Living in the moment

For the most part

I’ve been pretty happy with myself lately. As I’ve written before, most times I finish races, I’m already mentally preparing for what’s next.

My first sub-four hour marathon in 2020? Awesome, what can I do in 2021? 3:24:58 in Minneapolis in 2021? I was literally thinking about my next marathon as I drove back to Omaha the following day. Even after the half marathon this past May in Lincoln, I couldn’t help but wonder how soon it would translate to 2:59:59¹. I would consciously force myself to live in the moment, to recognize the work I had put in. To not just think about what was next.

I kind of failed²! By the time June rolled around, I was proud of what I had done, but mentally I was already thinking well ahead; To the rest of the summer, the race in October, and beyond.

I haven’t really done that this time around³. Ok, that might be a lie, but it’s for a good reason.

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I recently read a piece from Martin Fritz Huber titled “Why We Should Embrace Post-Race Emptiness.” One part in particular jumped out to me:

A few years ago, I wrote about post-marathon blues—the sense of letdown and anticlimax that amateur runners often feel after an event that they’ve spent months preparing for. At the time, I didn’t know that there was a term for this: “arrival fallacy” refers to the false belief that once you accomplish a particular goal, you’ll attain a sense of lasting gratification. The term was coined by Harvard psychology lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar, but I first heard it from Brad Stulberg, an Outside contributing editor and the bestselling author of The Practice of Groundedness. “We think that some external goal will fulfill us, but it’s this very thinking that gets in the way of our fulfillment,” Stulberg noted last year in a column for Outside. As Stulberg writes, you are better off “enjoying the process and being where you are.”

Enjoying the process, you say? In the last week before the Chicago Marathon, I wrote this:

Great coaches and athletes will so often talk about “the process” — without respecting the process, there can’t be progress. You have to embrace it. Embrace every single day, every single workout, every single thing.

Did I unlock some sort of secret? Hardly, but it was nice to feel validated. I was doing something right in my preparation, specifically how I approached things mentally, and it paid off.

Stulberg had another quote that stood out to me, and it’s easy to see why:

“I think that once you come to terms with the fact that you can never be content, it gets a lot easier. The trap is the ‘if, then’ syndrome. This idea that if I win a gold medal, then I’ll be content.”

Did I grow up with a goal of running a sub-3:00 marathon? Absolutely not. I don’t exactly know when it became something I wanted to do, but it certainly wasn’t on my radar as recently as 24 months ago, let alone when I was a kid. Yet, by the time I set another PR in Minneapolis in October of 2021, it became my singular, ultimate focus as a runner. I would do whatever I had to, no matter how long it took, to run a marathon in under three hours. I figured my running career would build towards this, culminating at some point in the next half decade or so.

A year later I did it.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

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Am I thinking about what’s next? Of course. How could I not? More than once the last few weeks, I’ve asked questions, sometimes to myself, sometimes to others, about what’s realistic moving forward.

“Don’t limit yourself.”

“You just need to dream big.”

“The best thing about running is there's always another goal.”

The sky feels like the limit right now. The pressure of chasing three hours⁴ is off, which has me wanting to dream, well, bigger. What could I chase in the future? 2:55? 2:50? 2:45? More?

What other goals are out there? So much more seems on the table.

The weeks following a race are always so strange. No longer am I mentally and physically preparing. Things seem emptier. Days feel longer. What am I building towards now?

Lately, I’ve been getting my ducks in a row; I have my training plans, dates and all, ready for the start of 2023. I’m running in a couple races to finish 2022, hoping for some fun without the stress that came with building towards a half and full marathon this year.

And yet, I miss it. I miss the grind.

Recently, I put together the plan for next May’s Lincoln Marathon. Doing so was invigorating. Eight weeks left this year before another cycle starts anew.

Suddenly I’m looking forward again, not living in the moment like I should. This happens to me a few times a week, sometimes multiple times in the same day.

But then I look up and see my Tracksmith poster, stamped with my time in Chicago, and I can’t help but pump my fist. I did it. I reached my goal.

I’m still soaking it in.

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But let’s be real, the biggest reason I haven’t felt any of the post-marathon blues? I’m a year and a half away from running in one of the most famous marathons in the world, and I qualified for it!

I can’t stop thinking about Boston.

Over the last year or so, I often worried about the “what’s next” of it all that would come with hitting sub-3. The ultimate first world problem; now what do I do?

I knew that the milestone would come after a grind of a training cycle. I knew it would come after hours of running, hours of thinking about it. I knew I’d give it my all, probably reaching it by mere seconds.

Check, check, check, and check.

But Boston awaits. Another goal awaits.

I’m going to keep chasing.

1. Or better yet, 2:59:47.

2. The sub-header of my first newsletter after the race read, “Hitting an important milestone, and what comes next” — So yeah, I was doing a poor job of staying in the moment.

3. Well, at least not as much.

4. Hey, that’s the name of this newsletter!