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 16 It’s Never Too Late for New Experiences
This past Saturday was full of firsts for me. I hardly know where to start in telling you about it. I guess I will pick up where I left off in last week’s episode. In case you didn’t catch Episode 15, I shared the story of my son, Chris, and I running the annual Rocky Horror Trail 50k last fall. It was his first 50k and my 3rd. Since the very end of last year’s race, I have been asking him if he was ready to sign up for this year’s race, which was updated to reflect the more accurate distance of 53k. I couldn’t wait to do it with him again. Listen, I have lived my entire adult and parenting life with a family full of people who do not share my interests or hobbies, so getting just one person on board to do something I love was a BIG deal. And I didn’t want to let the opportunity to do it again slip through my fingers. We loosely planned to run again this year awhile back. I didn’t sign up right away because I was only interested in participating if Chris was there as well. He lives a couple of hours away now and sometimes has to be on call during the weekends, so I waited for him to fully commit. About a week before the race, he called and said, yes, he was coming to San Antonio to run with me, but he wanted to do the 27k this time because he had been having some hip pain and didn't want to have the days of pain afterward that would likely come from not listening to his body and pushing through the 53k.
I was a little disappointed. Even though my weekly miles have declined a great deal since my marathon days, 50K is the only race distance I have entered since running Boston in 2018. Signing up for a shorter race seemed like going backwards. I know, I have a lot of quirky hangups when it comes to running. But here’s a little known fact for those who haven’t dipped their toes into the ultra distance world. The longer the distance, the slower the pace. That is the secret to why I love the 50k distance. The opposite is also true. The shorter the distance, the faster the pace. These days, I am all for slow. The 27k sounded hard. I agreed anyway and we signed up. New experience #1, the 27k distance. In case you are wondering how many miles 27k is, I looked it up for us. It is 16.77 miles.
About a week before race day I was wearing my 2023 race t shirt and my 8 year old granddaughter started asking me questions about the race. She wanted to know if there was a 5k and could she run it. What? Was I going to get to add another family runner? You probably can picture me running to the computer to sign her up, right? That is actually NOT what I did. Listen, this is not a child who is happy when we take her hiking and once you start the race, finishing the trail is the only way out. I proceeded with caution. She would need someone to be on the trail with her and I would be running my own race, so I would need to recruit someone else. I sat on it for a few days until I had the perfect plan. That Monday was a school holiday and I had made plans to spend the afternoon with her. So that morning I told her that if she was still interested in signing up for the 5k that I would take her to the trail, we would hike the full course and if she could complete the course and still wanted to sign up for the race, that her papa would do the race with her on Saturday. I had recruited my husband beforehand, assuring him that it was very unlikely that after hiking the course, she would still be interested in the race. I wasn’t exaggerating, I really believed that to be the case. Especially after our 3 mile hike in 90 degree temperatures! She did a great job! But towards the end I was not surprised when she said, “I don’t know if I want to do this again on Saturday.” No big deal. I told her what a great job she had done and that it was completely her decision if she wanted to come back and do it again on Saturday. I knew Dave would breathe a sigh of relief to hear this news. We went on with our day together and had a lovely time doing other things.
The next day, to my surprise, I found out that she had gone home and declared that she wanted to sign up for the race. To further my delight, their whole family signed up. I could hardly believe it. How did I go from no one ever wanting to participate in races with me and my kids telling me it was a dumb thing to do, to this? We would have 3 generations of family running at the same race-by choice, not because I bribed them. I could hardly believe it. New experience #2 and 3 having 3 generations run different distances of the same race and it being my granddaughter's first 5k experience.
This brings us to new experience #4 which, if you are a runner, you will understand the mind drama this could have set me up for and if you are not a runner, you might think this is kind of ridiculous. Here we go. I have spent the last few weeks running without a gps watch to track my pace and distance. Not for any reason other than that mine broke and I’m just not ready to make the investment in a new one. I was curious to see if I could break my dependence on the data and just run. It felt weird at first. Really weird, but I got used to it faster than I expected to. Racing without a gps to give me constant information on my pace or heart rate was going to take me back to my very early days of running when I didn’t even know what my pace was or why it mattered. New experience #4 was racing without access to my pace/heart rate, or any other data. Will I continue this way? Probably not, but it turned out to not be a big deal at all for this one race.
As it turns out, I had much bigger, more serious things to consider that day than my pace. We will come back to that in a bit. First, I want you to have a glimpse of all the good that happened on this day. It’s important. It’s especially important when painful situations are lurking in the dark and hiding behind the bushes ready to squash out the good.
Race morning came and Chris and I set out on our 27 kilometer journey. Our race consisted of 5 laps. We took a quick picture at the start and the next time I saw him was when he was lapping me on his final lap. You heard that right. He LAPPED me. And truthfully, that moment was the highlight of my race. Seeing him fly by, effortlessly navigating the rocky trail and looking so strong for his final lap filled me with joy and gave me the burst of energy to enjoy my final lap and a half. I may be competitive, but I also believe that a reasonably fit 26 year old boy SHOULD have the fitness to lap his 53 year old mother! I was so happy for him and proud of him. And of course I have already started suggesting our next race to him.
The rest of the family would be participating in the 5k distance which began an hour later. The timing was perfect for me to be able to see them and give Ava a quick hug and word of encouragement as I finished my first loop and they were waiting to line up for their start. The next time I would see her, she would be proudly wearing her race medal and smiling from ear to ear. I could not have been more delighted as I headed out on my final two loops.
This morning had turned out to be exactly what my heart needed. It was an opportunity to experience beauty and love in one hand while holding deep pain and heartache in the other. Because in addition to experiencing this wonderful morning with most of our family, we were also in the midst of a crisis with another family member.
One of the most important truths that I have learned in my years of loving someone who struggles with addiction is this:
I didn’t Cause it
I can’t control it
And
I can’t cure it.
Accepting that this situation is outside of my control, has allowed me to continue to live and love the other areas of my life. It doesn’t mean that I am not sad or worried or sometimes angry. It means that I have learned to accept what is in this one area of my life without letting it overtake and destroy all the other parts of my life. I don’t say this lightly. It has not been easy. In fact, it has been a hard and incredibly painful lesson, but I know that my life is better when I am living in the acceptance that I cannot control someone else’s decisions.
That brings us to today’s Life Coach Connection. I would like to share a visual with you that came to me the other day while out on a run. Holding this picture in my mind has been helping me navigate through some painful days recently. I want you to hold out your hands, palms up. In one hand, imagine placing your painful situation. In your other hand, imagine placing everything that is good, and happy and joyful. Now look at your hands. You are holding both. One is not overtaking the other. You might need to shift your focus to the hand holding the hard thing for a bit to do whatever needs to be done, but your joy, love, happiness and all the good things are still in your other hand just waiting for you to be able to shift your focus.
Maybe today you need a gentle reminder to shift your gaze more often and intentionally to the hand holding the good things. It doesn’t mean you aren’t dealing with the hard and painful things. You are holding both. And you are doing it beautifully.
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! I have opened 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. 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 and remember, Mindset Matters!
