To be uncomfortable is a very un-human state of being, and so to leave the safe confines of comfort is done through a considerable amount of friction and opposition. It is not natural to be in the state of discomfort, for who truly enjoys being vonerable? However, if one is to find growth, improvement, and success; one must be forced to leave this fermilure place onto that of which, by its very definition, is unpleasant and risky. You have read me write about how stressful running is on the body, the biological conformations that must take place in order to mature into an experienced runner, and how energetically conservative the body is that causes it to so quickly revert back to its pre running state; and this is why. Running is foreign, it is the evolutionary flight response to fear and danger, and therefore, was only meant to be undergone in situations of life and death, and so, in the seemingly interest of self preservation, your body does things that it wouldn’t normally do, the brake down of precious energy reserves, the release of endorphin to override the pain, and the expansion of a previously sufficient respiratory system. Early humans realized this athletic potential to be used to the capturing of pray, and so began the journey of hijacking the activity of running from its primal purpose to the purposes that we have imposed onto ourselves. However, the body doesn’t know the motives of the mind, there is no way for the mind to communicate the purpose of the run, and the body simply tries to do what it is being told. Giving rise to the all to fermilure saying “mind over body”, and initiating the constant battle to remain in control of what your body is doing; for it is the conservational nature of the body which must be fought against, if one is going to accomplish the goals of the mind. To run without thought as to mentally take a vacation is to run without purpose. But in saying this, it depends on what that purpose is, every runner is not the same, each is at a different level of development on their own specific journey. For a new runner, experience is the most important thing to be learned, to get mileage under their belts: a basic running background. With everything that is learned, one must start at the bottom and work up, compiling and compounding information atop each other, where a lessened learned becomes the foundation for the next lesion. In this endeavor, there is an ideological switch in the goals of the runner as they reach maturity, where one is no longer focused on gaining experience, but now the honing of skills. This new goal requires a switch in mindset, one crucial for the success in this new phase, for without it, one remains forever trapped as a beginning runner. Before, one could get away with mentally checking out during a run, and may have even found it beneficial because it allowed one to forget about the stresses of the activity, and do what it takes to acquire the basic skills of running; but now, things such as speed, hills and endurance must be fostered, where methods of avoiding the stress that were so helpful in the beginning is now hindering ones development. Where one began with simply trying to finish a rout, then tries to work down how fast they can run it. This is because now one must truly face the inherent laziness of their own bodies, which has the potential to thwart their goals; must learn how to push their bodies into the realm of the uncomfortable, and how to place their mental goals over the wants of their bodies. A mature runner must be comfortable with being uncomfortable during a run, to run fast, to challenge that hill, to push their body to places that it has never been before. This is the most difficult place to attain, for it is the hardest place to be; for who really wants to be venerable?
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:37:06 +0000
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