Welcome to Running to Myself. I’m Trisha Stanton. Life and mindset coach, running coach and host of Running to Myself.
16 years ago I ran my first marathon. The process of training for that first race changed my life. This podcast is my opportunity to share some of the lessons I have learned about running and life through the many ups and downs of life during my almost 2 decades of running and learning more about who I am. It is my hope that through my stories maybe you will see a bit of yourself as well and find a nugget of truth and inspiration to take with you. Let’s get started.
Welcome to Episode #1. An Unlikely Beginning
The thing about life changing moments is that oftentimes we don’t recognize them while we are in the thick of experiencing them. It’s not until later that we can see how one decision, one moment, one interaction began a course of change that has impacted who we are today.
Runners who race love to talk about their stats. Personal bests, Personal records, favorite races, least favorite races, goals, dreams, aches and pains, it’s part of what keeps us lining up at the starting line while our families and nonrunning friends are home fast asleep on a weekend.I used to fall into this category. I could tell you every race I had run, my finish times, my fastest mile, and on and on. I had my running resume memorized. And that served a purpose while I was training to race and coaching the high school girls cross country team. My athletes trusted me because I had the experience to back up my coaching certification. I still have the experience, but these days I have a much different relationship with running. To give you my personal best times, I would have to look them up because I just don’t care about that part of it anymore. But once upon a time years ago, that was a big part of my life.
I have run 10 marathons. I have qualified to run the Boston marathon 3 times. I have run it once. I have run 3 50K trail races (although 50k is a very LOOSE term-the last one I ran had an actual distance of 53k and has since been updated as such). I don’t know how many half marathons, 10k and 5k events I have completed.
I tell you that because I am an ordinary person who followed a plan to reach a goal. Achieving that goal blew my mind. And then I had a new goal, so I upleveled my plan. And I did that again and again.
There is nothing special about me that you don’t also have inside of you. I simply committed to following a plan until I achieved the desired results. Anyone can do what I did.
I was not athletic growing up. I did not run in high school or even early adulthood. It was one fateful and slightly impulsive moment in my late 30s that began my pursuit of this activity that developed into a passion and opened doors to many other opportunities for adventure, personal development and growth.
During this first episode I am going to take you back to that day and the unlikely event that became the first step in changing my life.
I can still picture that moment so clearly in my mind. I was sitting at my desk, working through lunch that day when the email from my husband showed up in my inbox:
You’ll never guess what I just signed up for…MCM
I had no idea what MCM stood for, but I did know that I wouldn’t get a straight answer from him unless I at least made an attempt to give a guess. So I quickly did a google search to figure out what MCM was.
The only result that stood out was the one attached to my husband’s current consulting client, the Marines. But I knew there was no way it could be this….but I was Ready to find out the real answer to what he signed up for so I sent the response….
The Marine Corp Marathon??
The response was almost immediate. YES
I was dumbfounded. WHAT?! It is of importance to this story to establish right now that my husband was not only decidedly NOT a runner, he also did not participate in ANY form of exercise on a regular basis. AT ALL. So to say that this response was a surprise is an understatement.
As I sat there absorbing this information something unexpected happened. I began to think about what our life was going to be like if Dave completed a marathon and I had not. You see, I was not a runner, but I DID workout on a regular basis and had since before he and I had met. So in this relationship I was the partner who stayed in shape and HE was the partner who just didn’t worry about it too much. It’s not too much of a stretch to apply the label couch potato here. As I imagined what our life would be like post marathon, visions of our 80 year old selves began running through my mind with old man Dave saying
“Remember that time when I ran a marathon and you didn’t? Yep. I ran a marathon. I sure did. Have you ever run a marathon? Nope. That’s right. You never did.”
It was a bleak and annoying picture of our future life….
This is where my competitive side took the wheel and clear thinking took a back seat
So I did what anyone would do, right?
I was a keyboard warrior as I typed that message and sent it off.
Sign me up. I can’t let you hold this over my head for the rest of our lives. Lol
-It all happened so fast….within a few minutes he had me all signed up and committed to do this thing that neither of us knew anything about.
Reality began to set in. I don’t run. I hate running. The one time I tried running a 5k several months prior I had to stop and walk the last mile and felt like I was going to die. It was one of the least fun experiences I had in recent memory.
