There’s a point in some races where, especially if you’re on the edge of a goal time or you’re in a barn-burner for the podium, the world disappears into a fog. You lose track of everything except the finish line. You’re aware of the pain that you’re putting your body through and the fact that you can’t run any faster, and yet the push for the line partly transcends that. When you cross the line, it can take a few moments for everything to return to normal, regardless of the outcome. You’ve put your mind and body through a small ordeal and they can be flooded with adrenaline and endorphins, and a snap-switch back to clarity and perspective isn’t in the cards.
When you’re training, there’s another kind of trance. If you’re on a distance run and you’re close to a goal time, the last couple of miles can turn into a mind-numbing push. Besides the strain of the run, all I can feel is this strange time-delayed slap of my hair against my scalp and I can almost see the beads of sweat flying off from it and colliding and evaporating in a suspended-in-time mist, despite the fact it’s occurring well outside of my peripheral vision. It’s an ugly feeling, one where I’m not sure whether I’ll hit my time, but wanting to keep pushing. Similar to an end-of-race trance, once I’m done it can take a little bit of time to revert to normal.
I’ve found that running in our current social distancing brings on a different kind of trance. Normally when I’m rolling off the miles I’m focused on running the tangents, keeping track of my time, both total and splits. I’m doing the math on all of this and breaking it into various segments to project my time. Is the rest of the course flat or hilly? Am I feeling strong and thus able to reasonably repeat these splits? What is my stretch goal? What will I likely get time-wise?
These days, I find that my focus is entirely on what’s going on around me. I’m vaguely aware of my watch and the total distance but I’m also scanning ahead of and around me. Instead of hugging curves or switching sides of the road in a line-of-sight to run the fastest course possible, everything is about enjoying the freedom of being outside while also being aware of people around me and keeping proper distances. In a way, I’m really not focused on the distance or my time. I’m aware of when I need to make turns so that I stay on my planned course but keeping track of it in terms of speed is outside of my main considerations. I’m in a zone.
A running friend of mine has been exclusively on the treadmill since mid-March and we’ve talked about running outside. His primary question isn’t whether to run outside, but how much practicing social distancing affects the enjoyment of the run. It does, to an extent. And yet, in spite of being in a trance that doesn’t allow for the parts of training that I enthusiastically embrace, it works in its own strange way. It’s not a trance I had expected, and definitely not one that I was able to compare to other runners’ mindsets in similar situations since this is a new one for us. But, it’s definitely a running trance, and unique among my experiences. Unlike the first two I mentioned above, it’s not hard to make the switch when I’m done. Clarity and perspective are back quickly.
Running anecdotes, running food reviews, some race coverage, and more