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 15, Priorities. At the time of this recording, I am just one day away from running my favorite trail race at Eisenhower Park here in San Antonio. Knowing this race is coming up, memories of my past race experiences there have been on my mind a lot the last few weeks.
By the time you are hearing this episode, I will have had another new experience in a new distance there and this time with most of my family participating as well. I can’t wait to tell you all about it next week. For today, I am going to take you back to last year, 2023.
My son had been trail running on a pretty consistent basis and I finally convinced him to give my favorite race a try. Normally I wouldn’t encourage someone who had never raced more than a 5k to just jump right into the 50k distance, but I saw what a natural he is and knew that with all of his running being on trails rather than road, he was fit enough to do it even though it would likely be pretty uncomfortable at the end. I had been trying to get him to do this race with me for a couple years now. When he finally said yes, I was a little surprised and very excited. I was also stretched pretty thin in my day to day life at the time. I had taken on a lot of extra responsibilities in new areas at my school and was coaching clients in the evenings. Running had taken a backseat. But I wasn’t going to miss what could be my only opportunity to share this experience with my son, so as soon as he said yes, I registered both of us before he could change his mind.
As it turns out, the night before the 6 am start of the race, was our Fall Festival at my school. This meant being at work until around 9:00 pm that night with most of that time being on my feet. It had rained pretty hard that afternoon, so the festival, which was supposed to be outdoors, had to be moved inside and that resulted in a lot of last minute scrambling to be ready to welcome our community as they arrived.
Years before when my relationship with running was different, being this busy the day before a race would have really bothered me. Physically, I knew it would cause some discomfort the next day. But from the lens of priorities, the Fall Festival and being a part of something that is so highly anticipated by my students and their families was much more important. As the night came to an end and we were cleaning up after the event, I knew I had been right where I was meant to be no matter how much I paid for it in fatigue the next day. I was physically tired and also my heart was full.
As I mentioned before, I had been trying to get my son to do this race with me for awhile so when he said yes, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. But the truth is, I would not have signed up for it on my own. I had not trained for it and there were countless other things on my mind and to-do list, BUT I was NOT going to miss the opportunity to share this experience with my son. Just showing up to cheer him on would not have been the same as experiencing it with him. Half the fun is swapping stories and comparing experiences after the race. Just to be clear, when I say experiencing it WITH him, I mean that we were both out there running at the same time. We were never actually together after the start line because he is MUCH faster, younger and more talented than me. We were both out there doing our thing on the same course at the same time and boy was it a highlight experience for me. One that will live on as one of my favorite memories with one of my grown kids. Racing wasn’t a priority on that day, but sharing this experience with my son, WAS a priority. Because I was clear on why I was there, I had the BEST day!
Here’s some of what I wrote in my journal the day after the race:
Rocky Horror Trail 50k Obstacles are not a reason to not succeed.
Woke up with achy legs from standing for a long time the day before. Went into the race undertrained and short on sleep. Yet, the night before while working the Fall Festival and watching our Kinder and 1st graders and our Ballet Folklorio perform, I thought, “This is exactly the life I want. One that is full of service to others, community, and being healthy enough to sign up for a 50k a week before the race because my son finally agrees to do the race too. What a blessing.”
Rocks were slick from the get go due to rain the night before. Humidity was near 100%. I dug out our lanterns Thursday night so batteries could be replaced and my handheld light could be charged. Brought a backup as well because I'm no rookie.
The first hour and a half of the race is in complete darkness. Lights are a necessity on these rocky, hilly trails. Obstacle #1 my handheld light would not turn on. I thought it just didn’t hold the charge, as it hadn’t been used in a few years. I moved to my backup light and quickly found that it wasn’t nearly as bright as I needed it to be. This slowed my already slow pace down even more as I wasn’t willing to take the chance of falling due to the poor lighting. Reluctantly I switched over to the flashlight on my phone and tried to push away the thoughts that people would think I was a rookie who hadn’t brought a light. Nope, just the moron who didn’t fully test their light sources ahead of time.
Eventually darkness gave way to light. We didn’t get the spectacular sunrise of a few years ago due to the cloud cover and that was fine with me. Cloud cover meant less heat. Shortly after full light came the rain-oh joy, knowing the rest of the race would be run in wet gear-little did I know that the sun would come out later and wet would transition to dry and HOT.