I am filled with dread and an overwhelming sense of being in way over my head.
What have I done??
Heart pounding, adrenaline pumping, knots and butterflies overtaking my stomach. I can’t believe I have committed to something like this.
Now what?
I had a coworker who ran marathons so I went to her in a flurry of panic.
Expecting her to jump into the panic pool with me and agree that this was the dumbest thing ever and I had no chance at success, I was surprised by her actual response.
She was so calm. Like it was the most normal thing in the world for a person to sign up for a marathon during their lunch break.
Because she knew.
She knew it was possible.
She gave me the name of a plan. The same plan she had followed when she began and assured me that if I followed the plan I would be just fine.
Feeling a little weak in the knees and sick to my stomach. I looked it up.
I had no idea if it would work for me, BUT I did have evidence in the form of other runners. My friend had run several marathons and she assured me the plan worked. The website claimed that over a million people had used one of these plans to train for their races, most of them beginners like me.
And then just like jumping into the deep end of the pool (and this was truly the deep end for me!) I basically held my nose, closed my eyes and took a great leap in. I was going to do this.
Having no experience in running a race-or running at all really, turned out to be an asset for me this one time because it caused me to be fully committed to following the plan.
Looking back I see that having a plan that had already had a proven track record for leading others to success and being 100% committed to following that plan were exactly the two things I needed to get me from where I was to crossing the finish line in October.
Saying yes to this adventure was a pivotal decision in my life. This was the first step in changing what I thought was possible for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but my life was about to change in so many ways I never would have imagined.
What did I learn from this decision to jump into the unknown? How was the decision to run a marathon connected with everyday, nonrunning life?
I’m so glad you asked. Here’s the “life coach” connection.
At the time I didn’t recognize it, but I was taking a chance on myself. I was saying yes to taking the steps to create a new version of myself in the pursuit of this goal. This was the first step to finding out what was possible if I went all in on my commitment to a goal.
One of the things that blocks people from creating meaningful change in their lives is the reluctance to take a chance on themselves. When the feelings of fear and resistance arise and that dreaded question: what if I fail? Presents itself , this is the point where many will decide to shrink back from taking action.
Oftentimes there is not even a conscious decision made.
When you haven’t yet developed the courage to say yes and take a chance on yourself, the fear that rises up is able to very quickly squash that baby idea of something new before it can fully develop. The idea, the opportunity, the new way to approach life is pushed away and out of the picture before you even have the chance to gather up your courage to face that dreaded question:
What if I fail?
The idea of failure used to be a big deterrent for me. Being afraid to consider what failure would mean had held me back from pursuing opportunities in the past.
The only reason this time was different is because I jumped in and committed before my brain had time to stop me. And I’m so glad it happened that way.
The most amazing thing happened as I started to face the possibility of failure head on. Showing up each day to do the work deflated the fear balloon. It turned out the answer to the question -What if I fail- wasn’t scary at all. If I failed that day, I just needed to show up the next day and try again. I learned to trust the process and trust my body to adapt as I followed the program. And it did.
Don’t get me wrong. Just because I made the commitment that day didn’t mean it was smooth sailing ahead. Oh no. It was almost ALL challenging during the months in pursuit of this goal. Every single day of my 16 week training schedule I had to face the reality that I might fail, because every part of this journey was brand new to me.
I am no longer afraid of failure. In fact, I regularly put myself in situations where failure is a very real possibility. Failure is not something to fear. It is just part of the process of following big goals and dreams. I fail often. And when I do fail, I get back up and keep going. I adjust where needed. I learn the lesson the failure offers me and know that in the process I am acquiring new knowledge and developing mental toughness.
My life is so much richer and more rewarding now that I am not afraid to fail in the pursuit of my dreams.
If I could give you one idea to leave with today, it would be this. Take a chance on yourself. Find out what is possible when you are willing to go all in on a goal or a dream.
That is all I have for you today my friends. I hope you enjoyed this first episode of Running to Myself. I will be back again next week to share a little more about my training journey.
In the meantime, if you want to know more about my coaching program, please visit my website at www.trishastanton.com. Have a great week and remember, Mindset Matters!
