What can you learn from long distance running or mountain climbing?

In recent past, I have completed few long distance runs including half marathon and climbed few peaks, likes of Mt. Diablo and Yosemite’s Half Dome among the notable ones. All of these were an exercise in pushing oneself out of the comfort zone both literally and figuratively. Bonuses were the physical fitness, toughness and mental calmness gained in the process.

If you think about it, long distance running is a metaphor for life itself. Anything worth pursuing in life doesn’t come swiftly by doing a 100m dash across the finish line but by constantly moving, sweating out, learning in the process and doing course corrections as necessary across multiple milestones on to your eventual goal.

You can learn a ton from going through the motions of long distance running or mountain climbing –

When going gets tough, don’t get lost in the big picture –

It’s an endurance play and long distance is going to test your grit. There may be moments when your brain will tell you to stop after a mile, 2 miles or 10 miles as you can’t take it any longer. In these moments, if you start thinking about the end goal / finish line, which may be still 10 mi or 5 mi away, you will soon get overwhelmed by distances still left to cover and the mental chatter may gather further storm. Instead, the key is to focus only on one step at a time (think micro) and put one foot in front of the other, thereby keep going.

You develop grit and mental toughness in the process.

Getting into a state of ‘flow’

When you are undertaking any challenging task and possess mediocre skills, pushing the envelope may get you in a state of ‘flow’. The feeling is one of complete involvement in the task at hand with 100% focus and intensity, so much so that the sense of time and even the sense of ‘self’ drifts away. It’s an interesting concept for peak performance and reportedly number of world-class composers, athletes perform in the flow zone.

I find long distance running to be the easy way to experience state of ‘flow’. After few miles, when your legs feel heavy, your brain wants to stop but you keep pushing, you keep striding along at a pace comfortable to you and soon you may hit the ‘flow’ zone where you experience as if you are not running but gliding away.

Mountains are there to be conquered !

A healthy dose of determination and self-belief can move mountains, figuratively speaking. And what better way to translate that in real life, by literally ascending peaks, be it standing tall at 3800 ft or 8800 ft.

Edmund Hillary famously said, “It’s not the mountains we conquer, but ourselves.”

You find yourself what you are made of when you go out there and start taking action in pursuance to your north star. The grueling climb of a mountain or painstaking long distance run can test your mettle, but then what’s a journey without some scars to show !

My advice to those sitting on the fences.., Never doubt yourself … Go, do it. Period.