How to Respond to Things People Say

(Photo: Misty Wong)

“You’ve run enough races, you should quit now.”

“I worry what another DNF will do to your confidence.”

“You DNF’d the last three 100-mile attempts - why don’t you stick to shorter races?”

“Wow, that race seems a little…out of your reach.”

“You should be ____ instead.”

“You’re getting older - isn’t it time you stopped running that far?”

People are going to say stuff about you and your running.

It’s going to be messy, and it’s going to happen.

Fortunately, it’s only a problem when you think their comment is rude, mean, or negative and they shouldn’t have said it.

Then you dwell on it, replay the scene over and over in your head, devise ways to prove they’re wrong, plunge into self doubt, judge your running, start avoiding the person, start avoiding races you want to run and of course, try to convince them they’re wrong.

You can waste a ton of time and energy this way, getting nowhere, so it’s better to have a clear strategy for dealing with comments when they happen.

Start by thinking of the conversation as a tennis court - them on one side of the net, you on the other, and their words as the ball.

No matter how they intend it, what they say only has power on their side of the net.

The instant the words “you’ll never finish” cross the net onto your side of the court, the other person has no power - you do.

You’re 100% in charge of what you make those words mean and how you respond to them.

You have three simple options: 

1. If their comment is helpful information - they spotted a conflict in your schedule - great! 

Act on it.

2. If it’s not helpful information - just a negative opinion - you can refrain from reacting and let their words land peacefully out of bounds.

For instance, you can decide:

My non-running co-worker isn’t the expert on my running, so their opinion carries no weight.

This isn’t like my running friend - she must be upset about something.

This is really my mother voicing her own limits and fears - it has nothing to do with me.

3. Last, if what they said isn’t helpful, it upset you AND you can’t let it go…surprise! This is the most valuable of the three options.

You can’t let it go because there’s something in what they said that you believe about yourself.

It’s something you don’t want to admit, like you don’t believe you’ll finish your goal race or you’re scared you’re too old to finish under cutoffs any more.

Whatever it is, it’ll resurface and stop you at your weakest moment in a race, if you don’t spot it and clean it up now.

It’s way easier to go around blaming the person across the net for saying something wrong but cleaning up what it triggered in you will make you a far stronger ultrarunner than blame ever will.

If this is your work and you don’t want to do it alone, I understand and I can help.

Email me and we’ll get on a consult call to plan how we’ll clean it up compassionately, for good.