comfort zone when it comes to my learning…. soooo… I am planning on a new project in the next few months. Bear with me, as I might venture out what seems to be unrelated to my usual topics here on the Langwitches blog. In the end it will connect back to new forms of learning, new forms of documenting for my learning and for the learning of others.

A little over a year ago, (when I turned 50), I started taking up walking on the treadmill (starting from scratch as a “my-whole-life not very athletic and not interested in sports related activities.). Without really noticing in the beginning, my fingers started to push buttons on the treadmill and walking turned into slow jogging. Living in Florida, in order to escape the heat and humidity, I stayed inside the air conditioned gym until almost a year of dabbling with the different settings on the treadmill, I joined a local women’s running group, MOTR-Mom’s on the Run. I remember the very first run, quietly trying to keep up with the group (first time running on pavement and not on a treadmill), listening to their conversation. They seemed to speak Chinese, throwing around terms like PR, BPM, tapering, cadence, pace, easy vs. long runs, etc… all terms I did not know what they meant or stood for. The most unexpected thing happened… and I enjoyed running outside…in the dark… at 6 am… with other women… without my airpods in my ears… without my music to distract me from “having to exercise”… before the sun came out and it started getting too hot here in Florida.

I started to participate in 5 K runs around town, went on outside runs when I was away traveling, progressed to running a 10K out of State and a 15K in town. I am getting ready to run on the beach as part of a relay (swim/run) with my husband and …

…have registered to run my first half marathon in August in my favorite city of Buenos Aires.

I am challenging myself to document my training for that half marathon AND to push myself out of my comfort zone not only in terms of physical activity, but also in the area of documenting learning. My typical go-to platform would have been this blog, but I want to try something different by using my Langwitches Instagram feed.

  • How will I visually tell the story of my training process and my learning?
  • How will I write as an instagrammer and not a blogger? (think #hashtags, not hyperlinks)
  • How will I amplify my network beyond educators and share with a runner community (definitely out of my comfort zone)
  • How will the process of documenting have an effect on my motivation and overall learning about running?

Official training, will start on June 2nd (12 weeks before the 1/2 Marathon). I am in the pre-documenting phase (LOOKING for learning (what will I need/anticipate to learn) and figuring out how I will CAPTURE that learning visually).

  • I have made a list (of course!) with images that I would want to take to to make different parts of the training visible.

I am excited to document my 12 week training for the Buenos Aires 21K! Follow me on Instagram to see how the training, but also my #Instagramliteracy is developing 🙂

If you are a runner and have trained for half o full marathons before, what are absolute musts to document in order to help “marathon newbies” like me in the process?