On Thanksgiving morning, I participated in my run club’s
Tofurky Trot. That’s right,
Tofurky. Last year, there was a
discussion on the various area turkey trots (you know, those Thanksgiving
morning community road races), and one of the vegans in the group joked that
she had a Tofurky run at her house. In
typical Libertyville Running Club tradition, it happened. Twice:
Anyway, I was running (well, trotting because we were
chatting too much to consider ourselves racing) with two friends. I’m working on growing my chemistry tutoring
business, and the question of how that was going…..lead to AP exams and college
choices and life in general and how we can apply our perspective about running
to life.
When you run a major marathon, you have to focus on your
race. The only thing that matters is
when the chip on your shoe or race bib hits the mats, so worrying about how
fast the people around you are going is anethma. They might be pacing for a faster race. You might see them in five miles, hitting a
wall because they went out too fast.
They might have shown up late and ended up starting in the back instead
of the super-speedy corral they were assigned.
You might have passed them earlier in the race because they stopped to
use a porta potty. Basically, you have
no clue what their chip and pacing is saying, so there is no point in comparing
yourself to them.
That’s true in life.
We spend so much of high school and college worrying about gpa and test
scores and class rank, comparing ourselves to our peers. My dentist had a son in my high school class,
and when I would go for a cleaning, I would always be with the dental hygienist
who also had a son in my class. Both
parents were very interested in my class rank, my ACT, what colleges I was
interested in attending, and so on.
Their sons were great guys, but I’m a member of Mensa genius who was so
smart as a 3 year old that I started kindergarten a year early *and* was in the
gifted program *and* by high school, so ambitious about college that I fought
for every extra credit point and A+. I
felt pressure, but it was so awkward to be in the dentist’s chair, having to
point out that I’m a better student than their sons. Especially when both of them had a lot of
gifts that have made them successful today.
Just not being in the top 1% of their high school graduating class.
With those comparisons, we stop running our life, our
“race,” and try to keep up with everyone else.
However, when you ask someone 20 years later, they often regret the
decisions that were influenced by external pressures, whether they be academic
or romantic or financial. Be you. Run your own race. Do your thing the way you need to do it.
That 2015 Chicago was looong!
Unless you are Eliud Kipchoge, a marathon is long. Three hours is considered a “fast” time, and
some people will be out there for seven or eight hours. A lot can happen in an hour, never mind
eight, and one of the mantras in marathon running is “just put one foot ahead
of the other.” I definitely had to say
that to myself throughout both Chicago and New York this year, as I didn’t know
how long my body would last.
When I came home, I realized I would have to apply that
mantra to life. I had quit my job. I had broken up with my boyfriend of four
years. My house was a cacophony of stuff
my ex had accumulated, stressing me to the point where my brain couldn’t figure
out how to do things like make dinner or brush my teeth without an anxiety
attack. The focus on the trip and the
marathon had taken some of the pressure off these things, but now I had to face
reality. A giant, scary, overwhelming
reality.
Instead of being caught up in the place I found myself, I
just needed to put one foot ahead of the other.
I had to figure out what was stressing me out the most, what the
smallest step I could take to alleviate that stress, and then accomplishing
that step. Lather, rinse, repeat. It has been all about finding success in
forward progress, no matter how small, and cherishing the stress relief
associated with it.
We get so caught up in not being “there” yet that instead of
focusing on that next little step, we stop and quit. Just keep moving forward. Keep learning, growing, progressing,
trying. You are getting closer.
In the course of a race that lasts hours, even for the
fastest in the world, a lot can happen.
The weather is often unpredictable and inconsistent. The meal you ate the night before suddenly
doesn’t agree with you. The start is
earlier or later than your normal training times, so you have to modify your
nutrition plan. You have to be able to
roll with the punches and adjust, rather than pining over what didn’t go
right. That was my New York experience
in a nutshell, having to make decisions and game plans on the fly as my body
wasn’t reacting as I expected.
There are days when you get up early and make a perfect
bullet journal page….just to have something happen that causes it to fly out
the window. For me, that’s like setting
up an ornate domino show, and having something knock the whole thing down
before you get a chance finish the design.
I’m back to square one and the first domino. I really have to stop, breathe, regroup, and
figure out how to go forward now that the plan is gone.
Life constantly doesn’t go as planned, and most of the time,
we don’t get to start over again. We get
stuck at that point, not knowing how to get back on track to a rigid set of ideas
and rules of what we want, rather than looking at where we are and retooling. Be adaptable to changes, especially changes that
are outside of your control.
