Ep 23: Life Lessons I Learned from Running

Lots of people love to run, but even if you don't, you'll get a lot out of this episode!

Listen as I share some things I've learned from one of my favorite activities - running.

I've learned that just like a long run, life has ups and downs.  Neither the ups nor the downs last forever, and the downs make us stronger.

I've learned that the proper shoes are essential to supporting me and absorbing the impact of my feet hitting the ground, just like having the proper support in life is important for getting through the journey in one piece.

I've learned that sometimes it's easier to run with a group as opposed to solo.  Find your tribe and lean on them.

I've learned that sometimes half the battle is just putting your shoes on.  And taking the first steps. 

I've learned that you can always take one more step and that often times it's your mind that tries to stop you. 

I've learned that pacing yourself is important and I've learned to lean on coaches and mentors so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.

There are some other things I've learned as well.  Tune into the episode to get the whole list.

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Transcript

Episode 23 Life Lessons I Learned from Running

Well, Hey there, friends and welcome to Real, Brave, and Unstoppable episode, number 23. 

[00:00:30] So today I'm going to try something a little bit different. I've had a couple of guests on the show recently, and I've done a lot of solo casts on the show that have been around the half-hour mark. And I've tried to do short ones before, and haven't quite succeeded, but today I'm going to give you just some quick thoughts that maybe you can take into your day.   

[00:00:49] So I used to really be into endurance sports and I've done several half marathons. I've done a marathon, lots of triathlons, including four or five half iron man distance tris. 

[00:01:01]So when my ex-husband and I split up, I had actually just completed a half iron man. And posted a pretty awesome personal best of under five and a half hours, which if you've ever, I know if you're listening to this, you're not familiar with that distance of triathlon. That probably seems crazy like a long time to be doing a race. 

[00:01:19]But for that distance,  that's a really good time for what we call an age grouper and I'm really proud of that.   It took a lot of years of stringing together really successful training seasons.   To very deliberately train to be able to reach that goal. 

[00:01:34] But anyway, I was planning to do a full ironman that fall until I found out my ex was cheating on me. And then my life kind of blew up. And I had a really hard time focusing on that goal. So I just kinda took a break. 

[00:01:46]And over the years since then, I've kind of dabbled in and out of running. You know, I did a half marathon a couple of years ago. I was my first kind of entry back into the endurance realm. And then I was planning on doing one in this past may that never happened of course, because of COVID.  But after so much time off from just very consistent running, I just have felt so slow and sluggish. Not as much spring in my step, I guess! So I found myself being really hard on myself during my runs, just cause I don't feel the same way I used to be. And just being so much slower than I used to be has been really hard too. And something that was once so therapeutic for me started to be this time where I would compare myself to like pass performances that I've had or past, you know, past time paces that I was able to achieve easily. And also just to other people, mostly to myself though, my past self. It became this time where I thought a lot about how heavy I felt or how old I felt, how broken, stiff all of those things. And then one day when I was running I kind of had this epiphany. That I really do still love running. And I was kind of like, this is crazy. Like something that I love has become this time where it's just been this kind of this battleground for beating up on what I'm doing. But I did realize that it does still really have the potential to be this space of therapy for me. So I started to run differently. 

[00:03:17] I started to focus less on the paces and the heart rates, cadences, and all of that stuff. And more on the thoughts that were going through my head. So I think about problems. I think about solutions, writing, my kids, relationship struggles, things like that. It just became this nice meditative time for me. 

[00:03:36]And I found myself when I'd come back from my runs, I'd have all these things to write about. So I realized I do some of my best thinking when I run. And so when I look back at this thinking time that I've had over you know, with this new way of looking at running,  I've realized that there's so much that I've learned from running that applies to life in general. 

[00:03:59] So today, I really want to just share some of these lessons with you because seriously, it's crazy how just a simple run is so much like life. If you are a runner, you'll totally get these lessons. But even if you're not a runner, you'll find them like so applicable too. 

[00:04:16]So here goes the first one.  Nothing is permanent. You will have ups, you'll have downs. You'll have good days. You'll have bad days. So every runner knows that some runs just freaking suck. But they don't all suck. Right? Or even within a run, you might start off the run feeling sluggish, or at some point feel like you can't keep going. 

