Balance: Be humble in your perceived success and kind in perceived failure.
Graham Connolly
“The guy is a decent runner. He’s a sub 3 marathoner.” And the die was cast. This was how someone’s level of ability was illustrated to me early in my journey as a runner and it became one of my many metrics of a good runner. If you could do 26.2 miles in under 3 hours you were one of the fast guys. You could run a bit. People would respect you as a runner because you were a good runner. After working my little socks off pretty much daily for a couple of years, I found myself running the D33 as a B race to The Highland Fling. It felt like the perfect opportunity to tick that sub 3 box and become “a good runner.” Everything went swimmingly well, and as planned, I went through 26.2 miles in just under 3 hours. I was so very chuffed with myself. I turned in a decent time overall, however there was a solid field that year so it didn’t equate to a podium. That didn’t matter though as I smashed out a sub 3. Boom! I was a good runner and that was good enough to get the dopamine flowing. Over the next few weeks or whenever I spoke about the race in the future, I could not help but shoehorn in that I had went through 26.2 in under 3 hours DURING a 33 mile race. I was not being humble. I was polishing my ego and it felt great. I had earned my place in the tribe and I wasn’t shy about mentioning it. Little did I know I was creating a prison for myself later down the line that would become an almost daily source of anxiety and pressure due to perception of self and a perceived perception of me by the always watching and judging “THEY!”
By being so pleased with myself, by being so proud of myself, I had unknowingly set one of the many datums that would define me as good or bad, and anything short of that in the future was now failure or going backwards. I trapped myself in an image created by myself. Winning my first race, getting on my first podium, all similar stories. So here is me now as an athlete:
· If I ever run 26.2 miles and it takes me more than 3 hours I have failed.
· If I do not win a race, I have failed but I have a back-up plan of hitting the podium.
· If I am not on the podium, I have failed really badly, and I’ve done something wrong which needs to be identified and agonised over.
You can see the problem here. I’ve created this world for myself, this perception of myself, that is full of potential pitfalls and constant expectation. The result is often ending up to some degree feeling crap about my results, limiting the scale of the goals I set myself to avoid the potential for failure, or having a feeling of expectation and pressure to perform. Due to nothing more than an unreasonable expectation I have created by being so pleased about previous achievements and a fear of not living up to it in front of the world. God, imagine I turned in a performance that made me a bad runner? What would they think? The kicker of the whole thing is, whenever you tick one of these boxes after the first time it almost immediately doesn’t matter the second time. However, come up short and it is painfully gut wrenching. I learned this as a fighter where the lesson is even more stark because of how similar each event is. If only the highs were as high as the lows are low. The only way of making coming up short slightly less painful is by making everything you do harder and more challenging every time you attempt something. This isn’t a great approach either as it’s inevitably going to end in perceived failure too.
These were the large datums I set for myself in my head and for whenever I would be under the scrutiny of “they.” There were plenty of smaller ones too. Not running my intervals under a certain pace, not achieving a certain amount of elevation during hill reps, having less elevation than someone else on Strava running the same session, not running at least X amount of miles every week. Don’t even start me on the litany of metrics in Training Peaks! I could literally be a good runner on Tuesday and then have somehow failed on Thursday. I could turn in a 65 mile week, exactly as prescribed by my (totes amazeballs) coach and quite easily end up beating myself up on the Sunday because one of my large or mini metrics that made me a good runner had not been met.
My reaction to this; work harder, try harder, want it more. I think the opposite reaction could happen too where an athlete avoids the opportunity to fail and either makes an excuse to skip, or never fully commits so never really fails. Both are equally as detrimental. In vastly different ways, both will seriously compromise the quality of your training, and likely the consistency of your training. So, what was my solution? Why the public admission of being an uptight, egotistical douche bag?
The title of the blog is the answer. Be humble, be kind, but most importantly find balance. Feeling good about running achievements due to having a certain degree of ego isn’t a bad thing. My ego, protecting my perception of myself and my metrics have pushed me over the years to progress as a runner. To be completely honest though, there have been times it’s not been that enjoyable. No doubt when we lived in caves, the psychology responsible would get you laid or stop you getting eaten by a dinosaur. However, without balance it made my journey through running an anxious one and at times littered with a sense of failure.
I had three hours on the plan last Saturday and I was to do some proper running. To me that looked like 26.2 in under 3 hours. The usual dance of anxiety began. What if I was over 3? I’ve been doing lots of hills lately and not a huge amount of running. What is the optimum 26.2 mile route from my house in order to give me the best chance? What if I fail and find out I am not as fit as I was and not as good a runner as I have been previously? What will Paul think? What will Strava think? Is the wind right? I’ll go for it. I won’t. It’s a stupid training choice. I’ll go for it. There is an opportunity to prove myself here. I will. I won’t. I will. The indecision and anxiety go on until I am walking out the door and I finally recognise what is happening and why? I am torn between validating myself and being scared of failing. The potential for that satisfying flow of dopamine is so enticing. Yet at the same time the fear of shattering my perception of myself as a runner and failing in front of my coach and my peers is daunting. Bonkers init!? We are talking about a long training run on a Saturday. It’s not exactly UTMB.
