Run #38: The Five Stages of Grief. Um, I Mean Running.

(This run actually happened last week, but I have gotten behind on my posting.  I've got two newly-toddling toddlers over here who have decided to boycott all naps. Bad combo for running, and especially for posting.  But I'll keep at both!)

I'm wondering if anyone else feels this way.

I've noticed that a typical run can be divided into predictable, identifiable stages.  The duration of each stage changes from run to run and depends on all kinds of factors, internal and external, but the stages themselves remain pretty consistent.

I was thinking about this as I ran the other day, and realized that the stages seemed oddly familiar...

And so, I hereby give to you the Five Stages of Grief Running:

1. Denial

Otherwise known as "The Honeymoon Period," all runs start out this way, although the length of this phase has changed dramatically since I first started running in March.  During the Denial phase, there is no sweating or gasping or sharp, shooting pain.  Your knees feel strong, your lungs feel calm, your cheeks have a light, healthy glow from your warm-up walk, your music hasn't had time to get boring yet.  

The first few times I ran, this phase lasted about three steps.

At the height of my regular workouts, a mere 7-8 weeks later, it lasted closer to three minutes.  These days, I'm back to about a minute and a half before my breathing begins to get a little labored and I start to really feel like I'm.. you know.. running.  And that, as we all know, means that the honeymoon is over.

2. Bargaining

Shortly after the windedness begins, my knees start to assert themselves and I realize that I've only just begun and already I'm exhausted.  Or at least, you know, slightly uncomfortable.  This is when I start to change the game plan in my head: okay, this sucks, there is no way I'm going to make it to the 2-mile turnaround point, so I'll just make this one a 1.5 mile run.   

And then: 1.5 miles is so arbitrary anyway. If I can make it to that tree up there, I can turn around then, and I'll do an extra short run tomorrow to make up for it.

And then: Maybe I'll just walk this one, just today, I'll just walk and do some stretches.  That's still exercise, right?  Walking!  Walking is good!  And I'll go all the way to the 2-mile turnaround.... although that would be really boring, so maybe I'll just go... to the grocery store!  Yes!  I can just go grocery shopping now and do the stretches later!

Or maybe, instead of stretches, I can play Wii!  Yeah, yeah, there are yoga poses in there, and strength exercises... or I can do that obstacle course game... or the tightrope.  Or that snowboarding game.  Or tennis. Tennis!  That's probably good too, right? 

Man, I wish they had Tetris for Wii.  That would be awesome. Tetris.  I haven't played that in ages.  I should play Tetris when I get home.  I can play Wii later-- I'll find Tetris online and play that for just a little while.  

Or Sudoku.  Oh, I love Sudoku! Yeah, a little Sudoku right about now would be great.  And then I can look for those shoes I wanted to get...

And so on.  During this difficult stage, I never fail to bargain my way down from whatever lofty goal I set when I left my house to quitting immediately and couch-surfing for the rest of the day.  Meanwhile, I've kept running.  And running.  And running.  And it eventually dawns on me that I'm not going to do any of the above, but rather I'm going to finish what I've set out to do, and that thought delivers me right smack into Stage Three:

3. Anger

This is when I realize that I am already pretty far from home-- too far to turn around and save myself much effort-- and yet not quite halfway done with my run.  Every step waiting to be taken between me and home taunts me from the sidewalk.  I'm basically damned if  I do and damned if I don't at this point.

Which pisses me off.

I keep running, and a good song comes on, and my mind begins to wander.  I don't know it yet, but I am already entering Stage Four...

4. Depression

This is the most tenuously-connected stage, I admit.  Most of the time it probably gets combined with Stage Three, in a sort of miserable one-two punch.  But I've begun to experience a time after the hyper-awareness of Stage Three that I'm only aware of after it's passed, where I just sort of take myself out of the picture for a while and forget where I am and what I'm doing. It usually happens right around my turn-around point: I get lost in a train of thought, or get caught up in the song that's playing, and the running part becomes completely unconscious for a few minutes.

I'm fine with calling this the "Depression" phase, because while it is not necessarily negative in nature, in its own way it IS a lack of engagement; a checking-out.  It lasts as long as it lasts-- a minute or two, the length of a song, whatever-- and then I realize I've been doing it, which breaks the spell... and I finally, blessedly, find myself in Stage Five.

5. Acceptance

Here I am.  I'm on my way back-- home feels close at this point, even if it's still a good way off.  My breathing has calmed and slowed and feels more fortifying than desperate now.  I become aware of the warmth and ease in my body: my knees feel strong and flexible, my joints loose, my feet solid on the pavement.  The rhythm of my steps follows the music in my headphones; the fluid movements of my arms and legs is organic and helps to propel me forward-- I'm not fighting my own progress anymore.

Stage Five is where I get to feel like a Runner.

It took me a while to get to this stage.  Past the discomfort, past the mortification, past the anxiety and desperation and self-doubt, and approaching the edge-- maybe dipping my toe into the pool, as it were-- of the world where exercise makes you feel great, even while you are doing it!                                      

I know a few people, newer to running than I, who haven't reached it yet.  To them, I say: it will come!  But the trick is, it's not just a physical thing.  I mean, sure, you have get to a point where your body can relax and get into a groove without killing you, but you also have to get to a mental space where you can allow yourself to feel good while you're still running.  That's a bit harder. I don't really know how it happened for me; it just did, one day.  I think that's probably the way it works for most of us.

