Not the Race, But the Runner

"Not the race, but the runner. the enemy, as always, is within." - George Sheehan, Running and Being

I tweeted the other day, "don't let your body talk your mind out of what it wants to do - run!".  It sounds counter-intuitive to the "listen to your body" moniker when reconciling whether you have an injury or not.  I am not referring to running through injuries with my tweet.  To the contrary, we need to understand the difference between aches and pains and injuries.  Running through an injury will likely worsen it and make recovery longer or worse, cause permanent damage.  What Dr. Sheehan is referring to in his quote and me in my tweet is, in essence, "mind over matter."  Our bodies will always want to quit or always be tired or would rather do something easy.  Our mind needs to control our body and drive it beyond what it wants to do.  It is never more evident than in running distances, especially marathons or ultras when the body is pushed beyond normal human limits.  Training the mind is as important as training the body.  Dr. Sheehan, being the philosopher and runner that he was, understood this fully.  One of his best books was, "Going the Distance", which he wrote when dying.  There have been new releases of some of his books, Running and Being, The Essential Sheehan that I would highly recommend.  Every runner should read him.  Most runners focus on physical training plans and all of the nuances and techniques to train the body.  Obviously, these are important but unlikely to produce the expected results without training the mind.

Days 133-134: 9 miles: 2014: 686 miles