Okay, sometime you need to run fast.
It took me a couple of miles of running to realise what I have been writing about so far and to come up with a solution. Well, my solution at least. I made a deal with myself, if I’m under 3 I’m not allowed to cerebrate it between my ears. If I am over 3 I’m not allowed to beat myself up and feel bad about it. If this single session goes well it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t define me as a runner. If this single session does not go well it doesn’t matter, and likewise, it doesn’t define me as a runner. No one is watching, no one cares, it is all in your head. I’m not going to write about how it went, because it’s no longer important. But what I will say is that session was undoubtedly the easiest tough session I have ever ran. I must have looked at my watch 5 or 6 times across the 3 hours. This alone is a stark contrast to the usual Suunto/Garmin whiplash I’ve usually partaken in. Rather than spending the entire time being intensely focused on trying to control the outcome of my session, because it was so very important, I spent the time figuring out what was wrong with my mindset and what I had to change.
The problem
· The metrics I had created for myself through pride and ego had come to define me. The large ones and the small ones.
· They were important because I hadn’t been humble initially whenever I felt I had succeeded and this had trapped the future me as I had made them important. I let them give me value.
· I was allowing each session to define me as a runner. As a result, my training was an emotional rollercoaster constantly switching between patting myself on the back and doubting myself and my ability to perform.
The solution
· However well or poorly I perceive myself to do in a race or a training session I am no longer going to let it define me as an athlete. I’m going to try and either be humble and prevent creating a prison for future me, or I’m going to be kind and forgo the self-recrimination and doubt.
· I am going to remember that an individual session, or race, on its own holds no real importance any more than a single step does on the way to the top of a mountain.
· I will continue to train with purpose and work hard turning the boxes green to the best of my ability. However, this will be balanced with perspective, patience, and faith in the process.
· I will remember that a single session or race does not define me as an athlete. That my opinion, and the perceived opinion of others of me as an athlete does not define me as a person or my worth.
· I will succeed with humility and I will fail with kindness. I will strive for balance.
“There’s no success or failure. Only learning.” A guy in a hot tub.
Combine a touch of ego with some self-serving bias and it is possible to create a self-image that in the immediate feels great but in the long term can trap you and be detrimental. It’s psychological cake. Feels great at the time but being overweight and unhealthy sucks. It feels good to feel good right? So, who doesn’t want to feel good? Well here is the trap. In order to protect this self-image, we must constantly meet the datums we set ourselves as an absolute minimum. Especially in front of “they!” Best case scenario: we need to be on a constant, upwards, linear trajectory with regards to positions, times, pace, distances and all the other yard sticks we use to validate ourselves. God forbid we ever run a race for a second time and take longer or don’t come as high up the field. Don’t even start me about that person we beat in the last two races who now beats us! I’m going backwards, I’m getting worse, I’m losing my position in the tribe. I have lost the reason I feel good about myself. Ever stood on the start line of a race that is a distance you’ve ran before, on a course you’re completely familiar with and been really nervous? I reckon what I have written about so far may have played at least a small part.
Finding balance.
I have come to realise that balance has been the key to every success or failure I have encountered. My own and those of others around me. We need drivers to get us out of bed every day and we are all looking for some sense of achievement. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is a completely normal part of the journey as a human. We need fulfilment, we need a sense of progress and achievement. Enjoy the progress you make and the relative successes you experience. But don’t let the dopamine flow too much or too long. That stuff is highly addictive while being sneakily subtle. Don’t let your perceived successes come to define you or shape your image of yourself. You hold more value than your PBs. It is fine to go on that group run and be slower than everyone else or not be as strong on the hills. YOU WILL NOT BE EJECTED FROM THE TRIBE AND EATEN BY DINOSAURS!
“Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance; so are everybody else’s” Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) Baz Luhrmann
I think I was close to the middle between patting myself on the back and beating myself up. However, some of you will undoubtedly lean further one way or the other. Wherever you are on the scale hopefully some of this will ring a bell with you. Hopefully, it will help your journey through the athlete life and be a little bit less of an emotional rollercoaster than mine has been until now.
Postscript.
“There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.” Mark Twain
Google reckons there are over 7 billion people alive today and that over 100 billion people have lived and died so I totally buy into Mark’s opinion. Everything you read is the product of something someone else has read or heard. This is no different. I’ve recently discovered Ryan Holiday’s books on stoic philosophy, and I have very intentionally been slowly working my way through Ego is the Enemy. I would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone.
“Winners have big libraries; losers have big TVs.” The 5am Club