Just keep running, friends.  It will come.

I guess that means that Stage Four is key to achieving this-- that point where you can actually unhook yourself from the immediacy of what's happening to your body and just let your mind wander.  And I never really reach Stage Four without having been through Stage Three... and likewise for stages One and Two.  Yep, it turns out that even through Stage Five is the goal and obviously the winner, each of the other stages are important in their own way and vital to the process.  There's no Acceptance without Denial; there's no Anger without Bargaining.


For better AND for worse, a run just is what it is.


But for you other runners out there: identifying these stages really helps me, every time, because of their predictable, cyclical nature.  I can make it past the Denial Stage because I KNOW I'll get to Acceptance eventually.  I can last through Anger and Depression because I KNOW they won't be the way I feel forever.  I know that calm, rhythmic, solid feeling is coming if I just push a little harder, a little longer, just a few more steps.  And once I get past Bargaining, even THAT isn't so hard to do anymore.


It will come.  I know it.  It will come.  And then?  Who knows?  I might be able to run forever.


So what about you, fellow runners?  Do you recognize these stages?  Do you experience something similar, or is it different for you?  Any tips and tricks for those of us still new to the process, to help us reach the Acceptance Stage faster and get more enjoyment out of our runs?

Run #37: The Neutrality of Action

Hi there.  I am, as they say in show business (and probably some other places), back.

My back has been bothering me and I've used that as an excuse not to run.  This may or may not be warranted.  But of course, I err on the side of inaction when it comes to these things.  Which is probably why the problems persist, eh?

I've made an appointment for physical therapy and will begin soon.  We also got a book on trigger-point massage, which we've both experienced before at the hands of an evil trainer named Mario and is one of the most painful things known to man, and we've identified some trigger points in my calves (calves?!) that have a HUGE effect on my lower back pain.

Seriously: anyone with muscle pain anywhere, give trigger-point massage a try.  You can do it yourself, or get someone to help.  Try this book.  It is truly outstanding, easy to read, and you will feel a difference immediately.  Like, in five minutes.  I am not kidding.

Anyway.  About action.  I've been thinking about this one for a while and today's run was a good illustration of my theory: that action is essentially (emotionally) neutral, and the meaning it takes on comes from the stories we tell ourselves about it.

For example, my running has been difficult, and if I tell myself the story of how difficult running is for me, the act of running becomes something I dread, something I have a hard time motivating to do, something I don't think I can finish once I start.

However, if I tell myself a different story-- that running is something I never thought I could do but have found it to be far easier than I imagined, and the hard parts usually only last a few minutes, and every time I go I do better than the time before-- all of a sudden, running is inspiring, motivating, a vehicle for change.

The run, though?  The actual, physical, feet-on-the-pavement run?  It's basically the same either way.  Same level of exertion, same aches and pains, same sweat and breath and MP3s.  

We all know that negative thinking takes its toll.  But it seems to me that it doesn't do me much good to pretend that being positive about running makes it less taxing, physically, because it doesn't.  I have no immediate control over how my body feels, or how it performs, in a purely physical sense.  I am who I am.  I gots what I gots.

No, the physical part is not where I have any of the control.  I suspect that a lot of new runners make this mistake-- we think that part should become easy, should become enjoyable, should be motivating in and of itself-- and we're barking up the wrong tree, there.  The physical part is going to be what it is.  Our bodies will do what they need to do to adapt, strengthen, transform, and we're basically just the facilitators.

But where I DO have control-- where I have ALL the control-- is in the stories I tell myself about what I am doing, what is happening within me, what I capable of achieving on the road.

The action itself is neutral.  How you spin it, though: that makes all the difference.

In many ways, this seems pretty self-evident to me and almost ridiculous to point out.  But this isn't the way most of us behave.  Imagine the possibilities that spring from a simple shift in spin: 

"I am shy and awkward, and I have a very difficult time in job interviews. I will never get that job."
OR
"I am shy and awkward, and I have a very difficult time in job interviews. I will find some ways to prepare so that I can make better use of my strengths and overcome my fears, and I will get this job."

Has anything changed about your shy/awkward past?  No.  Will the interview questions be the same?  Yes.  But you've taken control of the story you're telling, and this neutral action becomes part of your transformation instead of further proof that things can never change.

So.  My running story has taken on a new chapter, and that chapter includes physical therapy for the back and continued efforts to get out there and keep it going.  I can tell myself that my back pain prevents me from becoming a runner, and you know what?  That story will come true.

So why not tell myself a different story? The one where I do everything I can to change the way my body works, and become the woman who leaves twenty years of discomfort and incapacity behind and runs off into the sunset, transformed?  Why not choose to believe that this story will come true instead?

In the meantime, though: the road.  One foot in front of the other.  The aches and pains, the sweat and breath, the MP3s.  What they are... is what they are.  That part is beyond my control.  

But what I do with them, what I tell myself (and you) about them, what I choose to make them mean...

That part is entirely up to me.