Adapt and Adopt: Redefining 100%

My training for the LA Marathon coming up in six weeks continues to go really well. Deep joy of joys, this week also brings new shoes: a pair of Adidas Supernova 10’s that feel like the equivalent to Mercury’s wings! These will be the shoes that carry me for my next marathon ☺.

This last weekend, our long run in the Team in Training group was 16 miles—it’s a good distance. However, what really illustrated to me that my commitment level is at a new high was the seven extremely wet and glorious miles I ran yesterday. I was laughing out loud as I splashed along the banks of the LA river in Long Beach, feeling exhilarated, strong, and very much in love with life.

When my running lifts me even higher than I could have imagined, I sometimes think back to my pre-running days. I used to be a 60-a-day smoker and the only running I was doing was seeking to avoid the police during some of the more colorful periods of my life.

The human body amazes me in the way it can adapt to the destructive things we can subject it to. Smoking, fast food, drugs, and excessive alcohol use, for example (I’ve done them all). Of course, as it seeks to function with all this toxicity, it needs to reassign energy resources. Functioning with a severely compromised liver, smoke-filled lungs, and/or clogged arteries, takes more energy—picture the additional pressure required to push the same amount of water through a clogged pipe, than a clear one.

Certainly, this means there is less energy for physical exertion. But there are also fewer available “energetic funds” to be allocated for creative thinking and problem solving or deep feelings of joy and inspiration. Our spirit becomes muffled.

The body—and we as individuals—adapt to this new way of being. It’s really an amazing process, a safety valve even. The body will no longer let you run up the stairs, because this is now a life-threatening option. You’ll get out of breath and be stopped. The body adapts and we adopt this new way of life. What was previously perhaps 80% of our capacity for living becomes the new 100%—the new maximum capacity. We lose 20% of what we were able to do previously. I suggest that this happens not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually too.

If our health continues to diminish, the level of our maximum capacity continues to diminish. Next 80% of the new (already diminished) 100% becomes the next new, even lower maximum capacity. Now we are 40% down. The body adapts again and we adopt a lifestyle that matches it. It becomes a downward spiral.

The good news is that the process works in reverse too. Make changes in the way you care for your body, and you can make what was 100% the new 80%. As you strengthen your body, its muscles, organs, and tissue with healthier living, your capacity for living now expands to what would have been 120%, but is now 100%. Fewer resources need to be allocated to emergency systems and more resources become available for building, maintaining, and creating you and your body. More for creativity, joy, and inspired living. You then adopt this as a new way of being.

You get to choose whether you use this “adapt and adopt” process to spiral up or spiral down. It’s a matter of choice. Of course, it raises an exciting question, one that I encourage you to run with today:

If I’m currently living at a 10, what would it mean to now think of that level as an 8? What, then, would my new 10 look like? And what would I need to do to adapt in that way—to adopt a new 10?

Happy trails!

The Power of Conscious "Shoe" Choices

“You don’t have to believe everything you think.” Bumper sticker.

Imagine going into your closet, closing your eyes, and pulling out the first pair of shoes you touch—these will be the ones you put on for your workout. Could be steel-toed work boots, four-inch heels, patent leather brogues, or flip flops. There is, of course, a chance that you’ll pick your running shoes, but the odds are against you.

You wouldn’t dream of running any distance in high heels or any other shoe than your running shoes. In fact, as runners we are very particular about our physical preparation: our shoes tied just right, our favorite snacks and nutrients, preferences for hydration liquids, and so on. (Naturally, there are always some who are willing to do anything, especially for money. Read about the annual Berlin Stiletto Run.)

Yet, all too often, we pay little attention to our mental preparation. We do not choose what we hold in our mind as we head out on our run. Quite regularly, we “put on” something in our mind that is as equally uncomfortable, painful, and potentially damaging as high heels would be for our feet. 

