when things fall apart...

‘When the student is ready, the teacher appears’... Four days after the marathon, I continue to reflect on lessons from the race.

What kept me moving forward through the panic of knee pain at 14 kilometres, the mental barrier of sheer futility at 20 miles, unutterable exhaustion two hundred metres from the finish line? My doctor friend Rafi who thinks running is bad for you would probably call it foolish obstinacy. My mother, on the other hand, believes in the power of will and would probably applaud this display of determination, even if dismayed by the sorry sight of her son near collapsing.

The night before the race, I relaxed my nerves in a warm bath, following Jeff Galloway’s suggestion to visualize the course and to find some magic words. The next morning, I scrawled on my left forearm – trust, relax, flow. Amazing how often I looked at those injunctions to find strength and form to combat the onset of mental and physical slump.

I also watched an excellent short Runners’ World video with tips by great runners like Ryan Hall, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Dean Karnazes and Dick Beardsley. During tough moments in the race, I reminded myself of Ryan’s advice to focus on the next step. Not the next five kilometres, not the bagel and banana waiting at an end point in the impossibly distant future, just the actual next step. (Amusing to consider Chairman Mao gave the same advice for a journey of a thousand miles.)

So this morning’s insight – when movement is underway, pay attention to form; when everything is falling apart, focus on the next step.

And really it makes sense to use the personal will as a resource when it is available, and when it starts to break down through stress and fatigue and the light of the ‘I’ draws dim and small, that’s when the next step becomes the only possible space for action, enabling surrender to a deeper flow that carries us forward beyond comprehension.