Having Fun

Before every race, I open up a text document and write out my anxieties as questions. Then I answer them. Then I end it with a little note to myself.

Here's the one from just before PNTF XC Championships a week and a half ago:

Q: This course is hard and it's going to hurt like hell. 

A: True, but you've done it five times already, and you've been fine each time. Plus it can't hurt any more than last time when you ran it sick. 

Q: My legs don't really feel rested. 

A: You may not feel rested, but you've backed off appropriately, and you've slept eighteen hours in the past two days. You'll feel great. 

Q: What if I end up alone? 

A: You've raced alone countless times. You can handle it. Try to keep company, but if you end up alone you know you can pull through.

Q: What if I run slowly? 

A: Then nobody will really care. It'll be an off-day. But you're well-trained and felt pretty good Wednesday, so there's really no reason this should happen. Just trust yourself and trust your training.

Relax, have fun, and run fast :)  

I'm not really sure where the last bit comes from. It's usually something impulsively write to myself. It's what I want to hear. It's reassurance. It's what I would tell myself if I were my coach. Relax, have fun, and run fast. 

Have fun. I'm back on the line and the tension is building and the gun is about to go off and two weeks ago I ran this course sick and it was basically torture. Have fun, I remind myself. This is fun. You like this sport.

What follows is the best race I've run this year. What follows is a minute faster than two weeks prior. What follows is a 46 second personal best for this course. 

What follows is this:

calm, confidence, fight, & joy

I repeat these words to myself at every workout that follows. 

Calm. The beginning of a race when you're all butterflies or the first quarter of mile repeats when but 90 feels so slow and you want to hammer it. Impatient, you surge. It bites you later. So trust it. Relax. You have plenty of time to run fast.

Confidence. The second stretch of a repeat or race when gee, I don't know if I can sustain this pace. Of course you can. You've done all of the work. Now trust yourself. 

Fight. The finish seems unreachable and every inch of your body is searing in pain and that girl surges right past you. I should just let her go. She's faster than me anyways. What? No. Fight back. She's yours.

Joy.

Joy.

I'm having fun. I'm smiling. 

I read this terrible sports psychology book this past summer that really missed the mark for me. It dismissed the whole "just have fun" thing as absurd for the elite athlete, as deterrence from the real point, winning. After all, it said, winning is fun, so if you win, you'll have fun.

Well, I'm no elite athlete (yet), but I've finally figured it out. I work the exact opposite way. I run better when I remind myself to have fun. When I remember why I love this sport. The moment that I feel joy is the moment that I stop fighting the pain. I don't ignore the pain. And I don't just accept it. The moment that I feel joy is the moment that I embrace it. 

Because after all, the reason I love this sport is because it makes clear to me just how much I can overcome.