In fact, for my analogy to be more accurate, it would not even be you choosing at random from the closet full of shoes. It might be a two-year-old doing it for you. Perhaps even a blindfolded two-year-old.

So what are these “mental stilettos” you are running in?

The endless chatter, worry, review, and internal gossip that we call “thinking.” Actually, this is not thinking. Thinking is an active process, involving choice, discernment, introspection, and many other elements.

This mental white noise that I refer to (When is my credit card due? I really hate my boss! When am I going to get laid next? Oh God, I’m going to lose it all in the recession.) is not thinking. It’s much more of a spectator sport. The internal version of television, and not the educational kind. Mental channel surfing.

Consciously choosing what plays on your mental channel will impact your running and your wider life in profound ways. I encourage you to ask yourself the following questions on a regular basis, before, during, and after running:

• Did I deliberately choose to think about this?
• Do I really want to think about this?
• Will thinking about this inspire me or depress me?
• What do I want to think about?
• How do I want to think about it?

My experience is that often what I am “thinking” about is, at best, holding me back from a much more pleasurable running and living experience. At worst, this regurgitated mental masturbation is truly making me blind! Blind to the beauty, inspiration, and possibility of life.

As you run this week, check in with yourself on the mental level as part of your preparation. Choose what you want to think about. Actively choose. Choose to focus on things that inspire you, deepen your connection with your higher self, and that encourage a positive outlook on life. If you are going to have fantasies, you may as well make them positive ones—and remember to win in your own fantasies too!

If you find that you are regularly focused on more negative thoughts, worry, or gossip, you’ll discover it is hard to simply banish it. It is far easier to replace a habit than just to stop one. So actively replace your worry habit (for that is all it is), with a different, creative one.

Here are some options that I choose from, and I’m sure you’ll come up with others:

Prayer
Gratitude is a great place to start. For your ability to run and the inspiration and other qualities it brings you; for all the ways in which your family or friends support your running. For the precious people and cherished relationships in your life. You get the idea.

Visualization
Replace discouraging thoughts with uplifting ones. Indulge a positive fantasy, and make it PG. The brain is unable to distinguish between reality and a carefully crafted fantasy. Visualization truly brings your dreams to life inside you. You get to experience them now, even as you work towards them. My current fantasies are focused on the Goretex Trans Rockies Run (video here), which I’d like to run in the next couple of years. As I run, I see myself safe, strong, and soaring as I complete the 6-day, 125-mile course—the dream of a lifetime. When I get there in reality, I know that my positive visualizations will impact my performance and ability in positive ways.

Mantra
This is great for all lengths of run, and especially longer ones—particularly when tiredness sets in and can open the door to negative thinking. Pick four adjectives, and repeat them to yourself in time with your stride. Two syllable words work well, with a syllable for each foot strike. These can be run-focused, such as “Fitter, faster, stronger, longer.” Or they can be qualities that you’d like to be experiencing elsewhere in life too, such as, “Patient, honest, loving, caring,” or “Wiser, calmer, richer, clearer.”

What you choose to put into the engine of your mind will determine how the vehicle of your emotional body runs. When these too are running on hi-quality fuel, your run and your life can shift into the highest gear! Both in the run and after it, you'll move more smoothly, efficiently, and gracefully.

Happy trails!

Running—and Living—on Purpose

Over the last several months, as I have been meeting runners (current, former, and aspiring) at book signings and events, I have been amazed to discover how many people want to run and don’t. Or who used to and no longer do. There always seems to be something in the way. Time challenges, other commitments, niggling injuries; these are some of the “reasons” I hear.

Interestingly, when I ask them why they want to run, there’s a good deal of unclarity. Health and fitness for sure. But after that? Not much, at least not yet. They don't have event goals, such as running a 10k, half or full marathon, or anything like that. No time goals either.

Nor do they have any goals as to what they’d do with their enhanced fitness. What would fitness give you? If you had that fitness NOW, what would you do?” I ask them. A quizzical look comes back to me as if to say, “Isn’t that the goal itself.”