[00:04:40] But if you stick with it, if you just kind of keep putting one foot in front of the other, those feelings do change. Usually, you know, if you've ever done a half marathon or a marathon, or even a 5k or a 10 K or whatever it is. You may have found yourself feeling at a certain point in the race like, Ooh, I feel terrible. I feel like I can't keep going. 

[00:05:01] And you kind of hang in there. And you might've noticed that at some point, that feeling kind of changes. It might not be that you flip to feeling amazing, but you, you know, those feelings do kind of ebb and flow. Just like everything in life does. If you stick with it. You know, if you just hang in there, your feelings do shift. 

[00:05:19]Same thing in life. That's one thing that I have found, and I talk about it a lot is just being able to sit and feel your feelings. They don't stay the same all the time. So if you have a feeling that's uncomfortable, If you can just sit there and kind of walk through it, work through it. 

[00:05:35]It will change. And I think that's a really good thing to know that when you feel like nothing's going to change, nothing's going to get better. If you practice that, then you get to the point where you know that it will. 

[00:05:49]Okay next one.

[00:05:51] Sometimes putting on your shoes is half the battle. There are always things we don't want to do in life. So just, just like sometimes it's hard to get out the door for a run. Trust me. I had that this morning. But whether you're tired or you're busy, or you just don't feel like doing something sometimes putting on the proverbial shoes or just taking that first step is the hardest. But once you do it, it just, it gets easier from there. It's like that first step. 

[00:06:17] That applies a lot also to like building new habits. You know, if you don't feel like doing it, if you can just, just make yourself take that first step or, you know, set your routine or your work, your space up so that it triggers you to take that first little step, it can help you get the ball rolling. 

[00:06:35]Along the same lines without the first step, there wouldn't be a second step or a third step, et cetera, et cetera. And every run starts with just the first few steps. Obviously, it's just like life, you know, every book starts with a few words. If any of you are writers out there. You know, sometimes staring at that blank screen is like, Oh my God, I don't know what to write. You get three words down. You know, it leads to five, at least a 10 leads to 50, et cetera, et cetera, or a business. 

[00:07:07] Every business starts with a few great ideas. 

[00:07:10]So, if you can just remember that, is that you know, you don't have to know how to do it all at one time. You just take the first few steps and you keep building on those. And eventually, you get somewhere. 

[00:07:23]Next, we're talking about steps here. Every step matters. Seriously, you can't reach the finish line without all of the steps. They all matter the same. Similarly, there are no shortcuts. You can't get to mile 10 without running the first nine miles. There's really no way around it just like in life, if you're going through a difficult time, this is one thing that I learned,  is that there's really no other way to get through something except to go through it. There's no shortcut. 

[00:07:53] And when you're in the middle of that, that's very hard to, you know, you don't want to hear that. You don't want to believe that you want to believe that there are some shortcuts, right. But there are not any shortcuts. And that's just also sort of the beautiful thing about it is that along that road without the shortcuts, there are things that you're going to experience that are gonna make you a better person, a stronger person. 

[00:08:20]Next it's all about the shoes. The right support is essential. All runners know that running is hard on your body. And even if you're not a runner, you might know that too. But, , it's really important as a runner to take care of your body by providing your body with the right support, it's crucial to preventing injuries so you can keep running. 

[00:08:41] You know, without the right shoes, the right, you know, wraps or braces or whatever, you're not going to be able to function as well. I can tell you a story about,  shoes... a few years ago, well, more than that, but I was having some Achilles tendon issues and it started to flare up just kind of out of nowhere. And I was like, gosh, this is so frustrating. Cause it's, it's painful. And it's something that, you know, you want to be careful about. And one day it occurred to me like, you know what,  these shoes have too many miles on them. So I got new shoes and lo and behold, my Achilles problems went away. So it's, you know, I, I got the right support. I got the right help and then. things felt good again.

[00:09:29] It's kind of in life,  it's better not to isolate. It's better to seek out the support that you need to get through what you're going through. Even if it's not like a difficult time you're going through, even if it's just managing your life, balancing your life, getting everything done, you know, find the right support to make sure you're taking care of yourself, self-care, that kind of thing too. 

