“All he wanted was to find one Natural Born Runner – someone who ran for the sheer joy, like an artist in the grip of inspiration” – Born to Run (pg 94).
As a coach, I am very focused on developing peak fitness for my runners, and it brings me joy to see athletes progress and achieve their goals. One of the major reasons I coach, and ultimately the most fulfilling reward, is helping athletes see beyond their self-imposed limitations and to think outside the box, not letting fear get in the way of training for something that almost seems impossible.
Athletes often ask me, “is anything really possible?” I did not know how to answer this at first, as I doubt my wife would think it is possible for her to make the Olympic marathon team and I would agree with her. So, my answer is this. I feel anything is possible that you dwell on and think about and that is driven by passion. When we are driven by the passion of running, we think about it a lot and those thoughts usually come in the form of daydreaming. When we daydream, we often think “big”, but then reality sets in (our thinking) and we reign in our goals to what we know is possible, and not very daring.
So, in celebration of the 200th member joining Running With Eric, I would like to challenge you and, more importantly, support you in achieving your “ultimate goal” for 2009-2010. I want you to think big. I want you to dwell on what would be an impossible goal for you and then commit to it. Most of the time, we think of all the reasons why something couldn’t happen, which will STOP us every time. Let’s not worry about whether your ultimate goal ever happens, let’s focus on committing to it and putting it into action. Taking action is the real reward and often times leads to greater results than originally intended.
Here is the plan. Next week, run your favorite trail or course and focus on the “MOJO” of running or the pure magic that running provides you. Look forward to, daydream, and just go run free. During your MOJO run, commit yourself to a far reaching run goal for 2009-2010. Take a camera with you and when “inspiration” hits, take a picture that captures the MOJO of running to you.
After the run, jump on Running With Eric and commit your goal to the team in the FORUM section under MOJO Run. Make it official not only to yourself, but to the team. You will not believe how empowering this will be…trust me. It might feel awkward to you and fearful or strange, but it will give you great energy and catapult your run passion to a new level. I also encourage you to post your inspirational picture on the PHOTOS page.
The deadline for your MOJO Goal is July 12th. On July 13th, I will randomly pick one person to receive a custom 3-month training plan to kick start their goal success.
This first contest is all about discovering the pure joy, magic, and passion of running – MOJO. I have run with Jenn Shelton, and she is one of the brightest new stars in the ultra running scene right now. She has MOJO and I am sure this is a picture she might submit…if she were a Running With Eric team member.
After all, this is what Running With Eric is all about – Natural Born Runners, running for the sheer joy, like an artist in the grips of inspiration!
I have thought about this for years. My answer "today" is something similar to "it's all about the journey and not the finish line". I also think there is a fine line between having expectations and creating possibilities. Expectations are usually made with the finish line as the focus, where as possibilies are focused on action in the "present". There can be no expectations in the present (ask nothing). If your actions are always based on expectation, you are probably never satisfied.
So, yes it is very important to establish goals and to achieve them, but the focus should be on doing your best every step of the way and not the expectation of a certain outcome.
Example - how many times at Penn St. did you or your team mates have better races in training than the actually race. Or do better in lower priority races than at the final race of the year?
The lesser races present no expectations, so you are relaxed and loose, with not much worry about results. You run fast! But, when the big race comes, you are so hyped up and tense to do well, you have no "kick". On the low priority race, you are asking "nothing", on the big day, you are asking "everything" - E
On page 94 you reference a quote from Vigil. My coach at Penn State (Harry Groves) used to mention his name and i never realized what kind of a visionary he was. Eric - I have a question about another quote on this page. What does Chris mean when he says, "ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you'll get more than you can ever imagine"? I am having a hard time reconciling and incorporating goal setting with this philosophy. Thanks in advance for your response
I know this is late. However I wanted to add a comment because I am a person that usually would just read others. I have had time to contemplate this great question so here goes. What brings me to my running MOJO is my continued family support of a wonderful husband and 3 awesome kids as I head out on my run. As I am running a know that they are behind all the way in my sometimes crazy goals I set for myself to continue my sanity in a busy family life. The less serious side would have to say thinking and talking about FOOD. I just start cruising then. I have set 2 goals for myself but have not committed to a goal time until now. So here goes 15 mile trail run 4:26 (4500 vert). First Trail Marathon 4:48.
Hey Thomas - Thanks for the post and hope the training is rocking along. Mojo running is exactly what you described and not just great pictures from CO or cali. Check out the picture Jared posted, I believe that is the Brooklyn Bridge. Since I live in the mountains, it was so cool for ME to see NY City and where he runs and made me want to go run Central Park!! Running is running - mojo is mojo - E
What an awesome idea and challenge for you to put out there. I look forward to everyone's postings. I will say that my running mojo, is mostly internal and spiritual, and I don't have areas that I can photograph that would convey my mojo. Mostly because I live in a pretty flat place, and most of my running is done in the city or urban areas and not much to look at, other than houses and buildings. For people who live in places like Colorado, California, Oregon, etc, I would expect they have some great areas, however, I don't. Nevertheless, my 2009-2010 goal is to complete a 100 miler this year and one next year, and Eric's already helping me with that, so you could say that I already have my big thing and I'm already committed to it. I'm through week 11 of the 100 mile plan now, with 13 weeks left.
Comments
So, yes it is very important to establish goals and to achieve them, but the focus should be on doing your best every step of the way and not the expectation of a certain outcome.
Example - how many times at Penn St. did you or your team mates have better races in training than the actually race. Or do better in lower priority races than at the final race of the year?
The lesser races present no expectations, so you are relaxed and loose, with not much worry about results. You run fast! But, when the big race comes, you are so hyped up and tense to do well, you have no "kick". On the low priority race, you are asking "nothing", on the big day, you are asking "everything" - E