Running to train your mind: 4 different run styles and how they train mental resiliency differently
The mindfulness of running
“Being active every day makes it easier to hear that inner voice.” - Haruki Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about running
Murakami wrote arguably the best book on the mindfulness of running. As a novelist who runs marathons he extracted out the spiritual qualities that happen when you run consistently. I think this following quote from the same book says it best: “When I'm running I don't have to talk to anybody and don't have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can't do without.”
When you’re running by yourself you get into contact with your mind in a way that no other activity lets you.
It’s in this silence of speech you being to listen to your body and mind working together.
The cadence of your breath and feet in tandem creates a hypnotic rhythm. You become both in tune with your body and outside of it. You’re hyper aware of the pain and suffering but you rise above it by keeping the rhythm moving
One more Murakami quote nails this part: “The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky.”
Why is running a great teacher?
Because it lets us access a part of our mind usually inaccessible to us, running has the potential to be a great teacher in mental focus and fortitude.
The mental gains of moving beyond a perceived limit and finding a new horizon are important. The mental gains of needing to find the positives when you miss a time or can’t get to a longer distance are crucial. That you feel these viscerally in your body means the lessons can’t be ignored.
You don’t get to rationalize away what did or didn’t happen on your run, all you can do is learn how to perceive what happens to work for you
2 Specific Kinds of running (with two options)
When training your mind through running you first need to know that not all running is the same.
Depending on the type of mental training you want, you will need to run in different ways. There are many ways to run but generally they break into two camps: Running for SPEED and Running for DISTANCE. You can add in the environment as an additional variable: Running on ROAD or TREADMILL and Running on TRAILS.
Each combination will give you a different physical challenge that presents a different type of mental training.
Below are 4 ways to run and what running in each environment will do for training your mind.
1. Sprints
Sprints are all about intense suffering and going beyond your limit.
Running as fast as you can, and then lining back up to do it again required incredible mental fortitude. It’s not a long duration but the intensity that tests you. Whether on treadmill, track, road, or trails doing sprints is the best way to overcome intense adversity.
The last thing you want to do after sprinting hard is to get back to the start line and do it again.
The mental training you get from sprints is a relentless attitude to bring your brightest intensity even when you’re tired and drained.
ACTION:
Try sprint repeats as a workout and write down how your mind deals with each having to go back to the starting line.
What are the excuses on slowing down? What are the things you tell yourself to keep going as fast as possible? What is this teaching you about mental resilience?
2.Medium Distance
There’s probably a ‘formal’ distance here but I’m not one for formalities when it comes to running; middle distance is anything that’s not sprinting but not total endurance.
These distances allow you to combine speed and distance training into one. Now you have to calculate ‘how hard can I push to maintain high intensity for a long duration?” When it comes to your mind this make you concentrate and focus for a long period.
Running fast for a distance takes a willingness to suffer that other types of running don’t allow.
How long are you willing to endure a Zone 4-5 heart right and keep pushing the body forward with the same intensity? How much pain in your lungs can you stand? It’s resiliency of a different nature than sprints.
You’re training your mind to handle long sessions of high intensity, perfect for adversity that doesn’t come in the form of seconds but hours to overcome.
ACTION:
Go for a run that’s a couple miles long while focusing on running the fastest time you can and see how your mind adapts over time.
What are your thoughts at the beginning, middle, and end of the run? What excuses show up that tell you to slow down? What thoughts emerge to help you keep pushing the pace? What is this teaching you about mental resilience?
3.Long Distance
Long distance running is when you aim for a set distance or time on feet and don’t worry about speed.
This type of long, plodding running requires a different mental focus than the other types of running. How can you control your pace to ensure you can keep running near the end of the distance? The pain you feel isn’t intense but slow and building.
Even the amount of time, a couple of hours, makes it challenging on the mind.
You can’t make a 3 hour run go any faster no matter how fast you run.
This submission to long endurance tests and grows the mind. You have to defeat multiple ‘walls’ along the way that make you question why you’re running this long and why shouldn’t you just quit. You have time to think without distractions or inputs in a way that let’s your subconscious speak with the conscious mind.
Endurance running is less about what the body can handle but instead what the mind is willing to endure.
ACTION:
Set a time that you think is long for you and run for that long (ie 90 minutes, 2 hours, etc.). Don’t worry about how fast you go, try to maintain as consistent a pace as you can manage.
How does pacing play on your mind? What thoughts emerge on this long run that haven’t before during other runs? What excuses show up when you want to quit? What thoughts emerge that help you keep going? What is this teaching you about mental resilience?
4.Trail Running
A big distinction in types of running is where you run; trail running provides the ultimate mental training.
You can’t lose focus because each step has the potential to be an injurious fall (rocks, roots, hills, etc…). You have to deal with elements outside of your control like the weather, wet and soggy trails, bugs, wild animals, routes washed out, and countless other unforeseen elements. Having to push through all these elements on top of the difficulty of a medium to long distance makes trail running the ultimate.
The bonus is that being in nature naturally provokes thoughts and creativity that you don’t experience in other situations, leading to mental breakthroughs on the trail while you suffer.
ACTION:
Go for a run on a trail near where you live. Do and out and back or a simple loop trail where you don’t need to worry about where you’re going.
How is this type of running different? What does it demand of your mind and body? What excuses show up when you want to quit? What thoughts emerge that help you keep going? What is this teaching you about mental resilience?
Takeaways
There’s a truth contained in each physical activity, there are virtues we gain when we participate in them that are unique to each one.
When it comes to running, each kind of running gives you a different way to challenge mind, body, and spirit. When you pay attention to what each type provides the mind, you unlock the deep potential of running beyond just training your body. Now that you understand a little bit about how each type tests you and have some experience, you’ll be able to create and explore other ways of moving your body to help train your mind.
But running will always stand above the rest because it’s the one activity our bodies evolved naturally to excel at physically, so the body doesn’t need to work as hard to perform at a high level which frees up your mind for serious training.