Learning How to Unsarcastically Self-Soothe through Marathons (and maybe Triathlons?)
Approximately this time last year, I posted how I signed up for my first marathon which occurred in January of 2022. Although I made it through with a time of 5 hours and 35 minutes, you can see from my pictures that I was having a rough time. See, there is this thing called the Runner’s Cry where you push yourself really hard and begin to lose control of your emotional regulation. This happened to me at around mile 20 when my watch stopped providing accurate readings and I had hit some sort of mental wall.
I thought I was smiling.
I later learned that this is not at all an uncommon phenomenon – especially when you hit the 20-mile mark. It helped me begin to understand that though marathon running is extremely physical endeavor, mental discipline is about 70 – 80% of the practice.
This is probably not a surprise to anyone who does any regular physical activity or involved seriously in a sport, but this felt like an epiphany to me. Let me explain a little more on how I got there:
After January, I found a personal trainer and started to pursue weightlifting training in addition to running. Unfortunately, the trainer did not have much running expertise, so I relied on the Run With Hal app to for that programming. The challenge each week was having enough energy to dispense in order achieve gains in both arenas. I was fine for a while, but then life event happened – e.g. getting sick with COVID, travel, deaths of loved ones – that made balancing these regimens difficult.
Thus, at the end of July, I parted ways with my trainer and took control of my own balanced programming. That went pretty well, until September, when it made the most sense to focus solely on training for the Baltimore Marathon.
The week after my 20-mile training run (about 3 weeks before the marathon), I had to start tapering down so that I could recover enough for the actual event. This made me a little restless, so I started thinking about what I should do for 2023 (given that I’m already signed up for the NCR Marathon in November and the Celtic Solstice 5-miler in December + lots of travel in that time period!).
I decided that the 3 in 2023 is for triathlon. The combination of endurance swimming, cycling and running seems like a great route for me to become stronger and faster. I researched IRONMAN Maryland and saw that it’s about a year away, which seems like a decent timeframe.
Then, I learned that you are not allowed to wear headphones for the entire 17-hour race! Otherwise, you risk disqualification. This changes everything. I thought I could dissociate with podcasts, music and audiobooks while I push myself! How can I do this being stuck in my head?
Why I am deciding to do it anyways
My Mind Pattern is AVK (you can find yours by creating a free account on Bleeker Connect and completing the Mind Patter Discovery and then read through the full report. It’s illuminating!).
Anyways, this means that Auditory (talking and listening) triggers my focused attention, Visual (reading and writing) triggers my sorting attention and Kinesthetic (feeling, hands-on activity) triggers my open attention.
It’s that last one – open attention – where creativity and prayer happens, but one I do not access often. I can sit still for an entire day and not realize it. I have to be very intentional about movement since I do not have very much connection to my body (and that is why listening to things on headphones is such an easy distraction). However, it’s also the avenue that would best set my up for success in my meditation practice – achieving a meditative state through movement.
Side note: Those who are Auditory last tend to respond better to listening to Ginans, Hymns, Prayer Recitation or Reciting Dhikr, Chants or their own prayers. Those who are Visual last tend to be inspired by their surroundings like the beautiful Geometric Patterns in Jamat Khanas.
However, if I can actually tap into my Kinesthetic, experience what it means to be alive in a human body – be present in it, push it to it’s limits, look stupid doing it and then maybe less stupid as time goes on – I really believe I will be experiencing part of the true purpose of my humanity.
How I am starting to practice it
I have found a Triathlon trainer I am really excited to start working with next week. She bases her training on timed heart rate zones instead of what I’ve been doing with paces/distances. I also think that heart rate training might be an additional benefit to the meditation practice I mentioned in the previous section. Her advice was to train as frequently as possible without headphones and I will eventually learn to get used to it.
I did start to practice running without headphones, but the Baltimore Marathon felt a little too early to try to complete it fully without them because I had a few things going on, including a very ambitious goal to run with a 4:45 Pace Group. By the end of the race, I was in a very different place. Here’s how it happened:
I started the race with the Pace Group. My headphones were not properly connected to my phone so I could not even play my music if I wanted to. I struck up a conversation with someone in the group so that was helpful. What wasn’t helpful was that the Pacers were going faster than they were supposed to and kept saying that if this felt like a push, that I should drop back. There were also so many hills.
At about mile 4, I broke off from the group and switched to a run/walk cadence and managed to stay ahead of the Pace Group. I managed to fix the connection with my headphones and phone but I only allowed myself to listen to 1 song per mile. Then, I had to think about other things, engage with my surroundings and interact with the spectators.
I set the goal of staying ahead of the Pace Group until about mile 13 and then I can slow down. Then my goals would be to:
1) Do better than my 5:35 time.
2) Not cry.
The Pace Group got ahead of my at Mile 12 – but I heard them say they were going too fast as they passed me. I used that opportunity to use the bathroom and then keep going.
This is where self-soothing came in really handy. I kept telling myself that I was doing great, I was doing amazing, everything was totally fine, I was on track, my pace was great and it’s totally reasonable to walk on the steep uphill parts of the course and that it’s wonderful that I’m running so fast on the downhill.
I started to feel like I was being sarcastic, so I started to ask myself – what if someone I loved was in this position instead of me? Would I mean what I have been saying to myself or not? I would mean it. I would be so proud of them for pushing themself. Therefore, I deserve the same amount of love and admiration.
The amazing thing is that I could see how this affected others around me and then re-fueled me. At mile 14, there was a news reporter and cameraman. I waved and smiled as I ran past him and I heard him say something to the extent of “Look at that! She’s run 14 miles and is still smiling. That’s something!” I kept that in mind while I smiled and waved to other spectators and gave them high fives and it almost made me cry (but I didn’t!).
Normally, when people run past me and say “great job”, I feel patronized, so I tried to avoid talking to people around me unless I had talked to them before. Then, at about mile 19 as I was walking up the hill, there was a woman beside me and I turned to her and said “We’ve got this.” She said it back to me and it seemed to power her up to run ahead of me. She actually came to the finish line to thank me and said that she needed to hear that in that moment and it helped her so much.
The best part was at mile 22 when I was exactly on pace with another woman, and we were both speed walking. I was in the middle of listening to Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill album since I’m going to see the musical adaptation in December – and boy, was that a mistake. The songs were much too slow and depressing! So I struck up a conversation with the woman. She was feeling awful. The race snacks were not sitting well in her stomach and she felt like throwing up. So, I just started to distract her the way Michael Land had decided to run with me and distract me at the St. Charles 5K in September when I was about to give up. (He was telling me things about running groups and then put me on his run/walk pacing which led me to end the race with a PR!)
Talking to her helped me just as much as it helped her, if not more. Among the many things I told her (most outlined in this blog), we discussed self-soothing and just saying over and over – you are doing great, your pace is amazing, we are almost there – when suddenly, we see the finish line! And then… well I’ll let you see it for yourself.
As always, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to comment below or contact me directly!
