Run With Mu

I posted recently about my body telling me it wanted to run more, and how I responded by running more, and how my body responded positively to running more. Things were taken several furlongs further this past weekend when I sat down, did some searching, and came up with a tentative fall race schedule … along with the realization I wanted/needed to start ramping up mileage now, rather than the first of August.

What can I say? My body is telling me it’s ready, and there’s no sense in holding it to a predetermined timeline. I’m starting to run longer again this week, although I’m still many weeks from peak mileage. But it’s time, and it appears racing is still something I truly want to do, rather than just another habit.

This is how a longer off-season can be very helpful: rest, recovery, and reevaluation. Not so much a conscious, thinking reevaluation, but just letting the body do most of the driving. I’ve become a pretty firm believer that your body and gut know a lot of important stuff; your mind just makes 3D movies for your ego to star in. In recent years, I have tried to never enter an off-season with the expectation that I would participate in even a 5K again. I try very hard not to think about racing again at all.

And when I give my body and gut time and space to reconsider things and go with what emerges, the right action usually will be made clear. Then it becomes a matter of aligning my mind to my body’s thinking. Which isn’t always easy, as we typically go about most things the opposite way.

So here’s my tentative race schedule until the end of 2011:

9/17 Tour des Fleurs 20K, Dallas, TX
10/9 Tyler Rose Half Marathon, Tyler, TX
10/22 24 The Hard Way (12-hour version; trail), Oklahoma City, OK
11/19 Wild Hare 50 Mile Trail Run, Warda, TX
12/3 Run Like The Wind 12-Hour (trail), Austin, TX
12/31 Across The Years 24-Hour (lottery dependent), Nardini Manor, AZ

We’ll see about Across The Years (ATY). If not ATY, I’ll find another 24-hour or 100 mile race in the same general time slot to fill the gap. So far as early 2012 goes, I’ll cross that bridge once I’ve crossed a few others.

Goals? I’d like to enjoy and be present with every step. I’d like to log 60+ miles for a 12 hour race (my best is a little over 58). I’d like to crack 100 miles for 24 hours. I’d like to end the season healthy. I’d like to really take pleasure in my training, and realize that training is of course running too. and that running is still something I enjoy and still a vital part of my Zen practice.

A lot of desires for sure. So, here we go. To quote one of guitarist and composer Robert Fripp’s many wonderfully appropriate aphorisms, “With commitment, all the rules change.”

Why do we race? Why do we keep lining up at starting lines, crossing “finish” lines, and starting all over again at another start line? I haven’t participated in a race since March 25, a half marathon, and I haven’t really thought about racing in the future. But there is something in me that is craving more than exercise: over the past two weeks, for no particular reason, I began running two more days per week, and have started running with significantly more intensity than in recent weeks. There was no timetable for this; my body, impatient with the current clock I had set for it, was simply telling me it wanted to run more, and faster. I responded with some caution, but given how well my body has taken to my response, I know now it was the right thing to do.

I have some vague notion of really starting to ramp up mileage again in August, for a race schedule I haven’t even begun to really think about. For me, part of taking time away from racing is to look from a distance and understand my relationship to racing. Part of it is certainly that I still enjoy pushing my body-mind to its limit, and seeing if that limit can be pushed out further somehow. There is also a lot of personal fascination in balancing nutrition, hydration, and pacing issues during a 12- or 24-hour race; it’s like playing the old classic PC game Oregon Trail, but for real.

But, if I’m really honest with myself, my ego enjoys telling people that I’m about to take part in a 50-mile trail race. And, even deeper, there is in me a desire to somehow stand outside of the herd, to find a club (paraphrasing Woody Allen) where, if I’m not the only member, I can at least be counted among the fewer … even though, paradoxically, I tend to not like the spotlight shining on me.

In short, my relationship to running and racing is complicated, because I’m a neurotic mess. But I’m really no different from anyone else; like the late Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck (another memorial in this year of memorials) said, we’re all a neurotic mess, really. It’s not until you take time away from something and study it carefully from a distance, the way we do our minds in zazen, that you become aware of just how messy things (and we) are.

Why take time to find out you’re a mess? It helps clarify your relationships to things and makes it easier to laugh at and live with your neuroses — and help avoid the traps, big and small, your egoistic tendencies might push you into. Should I really run two marathons a month for the next 12 months and start a website about it? Why? Am I really capable of a Boston Marathon qualifier, or do I just want to use the phrase “Boston Marathon qualifier” at parties? If you pay close attention, taking time away brings perspective and helps qualify and prioritize the hungers and desires you’re feeling.

But in the past two weeks, my body told me, “run more” and I have responded. It feels right, is the only thing I can think of. Where it will lead in the weeks and months ahead, I can’t really say. For now, I’m just trying to listen.

