Don’t quit.
Why you need to stop stopping.
In the springtime of my running, which, incidentally, was also in the literal springtime, I didn’t often finish the distance I had in mind when I set out. In the course of a 2 mile jog, I’d regularly get a stitch and then summarily stop. I’d stroll along, clutching my side and catching my breath until the pain left me. It was an easy way out. I’d stop running and the pain would stop and I’d let my internal bullshit-excuse-factory make me feel better about: “See!” I’d say to myself, “It’s not that I don’t want to do my run, its that it just hurts too much! As soon as it calms down I’ll start running again…” And would you believe it, very often that was indeed the case, I actually would start running again.
But thats not the point. The point is I had stopped.
“But you started again” I hear you say, possibly even smiling supportively “thats the main thing!” Yes, I know there are a plethora of proverbs out there highlighting the virtues of resilience. Among the more famous is the Japanese notion of 七転び八起き (Nana korobi ya oki). Loosely translated, the saying asserts that should you fall down seven times, you need to get up eight. Now, thats good and well and I’m certainly not here to discount this lesson in its entirety, but without some guts thrown in the mix, this sounds to me like a mantra for mediocrity. If you keep on doing the same actions,holding the same beliefs, you’re gonna keep getting the same results. Yes, getting up is important, but getting up only to be knocked right on your ass again doesn’t make you a winner, it makes you too dumb to either stay down or get better.
Back to running. Even once I’d started breathing correctly and I had the stitches under control, I’d get white hot lightning bolts of Piriformis pain stabbing deep in my butt cheek and I would be forced to quit running. Once the spasms started, there was no way I could get my muscles under control and so I simply had to stop. I’d scream and shout and sometimes cry in the middle of the street. Hot, salty, snotty, impotent fury overwhelming me.
I’d stop and I couldn’t even start again.
Feeling the shame of my body beating my will smarted. But feeling the indignation of having to quit also helped me realize that I’d only got half the story about getting up again. You see, resilience is not the most important thing, perseverance is. I’d been ok with quitting before because I’d always start up again after a while. I believed that in doing so, I’d still get to be a hero… But that is not how heroism works.
We don’t get to say we’ve conquered a run until we actually beat it. When you’re running, just finishing your distance (with a few stops) is not the same as a victory. What you’re doing is not letting the distance beat you and thats great in itself, but its also not winning. In order to conquer the distance, what you really need to do is to run the whole way, no stopping, no matter how much it hurts. And somedays it hurts a lot. What I’m talking about is actually related to another Japanese concept, the spirit of 頑張る (gambaru). The literal translation here expresses the concept of sticking doggedly to a task with tenacity until it is completed. Slaving away till success is had. Here’s the key:
If you want to be unstoppable, don’t quit.
And so that’s what I did. I decided I wasn’t going to let a distance beat me ever again. I went back to drawing board and stopped cutting corners in my form. I needed to put in more effort to be better than a just a stop-start runner. Yes it would hurt more, and sap more energy to not quit, but at least I’d have the pride of saying I conquered the distance. I started focussing on perfecting my form and cadence. I found the Piriformis pain decreasing with every run and while I had to work harder to keep control, in doing so I got to run farther and farther, without stopping. I got comfortable with being uncomfortable and learned to live with aches and pains that developed, and passed, with the miles. On the road I learned that not quitting is better than starting up again after you falter, that perserverance trumps resiliance. I learned that if you’re tired of starting again, you need to stop stopping in the first place.
