Yes, you’re in pain but remember it won’t last forever
Pain, they say, is temporary – glory is forever. Sometimes it’s ‘‘pride lasts forever’’ or, as once said by cyclist Lance Armstrong, ‘‘quitting lasts forever’’ (so too does the sting of having your seven Tour de France titles stripped for drug cheating, presumably).
However it ends, the saying has always struck me as a glib throwaway that takes no account of the reality of life.
For starters, pain is forever for some people. Other times, the pain is so intense you have to ask if it’s worth the pride and glory.
But I get the sentiment. And I got it even more after meeting two insightful and extremely talented athletes at the recent Tarawera Ultramarathon.
We interviewed two of the elite runners for the Dirt Church Radio podcast, Francesca Canepa, of Italy, and Adam Kimble, of the United States.
They are both very different – Canepa is a former top-level snowboarder who started running in her 40s, and Kimble is a former baseball player who discovered he loves running longer and longer and longer.
Yet in many ways, they are similar – both exceptional athletes, of course. But they also have great ideas about mental toughness.
Canepa, a psychologist, once stuck to second place rather than pass the woman in front on her in the final straight because, morally, she didn’t think it was right to snatch victory from someone who had led all day.
But don’t for a second think that displays any sign of weakness. Quite the opposite.
And Canepa has the results to prove she is one tough cookie – a winner of the world’s foremost mountain trail 100-mile (160km) race, the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, and two-time winner of Tor des Gents with its demanding 330-kilometre course requiring 24,000 metres of climbing.
She admits, though, that even she struggles in races.
‘‘I try to remind myself to stay in the moment. But it’s not easy to do during a race when you are in the pain cave and you begin to have bad feelings and anticipate a disaster,’’ she says.
‘‘You have to remember, ‘I’m having pain now but it won’t last forever – stay in the moment’.
‘‘It’s not just for running, it’s for life. A lot of issues people have in life, or in work, come from the attitude of anticipating everything. But it’s not useful. The key is to enjoy the moment because you just have one life and it’s better to enjoy it the most.’’
Kimble, too, has discovered the superpower of getting through tough times by convincing his brain that it will be over soon, and to not panic.
He sees each tough challenge as another chance to ‘‘dig the well. Imagine a water well – you go through something difficult and you dig it a little deeper, and
every time you do something difficult in life it gets deeper.’’
It builds reserves to be able to face the next tough challenge.
He recalled a 100-mile race last year when he was struggling with the heat and was feeling sorry for himself. He thought back to 2016 when he was running across America, logging 80km a day, even when his body was suffering.
‘‘I said to myself, ‘you’ve got 100 miles to do today and as soon as it’s done, you can rest – when [you were] running across the US it was run 80k, get up the next day, run 80k’.
‘‘I used that experience to say to myself, ‘after this is over, you can rest’.’’
Triple Olympic champion Sir Peter Snell used a similar trick on himself in the 800m event – a much shorter race, sure, but brutal on the body when run at the speed Snell did (he still holds the New Zealand record with 1m 44.30s).
Whatever pain he was feeling, Snell would tell himself it would all be over in less than two minutes.
Not all of us have such glorious laurels as the three gold medals that Snell won but, OK, I’m prepared to concede sticking at something tough and getting through it – in whatever facet of life – sure can be rewarding.