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 5 When Things Don’t Go as Planned
Other than the marathon itself, the 20 mile run is the biggest milestone of a traditional marathon training program. And the time for my first 20 miler was getting close. We talked through many different route options. I wanted one that was out and back. Ten miles out, turn around at the halfway point and ten miles back home. I liked the idea of knowing when I turned around I was halfway finished.
At the time we did not have GPS watches or smartphones to tell us the route as we were running. We planned it the old fashioned way. We drove our car ahead of time to determine the mileage. It hardly seems possible with all the gadgets we have now to let us know how far we have gone and where we are in the moment, but back in 2008 the only technology we owned to determine our mileage was a car. After much planning, we decided on a route and cleared the schedule for the afternoon/evening of the run. We planned at least four hours for the run itself and then the rest of the evening would be rest and recovery.
Up until the 13 mile long run Dave and I had been training on our own during the week and then together for our long run each weekend. Something happened around the week of our 13 mile run and Dave ended up with a bum knee and was no longer running. He still had plans to run the marathon, but he spent the rest of the training time resting his injury rather than running. This pretty much sums up the difference in our training attitudes and styles. I followed the training program down to the very last mile. I never wavered. Not because I was so disciplined, but because I was scared half out of my mind! Dave on the other had loosely followed the plan, got injured just halfway through and then just said “eh, I’ll just show up and see what happens” without a care in the world.
Our new routine became him riding his bike alongside me, keeping me company and carrying my water. It worked out great for me. I no longer needed to set out water and gatorade at strategic points and then drive back around to pick up my empty bottles after the run was over. I don’t know if people still do this. It seems odd to me now, but back in the day, we didn’t have any running gear other than shoes. I already explained how we would use our car to plan out the route that gave us the mileage we needed. Well, we also didn’t have any way to carry more than a regular size water bottle and that wasn’t enough for a long run, so we would drive the route just before the run and set out our cold water or gatorade and then drive the route after the run to pick them up again. There was a lot that went into making each run happen. Now that I had Dave on a bike carrying all the water, the logistics felt so much easier! We packed every supply we could think of that we might need and set out on what would be the longest and most anticipated run of the training plan. THIS would be the proof I needed that I was going to be ready for the starting line in three short weeks. More than any other run, I was ready to have this one behind me. Maybe after I did this I would finally begin to feel like a real runner…..
And so we set out, mid afternoon with nothing left to do but complete this run. Dave on the bike and me on my feet. The first ten miles went by easily. We made it to the turn around point and I felt a rush of relief pass through me. I was halfway there. I was going to finish. Trust me, I know that halfway is only halfway, but there was always something about reaching the halfway point that felt like everything would be okay after that. Once I was heading back in the direction of home, I would feel like, okay, I’m going to be able to finish this. That’s one of the reasons I preferred the out and back route rather than a loop.
Everything was going just fine and right as planned until about three and a half miles from home. Three and a half miles is so close to being done! It’s also far enough in, that fatigue is really starting to impact the entire body. I was sweating to the point of being grimy from head to toe and while I wasn’t questioning whether or not I would make it, I was becoming very tired. I was feeling a mix of relief that I had almost made it and also noticing how tired my body was and I was hungry! A strange thing that sometimes happens to me towards the end of a run that is 15 or more miles is that I will sometimes have a sudden onset of ravenous hunger. There are all sorts of things you can do to prepare for that, but I didn’t know about any of them at the time and I was close enough to home that soon I would be able to eat. Not the most comfortable feeling, not really a big deal either. The sun was dropping and although it wasn’t yet dark, we needed to make good time to get home before it was completely dark as we were out on country roads with no sidewalk and little shoulder. Being visible was a priority.
It was nice to feel the slight drop in temperature as the sun went down. These are the things we are thinking about and talking about when suddenly we were both completely engulfed in a massive swarm of mosquitoes. And I mean MASSIVE. They were just everywhere. Swarming us from head to toe. I had to squint my eyes as tight as possible to keep them out, yet still be able to see where I was going. I quickly clamped my mouth shut, but not before a few of them made it just past my lips and had to be spat out. They were going up my nose and in my ears. I’m wildly flailing my arms. It’s doing no good. I felt like I was in the middle of a biblical plague. Dave was having the same experience while trying to ride his bike. I don’t know how long we continued on like this. It seemed like at least an hour. At first I thought I could just quickly run through it, but that didn’t work. It was like the swarm was moving WITH us. It was just awful.
What happened next is a complete mystery to me. I have no idea why we chose this particular course of action. It seems really dumb now. So dumb, that while I was thinking about the details of that day, I had to go to Dave and check to see if he remembers it the same way I do. He does. Neither one of us can explain why we thought this would be a good idea.
In our mosquito hysteria we decided that it would be a good idea for Dave to ride home three and a half miles to get a can of mosquito spray and then ride back to me. This brings up so many questions.
Did we really think the swarm was going to last the entire way home?
Obviously Dave could ride a bike much faster than I could run, but by the time he went all the way home, got the spray and then got back to me, I would have been pretty close to home. Right?
Would bug spray be enough of a deterrent to keep an entire swarm off of us?
Was it smart for me to be running on a road with no lights as it is becoming dusk?
