Reflecting on my personal struggles with my “Runners Wall” in order to provide you with tips on how to break through your own “Runners Wall”
Standing in the shower muffling my sobs with the hope that my roommates/teammates couldn’t hear me had become a post race tradition for me. In my first year as a collegiate runner, I had utterly the worst running performances in my entire life. To give you some perspective, all of my collegiate times were literally minutes slower than my high school FRESHMAN YEAR times. My “its just one bad race” had quickly evolved into a “its just a couple of bad races” to “its just a season of bad races” and then a excruciating “an entire year of bad races”. I was getting progressively worst and was completely clueless as of why hence the reason why my post race tradition had been born.
Every runner is aware of the dreaded expressions of “The Runners Wall” and “Hitting the Wall”. “The Runners Wall” and “Hitting the Wall” are both common terms runners use to describe a time period in which a runner repeatedly finish their races around the same time and are struggling to get their time faster. All runners have to experience “The Runners Wall” at some point since it is sadly as much a part of the sport as tired legs and worn out shoes. Though what are you suppose to do when this “Wall” is more like the length of the Great Wall of China as it stretches over a long extended amount of time with no sign of ever ending.
While there is no one answer fits all for this issue, there are lessons I have learned through this experience that I want to share with you because this is the type of advice I wish I had know when it all began for me since it would have likely replaced my overwhelming anxieties with a much needed spark of hope. Trust me, it is possible to break down and comeback from any type of running wall, even one as large as mine. In fact, I am currently in the process of my comeback and breaking down my long withstanding “Wall” right now by my most recent race only being thirty seconds off my desired time. I know I have a while to go to get back to PRing, but progress is progress. Yet, this ability to even make a dent in my “Wall” was only achievable by taking 2 important and necessary steps.
The first step is stop feeling ashamed. This one is going to be extremely hard one because your going to wholehearted believe that you should feel ashamed.
How could I not be ashamed. Based on my high school times, I was suppose to be one of the fastest girl on my college team from the first day of practice. My coach had already invested in me by giving me a decently large scholarship and had already dreamed up a plan to get me to nationals my freshman year. My teammates had already identified me as possibly being the best girl on the team after our first team practice. Then our first race occurred. And then the second. And then the third. And then the next thing you know a whole year goes by and I don’t anywhere near my PRs in Cross Country and Track.
And then everyone’s perspective of me started to turn including my own. I could tell people took pity in me and my situation. They would always be encouraging to my face, but I could tell in the back of their head their inner voice was screaming, “man, what happened to her”. The worst part of the situation was the way I began to view myself. My personal identity had been wrapped around me being a good runner and the minute my running started suffering, so did my overall confidence and self love. I began to view myself as someone who was weak, unworthy, and powerless.
Though after months of feeling ashamed, I finally realized that allowing myself to be engulfed in shame was exactly what was preventing me from addressing the issue and problem head on. In being so ashamed of my race performance, I would purposely avoid thinking and taking about my races simply because acknowledging them would make me deeply upset and angry at myself. Yet, how was I going to fix my problem if I wasn’t able or willing to analyze the situation that existed? Eventually I realized that I need to rid myself of the shame I felt in order to move forward and begin to focus on making significant steps to changing my situation. After no longer tying my pitfalls with shame, I was able to finally start analyzing the situation and identify what the true problem was. I allowed myself to examine every aspect of the situation by questioning myself if there was a physical or mental aspect that was contributing to my running. After examining the situation, I realized the biggest issue I had with running lately was my breathing and my lack of energy. After further inspection, I was diagnosed with athletic induced asthma and severe food sensitivities. Only by eliminating my shame was I am to find the true source of my problem and start the process of working towards resolving my issues.
The next important step was acknowledge the idea that progress is often made in baby steps. Forget the idea of you having that sport movie moment where you are that lovable protagonist who is the slower, but much more determined teammate who suddenly runs and wins the big race. It’s not going to happen that way because progress occurs in small ways. Your progress might simply be that your beginning to run slightly faster at practice or that you finished your race maybe two and a half minutes behind your PR rather than three. You have to accept that it will be a process that takes time and acknowledge the small moments of improvement that are occurring.
I am not going to lie, I wanted that movie moment coming into my sophomore year of collegiate running. Of course I didn’t get it, but throughout my sophomore Cross Country season I begin to see the small ways I was improving and encouraged myself to make even more baby steps to my goal of being back within PR range. I recently reached that goal with my first 5k track race this season by being less than a minute away from my PR. I know its still sounds like a long way to go, but I also know that it’s a process that needs to be taken truly one race at a time and one step at a time.
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