Embrace Resistance with Style and Run Through That Final Hill Today

There it is.  The last 300 meters.  You’ve been pushing it for an hour, maneuvering headwinds, skirting boggy terrain, soaring over inclines along the way.  You’re tired and home is simply a few breaths away.  But you must first traverse a daunting hill - a majestic slope that gives your home delightful vistas of the sparkling city below.  You’re already panting and worried that neighbors may be checking you out behind their curtains. 

There is a choice to be made in a matter of moments.  You can be content with what you have already done, because it is certainly good enough. Will you take it as a cool down walk, or will you have seize the chance to build your endurance in a way never imagined when you first moved in?

There is a part of you yearning to blast through this.  To conquer that mental bête noir that fills you with niggles each time you set out on a run.  There is a reason why all fitness coaches shout out “make your last minute your best one!” and “you can do anything for 15 seconds! And another 15 seconds!” There is a process of mental negotiation that happens whenever we start to feel uncomfortable. 

To pivot rapidly, here are three tips for mental fortitude:

1.        Remind yourself that you are much stronger than you currently feel. 

2.        Lean into deep inhales and exhales (4 seconds for each) – and visualize oxygen pumping and carbon dioxide exiting your lungs.

3.        Repeat a mantra or action phrase.  “Focus, focus, focus” is popular with many famous runners.  The mantra gives your mind something to concentrate on, quelling the emotional noise that obstructs your way.  Alternatively, a specific action phrase directing your legs to “Run Up This Hill” repeatedly and rhythmically creates intention and has the same focusing effect.

4. Count your steps in chunks of 10 or 20 or 30, depending on your distance. This is a technique favored by Paula Radcliffe who breaks her distances up into chunks of 100 counts x 3 to cover one mile.

Even if you don’t make it up the full hill today, mark your progress and smile about it.  Remember where you stopped and go back the next day to surpass that by 10 steps.  Add more as the week goes by.  Progress in bite-sized chunks will bring you to the summit so much faster than you think.  The important thing is see the moment as a win.  As a milestone notching gradually up on the ladder to success.

This perspective applies to anything you do in life.  When you are changing yourself or changing the world, you will need a positive way to surmount obstacles.  Whether it is this small hill, or metaphorical mountains in work projects, chipping away at it with clear intent will keep you strong.  

This DOAC interview with Matthew McConaughey was insightful (and Stoic). Some truisms to takeaway: “If you have any ambition, resistance is going to come.  Limitations reveal style.  Without resistance, there is no evolution”.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, those hills evolve us – legs, lungs, and spirit!