Jan
15
Running Builds Character – Perseverance
Photo Credit: Running and never looking back by Flickr user kelsey_lovefusionphoto, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
Persist:
1. To be obstinately repetitious, insistent, or tenacious.2. To hold firmly and steadfastly to a purpose, state, or undertaking despite obstacles, warnings, or setbacks.Persevere:1. To persist in or remain constant to a purpose, idea, or task in the face of obstacles or discouragement.
Take your pick. Perseverance seems bigger, to imply the pursuit of a worthy goal, where persistence carries tones of stubbornness, but we’re splitting hairs. Whatever you choose, its clear that this is another of those character traits developed by running that serves you well in your broader life.
Every plan worth its salt will have its rough spots – some by design, some by the intrusion of, well, obstacles or setbacks. If not, you’ve picked too easy of a plan or goal, or your taking the execution of the plan too lightly. Maybe it’s the demanding single workout – the long threshold or pace run – or a tough sequence of weeks, driving soreness, fatigue, or, worst of all, doubt. Any career or family goal worth pursuing will offer similar challenges.
“If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti
Maybe it’s external hurdles that create the barriers this time – bad weather, time conflicts, travel, or the like, laying your best laid plans to waste. As usual, running mimics life – disturbances such as new work projects, unanticipated repairs, time or personal conflicts, and similar setbacks often hamper your efforts to advance towards your objectives.
Maybe it’s a more serious disruption that completely derails your plans – injury for the runner, serious illness, financial hardships, or other changing circumstances in your personal life. Your short-term goal is no longer achievable, and the challenge becomes to keep the long term perspective and vision in sight.
Overcoming these challenges requires perseverance, specifically through developing mental toughness. You can be blessed with natural speed and the other physiological attributes of a runner (or intelligence and charisma for easier success in personal life), but if you succumb to setbacks with panic or pessimism, you’ll fall far short of your potential.
Running both reveals toughness and gives an individualized mechanism for forging it. Every day, every week, and every season can and usually does bring a new array of challenges. The failed workout gives the chance to learn how to bounce back – how to salvage some value right in the middle of the workout, or recover and, with patience, come back again the next day. The lack of motivation that middle-of-season fatigue brings – when your goal seems so far away and doubts as to whether you are doing enough to reach it seep in – teaches you to dig deep into your deposits of confidence and stamina to continue getting at it, day after day. The season-ending injury teaches you to take the long view, to channel the frustration and impatience into making the investments that you can make in preparing for a better future.
Running provides not just the escape from your challenges or the time to refill our patience in the face of setbacks, but the very tempering of our toughness that we need to persevere through these valleys. We learn the coping mechanisms and how to build and tap into our intrinsic motivation, to overcome and outlast these obstacles. And we emerge better from the experience.
And, by using running to do this, it happens in a risk-free environment, where no one suffers from our errors except ourselves, where we are free to experiment as we see fit, and where we have only ourselves to blame or praise after the outcome. So once again, running can provide us the tools we need to seek success in life, if we embrace the opportunity fully and push ourselves to the point of discomfort on a given day, week, or season.
