Practice? Or Play?

Somewhere between being a kid and being an adult we lose our focus on having fun and start looking for results. We have a vision for how we want things to be: work, running, creative pursuits, even our rec league softball swing. We start doing things not because they are fun, but because we can achieve a certain outcome.

What I think we often forget is that it takes years of practice to be really good at something. We aren’t going to sit down at a piano and play Mozart the first time. We aren’t going to run a perfect race...ever! We may make some huge and embarrassing beginner mistakes. I know I have.

I wonder what would happen if we forgot about results and returned to play? Yesterday, on a beautiful day, I was running through windy roads lined with piles of crisp and crunchy fall leaves that practically begged me to run through them. Feeling light on my feet, I flew down the hills, abandoning form and letting the wind push me forward, pumping my arms and smiling, mouthing words to the music on my ipod. It was fun. I felt as free as a small child running down a steep hill just because it was there.

What if we just celebrated the joy in moving towards something? Whenever I start something new, I now consciously remind myself that it will take practice. I think of starting the piano when I was 10 and playing something along the lines of twinkle, twinkle little star (and not well) at my first recital. I was so bad at the saxophone when I began, my dog used to bark at me and bite at my ankles. I had to start somewhere. We all do. And there is virtue in the practice of doing something you love. I never wanted to be a professional musician; I just wanted to play some instruments. It’s not always about an end result, but just getting better over time. What if we celebrated, in the way a proud parent celebrates a child’s little league base hit, or first dance recital, the work we have already done? What if we gave ourselves permission to make mistakes, to learn, to grow, and to cherish each improvement?

We are so focused on accomplishment in this society, on the ends. We forget to celebrate beginnings and small achievements. We forget that we practice and play because it brings us some internal joy. I want to remind every beginning runner that it should be fun.  I need to remind myself of this. If you are going so hard you are miserable why would you continue to do it? As my sister once reminded me, “you aren’t training for the Olympics.”  When I remember there isn’t a gold medal on the line, I remember to stop taking myself, and my running so seriously. Running isn’t always about goals or faster times or better conditioning. Sometimes it is just my excuse to “play outside” for a while. We all know what practice makes, but when practice is actually fun? Nothing can stop us.

Forget about pace splits and gadgets, and gear and proper form. Have fun. And by all means, don’t feel like you need to be home before the streetlights come on. That’s what headlamps are for. Play on, friends. 

Self-Doubt's Day Off

I am convinced we are not meant to find the limits of our potential on our own.

A few weeks ago, a friend (C.) and I decided to sign up for the Halloween Half Marathon. I spent the last couple of months increasing my weekly and daily mileage, motivated by the cool fall air and gorgeous days for running. Looking for a race to direct all of this mileage towards, C. suggested this half. We officially registered and began exchanging encouraging e-mails about our training.

On race day, I stepped into the chilly 36 degree air, and wondered if I had dressed warmly enough. I hopped into the car with C. and her husband to ride to the race. Initially a group of people had expressed enthusiasm for running this race, but when the day arrived it was just C. and me running, and her husband to cheer us on.

That was all I needed.

C. and I never ran together before, and I am always nervous about new running buddies. Are they going to want to listen to music or talk? How much talking should we do? What if we’re having different kinds of races? Will I say “go ahead” or try to keep up? Will I feel okay going ahead if I need to? Are we the right pace for each other?

Running with a new person is risky. There is a balance between being comfortable with yourself and adapting to someone else. In some ways it is like dating. You just can’t be sure about the other person, and if it is going to work until you spend some time together. However, if you are willing to risk potential discomfort, the payoff can be huge.

The voice of self-doubt is an annoying, nagging thing that seems to pester us negativity.  “You couldn’t possibly…” “remember this time when you failed?” “no one cares if you do or don’t…” That voice is hard to shut-up, especially in a test of physical endurance when your body is tired and echoing everything it says, or when it would be easier to choose not to try at all.