If you are running for the sake of running, you may as well be a rat on a tread wheel. Ultimately, you are getting fitter so that you can run on that tread wheel faster. Nothing wrong with that, but I think you might be missing the point.

Running can be a hi-temperature crucible in which to fire your greatest success and fulfillment. What transforms running from a “have-to” to a “want-to”? Mission.

Mission will bring a purpose into your running (and this applies to any exercise you care to choose) and you will transform your experience. Whether it’s performance goals for the running itself, or goals that build upon what your running gives you, a purpose to your running will elevate your commitment and lock it in.

Sure, I’ve had running focused goals such as first marathons, quicker times, and so on. And those goals have certainly inspired me. This year, my intention is to move into ultrarunning.

But there have been many deeper purposes that have lit a fire in me and that have my running front and center in the face of even the stiffest challenges. All of them answer the question, how can I pass on the benefits of my running. Regaining the ability to throw my daughter in the air and catch her as I bathe in the glee of their laughter; raising funds for an important cause; reclaiming and amplifying the power of intentional living.

These and other missions have ensured that my running comes first. And when I put it first, there always seems to be time for everything else. When I put all the other stuff first, I never quite seem to have enough time for my running.

Purpose will give you a reason to make time, prioritize your running, and balance your approach so that you can run injury free. These are all within your dominion. A mission will boost your morale so that you can springboard off of the things that challenge your running and deepen your experience. It works in running and it works everywhere in life. Here’s a great example of the power of purpose that I read only today.

On a flight to Phoenix this morning for my monthly roll-in-the-creative-mud with my fellow Steve Chandler Mastermind members, I was flipping through the in-flight magazine and caught a profile of Dr. Bennett Deboisblanc, a physician who was on duty for five straight days the front line of the emergency response after Hurricane Katrina.

With the two emergency generators flooded and all the lights out, the doctor and his staff knew this was not going be like any drill they’d practiced.

The heat was stifling. With 300 already sick patients, 50 of them in critical condition, the hospital in waist deep water, no electricity, and supplies dwindling. You can see a scene that was quickly developing into secondary disaster waiting to happen.

They waited 36 hours to be rescued, but none came. First responders were stretched way beyond capacity. Under such pressures, tempers can fray and morale can dwindle rapidly. It’s understandable.

Then something shifted. The group decided they would have to create their own rescue. “Morale in the hospital rapidly improved once we had a mission,” Deboisblanc said.

He, some 600 nurses, physicians, and security guards decided that they’d have to create their own rescue plan. One of the nurses used her cell phone and got a live feed into CNN. A helicopter operator in St. Louis saw the feed and took to the sky to help. The hospital and the surrounding area was too flooded for him to land, so using small boats from the fire department, the hospital staff floated patients one at a time through the waist-deep water to a parking structure three blocks away. The helicopter airlifted the patients to safety from there.

Your running can airlift you to safety—and higher—any day you let it. It will relax your body, ease your mind, and free your soul.

If your commitment is intermittent try this: make a list of what you get out of your running, a list of how you benefit. Then, make a list of what you can do with those benefits—what you can give as a result of those benefits, whose lives can you touch? That second list is the doorway to your consistent, joy-filled, and highly successful running.

Whose Graffiti are You Reading?

Training for the LA marathon continues to go really well, with the addition now of a regular hill workout with Team in Training mentor Tiffany.  In Long Beach, there are no more challenging hills than at Signal Hill.  The one-mile loop that Tiffany has mapped out is a great balance between the work of the steep climb, and the grace of the long, winding descent.

As challenging as the hill climb is, the view and perspective from the top is so worth the journey. The broad ocean gilded in the morning sun; Catalina floating effortlessly in the sea; Palos Verdes reaching unapologetically for the heavens.  All is right in the world.

