Running With Jack

I was listening to a Podcast the other day that was talking, among other things, about how we can all control many areas of our daily life if we would just learn to make a decision to do or not do something and stick with it. The example that was used was interesting enough, weight control, e.g. each one of us can decide each day what we shove into our mouth. Anyone who has tried to lose or maintain their weight knows this is not easy, and the speaker noted this. The next point is that when we make a wrong decision we shouldn’t dwell in a sea of regret (e.g. I wish I didn’t eat that piece of cake, I wish I didn’t pig out,…), but rather admit that we slipped up and try to do it right the next time. The Podcast went on to say that many people set almost impossible goals or time limits for reaching goals and end up beating themselves up when they find themselves not reaching the goal or not reaching a goal in the timeframe they expected. In the weight control example this often results in weight gain due to frustration.

I was thinking about this on the train going to work this morning and applied it to my running. I have some pretty ambitious goals, the immediate being the 50-miler next weekend, and I found myself “regretting” that I didn’t train harder and generally worrying that I wasn’t prepared. I have come to the conclusion that, rather than wasting mental energy regretting what I may not have done, I should take on a positive attitude and concentrate on what I did to and have confidence that I “can do”, e.g. have a good race.

On the same token I was thinking about how often “I regret” not starting running much earlier in my life – I often think to myself just think what you could have accomplished if you started running 10, 20, 30 years ago…but you know what, in this respect what I didn’t do in the past should not be an influence on what I am trying to do today. Sometimes I am too hard on myself and need to relax and just try to enjoy myself out on the race course – if I discover that my training was indeed inadequate then at least I will know this for the next time. Most important is that we place a little more trust in ourselves and our training, when the mileage is in the bank then we should be able to do what we trained for. But like weight control, we have to get into the right frame of mind and leave the I regret’s behind. Just my thoughts anyway...