Looking forward...

Speed work can be one of the chores of a training program. For me speed work is one mile fast, an easy 400 meters, another mile fast, and so on. It requires a track, and a lot of concentration. Trying to hold an uncomfortable pace for 8 laps is hard enough that I always think about quitting a little early. It’s just short enough that I can’t bring myself to ease up without feeling like a total wimp. Somehow I can always convince myself to do those last couple of laps, to push for just a little bit longer.

Speed work takes focus. It’s a balance between pushing yourself, and remaining relaxed. It’s counting, and pace checking and breathing. It’s a natural rhythm maintained in an unnatural way.

With all of this to keep track of it’s hard to know where to focus. The other day, I got my answer. I looked up ahead. I saw the curve, then the straightaway where I was going and focused on just getting to those points. My shoulders relaxed and I was able to breathe more deeply. With that one change of posture, running faster became more natural.

I remembered all of the running advice I’d ever read. When running up hills or struggling, look up. Looking up ahead instead of down at your feet actually helps your form become more efficient. With better form, breathing and running are actually easier. Just by changing where you look.

I thought about the power of changing our focus. How often do we get tripped up because we are staring at our feet instead of trusting them to carry us? Obstacles intimidate us because we forget to look past them. We spend too much time hung up on where we used to be. Instead of thinking about where we are going, we think about everything that blocks our path to getting there. 

I thought about why I was here on the track. The marathon. So I am in the best shape of my life when my toe hits the start line. So I am in my best shape when I put away my running shoes afterwards and head into major surgery. That’s why these laps matter. I want to know I’ve put in the work, not once, but every day. Instead of stopping when I want to, I chose, over and over again, to keep going. As Aristotle once said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Cultivating this habit of excellence is much harder if we don’t have a place to focus—a direction or destination we are trying to get to. Without looking forward—past our feet and the obstacles—all this training would be is unnecessary hard work.

Looking forward helps me give my best right now. Looking forward helps turn obstacles into nothing more than necessary steps, like getting dressed and filling the car with gas. Habits. Remembering to look up—look at where we want to be, instead of what’s in our way—that is what changes those ordinary habits into the habits that transform us into something better.

Once in awhile I hope we all stop to look up ahead and ask ourselves if what we are doing right now is leading us to the lives of excellence we desire. Are we going in the right direction? If so then all we need to do is relax, breathe deeply, trust our feet, and most importantly, keep looking ahead. Everything else will come naturally, if only we know where to look.