Why didn’t Dave just ride up ahead to see how long it would take to get out of the swarm?
I can’t answer any of these questions and neither can he, but he remembers the events just as I do. Up until a few days ago, I never even questioned why we decided on that particular course of action. I don’t know how long the swarm lasted , but it must have been longer than what it took for Dave to be out of sight because I didn’t call him back. By the time he made it back to me, I was almost home. We made it through the great mosquito attack of 2008 and I had completed my first 20 mile run.
What’s the Life Coach Connection? Let’s talk about when things don’t go as planned. We were almost there. I thought I had basically made it. And then the end of that run did not go as planned. Quitting wasn’t an option because there was no other way to get home, so we adjusted by making the crazy plan of Dave riding home to get the bug spray. Our backup plan was dumb. But the important thing is we didn't give up. We kept going and even though now our plan seems really silly, we did the best we could to figure out a situation that we never would have predicted. Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Something that you never could have anticipated comes out of nowhere like a giant swarm of mosquitoes and tries to swallow you whole.
What do you do when that happens?
Here’s what I know to be true. There are a lot of things that you can plan and be prepared for. Some people find comfort and security in doing that. But there are also going to be some things in life that you do not anticipate and cannot directly prepare for. Then what?
One of the first significant changes I was able to see in myself when I first started working with a life coach was how I coped when life didn’t go as planned. And while being stuck in a mosquito swarm was certainly an example of things not going as planned, this was not the type of “life not going as planned” that I was working with a coach about. Major, unanticipated, turn your life upside down situations are what led me to working with my first coach. I had reached my early 40s still thinking that I could mostly control my life and everything around me and that any time I couldn’t, I (or someone near me) had obviously done something wrong to cause any bad thing that might happen. I’m not talking about taking radical responsibility for your actions. I’m all for that.
What I am talking about is the mistaken belief that as long as I live a certain way, life should be pretty easy, good and trouble free. That’s just not true. We are not promised an easy or comfortable life. This may sound surprising, but learning that I can expect life to be 50/50- 50% positive and 50% negative took so much pressure off of me. I wasn’t necessarily doing it wrong and causing destruction all around me. I was finally able to accept that sometimes bad things just happen and that’s okay. For the first time in my adult life I accepted that my life isn’t going to be all positive and it’s not even supposed to be. Accepting the concept of a 50/50 life helped me to relax and better accept and navigate the hard things when they come. I released my grasp on needing to present a perfect picture to myself or anyone else.
But that’s my story and my journey. What about you? Today I would like to give you a couple of simple ideas and tools to try out for yourself. And listen, I understand that there is a very wide ranging spectrum of experience when it comes to unplanned life events from little things not going our way all the way to catastrophic events that knock us to the ground. If you are old enough to be listening to this podcast, you have likely already experienced a full range of unplanned events. The following are ideas that I use in different situations. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it might get your mind thinking about what might work for you.
I’ve already shared my most impactful mindset shift with you, but I’m going to repeat it because this one helped me more than any tool that I have used when things are falling apart. Here it is. This idea changed my perspective and helped me break free from some really negative and destructive thought patterns. Life is 50/50. Good things will happen and bad things will happen. Both are part of our human life here on Earth.
The next ideas I will share with you are simple things I do and/or think in the middle of something not going as planned.
If I feel myself beginning to get a little worked up, I will discreetly place my hand over my heart, take a deep breath and tell myself “you’re going to be okay”, “everything is going to be okay”. I have read that it is impactful to say it out loud. I don’t. In my head is loud enough for me. I’m not telling you that to discourage you from saying it out loud. I just want you to know that if you aren’t comfortable saying it outloud, it also works to say it to yourself in your thoughts as well.
This one sounds so simple, but we forget to do it when we are in the middle of getting worked up over something. Take a deep, slow breath. I intentionally slow down my breathing. Somehow that seems to slow everything down and allow me to think more clearly.
Once I have assured myself that I am going to be okay and I have taken a few deep breaths to calm my nervous system and slow everything down, I am usually able to think clearly enough to determine my next steps. This puts me in a problem solving frame of mind and allows me to make decisions that will help me navigate through whatever it is I am facing at the moment.
I understand that none of these tactics take away the chaos of whatever has gone awry. They aren’t intended to. These are simply tools to help us do what humans navigating this earth need to be able to do…handle life as it comes. If you would like to go deeper learning to manage your mind during difficult seasons maybe hiring a coach would be beneficial for you. Maybe your situation would be best suited to seeing a therapist. Wherever you find yourself in this present moment, please know that you are not alone. Life is 50/50 for all humans and there is no shame in life throwing you a curveball right when you least expect it.
That’s all I have for you today, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Running to Myself. You can find previous episodes on apple podcasts and spotify or on my website www.trishastanton.com. New episodes are released each Monday. You can select subscribe or follow on Apple or Spotify to automatically receive each new episode as it comes out.
If you know someone who you think would enjoy this podcast, please share it with them! I will be back next week to share a little more about my training journey on the road to discovering my truest self.
In the meantime, if you want to know more about my coaching program or have questions about life coaching in general, please visit my website at www.trishastanton.com .
Have a great week and remember, Mindset Matters!
