4 Mind Lessons I Wish I Knew Before Running a 50-Mile Foot Race
On mastering emotions and thoughts
It’s 4:30am and I’m shivering.
We’re ushered onto a yellow school bus and ride for what seems like an hour.
The driver stops and yells, “we’re here, just get off and walk to the starting line over yonder”.
I get off and see the other runners with blankets and also shivering.
It’s still pitch black. There’s a giant digital clock with big and bright orange numbers counting down the start time.
There are 54 seconds left before the race director fires his starting pistol.
Then it hits me. I focused so much on my gear, hydration, and nutrition that I forgot to plan for the most important thing of all — the mind.
Here are five simple mind lessons I learned the hard way after running for hours.
Don’t forget what you can’t control
What you can’t control are those random thoughts and emotions popping up as you’re in the heat of passion.
When you’re doing hard things, emotions and thoughts will come up.
What do you do in that case? Have some mental strategies ready to address them. Otherwise, they’ll derail your game plan.
Prepare to be alone with your thoughts
Having strategies to regulate your emotions is key to mastering them.
I didn’t have that. Now I do. Here are some I wrote about in this article.
I have internal conversations with the thoughts that arise. I even prepare thoughts in advance to counter them.
Catch your thoughts before they spiral
Master chess player Josh Waitzkin calls it the downward spiral.
It’s regaining presence and clarity after making a serious mistake. It’s not the first mistake. It’s the second, third, and fourth that can put you into a negative emotional/thought spiral.
In very long foot races, you’re bound to get lost no matter how good your map skills are. You’ll make other mistakes too, like not hydrating enough, changing wet socks, or eating enough. The list goes on. Each one is enough to take you out.
So, how to catch yourself before going into a downward spiral?
Waitzkin recommends a quick ritual of a few steps to snap you back into presence.
Could be anything — from splashing water in your face to taking a couple of deep breaths.
My little ritual:
- 3 deep breaths
- Quick internal pep talk
- Focus on the smallest next thing I have to do
Tell yourself beforehand that quitting is not an option
You know that thing you do when you tell yourself the day before that you’re going to do something?
Which then makes it more likely that you’ll do it?
It’s like planting a seed or visualization (mind sculpture as it’s also called).
You tell yourself you’re going to do or not do something the day or so before. It makes it more likely that you’ll check the box.
It’s a powerful and underrated mind hack that works for me about every time.
In the case of quitting, telling myself it’s not an option works the same way.
I failed to do that.
I didn’t quit after all. But I know that had I told myself this the night before, things would’ve been different. The thought of quitting would not have lingered so many times in my mind.
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