Lesson 6: Dealing with it.

Everyone has their own strategy for dealing with pain. Not The Pain, but pain in an immediate sense. Pain in a 3rd-lap-of-the-mile sense.

Everyone has their own way to deal with it. To focus your entire entity on forgetting how much you hurt in that moment.

Now, there are common ways people cope. Archetypes of coping, you could call them

1 LAP GIVE ME 1 LAP

Just 2 more minutes, please just two more minutes

Don't let him go. Don't you let him go. HANG ON

For your TEAMMATES, for your COACH, DO IT FOR THEM

I've tried all of these. They've all worked to various degrees. At least, enough to give me moderate success in the sport.

But for me, there's another way. One a little more cruel.

All of the foregoing ways to deal with the immediacy of pain assume that the pain will end if you just stick with it to the finish line. Just put yourself through it now, and when it's over you'll be better for it.

My high school often quoted the famous running motto - Pain is temporary, pride is forever

But I think the best way is to do the opposite.


I run as if the pain will never end.


Put a time goal down, and start running it. I'm going to run 5:48s for these 10 miles.

As the miles peel away, I make sure I am on pace. I give myself a little buffer, running a few 5:43-5:45s to give myself a few seconds if I slip up in future miles.

But mentally, I don't count mile 4 as being 6 miles from the finish, or even mile 9 as being 1 mile from the finish. I have before, and I've crumbled that way. Focusing on the end only reminds me how far I am from it.

I've come to assume that the run won't end, so when it does I'm pleasantly surprised while still not drained mentally from focusing on the end point.

These mental games have developed over the past 7 months as I've been running alone in the night, 90% of my runs lighted only by streetlamps and the soft glint of the moon.

When you can't physically see the endpoint, eventually it fades away mentally as well. And then you're in the moment, just running to run.

Why focus on the pain if it's going to be there forever? Might as well get used to it. Make it friendly.

I told you it was a bit cruel.