Download Your Training Plan Trannsgrancanaria 21K, which involved about 4,500 feet of climbing up La Plata trail, when I started questioning the decisions I made that had brought me there. Summer Running Gear, I thought to myself, bent over so I could use my hands to push off my quads in the hopes of making this uphill slog over naturally cobblestoned switchbacks feel somewhat easier. How Your Body Handles Trail Versus Road Running?
Summer Running Gear The reframe is to focus on what can this teach me? How can I grow from this experience, a carbon-plated trail racing shoe that made its debut in the elite race. I was also there to experience one of the World Trail Majors, a collection of bucket-list feels so challenging, you start steering clear of.
On a deeper level, I was there because what kind of person turns down the chance to run through the volcanic mountains of the Canary Islands, an archipelago set off the eastern coast of Africa? My “why” for this race was more of a “why not?”
But during the event, I found myself struggling to adjust my mindset from “I’m here for a race, which means I have to run a good time” to “I’m here for the experience.”
I’m very much a road runner. I’m not exceptionally gifted at it, but training and racing comes (relatively) easy to me. And part of what I love about road running is the performance element: I know that if I train smart, I usually see positive results.
“We often have expectations—whether we’re conscious of them or not—when we go into something,” explains Boston-based sports psychologist Emily Saul. “These expectations help you maintain a sense of confidence and identity, so when you experience something where the outcome doesn’t exactly match with those expectations, there tends to be some psychological chafing.”
In my case, my normal expectation heading into a race is: I’m a competent athlete, so when I put my efforts into athletic endeavors, I’m confident and I do well. But the reality is I don’t The Shoes and Gear Kipyegon Will Wear at Breaking4 walk more than I run (which often makes me question whether it even counts as running, even though I know that’s part of it!); I’m almost always nervous about losing my footing so I over-fixate on the ground and miss the views around me; and even the downhills, normally my favorite part of running, don’t offer any respite because I can feel how tense my body is trying to control every aspect of movement. In other words, I consider myself “bad” at trail running.
It’s an easy trap for runners to fall into—thinking because something feels hard, you’re bad at it and should therefore avoid it. Maybe for you, running uphill Flat and Fast Half Marathons routes with any elevation gain. Or maybe you’ve struggled with pushing your pace around the track, and so now you shy away from speedwork. Then, in your head, you start telling yourself you’re “bad” at that thing you avoid.
“If you keep saying you’re so bad at this thing or that thing that you don’t practice, of course you’re going to feel bad at it,” says Saul. “And when you don’t feel good at something, you’re going to tell yourself you like it less.”
It’s okay to not like every aspect of running. Somewhere over the course of those nearly 14 miles in Gran Canaria, I accepted the fact that I don’t love trail running and probably never will. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t happy to be there, that I didn’t find value in the experience, or, most importantly, that I won’t ever do it again. By the end of the race, I was actually grateful for the opportunity it gave me to step out of my comfort zone.
“When you do things that are outside of your comfort zone, it puts your ego a little bit at risk but the benefit—the possibility that exists outside of there—is growth,” says Saul. “People often go into something looking at it either as this task that they’re going to pass or fail. But typically, when they do that, they either feel really anxious because they want so much to pass or they feel fearful because they’re so afraid of failing. The reframe is to focus on what can this teach me? How can I grow from this experience?”
I didn’t have Saul’s insights before the race, but I found my way toward a version of them on my own.
As I settled into the challenge of reaching the finish line, I started telling myself “I don’t care.” It wasn’t that I didn’t care about being there—it was a reminder that I didn’t care about the outcome. By repeating that every time someone passed me on the pine cone-littered dirt paths near the summit or every time I had to slow down on the rocky singletrack descents, I was just giving myself permission to opt out of my normal performance mindset.
For years, I’ve told myself I’m not a trail runner because I think I’m bad at it. But the more you do something, like run trails, the easier it becomes to tell yourself you are that type of person. And when you tell yourself that, you can actually find some pleasure in it. “You can enjoy something more because you perform it well, but you should also be able to enjoy something just for the sake of doing it,” says Saul. “Not everything is a performance.”
Without my mind on the finish clock, I was able to appreciate that I’m actually a more competent trail runner than I gave myself credit for. From a performance perspective, I actually did move more quickly than I did in a similar race two years ago, even though the terrain was much tougher.
But I was also stronger in ways that are less quantifiable: I moved more consistently than that previous trail race, I learned how to sit with my not-always-positive thoughts for longer than I’m used to, and this adventure reinforced the importance of being comfortable in discomfort—lessons that I can absolutely take back to the road.
“It’s okay to know what’s important to you and stick to that,” says Saul. “But every once in a while, try other things. And even if you don’t like something, you should eventually give it another chance. Don’t ever close something off entirely just because you didn’t like it once.”
Trail running forces me to embrace a different side of running, one that’s less metric- and performance-focused. And while it’s never going to be something I love in the way I love road running, I know occasionally embracing that psychological chafing will make me a better runner overall.
When my long runs during a marathon build start to feel grueling, I’ll look back on this trail race and remember that despite how hard it felt, I pushed through and showed myself I can RW+ Membership Benefits.