[00:09:51]Also along the same lines as getting the right support is if you're a runner you know that sometimes it's easier to run in a group than it is solo, especially when you start getting into long runs. When I was training for the marathon I did back in 2008 I trained with an amazing group. It was so much fun. Every Sunday we do our long runs and then Wednesday nights we'd have track runs. 

[00:10:18]There was one week where I wasn't able to go to the group run and it was the week we're doing like a 17-mile run. And so I had to do that one on my own. Oh, my God, you guys, I just about went crazy. I was listening to like podcasts and it just, it that's a long time to run by herself. Some people really do enjoy running by themselves but that's a long way to run by yourself. So in life, like find your tribe, find the people that you know, you can support that can support you. And it makes life a lot more enjoyable and a lot easier sometimes.  

[00:10:56]Next comparing yourself to others is always going to take away the joy of anything. We all have our own path and what's best for us. We're all different. So when you start using running, as the example, when you start comparing your performance or your times are your paces to someone else. 

[00:11:16]That's where the fun is going to end. If you try to think about it in terms of, you know, you are your own unique person, you're your own unique body, especially like with running. And this also applies to life, but,  There are certain people who are just really built to run. I am not one of those people. I'm fine at it, but I'm not somebody who is built to run fast. And I know that and that's okay. I don't expect myself to go out and run a half marathon in an hour and a half. I am not anywhere near that. And that is fine. I have completed a half marathon in less than two hours, but I have a feeling that those days are beyond me. I don't know that I'll get back there. Who knows? You never know, but my point is that when you start comparing yourself to what other people are doing, it's just not really helpful. 

[00:12:06] It's okay to use other people for inspiration. But when you start comparing to what you're doing and judging what you're doing based on what other people are doing. . It's going to suck a lot of life out of you. It's going to take a lot of joy out of what you're doing. 

[00:12:19] So the next one is you can always take one more step. It doesn't need to be a big step. It doesn't need to be a fast step. But you can always take one more step, even if it's a baby step. 

[00:12:33]And sometimes your mind is the only thing that's keeping you from doing that. 

[00:12:39]I live in a really hilly neighborhood. And so sometimes if I'm running too fast or whatever, I'll get, I'll get up a hill and I'll just be like, Oh my gosh, I need to walk. I can't. I have to stop. 

[00:12:53]And if I'm really thinking about it, and sometimes I do this and sometimes I don't, but I really can take quite a few more steps. I'm going to have to slow down, but I really don't have to stop and walk, or I really don't have to stop and rest, but my mind is telling me that, you know. Or in yoga, for example, I take an awesome yoga class, where part of it is, really like strength-oriented. And there's always a point, well, multiple points where it's like, I just can't hold this anymore. I can't hold this anymore. And you know, most of the time you can, but your mind is telling you to stop. So, if you can meet that edge and kind of push past it, you're going to find a new level, you know, and that's another lesson actually that I've learned from running is that in order to get better at something, you do have to get a little uncomfortable and you do have to push yourself a little bit.  And I love this one about the mind because this is really what I help people in my work. This is what I do for a living is I help people see what limits that they have, see what their mind is limiting them with. And I help them figure out why. And then also I teach them how to dismantle that or to overcome it. 

[00:14:11]The next one is just patience. Like stick with it. In running just to stick with the run. You know, it's okay to slow down. If you have to, if you have to walk for a minute, it's okay. That's fine. You know, it's like with life, as much as we'd like to. Sometimes you can't keep up a crazy fast, let's get it all done, pace all the time. Sometimes you have to slow down or if something's difficult, you have to stick with it and keep trying. Maybe you realize sometimes you do need to take a break and come back to it with fresh eyes or whatever. But just running has really taught me to be a little more patient with things in my life too. 

[00:14:53] All right, the next one is rest and recovery such an important thing in running and life.

[00:15:02] We can't go 100% all the time. We need to make sure we take rest. We need to make sure that we allow some time for self-care. For just recharging those batteries. As moms or as women, a lot of times we feel like we have to do all the things for all the people in our lives. And we don't really take time to refill - or, you know, to fill our cup up first.  Which we really need to do if we're the ones doing all of these things for the people in our lives. How can we expect to do a good job and still feel okay - still feel good about what we're doing and have the energy to keep going if we haven't recharged those batteries first. So it's really important in your life to make sure you take that time for yourself.  

