Thoughts About Running
Your Favourite Run
Within all of us lies a hidden power. Each time you lace up for your everyday 10k (or whatever your distance may be), you add to that power, and it’s so much more than just greater aerobic fitness. No matter how many marathons you may have run in the past, the decision to go the full 42.2 has already taken you out of your comfort zone, and you can’t stay there all the time. For many marathoners, hard training becomes like a box, and that box can be confining. Is it time to get outside the box and claim your secret weapon?
It’s your favourite run. You know the one – it’s your default course that has grown with you as you’ve become a stronger runner. The run you go on between pushing out the long runs and increasing your lactate threshold. The run you love to do the day after a weight session or a set of hill repeats.
A favourite run is a craving for simplicity, a state of mind that transcends the training. My mate, Tom, used to love to go out well after dark for an hour’s jaunt, usually a couple of hours after a massive dinner. I never understood the timing, but I understand the impulse. “I love it,” he would say. “It’s my church.”
Tom’s run put him in a mindspace that was rejuvenating, healing, even creative. The physical became secondary to the mental exhilaration and relief from the stress of training. Needless to say, in the context of heavy marathon prep, having such an avenue is paramount. But not everyone knows or respects it. Your regular run has been good to you over the years – and, especially now, you need to be good to it.
It may seem anathema to step back and drop any thoughts of pressing on toward your race, but momentarily letting go of the ultimate goal allows it, somewhat paradoxically, to settle more snugly into your hands.
If you don’t have a favourite route, you should. Chances are it’s been under your nose the whole time. Physically you’ve been there many, many times, but perhaps you haven’t allowed your mind to truly embrace everything that your trusty default run has to offer. Put those cues that keep you embedded in the physical, such as gps and heart rate alerts, aside ( but not necessarily off ) and just run. You’ve been a beginner, an apprentice, a battler and a master on your run, and all the while you’ve been cultivating a bank of restorative nostalgia from which you can draw during these challenging pre-marathon months.
If you let the first few steps be a benediction of intent to enter into your running mind, your body will follow suit. Begin to pay attention to those familiar sights, sounds and scents that are unique to your run. My own favourite route offers a mix of wet earth, eucalyptus and sea air, and I seek it out from the moment I leave the house. (Suffering from some typical new-runner ailments – shin splints, Achilles issues – I inadvertently created a course that is varied in its undulations, surface and scenery. It takes me from my home and gradually descends to a bay where there are several playing fields and trails, before returning home the same way.) I can’t help but notice that while I have been running my favourite run for 20-plus years, it just gets better. I never get bored, even though I know every last piece of it.
These are the cues to which you must turn your attention, as they help to broaden and heighten your experience. Allow your thoughts to f low freely as you download and sort the myriad complications of daily life. An open mind is much more receptive to inspired insights, and just as heavy limbs can lighten, so can confusion turn to clarity.
So leave behind any expectation of marathon specifics and embrace the magical power of your favourite run. Switching off on a regular basis allows you to both absorb what you’ve done and lay a firm foundation for the next step toward marathon success. Get outside that box, and just run.
Christian Newbold is a long-time distance runner, triathlete and writer who lives and runs with his family of five in the idyllic foothills of Hobart’s Mount Wellington in Tasmania, Australia.