Running with the right person is the perfect antidote to self-doubt. With the right person, you become a better runner. There is a feeling of being both challenged and supported. There are times when you forget you are running, and times with mutual complaining. Being able to say, “this sucks!” to someone in the same situation keeps away the “I can’t do it” that always seems to follow.

Doubt and self imposed limitation can’t survive when the race is no longer about “what can I do,” but “what can we do together?” I have learned a lot in the solitude of running by myself, but it has only been in the company of other runners that I have seen what I can become. In my quest to be realistic I set up barriers. I wonder how many times I have said to myself or to others “I go this pace, I can’t go that one.” 

Our imaginations are so limited. Sometimes we need someone else to shed light on the potential we can’t see in ourselves. We need someone to just believe in us. Somewhere along the way I forgot to question whether or not and for how long I could sustain this faster pace. I just ran with C., who didn’t question my ability at all. Together we both found our way to new PRs and new understandings of our potential. Together, we gave self-doubt a needed day off. 

Keeping the Channel Open

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly of the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.—Martha Graham

Lately, I have wondered why it is I keep running? Why do I keep chasing the distance when I am not particularly good at it? I am pretty slow and there are limits to how much I can improve. I’m not interested in beating anyone else, or even whether or not I beat my own best times. While goals give me something to strive for they aren’t at the heart of why I do this. So why keep going so long, and so hard, all of the time?

I have always known I was never running away from anything. Somewhere along the way running became a spiritual need. It wasn’t just about exercise or marathons or calories burned. It became an essential part of my existence. Running is my life force translated into action.

Running keeps my channel open. It is an expression of me, whether I always believe in it or not. This quote explains why the distances, and faster times are not enough. That blessed unrest keeps me going and it refuses to be satisfied by momentary accomplishments: finisher’s medals and PRs.

No, running is not about a sport for me. It is about being alive. There is a certain kind of sadness, and loneliness that will take over if we let it. That sadness has been at my door, threatening to consume me. There are days when I feel like I am throwing my entire body weight against the door to keep it closed, and still feel hopelessness fighting back, pushing through, the door bulging at the hinges. This constant fight is exhausting. There are times when I want to give up. Let the door swing open, and despair take over. I want to succumb to that monster that tells me no one would care very much if I just quit believing in myself and in love. Those days, I go for a run.

I have to run to process the ache and emptiness in my soul. Those long distances with just my feet to carry me help tame the monster of despair that just waits for me to forget that I am alive, and that I have something to give this world that only I can give.

Running for me isn’t about running away. It is about freedom. It is about throwing off the chains of doubt and remembering that no matter how broken, lonely and lost I might be, the world still needs my life force. With every deep breath and foot strike, I find a little more strength to keep the channel open. The world depends on it. So I keep running.

The Limits of Measure

How do we measure progress? With running it’s easy. Mileage tracked, distance covered, pace, speed etc. There are stopwatches, heart rate monitors, GPS devices, and computer programs. If you are a pen and paper person there are journals specifically for recording your runs. You get official times in races, and there are tracks with distance measured to the meter.

With all of these tools it should be easy to set expectations. Run X number of miles to ensure you reach X distance goal. Run at X pace for X many times and you will hit that 5K PR you were after. But running just isn’t that predictable. I can go for 10 miles on one day and feel great, and an “easy” 4 miles another day will leave me with shin splints, and gasping for air. Some days I charge up hills without a thought. The same hills next week might seem like mountains. Are there variables for which I am not measuring? Certainly. But I doubt any of them would tell the whole story. The mystery to running that gets most of us out the door is until we are a couple of miles into it, we just don’t know what kind of run it will be.

This weekend, while on some of those great runs and simultaneously reeling from a relationship disappointment, I thought about the parallels between the two. Relationships, especially romantic ones, are full of mysteries similar to those of running. Everywhere people are trying to give us tools to explain how relationships work. There are hundreds of books on how to succeed at winning and keeping the person you want. Advice on how to find “the one” abounds and bombards us.

I realized trying to find the magic formula for either is impossible. As one friend said “it’s not like once you figure it out, you win.”