This course consists of 10 loops on a 3.3 mile trail, so you see the same volunteers and race support 10 times. It probably sounds terrible, to do the same loop ten times, but there are perks to seeing the same aid station volunteers and whoever your personal race support people are every 3 miles. The volunteers for this race were absolutely amazing. There were several people involved with race directing and overseeing this race who have run much farther and more complicated races than this one. Their encouragement is one of the things that makes trail running and ultras so unique and special. Chris and I also got to see my husband, Dave, each time we came through the aid station. In addition to helping us refill our water and anything else we might need, he was able to give a report of how each of us was progressing to the other. It was an incredible experience. Every part of it.
In spite of being physically and mentally tired before we even began. In spite of not the best weather conditions. In spite of my headlamp not working and spending the first hour using the flashlight on my phone as my light, which made me look like a COMPLETE rookie. In spite of being undertrained. It was the BEST day. I loved it so much.
I also need to tell you that midway through the race and even into the next day, I needed to remind myself several times that improving my time from the prior year or placing in the race were NOT the priority. Why did I need a reminder when I was so clearly not prepared to accomplish either anyway? I want to do my best at everything, even things that don’t matter to most. My personality can lean toward striving. I can turn the most fun activity into work without even realizing it.
If you don’t naturally lean toward making everything work or wanting to do your best in everything single thing-even the activities you do for enjoyment and relaxation, this might sound extreme to you and maybe even a little ridiculous. I am envious of your ability to just have fun and enjoy the things you enjoy.
If you are a fellow striver, you will likely relate to my push pull of wanting to enjoy this amazing experience with my son, while also wondering, could I have done better? Could I have been faster? Could I have placed 2nd instead of third? Could I have beat the woman who came in just a minute before me if I had trained? Or if I had pushed myself a little more during the race?
The answer to all of those questions is yes. I could have, but it would have been at the expense of something else. This brings us to our life coach connection. One that I needed then and one that I need reminded of now with the next race just a few days away.
Here it is. Not everything can be a priority. By definition, a priority is something that is more important than other things. Not everything can be the most important. When you try to make everything a priority you actually end up with NOTHING being a priority.
My daily priority in that season was my work at school and scheduling time to coach at night. I intentionally chose those priorities to come before my running for reasons that I still value today. Having those priorities didn’t mean that I couldn’t enjoy running a race with my son, they just meant that I showed up differently than if running had been higher in the ranking of my priorities.
My priority for that one day was experiencing this race with my son. Nothing else. Being clear about that at the start and reminding myself when needed allowed me to show up ready to have a great day. The fact that we were both there together having this shared experience meant the day was already a success. Letting go of thoughts about how I could have performed better was necessary for me to honor my current priorities. It is sometimes necessary to say no to opportunities that come along because they aren’t in alignment with our current priorities. That can be tricky. In that situation I found the sweet spot for making those decisions. I was in a season of deep work as my priority, so I said yes to sharing an opportunity with my son but no to the desire to prioritize my performance in that activity.
It’s fall. The holidays are just around the corner. It is the time of year where everything seems like a priority. Don't be fooled. It is not. You are the decision maker when it comes to choosing your priorities. But if you don’t make an intentional decision about what is a priority and what is not, those decisions will be made by others who may have different priorities than you. As you begin this week you might want to take inventory. Are you clear about your priorities? Are you selecting what matters most to you for reasons that you are clear about? And the most important takeaway for today, not everything can be a priority.
Listen, as we go full steam ahead into what is for many the busiest time of the year, the ability to manage your mind is the difference between enjoying the extra time with family and friends or being depleted by it. I am ready to help you! Beginning this week, I am opening up my schedule to take on more end of year clients. No day or time is off limits! I am making myself fully available to get you through the end of 2024 with a well managed mind. When you prioritize your mental and emotional health, everything else improves as well. You can contact me through my website or message me on Facebook. The links for both are in the show notes. Don’t put it off! The time to act is now!
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 subscribe 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 one-on-one coaching or life coaching in general, please visit my website at www.trishastanton.com or my Facebook Group The Simple Truth Coaching. I would love to hear from you!
Have a great week, get clear about your priorities and remember, Mindset Matters!
