A quick inspirational message from the Running Philosopher to help get you through challenging times!
Run Your Own Race
I’m fifteen miles into the Quad Rock, a 25-mile trail race in the foothills outside of Fort Collins, Colo. For the past four hours, I’ve been zooming along well, ranging up and down the trails of this hilly course. I ran towards the front of the pack for the first part of the race, chatting amiably with a few of my fellow competitors and generally enjoying the sunshine and mountain views. I felt zippy on top of things, maybe even on pace to finish near the top of my age category.
At around the race’s midpoint the pack seemed to speed up as it crested a hill and followed some narrow singletrack along a creek. I was tired now, but I’d been hanging in there with this group and didn’t want to fall back. So I tightened up my focus and stayed right on the heels of a spry woman right at the front of the line, pushing myself like it was mile 25.
Now, though, as I run through a gully and cross a spring stream, all that effort has caught up to me. I look ahead to see the third massive climb of the run: another several thousand feet of ascent. As I ramble up the hill, it feels like all the power in my legs has somehow dissipated into nothingness. I slow to a plod, as I start getting passed.
Another mile in and I have to stop altogether. I pull off the trail and try to massage out some painful cramps in my quads. More runners pass, looking fresh, and my finishing place ticks downwards a step every few seconds.
I eventually hobble to the finish line, exhausted and spent. Once I get some chicken noodle soup and beer in me, I have moment to think back on my performance. I know, had I strategized a bit differently, I could have finished a bit higher. But what went wrong?
The problem, I realize, is that I ran someone else’s race, not my own. I had a race plan for the day, based on my own training and ability, but I got caught up in someone else’s race. I was too worried about keeping up with other people and where I would finish relative to them.
Instead, a better strategy would have been to focus on my own abilities and my own goals, and to listen carefully to my body and adjust accordingly throughout the race.
In other words, what I needed to do was to run my own race.
Running Your Own Race In Life
Running, of course, is just a metaphor for life. And in life, just as in running, it’s easy to get caught up in someone else’s race.
I felt this way when I left my nice secure job six years ago to start my own business. For several years, we struggled financially as I worked to build my client base. Other people my age were buying new cars and taking fancy vacations, and we were counting pennies and sweating over each dollar in our budget.
At the time, I felt I was doing something wrong. I was in my mid-40s and still stressing about where the next paycheck would come from. My other friends didn’t seem to have to worry about this.
What I realized, eventually, was that I was running other people’s races in my mind. I started my own company for a million reasons – because I didn’t want a boss, because I wanted to work from home, and because I wanted to create something myself. That was my passion. My goal was not to make a ton of money, but to embark on this new journey, and that’s what I was doing.
When I started to run my race, rather than someone else’s, I embraced the journey more. When we had to trim our budget, it wasn’t because I was failing, but because I’d decided that doing my own thing – even if it made less money – was a more important priority for me.
4 Tips For Running Your Own Race
We all have a tendency to run other people’s races and hook on to their goals and dreams. Here are some tips to keep ahold of yours – in running and in life:
1. Clearly Articulate Your Goals
Write out your goals, and be specific. Revisit them regularly and internalize them. The are yours, so own them.
2. Don’t Let Other People In Your Mind
Make sure goals are really yours, not someone else’s. Are you trying to finish a marathon because your best friend did? Are you trying to date someone because your parents think she’s perfect for you? Or are these goals coming from your heart?
3. Create Your Own Metrics For Success
What qualifies as success in your own race? Deciding ahead of time what is meaningful for you will help you avoid grabbing on to someone else’s metrics. Perhaps simply finishing that 100-miler or 10k is success, or perhaps it’s standing on the podium. Evaluate your performance according to your own metrics.
4. Be Willing To Adjust Goals As Necessary
In the Quad Rock, I failed to adjust my time goals, even when my I could feel my body needed a rest. When I started my company, I expected a salary similar to what I earned working for a larger company. Life happens – and we need to be flexible in how we think about our own journey and what is realistic and meaningful to achieve.
How I’m Staying Sane in the Time of Coronavirus
All of us have been scrambling over the past days and weeks to make sense of the world’s events and keep a sense of balance and sanity to our lives. Here are some simple things I’m doing that have helped.
I’m sticking to my morning routine
Routines are demonstrated to reduce stress and anxiety and impart a sense of control. Though much of my day has been turned topsy-turvy, I’ve taken pains to retain my morning routine, which usually looks like this.
- Wake up before my kids to have 30 minutes of reflective time.
- Practice 15 minute of mindful meditation (with all screens and devices firmly set in the “off” position).
- Write down three things I’m grateful for today.
- Review my most important life priorities (Publishing a book! Running a 100K race! Keeping healthy!) and write down a few big-picture goals for today, keeping my big dreams in mind.
- Write out today’s schedule and a list of specific tasks to accomplish.
I’m hanging out at home
We still have power to determine the trajectory of this virus. As we are all now all too aware, social distancing is the best way to slow the curve of the epidemic. That means avoiding physical contact with people who don’t live in my house. It’s hard to get used to, but even though we’ve only been practicing the habit for a few days, we’re already getting into the groove.
I’m selectively reading high-quality news sources
Each morning, Lisa and I check one or two news sources we trust to see what might be impacting us (such as closures or restrictions, or good advice on how to stay healthy). Because we are human, Lisa and I are spending a lot of time talking about how to deal with the pandemic, what it means for us, and talking about our emotions – fear, hope, exhaustion, whatever.