Running and relationships are instinctive, and our way of going about them is unique to us. Sure, we can learn from our mistakes and grow over time…I know I have in both cases. I know what works for me and what doesn’t, and have benefitted from the wisdom of others. But I haven’t “figured it out.” I don’t know the one way to ensure I have a great run or beat my marathon PR, and I don’t know how to have a perfect relationship.

What I do know is that the only way to find out is to get out the door and go for it. Maybe it will hurt this time. Maybe it will be effortless and filled with joy. I would love to say that even the hard ones teach me something but sometimes they are just hard. In those moments, I am just thankful that I tried, knowing the feeling of sitting on the couch and wondering “what if” is so much worse than any disappointment that comes from entering the race.

We’ll never know the magnitude of the love or joy we can experience, or our capacity for healing if we aren’t willing to risk the unknown. We can’t ever really be prepared for the moment until we are in it, despite our best efforts and planning. We can’t know what a new run or relationship will bring until we are already invested. Sometimes life is about having enough trust and faith in ourselves to begin; to put a little bit of our heart and soul on the line and see where it takes us. What we may find, if we are willing to take the risk, are experiences that can only be measured by the human spirit.

False Summits

Back in my pre-running days I had a tough encounter with Mt. Marathon in Seward, Alaska. Though it’s only 1.5 miles to the top, the incline is steep; a 54% grade (by comparison, the famous hills in San Francisco are a mere 20% and a typical flight of stairs is 30%). It’s an exercise in crawling the entire way up. Of this whole miserable experience, what I most remember are the false summits. As you near the top of the mountain the surface changes to loose shale. It’s like trying to get footing on a bed of gravel. It’s more sliding down than climbing up. I remember looking up many times in that part of the climb and thinking I could see the top just above me. My arms and legs burning, I would bear-crawl my way up, quickly before I slid down again, to what I thought was the point, only to discover another one right above me. This happened half a dozen times before I reached the actual summit of the mountain.

Finding out that what I thought was the end was actually trick of the landscape is one of the most demoralizing experiences I’ve had. It actually isn’t over. The suffering you just went through to get here? Yep, you have to do it again. This time more fatigued than the last.

I thought about that climb in Seward as I was running up hills this week. As I climbed hills I have since chosen to climb many times, it occurred to me that life is full of false summits. How many times do we look ahead on our path and think just getting to the next point will mean our suffering is over, only to find out we have more work to do? Or we find out this point isn’t what we thought it was?

The false summits of life often reduce me to tears or shouts of profanity. I don’t handle them with the grace and strength I would like to. But these are the turning points that define our character. In my best moments, I look at the top of a false summit as a testament to what I am capable of. If I could make that climb, then I can surely make the next one. I am still going the right direction.

I wonder if I would have made it to the top of Mt. Marathon if I had seen the climb laid out in front of me without those false summits in the way. Perhaps we need those illusions to break the climb into manageable parts for us. So much of who we are is not made up of the real summit moments, but how we handle the disappointment of not getting the mountain top experience we hoped for. Do we keep believing the top exists? Do we keep going despite our disappointment? Or do we turn around and go back down the mountain, never knowing its real peak?

Real summit moments are rare and beautiful and often surprising. We don’t get there when we expect to. We are called to these moments, but getting there means more than saying yes to the glamorous idea of a mountain climb. It means saying yes to hope when we have been let down by false summits over and over again. It means digging deep into our resolve, and our faith, and believing that our unseen mountain top is up there, somewhere, and that our agony in this moment will only magnify the joy in that one. Real summits wait for those who have the courage to keep saying “maybe this will be the one…”

view from the top of Mt. Marathon to Seward and Resurrection Bay below. From wildnatureimages.com

Follow Your Heart

News that affects the world sometimes so coincides with what is going on personally it makes me wonder if somehow the cosmic forces lined up to remind me of some important lesson I had forgotten. This week, as I wrestle to make a decision—to figure out if I should come clean about this messy relationship that has caused me many sleepless nights—Steve Jobs died.

