Omnium-Gatherum: Running - Thinking on the Run

Do your non-running friends wonder why anyone would want to run a marathon or even more mystifying an ultra-event? An outsider to running might think nothing could possibly be more boring, tedious, and brain numbing than to run 26.2 miles unless it was to run an even greater distance. Boredom? The long distance runner does not experience boredom because he is not bored with himself.

One of the greatest ironies of running is that the intellectual demands of the sport could hardly be any lower. After all, it's just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, hopefully faster than the other guy. Yet, study after study indicates that the people who are attracted to distance running have higher IQ's, grades in school, degrees, and incomes than almost any other group of athletes. Why? No one knows for sure, but a likely answer lies in the answer to the boredom question. People who become and remain distance runners are people who aren't bored with the long hours of training because they enjoy their own mental processes. They tend to be "thinkers" who like having the time to think.

A distance runner might not know in advance where his mind might wander during a particular run. The beauty of going the distance is that your mind can go wherever it needs to go on a given day. Some runs are simple and light-simple awareness of the sky, the trees, the season, absorbed in the natural surroundings, part of the whole. Other runs are entirely different-oblivious to everything beyond the interior. Those runs are like inward journeys, replaying a conversation over and over, mulling over memories, or working on a decision or a problem, open to a burst of insight. After a long run the answer can appear obvious.

The distance runner can also be the fierce competitor with focus and awareness not on surroundings or inner reflections. The overwhelming concentration is on the stopwatch, the mile markers, splits, the rhythm of arms and legs, breathing, and heartbeat, striving for the fastest pace possible.

Bored? Never. The distance runner thrives on the time running gives for uninterrupted thought; escape from the pressures and stresses life imposes. Let go and enjoy the trip.

(Jack Lesyk, Ph.D., is a clinical and sports psychologist and the Director of the Ohio Center for Sport Psychology in Beachwood, Ohio. He may be contacted directly via e-mail at jjlesyk@sportpsych.org or through American Running Association's Clinic.)