Racing Thoughts and Mind Games

"To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them"

The mind is a terrible thing to waste. We've all heard that quote. Probably from teachers who didn't think we were working hard enough. Sometimes, however, our minds are the greatest antagonist of all. Seriously. Not always is it a pain in our IT band, a stress fracture in our legs that stops us from running. Maybe it's not the vitamins we take or the protein we don't get enough of. It's not the miles we haven't run, the training we didn't work hard enough at.

I've been going crazy all season trying to figure out why I'm not running as fast as I'd like. And trust me I've thought of everything. I've worked out like crazy, changed my diet, my fluid intake, my routine. I've added extra ab workouts, extra pool workouts, extra stretching. I've agonized about my body for months now.

Herein lies what I discovered is my ultimate challenge. It's not my body that's betraying me, as I've believed all along... What?
My mind is one of the things I'm the most proud of. I don't claim to be the smartest person in the world, nor the wisest, nor the cleverest. Still though I have decent grades for being a double major in college, and I pride myself in at least the originality of my thoughts if nothing else. But for just once I wish my mind would concede some of it's power to my legs.

My mind has been playing tricks on me all season, telling me not what I can do, but of all the things that I can't. It doesn't reassure me when I have doubts. For me it's not my competitors I battle during a race, as with most normal runners,but instead, my mind. Every day. Every run. Every lap.

How much different would each of us be if our minds didn't overpower our hearts? How much different would our lives be if our confidence, our belief in ourselves, our abilities weren't hindered by that bellowing voice inside our heads telling us that we aren't enough, telling us that we can't? The possibilities are endless. Perhaps we would be stronger in the face of adversity. Perhaps we could be smarter...Perhaps we would be faster.

Don't let your mind tell you that you can't do something. The mind is our greatest gift, and when used properly our most powerful ally. I found that out the last 500 meters of my 1500 on Saturday when for one short lap, for the first time this season my mind got together with my legs. It wasn't necessarily a yell, and no it wasn't quite sure of itself. But it was there in a small whisper of "yes I can" as I flew down the finish line.

The mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste. Sometimes though, when your mind is the one that's telling you you can't, your only choice is to try to outrun those negative thoughts. Because only when we can learn outrun our own doubts can  we outrun everyone else in the race.