I have to say that I take a certain amount of pride in being able to almost keep up with someone approaching half my age.  Almost.  With the quiet confidence of the powerful runner, she pushed out ahead at the peak of the last climb.  With the “wisdom” of my greater years, I knew better than to push myself as hard as it would take to keep up.  Another day!

I wondered how my Thursday morning run would be after those steep hills, and was delighted to find that my calves and quads were both still strong and moving easily.  My Thursday runs along the L.A. river have a unique quality about them, for at about 5 a.m. in the morning, the city crews are driving the length of the river and spray painting over all the graffiti that has collected over the previous week—and that can be a lot, believe me.

There’s plenty to be said about graffiti, and I’m not going to repeat it.  As I see it, we’ve been at it since pre-history.  In my day, it consisted mostly of carving names in trees.  Toby loves Chiara (a high school crush).  That kind of thing.

I will be bold and say this, in and of itself, as a medium, I am not entirely against graffiti.

Recently, Marie Deary held an evening at Long Beach’s premier independent bookstore, Shore Books, on the theme of graffiti, to highlight a new book, Graffiti L.A.  As I browsed the book a few days later, I noticed that the vast majority of North American graffiti is simply tags—individuals painting their chosen name in a variety of different styles, colors, and designs.  Many of them are quite striking.  But just names.  Back to carving on trees in a sense.

Now there is a kind of graffiti that adds to the conversation.  You think not?  I encourage you to explore the work of my fellow Brit, Banksy.  That’s a piece of his work at the start of the article (I bet you wondered what that was doing there!).  I’ll be talking more about him on another day.  I’m wiling to go toe to toe with anyone and advocate that this guy is an artist.

Anyway, on my L.A. river run, it’s all name tagging that I see.  Tags for individuals and gangs.  When the city crews come by, they photograph the tags to pass on to those tracking gang activity in the LBC, and then spray over them.  The taggers come back; the city comes back.  Ad infinitum, it seems.  They keep each other employed.

This kind of graffiti does annoy me.  It seems so purposeless.  So ego-centric.  So  “I am here.”  I call it “cock waving;” nothing more, nothing less.  As I ran yesterday morning, I used a powerful tool of exploration as part of my running meditation.  The practice almost always energizes me, and I noticed that I was clocking miles in just under seven minutes, quick for me.

The tool is a question I learned in the University of Santa Monica’s Graduate Programs in Spiritual Psychology, and it goes like this:  If my outer experience is a reflection of my inner reality, what could this experience be showing me?

Gently, birthed in the rhythm of my seven-minute miles, the answer appeared.  

I realized that the graffiti is just like the negative thinking that I can subject myself to. Or the negativity of others that I buy into.  News stories for example. The gangsters of fear, worry, and doubt that run amok in my mind sometimes, especially when I am not paying attention.  I throw self-defeating graffiti up on the screen of my own consciousness and stare at it.  I can’t  . . .; Life is unfair; I’ll never be able to . . . Etc, etc. 

Only a conscious choice to intervene can make a difference—and I paint over it with a more positive focus.  The fear returns, my choice paints over it.  They, too, keep each other employed.

One of my New Year intentions is to get out of this game of back and forward.  To transform the landscape of my own consciousness so that graffiti no longer features in it.  I will no longer battle against fear.  That game is done.  I simply look for, create, and see the beauty of life inside me and outside of me.  I will be master of my own domain!

Time and again, I meet runners who say to me, “I wish I could feel during the rest of my day the way I do when I am running. You can.  In fact, you must!  It is the responsibility that comes with the joy of running. How is this done?  Approach the rest of your day in the same way that you approach your run.

Prepare. Decide where you are going. Plot a course for your day. Pace yourself. Feed yourself along the way, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  Create for yourself the time you need. Return home in gratitude.  Running doesn’t stop with the end of your workout.  You just change clothes and course.

Happy trails!