Week 4 - Marathon Musings: The Power of Words
Meeting Jeff Galloway at the 2013 runDisney Princess Half Marathon expo.
Back in the fall of 2012 I joined a local Jeff Galloway run club. I didn’t know who Jeff Galloway was prior to this run club; I joined because Jeff Galloway was the official run coach for the runDisney events. This tidbit always makes me giggle because, while I was new to running and had no clue about distances or races beyond the 5K, I knew about runDisney.
One of the perks of this group was that we each received one of Jeff Galloway’s books. I don’t remember which book it was – maybe Galloway’s Book on Running https://bookshop.org/p/books/galloway-s-book-on-running-3rd-edition-jeff-galloway/14963150?ean=9780936070858 – but I do remember the activity in it about developing a mantra for running when things get tough. This was the first time that I was introduced to the mental side of running and the power of our words in shaping our running experience.
The guidelines for the activity were to keep the mantra short and to pick a saying that would help break whatever mental spiral you might find yourself in during rough patches of running. Examples were given of mantras that were both empowering and silly. I settled on “I am a graceful ballerina” because I wanted to evoke the feelings of power, ease, and lightness on my runs. I also knew that I was no ballerina and that this mantra would make me laugh as I thought about the gap between Stephanie The Runner and Stephanie The Ballerina.
This mantra worked then, and it still works today. This mantra helped me get through my first few marathons and pops up in my training runs from time to time. This is a mantra that not only reminds me of how I want to feel on my run, but also provides me with cues for what I need to change in my running for running to feel better:
I want to feel powerful: Keep your head high, lengthen your spine, and take up space with your stride.
I want to feel ease: Relax your shoulders, smile, and breathe deeply.
I want to feel light: Roll through the foot and drive the knees up.
My mantras have evolved and changed over the years, but what hasn’t changed is the awareness of how I speak to myself when I’m running, both when things are going great and when things are a total dumpster fire of negativity. When I’m feeling great on the run, my mind is free to wander and I have the best ideas. When I’m feeling so-so on the run, my mind is focused on making calculations that help break the run down into manageable bits. When I’m feeling awful on the run, my mind tends to hyper-focus on how bad things are going. It’s in this space that mantras are so important to have because the more negative my thoughts, the harder the run feels.
It’s not to say that every run should feel easy and great; it’s to say that we should work on developing the mental tools that help us get through all kinds of runs. Mantras are one of the tools that work for me, but what also works for me is being curious about where my thoughts are coming from:
Does this run really suck or am I sleep-deprived?
Does this run really suck or do I need to hydrate/fuel up?
Does this run really suck or am I stressed out about something outside of running?
Does this run really suck or am I experiencing the training load? AKA is this part of the process of training for a marathon?
And the best one: Does this thought help me finish this run any faster?
The answer to these questions helps me place some perspective on the run itself. Things may not shift completely in the feelings department, but at least I can understand the context of the run in a way that would allow me to show myself greater compassion and grace. The “this sucks” that could have transformed into a “you suck” if unchecked becomes an acknowledgement that things feel tough and a permission slip to do my best.
Here’s the biggest thing: feelings are temporary and fade, but the words you use when talking to yourself remain and can start to tell a story that holds you back from your potential.
I’m not trying to say that I have it all figured out because I don’t. I still get caught up and brought down by my words. Every summer I have to work on reprogramming my mind from “this is hard; why do I do this?” to “I am choosing to do this because I am strong enough to do this.” Surviving and thriving as a runner, for me at least, means that I bring as much attention to my mind as I do to the physical act of running. I haven’t made it this far as a runner just by running; it’s been years of confronting the worst I can say to myself by learning how to become my own biggest cheerleader.
Running gifted me this: “If I can survive myself, then I can thrive anywhere.”
The mind is a powerful thing and the words we use have the power to uplift us or destroy us. Each run can be an opportunity to observe how you speak to yourself and to learn which words serve you best. The truth is that how you talk to yourself on the run is probably how you talk to yourself off the run, so let runs be a place where your strength and resiliency as a runner helps break down stories of not being enough. You deserve the best of yourself and running deserves to have the best version of you.
Marathon History:
2014 Chicago Marathon
2015 Miami Marathon
2015 Berlin Marathon
2015 Chicago Marathon
2016 Chicago Marathon
2016 NYC Marathon
2017 Chicago Marathon
2018 Chicago Marathon
2021 Chicago Marathon
2023 London Marathon
2023 Marine Corps Marathon
Marathon Musings series:
13 weeks until Chicago. Week 4 of musings written and shared. Thank you for coming along this marathon journey with me.
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