Running a marathon is an all-day, if not all-weekend
event. You have spent months thinking
about this weekend, planning this weekend, purchasing items (and often travel)
for this weekend, so it makes sense that there’s also a sense of anxiety that
something won’t go as planned. Even the
most veteran marathon runners feel those nerves, and back in 2015, I let those
nerves get the better of me in Chicago.
My head started to control my body, and my body started to shut down. I did set an 8 min PR, but it would be three
years until I would have the experience to quiet the nerves and crush Chicago.
There are plenty of people who let their nerves get in the way
of success. The college student so
afraid of public speaking that they cannot give the presentation required for
their degree. The job seeker so afraid a
job won’t be perfect enough that their non verbal behavior blows an
interview. The person who walks away
instead of having a difficult conversation.
The woman at the bar who notices an attractive man, but is too nervous
of making a fool of herself to approach him and say hello.
We often think that our anxieties and nerves are a weakness
to suppress, wallowing in self-pity over our failures. Accept those nerves as part of being human. Learn how to overcome them.
Wait, there's something new here!
Another mantra of marathon running is “don’t change anything
on race day.” The idea is that if you
figured out what worked in training, race day is not the time to try something
new. While yes, a major change on race
day can cause a lot of problems, great runners are willing to take those risks
in hopes of going beyond what they think they can do. In New York, I tried compression socks for
the first time on race day, and it probably was the smartest thing I could have
done. I also try to keep my nutrition
plan flexible, risking that whatever is on course might not agree with me, over
becoming overly dependent on a specific product schedule.
It’s the perfect metaphor for life. Many people get stuck in this plan of how
life should be that they fear the risks they could take to achieve greater
goals. We stay in jobs we don’t love,
with people we don’t love, doing things we don’t love because it’s safe. It’s easy.
It’s predictable. We create a
bubble around us where nothing is difficult or challenging or scary, to the
point where they cannot tolerate anything that changes their universe.
However, that rigid adherence to what is planned and
familiar keeps us from growing and improving, which comes from taking risks and
failing. The runners who are so quick to
tell me they have every detail about their marathon planned are often the ones
who struggle improving their time. And
in life, the people who stay in their comfortable bubble often ruminate about
how they wish their lives were different, even as I see them actively reject anything
unfamiliar. Break your bubble. Try new things. Meet new people. Challenge yourself. Fail.
Learn from failure. Grow.
Finally, it’s not about one race. Your first marathon is usually the most
exciting. Everything is new and
different and adventurous. Your time
will be your personal best, since it is your first. The process naturally gets you in shape, and
you see your speed and endurance improve.
Your confidence builds, and you become ready to tackle greater things in
your life. (Did you see Brittany Runs a
Marathon?) Life is good!
That initial improvement comes from starting with
nothing. Eventually, you’ll plateau,
have a setback, or fight injury. Running
isn’t fun. You’re slower. It hurts.
Your friends on Strava seem to be flying past you in their own quests to
run PRs. Many runners hit this point and
quit, but the ones who figure out the challenge, make the changes, and reboot
can go further and faster.
My largest challenge is my head. I used to feel so slow that I would be bored
to tears during training, and that would translate to going out too fast at the
start of the race, to fight that boredom.
By mile 15, I was spent, walking, and even more slow and bored as the
race could not go fast enough. I decided
to take a couple years off of racing marathons, but continuing with the
training. Slowly, I improved to the
point where those 22 mile training runs seemed easy—and suddenly, so did my
marathons. I’ve gone from a consistent
5:30 finisher to a consistent 5 hour finisher, breaking 5 hours twice. It took years, four years, of slow progress,
setbacks, and challenges to get to this place.
I’m in the same spot in my life. I know where I’m going, but it doesn’t seem
to be moving fast enough to get there. I
feel like I’m plodding along, keeping my head afloat, and every ounce of
forward momentum turns to a setback. I
know I’m being challenged, and I need to keep retooling and practicing and
failing and learning and growing. I need
to accept that this process could take years, or even a decade, so I need to celebrate
every step forward and overcome every setback.
Just like I believe I’m capable of being a faster marathoner, I am
capable of living the life of my dreams.
We get so focused on success that we get demoralized and derailed
by the first glimmer of imperfection, that first challenge or obstacle. However, it’s the failure that causes
improvement. Don’t allow setbacks to
hold you back. Identify the roadblocks
on your path and figure out how to overcome them.
Breakthrough, and first sub-5!
So runners, what say you?
What life lessons have you learned from running marathons, 5k’s or
ultras? What do you want to pass along
to others?