[00:15:56] All right, we're getting close to the end, but this one: garbage in equals garbage out. This is just related to fueling. You know, eating the right foods, being healthy. If you don't eat healthily, if you're not, if you're not taking care of your body, you're probably gonna have a crappy run. 

[00:16:13]It's not gonna feel good. It's like that in life too. If you're not taking care of yourself, if you're not nurturing your mind, like you need to, you're not going to perform as well. You know, and when I say not perform as well, That can mean a lot of things it can mean with mindset. It can mean like say you're wanting to start a business or you're you have a business, but you're kind of just getting going, and you're not taking care of your mind. So you have all these thoughts about how, you know, you're not good enough or you don't know enough. And so that leads into this energy that has, it just makes it difficult for you to pitch what you're doing and it just all kind of snowballs to where it becomes very difficult. You know, that's an example of where you really need to take care of your mind. Put good stuff into it. So that you're getting what you need out of it. 

[00:17:03]The next one. Sometimes you just need to cut it short and take a break. Stop for a while. And that's okay. That doesn't mean you're quitting. But sometimes you just need to cut it short. 

[00:17:14]Powering through is, you know, if it's an option and that feels good, you can power through. But it's okay if you can't power through. And I think that's something that.  applies in racing. I honestly don't know that I've ever not been able to finish a race, but I have been close, very close. 

[00:17:37] I remember, I think it was my second half iron man -  and in case you're wondering a half iron man consists of a 1.2-mile swim. A 56-mile bike and then a 13.1 mile run at the end -  I went way too hard on the bike. I got off the bike and I got onto the run. And at mile three, I remember seeing my ex-husband and some friends that were cheering me on and I just kind of shook my head and I was like, I can't do this. 

[00:18:04]I was really close to just throwing in the towel that day.  My body was not feeling good on that day. And I don't even mean just tired. I mean, there was that too, but I had stomach problems. I had cramping. I was really not feeling good.  So sometimes you do just need to, it's fine. It's okay to just say today is not my day. 

[00:18:29] Another example of this is with racing this particular half iron man that I've done multiple times in Maryland. It's in June and it's always really hot. And I know there've been some years where it's been so hot that it's become a little dangerous and there are, yeah, there are people that just like cut their losses and they're like, yeah, I'm out. Cause it's, it does become dangerous. 

[00:18:53] And sometimes you need to do that in life, too. If, if things are just getting too, you have too much on your plate. Maybe you need to cut something short and take a break so you can actually manage the other things on your plate. Sometimes we have to prioritize and just cut something short and that's okay. 

[00:19:10]Okay. Second to the last one is:  lean on mentors and coaches. 

[00:19:15]When I did my first half ironman. I didn't have any sort of coaching. I just figured it out on my own. I found, you know, a friend of mine was into it and, you know, I kind of looked to her for suggestions on where should I, how should I set up a training plan? Or, you know, you can get a bazillion of these online, but which you know I did, but I'm the second or maybe the third year I did a half iron man. I enlisted the help of a group of coaches. It's a great online community called endurance nation. And it was kind of like having, it wasn't like having a one-on-one coach that would go do workouts, but like I had a customized, like a workout plan training plan. I had a group of people I could go to and say, 

[00:20:01] You know, here's, I'm having issues with this, help me with this. Or, you know, I could report, this is how this workout went, help me troubleshoot or, you know, and so these coaches, and then also the community of other athletes had so much experience. And so rather than me reinvent the wheel and try to learn the hard way for a lot of these things. 

[00:20:20]Trust me, I did still learn the hard way because I didn't 100% listen to all the advice that particular year I talked about earlier when I was at mile three and didn't know if I could keep going. But, it was, it was so invaluable because I was able to reach my goals so much faster by having that support. 

[00:20:41] And it's the same in life too.  You don't have to go it alone. And sometimes the investment in a mentor or a coach is, you know, you might kind of resist that or object to it at first. But if you really think about how valuable your time is and how valuable somebody who's an expert in their field, how valuable their experience is, it really makes a lot of sense. So think about that. 

[00:21:10] The last one is just pacing yourself. Right? I think that when people start to run,  I alluded to it earlier and I've had a lot of people say to me, I can't run. It's too hard. I'm like, well, you actually could run. You're probably just running too fast. 