What can the loss of the founder of Apple computer and innovative genius possibly have to do with my relationships, one might ask?

Steve Jobs was a proponent of following your heart and intuition. And that is the lesson I needed to be reminded of. No one, NO ONE, knows what you know about you. The quotes of this icon have been posted on every social media site. Over and over in my news feed are some of his most famous words, “Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Follow your heart. Trust your intuition. You have everything you need to know inside of you.

My head has been spinning with the words of advice about what I need to do. What do I hope to accomplish in saying my truth to someone else? What good can come of involving someone else in my feelings? Could I just quietly get over and it and move on? Would that be the better option? Maybe.

I had a run date scheduled with a good friend this morning. We did a favorite five-mile route and discussed the uncertainties that exist in both of our lives right now. There is something magical about these kinds of runs. I don’t know if it is the perfect running weather that fall provides. I don’t know if it is the blazing, morning sunshine refusing to let me hide in shadows of doubt and sadness. I don’t know if is voicing the questions and leaving them on the roads behind us or just sharing the experience of being out there on a perfect day. Maybe it’s just the promise of having breakfast and coffee to look forward to afterwards. Whatever it is I return feeling like I have shaken off the dead leaves, the outside voices that threaten to drown out my own, and am left with just the bare branches: my heart, my intuition, and my truth. And they know what to do. Returning home from a run, especially a run with good company, is like returning home to myself.

As I struggle with courage and logistics of how to have this conversation I know I need to have, I will think of mornings like this one. I will be reminded of the importance of pushing the pause button on all of the noise of the world, carrying nothing but a house key and my questions, and sharing that with a friend who knows the importance of waiting for the right answers. I will think about playing it safe and settling and I will remember a man who did neither, and changed the world because of it. I will think about strength, and courage and the quiet voice of my heart that begs me to listen and to believe that it knows the way home. All I need to do is follow it.

Still a Runner

It was the first cold, cloudy day of the year. I had already decided that I needed a long run. A run that I wasn’t totally conditioned for. Something that would stretch me. Something that would hurt. I needed the distance, and the cool, damp air to think. I needed sad songs and a chance to leave my tears on the hills behind me. It was one of those days where choosing the harder route was an easy decision. This was no time to take it easy. Bring on the hills. Bring on the wind.

These are the runs that are about more than running. They are about fighting back.

 Life can be pretty cruel sometimes. Heartbreak and disappointment can show up in the most inconvenient places. At the end of a week filled with emotional roller coasters of events, I traded one confusion for a painful certainty. With a few words in a seemingly innocent conversation, a truth I never wanted to hear became clear. An end to a relationship I wondered about and, against my better judgment, placed some hope in. It’s the kind of moment you replay over and over hoping that upon review the words on the tape different. They aren’t. What you wanted will never be. The end.

I tried to maintain balance and composure with the world spinning around me. Seconds later, mother nature released the tears from the sky that I had to hold back from my own eyes, washing all of that hope and wonder right into the gutter and leaving me standing there trying to figure out how to breathe in the rain.

 I spent some time on the couch with sad songs and a box of tissues.

And then I decided to run a long way. I had to. There is something about emotional pain that begs for a release. Grief, loss, disappointment, heartbreak, these things need a place to go. In this case, they couldn’t be targeted at a person…there is no one to blame when things just don’t work out. Rather than try to make someone responsible for my pain, I decided to run with it.

 The problem with sudden loss, grief and disappointment is that the world doesn’t stop to let us feel it, and yet there is no way through it if we don’t. Running allows me to experience my heartbreak and reminds me that I can keep moving forward; I still have some strength and energy somewhere. It reminds me that I am alive and breathing and that my broken heart still beats. These runs are about meeting that emotional pain with my physical strength and endurance. They are about accepting life’s sadness without letting it define me. I am hurt. I am broken. But I am going to stay in the race. Tears, sad songs, pain and all. Even on the hardest days, in the saddest of moments, I am still a runner.