Up and down these Blue Ridge Mountains, my wife runs like a hybrid jackrabbit and billy goat, darting through the straights and bounding smoothly through the rocks. Mostly, I watch these efforts from behind as I try my damnest to keep her within sight, only succeeding occasionally. After we finish and I consider heaving somewhere in the parking lot, her having already caught her breath, she usually grins at me and says, “Great run babe!”
So it’s gone this summer, but last night, I adopted a radical strategy: stop trying.
Earlier in the week, I’d read about this foreign concept in The Inner Game of Tennis. So, during our run together, every time my mind began to criticize my performance, prepare for the next hill, or hyperfocus on any number of uncomfortable sensations screaming through my feet, ankles, knees, and hips, I didn’t do a damn thing. I just ran. No extra trying. I didn’t even try to keep up with her pace. I just ran.
Each of those thoughts and feeling passed without impact, and ultimately, none of them mattered. Striding into the parking lot, side-by-side with my wife, and still wanting to heave, I’d enjoyed that run more than I’d enjoyed any run in the last decade. And as we looked at each other and said, “Great run babe!”, I left understanding how best to run my life.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
