Stress

So, I'm a math teacher... and tonight, because of a slight oversight in my calculations, I ran a lot faster than intended.  I was trying to run a Tempo run, keeping my pace at 8:30 for 8 miles.  That's my marathon goal pace and it's important, I'm learning- finally practicing unlike in the past, that in order to run at a certain pace, one must train to run that pace.  So I measured my mile and half mile splits using Google Earth and set my watch to go off every 8m 30s.

Well, this math teacher, probably thinking too much about the stresses of the day, decided that in order to keep the pace, that at every half mile, my watch needed to read 4:30 left in the mile- which would mean I ran a half mile in... anyone?

4 minutes!

so when my first split was 4:20, I sped up, thinking that I was running too slow... no wonder I hit the 2 mile mark a full 35 seconds early.

You see, in normal person world 4 + 4 = 8; but in my little world 4 + 4 = 8m 30s... it wasn't until just moments ago that I realized that I needed to be at the half mile spot in 4:15, with 4:15 left over, because in normal world- that would equal 4:30!  My wife says, Great! You ran faster!  I say, but I need to learn to run an 8:30 pace.  26.2 miles is a LONG way to go too fast and I don't want to train myself to go too fast and be worn out by mile 13.

Why do I tell you this?  Because it occurs to me, that in order to do anything in life, we need to learn and train ourselves to do it.

Here's my point... I train my body to run marathons, otherwise, I would fail... we need to train our bodies how to handle stress, and live healthy.

When you stress... what is your normal reaction?  How do you handle stress?  Do you eat, drink, smoke?  Do you take it out on people around you, close up and take it internally?

I think we unconsciously train our bodies what to do, so, when we stress, it just feels natural to do whatever it is we do.  I know when I stress out, a good long run helps... but that didn't always be the case.  Without knowing it, I taught myself to run, in order to process through my stresses.  I expressed this to a colleague once and she said if she ran to deal with stress, she would run forever... I said that's why I run marathons... so THAT'S why!?

In fact, a lot of marathoners... especially those crazy ultra-marathoners (who run 50, 100, 126+ miles, some have even run across America and the Sahara desert), have stories of traumatic experiences in their lives that running helps them deal with.

But changing from harmful stress management to helpful stress management takes time and training... I never thought of it like this until today.

Think of something that you do that is harmful to you.  It probably took some time to train your body that this is how it deals with the stress and your body accepted it... then your body craved it.  Now it's just what you do.  I know I used to be a nervous eater, smoker, and even sometimes drinker... now I run, pray, sing, write, play music, cook, etc.  At some point I trained my body that the other things are a better way at dealing with stress and that these things were acceptable, even to the point of craving them, especially when stressors take over.

I wonder what would happen if you actively took one harmful thing that you do to yourself to deal with stress, and started to replace it with something else... slowly transitioning until the harmful thing was no longer a means to processing stress... would your body learn to crave the new thing?

I trained myself to run, even marathons, when I used to be a lazy couch potato.  I trained myself to crave whole, nutritious foods, to the point that what I used to eat, actually repulses me- even making me sick.

Who knows... maybe I'm right... couldn't hurt to try.

God Bless!  Have a great night's sleep!