This morning I went for a long run. For me, right now, this is around an hour. In my life, I’ve gone for much longer and much shorter. But an hour is kind of like the Goldilocks distance – just right. It doesn’t eat up too much of your day, yet you feel like you got in a really good workout. It’s a long enough run that your brain can relax. It’s on runs like these that you can reach the state described as flow – where ideas come and you are perfectly at peace.
Like most days, today’s run started with my mind whirring. Work thoughts. Personal life thoughts. Sunday to-do list thoughts. Like a washing machine, round and round.
Perhaps due to my excellent playlist (today, an eclectic mix of old 90’s favorites, Darius Rucker, Pearl Jam, and…Flo Rida), after a few miles I reached the flow state. Ahhh……
And my brain settled on a walk down memory lane – and everything I have learned from my longest love affair. That’s right, I’ve had an intense love affair with running since I was around 10 years old. I started racing in third grade, began to see good success in fifth grade, and hard core committed in seventh grade. Along the way, running has brought me some of my greatest joys – and greatest heartaches. I’ve met some of my best friends from running. Met my husband on our college track team.
Here are the top 5 things I’ve learned from running, which have informed my life:
1) The Only Way To Reach a Goal is to Set a Goal. Running is a great sport for Type A over-achievers. You can set goals to hit specific times. Specific awards. Specific outcomes. I did this in spades. From seventh grade on, I had specific time goals I wanted to hit for various races (800M, 1600M, 3200M, and cross country). Specific awards I wanted to achieve – starting with All-State in high school, to State Champion to All-American. It was a great lesson in setting goals and then building training plans and mini-goals to serve as markers. With each goal met, stretch goals became reality and I achieved more* than I would have dreamed as a young runner.
2) Hard Work and Grit (Typically) Pays Off. I had an aggressive coach starting in seventh grade who believed deeply in the benefit of hard work. He was a high mileage guy – by the time I graduated high school I was regularly running 70 miles per week. He also was an early teacher of the current buzz phrase “grit.” He regularly told me I wasn’t super talented – but I had a tremendous work ethic. My nickname was Ms. Intensity. I took great pride in this. I loved lining up at the starting line and knowing I wasn’t inherently the fastest, but I had without a doubt, worked the hardest. No one would beat me without really working for it.
3) Always Have a Smart Strategy and Play to Your Strengths. It may seem like running is very straight-forward. One foot in front of the other. First one to the finish line wins. But I loved forming strategies to build on my hard work base. I couldn’t out-kick many runners, so my typical strategy involved going hard from the gun. I was a strong hill runner and I was considered a “mudder” – the worse the weather conditions, the better for me. So I accelerated up huge hills, loved a super muddy course or windy day, and generally worked hard to drop people before I could get out-kicked. Running can be a super fun mind game and I loved to gauge breathing and effort and throw in a surge when I could tell my competitors were hurting. I had a serious game face and a distinct plan for every race.
4) Be Flexible and Creatively Adapt Your Goals. Because my high school career went well, I had many options for college. I looked east, west, and south. Ruled out the north because I am not a fan of super cold weather. Ultimately I chose the University of Arkansas, because they were the #2 program in the country at the time and the coach was a great recruiter. For our first cross-country race, I was our #5 scorer on a very strong team and thought I was on my way to collegiate All-American.
Unfortunately, a few weeks later I got my first stress fracture. Twelve more stress fractures and a dual-leg surgery for compartment syndrome ultimately ended my career. All of that hard work in high school had drained my bone density and it turned out I had the bone strength of an old lady.** It was a vicious cycle. I spent thousands of hours cross-training and in the weight/training rooms. It would take months for an injury to heal given my weak bones, and then I would promptly get hurt again. It was heart-breaking.
So finally, after my junior year, I decided I needed to extend some of that energy toward my future and I retired. It was a very tough decision – a few years earlier I legitimately thought I was bound for the Olympics, as some of my teammates ultimately achieved. But it was the best choice for me, hard as it was. I joined a sorority and got a taste of “normal” college life. I found jobs that would be helpful for my professional communication goals. I ended up graduating early and moved to Oregon for a six month adventure.
Then, I was accepted to the University of Missouri graduate program for communications. I reached out to the coach (who had recruited me and was a super nice guy) and asked if he needed a grad assistant coach. He asked me to run for him instead. It required some paperwork to reverse my hardship scholarship from Arkansas (i.e. I was deemed too hurt to compete), but ultimately, I had my second full scholarship for my fifth year of education. It was unexpected, and required an agreement that I would only train about 30 miles a week (my unfortunate breaking point it seemed) and we would see what I could do.
It took some serious humility on my part. I was training at half speed and for someone who built my strength and confidence based on my work ethic, it was doubly hard. But I tried to embrace the experience – and ultimately was our third scorer at the NCAA cross country championship. A far cry from my earlier individual dreams, but I was so grateful for the experience.
5) The Journey Really is More Important than the Destination. When I look back on my running career, the biggest impact is how it shaped me as a person. I still love a great set of goals, pride myself on my work ethic, and believe deeply in playing to your strengths. Life hasn’t always turned out as I thought it would, but I’ve adapted and made the most of it.
Ultimately, it wasn’t the number of trophies or medals that I won that made an impact. It was the people I met, the friendships I created, and the strength I developed as a person – both in good times and bad.
Sometimes people ask me why I run now. Am I training for anything? How do I fit it in?
My answer is really simple – I run, as I always have, because I love it.
*I ultimately ended up a 5 time state champion, 12 time all-state athlete, and cross-country all-American ranked #8 in the country. Ahh….glory years…
**My bones are totally fine now. It took lots of rest, some medication, and a specific diet but all good!
The Redefining 