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Perspective and mindfulness

Perspective and mindfulness

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Hard to believe August is already here, which means that now both Chicago *and* NYC are in fewer than 100 days. Chicago

 

NYC marathon

I began officially “training training” (you know, similar to when you’re in high school and you “like” someone… but then you “LIKE like” someone else) just about two weeks ago now, and so far, things have been going swimmingly. As I write in my DailyMile entries on an almost daily basis, I’m really concentrating on being present in the workout and not getting ahead of myself. When I’m in the throes of a hard tempo, or about to close out a long run, I’m training my mind to be THERE, in THOSE miles, and not thinking about how I might be feeling 20 minutes from now (especially hard when I’m doing speedwork and beginning to tire) or what next week’s workouts will be like.

It’s really hard, but it’s a work in progress.

To that (tangential) end, I’ve recently read two memorable articles about focus and perspective that I think merit sharing. The first, Pete Magill’s “Tao of Running” adorns my fridge these days–sorry, family–so that literally every. single. time. I open the fridge (or freezer) door, I’m reminded of a few really critical points that, well, really, are worth being reminded of on a daily basis. Truth be told, all his points are magnificent–not being hyperbolic here–but these last three just blow me away. I think I’m going to make mini photo-copies and stick them in my wallet or something. Behold:

“Prevent trouble before it arises. Put things in order before they exist.

I can’t count the times runners I’ve coached have complained about injury-prevention routines included in their schedules — they don’t have time, they just want to run, and besides, they feel fine. It’s roughly the same number of times those runners have complained about physical therapy bills, the loss of fitness while injured and the inability of injury-prevention exercises to double as injury-reversal exercises.

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Fitness doesn’t happen in a day. Nor in a week, month or year. Fitness is a lifestyle. It happens the day you no longer seek it. It appears while you’re living it.

Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else, there is no end to the blame.

So let’s agree that this is the end. And the beginning. Yin and yang.”

I think these points strike me not necessarily because I’ve had a propensity for injuries (knock on wood) or that I’ve crashed and burned and failed miserably lately (though of course, not every workout is as successful as I want it to be); really, I think Magill’s points here really jibe with me because their overarching theme is one that I sometimes lose sight of once I get into my training grind–and that, my friends, is perspective.

Perspective is what keeps me coming back for more.

Even if one workout isn’t as effortless as I want it to be, if I recall where I was a year ago (or however long ago) when I attempted the same (or similar) workout, more often than not, I’m humbled.

And I quickly, quickly get over myself.

I think time, and experience, has gotten me to this place with my training, and with my running, in general, wherein I realize that “one bad workout (or race) does not a runner make”… or something. I distinctly remember poring over every single mile split, for every single training run, for many of my first marathons (lowballing here, but I was probably this way for at least my first 5). When I was in the final mesocycles of my Eugene training, I boldly proclaimed to the blogosphere that my training for mary #19 made me realize that I was no longer the same runner that I once had been. In the winter, with the guidance and encouragement of a ton of runners whose opinions (and friendship!) I value, I slowly began to look at my running on a more macro level and, in the process, began to appreciate the strides (ba-dum-CHING!) I had been making, and made, since… ever, and since resuming running post-childbirth.

Experience, and research, and time have all collectively made me a much smarter runner than I’ve been before, and what is likely a huge contributing factor to this new-found intelligence is a greater sense of perspective related to my running career.

Try it on for size.

Assuming you’ve made it this far through my diatribe, the partner to perspective that I’m working hard on cultivating is its cousin, mindfulness (or attention, whatever you’d like to call it). I mentioned this earlier, that I’ve been trying to stay in each moment of my run and not let my mind wander too much, particularly if I’m doing a workout with a very (time) specific goal in mind. We all know how crucial it is to pay attention and heed our racing strategy come race day, but what about all the other days of training that come before? How can we expect to be there mentally, when we’re expecting to execute, if we haven’t worked our mental muscle all along?

Enter “The Role of Attention in Racing,” taken from the blog, “The Logic of Long Distance.” Much like the Magill article, this article mildly blew my mind the first several times I read it. I don’t even want to summarize it much here, or give you my reaction to it, because I think you should read it now, before your next training run, and again in the days leading up to your target race. A preview (and this is before the really good stuff!):

Paying attention is crucial to the sport of distance running. I think we all know this intuitively: so much of racing and even training is sustaining a hard effort, and what sustaining requires is attention, first and foremost. You might even say that at a very fundamental level, attention and endurance are the same thing: as goes our attention, so we go.

Attention is a trainable quality — like the rest of our lives, it has an aspect that is inborn or genetic, but it is also governed to a great extent by habit. When we examine human attention carefully, we see two things immediately. First, it it is always directed somewhere. Common expression says that sometimes we aren’t paying attention at all — but this is never true. It’s more accurate to say that the attention is turned elsewhere than that it goes away entirely. Consciousness can be distracted or dissipated. It can lose focus and intensity, but it never quite goes away so long as we are conscious — even in sleep the attention conjures its own images to keep itself occupied. Second, we notice that the attention only rests on one thing at a time. [ … ] We never actually attend to two things simultaneously […]

So, when it comes to attention in the sport of running, the question becomes how can we optimally occupy the attention, given that it is firing constantly? How often should the attention shift? And to what should it switch when it does? Once we’ve answered these questions, we can then turn to the question of how to train these habits of attention.

