I keep coming back to this article again and again and think this is part of the reason that I'm on the road to recovery (along with some wonderful PT and prayers!)....
Deena Kastor: ‘The Tiny Tweak That Completely Changed My Running Career’ It has nothing to do with physical training.
When Deena Kastor first became a professional runner, she thought the hardest part would be the physical training. After all, what could be more taxing than interval workouts so intense you taste blood in the back of your throat? Turns out, the toughest part was wrestling with her mind. In her new memoir, Let Your Mind Run, the Olympic medalist and American record holder reveals how our thoughts have the power to stifle or nurture our true power.
In 2015, I crossed the finish of the Chicago marathon in seventh place, with a time of 2:27:47. I had just set a new American masters record for women 40 or older. My husband, Andrew, was standing just over the line with our daughter, Piper, then 4 years old. I embraced them both, thinking about the power of a single positive choice—how it is the first step in the story we want to create; how every decision that follows builds and expands and accumulates. Yet it all comes back to the microdecisions we make in any given moment, when we can go in one direction or the other.
My professional running career has been punctuated by some very special moments like that one in Chicago. I was the first American woman to run a marathon under 2 hours 20 minutes. I've broken records set by the running icon of my time, Joan Benoit Samuelson, and then had those same ones broken by our country's current powerhouse, Molly Huddle (just this year, in fact). I'm an eight-time NCAA All-American and a seven-time U.S. eight-kilometer cross-country champion. I won the 10,000-meter Olympic Trials in 2000 and brought home bronze in the Athens Olympics marathon in 2004.
And to think: Those accolades, those incredibly special moments—they almost never happened.
I started running at 11 years old. I was adopted with no knowledge of my genetic makeup, so my talent took my parents and me by surprise. Back then, I saw my ability as a fixed trait, like having blonde hair and freckles. In my mind, everyone had a set amount and whoever had the most would win.
In college, that talent was tested. I couldn't see the successes that everyone else saw; I saw only my failures. I nearly gave up on running altogether. I thought about opening a bakery. But I didn't feel done. So in 1996, sort of on a whim, I moved from Arkansas to Alamosa, Colorado, to train with the revered Coach Joe Vigil. My only goal: to open myself up to learning what it took to reach my potential.
Coach was always emphasizing a good attitude. He told me stories, gave me books. While reading The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, a passage jumped out: "Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate." I highlighted it and put three exclamation points in the margin. In repeatedly telling me to bring a good attitude to practice, Coach was trying to instill the same habit that he so clearly had. That's when it clicked: Habits are formed through repetition. So instead of focusing on my attitude periodically, I set out to make positive thinking a practice.
I realized I could push my mind and strengthen my positivity for a lifetime.
I began consciously experimenting with my thoughts and their effect on my workouts. Peale wrote about the effects of word choice on our perception, so I looked at words that frequented my vocabulary: hard, cold, and tired. Replacing those with challenging, tough, and adapting provided a greater feeling of strength and purpose. When I fell behind the men in my training group during a run, I noticed my mind drew a quick conclusion: I'll never be able to hang on. I asked myself how else I could view it: I'm a little closer to Phil today. I felt an immediate desire to keep pushing.
Indian researchers investigating the "biochemistry of belief" once wrote that "each and every tiny cell in our body is perfectly and absolutely aware of our thoughts, feelings, and our beliefs. If you believe you are fragile, the biochemistry of your body unquestionably obeys and manifests it. If you believe you are tough (irrespective of your weight and bone density), your body undeniably mirrors it." I couldn't have told you that then, but I certainly felt it.
I noticed how an argument on the phone with my mom was followed by a bad workout. A fast mile-repeat session came on the heels of exciting news about a friend getting married. Perfecting my cinnamon-roll recipe on Friday had me running light on my feet on Saturday.
It wasn't just workouts that improved. At the cafe where I worked, when one of the unfriendly regulars walked in, I always reacted with, Oh no, not Wade. I realized I'd let him condition me into approaching the situation with dread. So the next time he came in, I drew a big whipped-cream smiley face on top of his pancakes; he gave me a crooked grin. I left the cafe feeling good about making the effort to be kind. I started my workout in a more upbeat mood, and when the tough part came—disappointment at a slower mile, frustration at fatigue—I found a positive perspective to get me through it.
Ironically, practicing positivity showed me just how negative I could be. I noted how often in practice I cut myself down. You're worthless, what a dummy. The more tired I got, the easier it was to be negative, and the more relentless I had to be. I had to stay on top of my thinking in the same way I had to remain conscious and diligent about my pace in a workout.
Positivity wasn't a one-thought-fixes-all tool either. I had to cycle through different approaches. Some days it took scenery, music, or musing about dinner to get through a workout. Other days, I needed to think myself through the tough parts: Only one more mile. You've got this. Turning my attention to my breathing, stride, or arms worked in other situations. My job was simply to uncover the tool necessary for the moment. Often I found it on the first attempt. Sometimes, it took several tries. But each time, a shift in perspective got me through a workout and built more endurance, speed, and confidence.
Some days the positive path is harder to find and we have to be relentless in its pursuit.
The effects of positivity didn't surprise me. What surprised me was that they worked all the time. During my career, no one could see the diligent choosing of words, the monotonous shifting of perspective, yet it was apparent in my performance. By identifying and replacing a thought that was holding me back, I undid years of self-destructive thought patterns that had left me unhappy and injury-prone. I became fitter and faster and reached goals I'd believed were improbable.
My competitive days had a relatively short window, but I realized I could push my mind and strengthen my positivity for a lifetime. This excited me. Every day I got out there I could apply the mental habits of life more readily. The same thoughts I used in an anxious pack of runners also helped me keep my wits in gridlocked L.A. traffic. I could handle a broken foot in the Olympics and a broken yolk in the skillet. Patience in a long run gave me patience when Piper's flute playing got a little loud. Seeing all the lessons along the way added to my motivation. Every time I reached the crux of a workout or a tough moment in a race, I uncovered deep layers of strength and optimism and reinforced what was already there.
Some days the positive path is harder to find and we have to be relentless in its pursuit. But a better outlook is always there and worth chasing. On the other side are potential—and possibility.
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Taylor- I love this so much and want to be relentless in my pursuit of the positivity and the small shifts I can make in my mind between now and the race and during the race.... My prayer is that you can learn to do this too over time and that these practices would become ingrained in you.
