The Power of Re-Thinking

Ultrarunners consistently overthink their training.

While there are all kinds of rules, beliefs, assumptions, and decisions they made along the way and never re-think.

Those things need attention too because you might have outgrown them.

They could be holding you back without you realizing it.

Years ago, a friend gave me the pink hat in the photo as a joke because he knew I refused to wear pink.

I never wore the hat but kept it anyway, shuffling it here and there around my closet.

I’ve been reexamining life the past two years and recently had an impulse to try a pink shirt.

So I ordered one the light pink that’s supposed to look good on everyone and to my surprise, loved wearing it.

Once I revoked the “no pink” rule, I discovered I even love the energy of hot pink. Who is this person??

So I reasoned that if I actually like pink, I should re-decide all the colors in my closet.

Turns out I literally outgrew my old colors when my hair started going it’s fabulous silver. The old colors looked drab, made me feel drab and were dulling my shine.

I purged my closet down to the bones, took an alarming number of clothes-filled garbage bags to the local rescue ministry (breathe…) and started over with colors that look good on me now.

But before I moved on, I got curious about when and why I decided the “no pink” rule. There must have been a good reason.

Here’s what I found.

When I was young, I was a tomboy (surprise!) and didn’t get girly pink clothes.

When I started running track and cross-country in junior high school, there were no women’s running clothes or shoes (I was just in time for the first Jogbra).

As recreational running boomed, manufacturers started making women’s running clothes by “shrinking and pinking” men’s and joggers got their fashion pink.

But serious runners didn’t fall for that. Serious runners wore serious clothes made for function, not fashion. And I was a serious runner.

So all these decades, there’s been an association in my mind between pink and a flippant, uncaring attitude toward races.

I’ve outgrown that outdated part of the rule too and proved I can wear pink AND be a serious badass.

This is a small, silly example but you can easily find larger assumptions in your running.

Do you only run easy races you’re sure you can finish because you believe you’ll DNF the harder ones?

Do you assume you’re only qualified to try a 100-mile race after you’ve run a certain number of races at all the shorter distances?

Do you stick to local races, because you don’t deserve to travel to a beautiful race?

Do you run at the back of the pack because that’s where you believe you always finish?

Take everything out of the belief closet, rethink it all, and put back only the ones you want, the way you want them.

Then watch things change.

You might uplevel your confidence by racing without crew or pacers…

Run races you always thought you couldn’t, anywhere in the world…

Allow yourself to do more than finish and surprise yourself with better results than usual…

It’s powerful, life-changing work.

If you want help unearthing your own assumptions and re-deciding them so you can run stronger, I can help.

Email me to set up a free consult call.

Take it from me and my pink hat - rethinking the “way things are” opens up the energy and possibility you’ve been wishing for.