Mindful Thoughts for
Runners by Tessa Wardley
(Leaping Hare Press,
£6.99) is out now.runners, we love and hate that pain. We
fear it, but conquering it could be the
very reason that we come back time after
time. Willingly facing a hard run that you
know will be lung rasping, thigh burning
and foot-achingly painful gives you the
opportunity to feel alive; in our generally
seated, air-conditioned lives there is a
visceral pleasure in using our bodies in the
way that evolution has designed them.
‘It seems to be an innate desire we have
evolved, the need to push ourselves to
test the basic functioning of our bodies.
And the inevitable outcome of this is pain,
although suffering is avoidable. You cannot
escape the pain completely, but how you
choose to respond to it is down to you. If
you’re frightened of the pain, you allow it to
have authority – and it grows. Alternatively,
you can embrace the pain – make friends
with it and it becomes less frightening.
‘And that is where mindfulness practice
can be so invaluable. You can draw the
focus away from the pain and back to
your breathing and the cadence, the real
essences of running. The pain is not
dismissed or ignored, but is reduced to its
rightful place. This is a place of awareness
but not power; it is not allowed to get out
of control and to overwhelm all other
sensations. If you head out knowing pain
is inevitable, then you aren’t taken by
surprise, and the pain has less power
to overwhelm you. One of the running
mantras is to welcome the pain, “Hello
pain, I was expecting
you, come run with
me”. In fact, the mental
strength achieved in
running gives you the
self-confidence to
face other challenges
beyond running; it can
help you deal with your
life in general.’Carry out a
post-run debrief
‘Maintaining your mindfulness
at the end of the run is
another way to retain that awareness of
your body and mind. You could also carry
out a physical and mental debrief as you
cool down and stretch. How did the run
pan out? How did the aches and pains
respond? Were you able to keep going
when you felt like stopping? Are there any
indications that you should have stopped or
that you may have pushed yourself too far?
‘By listening to your body and maintaining
mindful contact with yourself, you learn how
to get the best from your body, when to stop
and when to push on. Running is low on
technical equipment; all we have is ourbodies and our minds, and we need to bring
them into unison. Employing mindfulness on
every run will provide more depth and clarity
to your personal understanding. Throughout
your life, you develop
physical and
psychological
boundaries, and your
perception of these
boundaries can be
transformed with a
mindful approach to
running. You learn your
limits, when you can push yourself and
when you need to stop, to accept that
enough is enough. These are important
lessons to learn, in life as in running.
‘We all have our own rhythm and limits –
better to set those for yourself through a
deep understanding of who you are than be
told where to put them by someone else or
be forced to stop by physical injury. When
we look mindfully into ourselves and what
we are capable of, we are sometimes
surprised by what we find; we can often
prove ourselves to be stronger and endure
much more than we ever supposed.’ n‘By listening to
your body and
maintaining mindful
contact, you learn
when to stop
and when to push on’