“Anything within a performance is significant, whether intentional or not,” says composer, guitarist and composer Robert Fripp. This is certainly true of racing. Just a few seconds’ slip of awareness can lead to bypassing a crucial refueling stop, missing a trail marker and getting lost, or absently tipping any one of another thousand dominoes, toppling over the best laid race plans. Part of a runner’s training is to constantly practice staying with the breath and maintain awareness with every step, always being present in the here and now despite pain and fatigue, despite the ego urging us to go faster, faster. Stay with your breath and body, and continually adjust your race based on their constant feedback. Your mind and emotions make stuff up; your breath and body are what they are, and they never lie. Stay with them, relax in their unerring guidance, and understand every step is important, another few inches closer to your goal. Don’t let one go by unnoticed.

How do you race and remain true to your Zen practice? Isn’t being competitive the very antithesis of Zen? Can you stoke the competitive fires without burning up, or out, in the process? I’ve just asked myself some good questions! Here’s something in the way of an answer, based on many invaluable years of personal mistakes.

There is nothing wrong with a healthy competitive urge; it’s part of the human animal, what makes us (along with opposable thumbs and a big ol’ brain and such) the Deciders, the final link in the food chain. But we can definitely overdo it. Shouting at people during a race – drivers, pedestrians or cyclists who accidentally (or, sadly, sometimes on purpose) get in our way — is one sign we’re redlining the competitive urge. Stretching the truth about how we did in a race is another sign that perhaps we’re too focused on the numbers rather than the experience. Entering multiple races very close together in frantic search of that ideal race time or experience, sort of the runner’s equivalent of playing the slots, is a borderline emotional addiction that can lead to burnout and physical injury.

And it can spill over into our Zen practice, as anyone knows who has experienced a mild feeling of smug satisfaction when it’s the person on the cushion next to them who sneezes during zazen, rather than themselves, or the frustration and annoyance that can flare when our teacher isn’t satisfied with our response in dokusan. I can sit quieter than anybody, I can pass koans faster than anybody! I’m a Zen monster! Get out of my way, people!

We should honor the competitor in us, as it can be a very healthy and useful part of our lives – when nurtured and watched carefully. And after all, the vast majority of runners, including me, are really only competing against ourselves. Which is why we should:

1. Set realistic stretch goals. Maybe a 3:45 marathon is a doable stretch goal for you. Maybe a Boston Marathon or Western States qualifier is not. You know yourself better than anyone, if you look clearly. When planning your next running challenge, be honest with yourself and where you are currently with your running, then look at what you’re hoping to achieve. Delusion only leads to frustration, exhaustion, and injury.

2. Don’t play the slots. There are a few acceptable reasons for running several grueling races very close together, but hoping you’ll get lucky and have that perfect race time or experience isn’t one of them. It’s hard on your body and can be very wearing on you emotionally when things don’t go your way. Which leads to …

3. Training can prepare you, but it can’t guarantee you. While they have their advantages and many success stories, I feel there’s a potentially harmful side effect of following precise race training regimens such as those espoused by Pfitzinger or Daniels: believing that scientifically precise training always leads to scientifically precise results. There are so many variables in any given race that it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen. Do the best you can based on your training, and take what the day gives you.

4. Stop looking at that watch. Stop it, I said. Stopwatches can serve a useful purpose. But who’s running this race, your watch or you? It’s so easy to get caught up in those blinky little digital numbers and forget what’s going on all around you. There are many amazing and inspiring personal stories unfolding around you with every step, and there you are — head down, desperately trying to recalculate your mile splits. If you must race with a stopwatch, think of it as a helpful tool, not the judge of your personal worth. Time? As a sage once sang, Time just keeps on slippin’, slippin’ into the future.

5. Sometimes the cartoon characters win. It’s tough to swallow sometimes, but that slightly oversized woman in the turtle costume? That dweeby, pale guy in the pink tutu? Look; they’re beating you. And there will always be people faster than you, in costume or out of it. Don’t let your ego destroy your race by forcing you to try to outrun those who you feel superior to. We’re all cartoon characters, when you get down to it; some of us just like to wear the uniform.

6. Enjoy the best, forget the rest. When you have a great race, absolutely tell everyone you know and savor the experience for awhile … then let it go. When you have a bad race, don’t hide from your friends or spend weeks poring over your training log, trying to figure out the exact moment in time when it all went off the rails. Chalk it up as a day in the life … and let it go. Letting go of our races, good and bad, can be hard, but doing so lets us start our new challenges with a fresh slate.

Honor your inner competitor, without being enslaved by it. It’s a great awareness practice point for your running.