Weekend reading, kids. Enjoy them both because they’re goodies. Promise.

What say you? What articles have you read online lately(that are at least tangentially related to running) that really struck a chord with you? Do you plaster them on your fridge, too?

Hijacked

Hijacked

Comments 13 comments

The waiting game is almost over, and I’m really itching to get back out there in a more structured, every-day-has-its-significance type of way that comes with marathon training. With just one more week, and one more race (Thursday’s all-ladies’ 10k…PS come say hi!!!), until I *officially* start training again for Chicago and NYC, I feel like I’m chompin’ at the bits to see what else is in the tank, what else I can unearth.

If I’m being honest with myself, this “maintenance” plan that I put together was aggressive, but–patting myself on the back here–I’ve backed off from it, and considerably so at times. Erin, in 2007, wouldn’t have done that because she would have thought that training plans were written in blood (or something equally serious and permanent). Fast-forward to present-day Erin, and she knows that we write our training plans with a very easy-to-smudge, lightweight pencil (and she also apparently drops third-person references in her writings).

My very fancy plan. Can you tell I wrote it in a car?
My very fancy plan. Can you tell I wrote it in a car?

Nonetheless, or maybe because of the flexibility that I’ve given myself over the past few weeks, and in the weeks and months post-Eugene, I feel like my confidence levels heading into training for mary #20 and #21 are where they should be. That I’ve been able to race somewhat frequently and perform somewhat well, given my lack of focused training, is like (vegan) icing on the (vegan) cake.

That said, don’t ask me about my CM/NYC goals yet because I really have no idea. Minimally, I’m confident that if I challenge myself, or my body, this time around in ways that I haven’t before, she’ll respond (more third-person references FTW!).

No doubt part of this soliloquy is me cleaning house of all the “head trash” that so easily accumulates when I feel like I’m not good enough, fast enough, strong enough, thin enough, whatever enough.

I hate that it accumulates so easily. Loathe it, really.

Going out on a limb here, but I’d guess that like many other runners, I so easily get caught up in the dirty game of comparison and the hypothetical If I upped my mileage by X%, then I’d be X minutes faster or the recurring If I lost X pounds, I bet I could drop minutes off my PRs, among other sentiments.

I have absolutely no time for that nonsense (ironic only because you’d think as a mostly SAHM, I’d have tons of time on my hands. How far from the truth that is, amigos). Anyway. I absolutely cannot afford to spend offensive amounts of time deliberating the merit of my abilities or how things would be different for me “if only.”

Truth be told, if I really, truly wanted things to be different, nothing is stopping them from being so. Rationally, however, I know I’m in a fine place; it’s just pure emotion that periodically hijacks me.

What would probably behoove me most is to trust myself.

And the process.

God bless the process.

I need to keep re-reading what I wrote just a few paragraphs ago, about how I was still able to race and perform relatively well post-Eugene, in the absence of concerted training and race preparation efforts, to remind myself that I’m not starting anew. What I’m about to embark on is merely a continuation of what I started—and how I very much surprised myself—in the winter and spring. Thursday’s 10k, much as these past few weeks have been, will be like a soft beginning to my fall marathon training. I haven’t figured out a race strategy yet–that’ll come in the next few days and might, unfortunately, be dictated by the weather–but it’ll be a good baseline, if nothing else. Anyway…

Ha! Love it. This makes me sound crazy. :)
Ha! Love it. This makes me sound crazy. 🙂

When I was in the throes of Eugene training, through the Lenten season, I decided to kill the negative self-talk (and the daily weigh-in) because both make me a bit neurotic and because, really, neither one help me realize my overarching goals (in running or in life, really). While it took some time to get used to, especially nixing the self-deprecation, I found it quite liberating once I got away from the habit of constantly thinking that I was undoubtedly not good enough, fast enough, light enough, whatever enough to be able to perform on April 28.

As I transition to hard-and-fast marathon training starting here in a few more days, minimizing the “head trash” is still the one habit that is challenging me. Running is rarely problematic, and the ancillary stuff has become so custom that I often feel like if I fail to do it, I’m letting people down (these people being my imaginary cheerleaders on dailymile, ha). Like any habits, though, I imagine that creating the more-often-than-not positive mental space takes time, and just like the ancillary stuff that’s so important, so, too, is this stuff. And, once it’s habit, it’s habit.

If I want to be at my fastest and fittest ever come October 13 and November 3, I’ve got to clean mental house.

I’ve no room for trash in there; that real estate is far, far too expensive.

I’ll only exude that quiet confidence and beat people whom I shouldn’t be beating come race day not only if I’ve put in the miles and the ancillary stuff but also once I’ve convinced myself that I’m totally, utterly, completely capable.

Props to my girl Loreen on dailymile for this gem!
Props to my girl Loreen on dailymile for this gem!

What say you? Do you ever have to clean ‘mental’ house? How do you keep being your own cheerleader, or maybe more importantly, how do you believe all the positive things you tell yourself?