I am admittedly terrible at meditation, but the calm lady voice in my meditation app tells me I am supposed to have non-judgemental awareness of my poor ability to wrangle my brain into submission. I find it hard to focus, my thoughts run wild, and my body resists staying still. Is it just me?
Still, despite my difficulty, I have learned a lot from those meditation sessions, and I have experimented with applying the concepts of meditation to my running workouts—a moving meditation if you will.
Take the principles of meditation and apply them to your run training to stay focused, present, and improve performance.
STAY IN THE PRESENT
In the context of running, this may mean not calculating your finish time, how many miles you have to go (the future), or how many miles you already ran (the past). Try observing your surroundings; try to notice things you usually would have missed. Sometimes I name colors; the grass is green, the fence is brown, the pole is yellow, or the sign is red. Maybe it's looking for the alphabet, letter by letter, on the street signs, license plates, and storefronts along my running route. Run the mile you're in.
OBSERVE THOUGHTS WITHOUT JUDGEMENT
Instead of "This is hard, I'll never be able to finish at this pace," work to recognize uncomfortable feelings without freaking out about them. As the lady in the app says, "have non-judgemental awareness." If you can't do anything about it, try to let it go. (This doesn't mean to ignore physical pain, as in injury—never ignore pain.). It takes practice, but simply noticing that you have a negative thought is a significant first step rather than tumbling deep into a thought pain cave.
PRACTICE BREATHING EXERCISES
Practice breathing exercises or watch your breath. I love to take three breaths in, two breaths out timed with my footsteps to snap my thoughts away from negative. It is meditative, giving my brain something to do other than freak out about speed, distance, or uncomfortable feelings. I once got through a particularly cold, wet, and windy Las Vegas half marathon by watching my breath for two hours.
WHEN YOUR MIND WANDERS, BRING IT HOME
When your mind wanders into negative thought territory, bring it back to neutral. This process of training your thoughts to look for the silver lining, or at least stay neutral, will help you not to default to negative or catastrophizing thoughts in the future. Sometimes a mantra can help with this; Repeat a phrase to help you through a challenging workout or race:
EXAMPLES OF RUNNING MANTRAS
I can do it; I rock!
I'm fast, and I'm strong. I love to run long!
One, two, three, four, I am runner hear me roar!
Cheesy? Maybe. It's not cheesy if it works! The more personal, emotional, or meaningful the phrase, the more effective it will be.
LOOK FOR SILVER LINING OR POSITIVE TWIST
"This is hard; I am never going to reach my goal."
Instead, channel your inner Tom Hanks from the movie, A League of Their Own, “It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
Or, "Yes, this is hard, my legs feel tired, but I am strong and have done hard things before, I can do this!"
The goal here is to train your mindset not to default to a negative emotion when the experience feels tough.
PRACTICE GRATITUDE
It's tough to be negative when I feel grateful, so I focus on gratefulness when it gets tough. I'll start with feeling thankful for the ability to run.
"I am grateful for these two strong, healthy legs, a healthy heart, the physical ability to exercise for recreation, the motivation to train, enough disposable income to run races, a safe neighborhood to run, a supportive husband, a flexible schedule, and so on.
I once ran a half marathon and dedicated each mile to 13 people that I love. I spent the whole mile thinking about our memories together, the reasons I was grateful, and how I could improve our future relationship. I cried so many times, not because the race was hard, but because I was overwhelmed with positive emotion.
You can practice and fine-tune these strategies during every training run. We won't do it perfectly every (or any) time. Just like in a typical meditation session, it's the act of practicing that provides the benefit. The increased awareness of our thoughts, surroundings, and breath can provide a positive outcome in our running training and performance.
A panicked negative brain won't perform as well as a calm, focused one! Anxiety-driven, worrisome, or negative thoughts waste precious energy; divert that energy to the course! You will have lots of opportunities to work on your moving meditation practice on every run! The more you practice, the more you train your brain for better performance.
Do you meditate? Do you prefer a moving meditation, like me?
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Questions? I’d love to help.