[00:21:26] And people, I think have to learn how to run at a slow pace. They feel like if they're not really out of breath, they're not doing it. Right? Which is so not true. And you can see where I'm going with this analogy, or, you know, this relating this to life is that, you know, you don't have to go a hundred miles an hour, a thousand miles or whatever. You don't have to go all out for your whole life. You can pace yourself with something. 

[00:21:50] You know, and sometimes it's hard to do that because we all want to have results. Like now we all want to get something done like now. But it's so much better to just take a deep breath and say, this is the pace I'm able to go right now. And if I go faster than that, I'm not gonna do either do as good of a job. I'm not going to get as much out of it. I'm going to break down. I'm going to be exhausted. I'm going to. Do you know what I mean? I'm going to get sick. So it's really important in life to just kind of know yourself and know what you're capable of. And know that it's okay to say I'm going too hard. I needed to slow down. Everyone is different and everybody has a different point with that. 

[00:22:35]So that's it. I just went through a bunch of things. I could probably come up with a lot more too, but these are some of the things that I just thought about that, you know, are things I've kind of learned to apply for running to life. And. It's kind of fascinating to me how they do really mirror each other so well. 

[00:22:55] And my favorite of all of those points is the very first one. Which is the ups and downs one. So if you take anything away from today's episode, I want you to remember that. Life, and if you want to apply it to running, to running a run.  Every run, every life has ups and downs. And it's not always going to go smoothly. And that's not a bad thing. Because when it doesn't go smoothly, you're going to learn things. You're going to be better for it. 

[00:23:31]And that down or that tough time is not going to last forever. So when you come out on the other side, you're going to just be at a new point in your life. You're going to be a better person. You're going to be a stronger person, maybe smarter. That's what the downs are for. So, you know, we just got to enjoy it all. We've got to figure out a way to enjoy it all and sort of, you know, get, just get through those downs in a way that we can. Not get stuck in them. 

[00:23:59] So that's all I have for today. I hope you guys enjoyed all of those little tidbits that I have learned in my own running experience. And if you have your own, and not necessarily just running, but even just life lessons you've learned from something else that you can apply to multiple things, I would love to hear them. So if you want to shoot me an email, or if you want to leave me a review, five stars is always good for good karma. 

[00:24:27], You know, hop on over to my Facebook page  @kortneyrivardifecoach or Instagram, @kortneyrivardlifecoach as well. And just share your thoughts on it. Send me a DM. I would love to have a conversation. I'm always really interested in hearing what other people, how other people apply you know, lessons they learned from one aspect of their life to you know, their overall life. It's something really interesting to me. 

[00:24:51] So with that, you guys, really appreciate you tuning in.   Before I go I do just want to let you know about this fun, new quiz that I have on my website. It's all about mindset, which talked about a lot today. 

[00:25:04]It's a quiz where it's going to ask you some questions and you're going to answer kind of how you would respond to the situation. And the quiz is going to tell you, like how strong your mind, how strong your limiting beliefs are, how much your mind is standing in your way of achieving what you want in life. And when I say achieving, please know that that means goals. No matter how small or big they are. I don't say achieving in the aspect of, you know, you need to shoot for the moon and go after the big things. Sometimes the things you want to achieve, or the little things too. And I want to be really clear about that. Always. 

[00:25:41]Your mind can also get in the way of achieving really small goals. Like if you want to be more relaxed, that could seem like a small goal to somebody. I don't think it's a small goal. I think it's a big goal, but some people might feel like, Oh, that's not, that's not a big goal. A big goal is wanting to be an astronaut or something like that. 

[00:26:01] You know, so I just want to be clear about that, that this, when I say achieve, it's not achieving as in like superficial success, it's in the realm of you feeling successful or feeling good about yourself. 

[00:26:13] So this quiz is going to give you a little peek into your mind and how much it's holding you back from finding that happiness or basically what you want in your life.

[00:26:24]So go over to my website. It's kortneyrivard.com/quiz and take that quiz. You'll get a feel for how much your mind is holding you back. And then it'll give you some little tips on how you can overcome that. So go check it out. 

[00:26:38] And I will be back next week on Thursday with a new episode. 

[00:26:43] All right, you guys have a good one? I'll see you next week.