However, life is much more than a virus, no matter how destructive. We have children to educate, work to do, ultramarathon training schedules to meet, and Netflix queues to work though. Once we know what we need to do, we’re stepping away. We’re also taking speculation with a grain of salt – we’ll deal with the future when it gets here.
I’m limiting my social media
It’s nice to still feel connected to others, especially when we’re distanced physically from them. However, it’s easy to let other people’s stories and moods sneak into your own space. Keeping our minds balanced and strong is hard work and our mood (or, as Lisa calls it, our “vibration”), can be fragile in uncertain times. To keep in control of my own story, I’m limiting my time spent paging through social media.
Important note: The CDC has determined that following me on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram is proven to boost your immunity.
I’m learning yoga
This is one that’s been on my list for a while. Gentle yoga is a perfect counterpoint to running, enhancing flexibility and strength. I like Yoga With Adriene, which has a whole series on runners’ yoga.
I’m cleaning up
We all have those piles of guilt and stackers of shame – those things we’ve meant to organize for so long and just haven’t gotten to. Every time I’m planning a run, I reach into this disorganized cabinet to grab a gel or headlamp and promise myself I’m going to actually organize it someday. Well, perhaps someday has finally come. Sometimes it takes a pandemic.
I’m planning my next adventure
Just before the pandemic hit, I’d been thinking of taking on a bucket list challenge for my 50th birthday, like the Oman Desert Marathon, happening next February. I’m still dreaming about what my running challenge might look like in 2021. I’d rather spend my emotional energy planning for an adventure that might have to be modified, than not look ahead at all.
I’m getting into nature
An exception to the above rule is to get into open spaces.
I’m running – of course!
OK, it’s hard not to be a little self-righteous – but how awesome is running? Our sport naturally lends itself to being in public-health-approved outdoor spaces. Even if we’re not running, nature helps keep us balanced and is clinically proven to reduce our stress levels (not pseudoscience, it’s true!). It’s a perfect place to spend some time alone or with our families just as Spring comes.
I’d planned to travel out of the country this week, but instead I’ll focus on training, building up miles for the ultramarathon I have planned for late July, when, with some luck, I’ll be cruising over the peaks of the Never Summer range, eating PB&J squares and bacon, and – yes – hugging people at the finish line.
I’m remembering this moment – and that it will pass
This is a great time to do some deep thinking. I’m exploring personal questions like:
- What things do I have to gain from this moment?
- What personal meaning can I draw?
- How can hit help me grow?
- What are the unexpected gifts of this time?
- How will I be a better human after this time is over?
Reflecting on these questions will help me in life – and, of course, out there on the trails.
Do These 2 Things To Fight Coronavirus
Figuring out how to be in this time of uncertainty and pandem-onium can be overwhelming. Today I’m stopping and focusing on just two things.
Coronavirus, Uncertainty, and the Ultimate Truth of Nature
Last week I was cruising down Route 285 toward Colorado’s Collegiate Range, heading to the Run Through Time half marathon in Salida to kick off the racing season. It was to be a fun, social weekend, connecting with the running community and testing out my competitive chops.
I pulled off at a gas station and while my tank was filling, I offhandedly checked my e-mail. The race, it turned out, was cancelled due to coronavirus fears. I feel annoyed, and the guilty for being annoyed. Giving up a race I was looking forward to is a small price to pay to help stem a global pandemic.
Still, it was unsettling. When the world changes, we feel uprooted and ungrounded. We create stories about the future, often based on our worst-case fears. We are removed from the nice, everyday progression of our lives.
There’s one place I can almost always get my thoughts together, and that’s in nature. So I pulled into the parking lot at the top of Kenosha Pass, zipped up my sweatshirt, and headed up the Colorado Trail for a few miles. In just moments, I was deep in the woods, far from cable news and airplanes and crowds, The forest had a magical late-winter air, with the first little green buds poking through a floor of melting snow.
I was home now, I realized, though I’d never been on this particular trail. And I’d missed it. There is a safety and a homecoming in nature, a sense that I came from here and I will go back to here. I feel welcomed and absorbed. The trees and hillsides know nothing of coronavirus or rush hour traffic or Donald Trump. They are simply here.
An unknown future is both the curse and the gift of being human. The curse delivers itself in the form of fear, of trying to live out innumerable possibilities in our minds. The gift is that of possibility. The future holds magic, but we don’t always know how and when that magic will show up.
Uncertainty is an opportunity to appreciate the ultimate truth of being a human – which is that we are merely here by the grace of God (or whatever entity, force, or rule we believe brings the Universe into existence). It’s such a cliched statement we rarely have a chance to realize the true force of it. There is no past or future, there is only now. To be human is to be subject to the laws of the cosmos, and those laws dictate that we are here only for a short time, and that it’s impossible to know what lies ahead.
Nature has an ultimate truth, too, and it’s a sort of counterpoint to the uncertainty of being human. Nature is eternal. It exists in an endless cycle of birth and death. Everything is here for a bit, and then isn’t.
The mountains and forests seem to know that. They embody the contradiction of eternal life and certain death every day without fear. They are piled with artifacts of dying – old roots and animal carcasses and brown leaves. But they are profoundly alive as well, glittering sunlight through aspen groves, a deer poking its head furtively around a pine bough.
Here in the midst of the Pike National Forest, a few days before the first day of spring, nature is preparing as normal. Industrious birds zip to and fro overhead, preparing for the busy season ahead. A pinecone falls from its berth above, finally dislodged after clinging to its branch through the winter. A tiny green bud appears on the seemingly dead branch of a fallen pine. It’s the crackle and pop of the eternal cycle of life and death.
I’m just grateful to have had the opportunity to stop for a moment and see it.
