More from 26.2 Mama

A couple days ago I posted a tiny bit of the transcript from my interview with Stephanie Robey, my marathoning friend in L.A. Here's more of what she had to say -- indeed, this is the "meat of the matter" and a wonderful contribution to Way #4: Run for Your Life!

What I learned from marathoning – you were talking about how you trip yourself up, how things get out of control – well, that happened to me, Sheila, in a huge way about 7 or 8 years ago. I had a falling out with my brother and my dad about a business deal, and it just seemed like my life was so out of control. I had three businesses going and everything was out of control. My finances..., my marriage… I just felt like everything was out of control, right? I think that’s why the whole idea of marathoning appealed to me.

They say that people who choose to do [marathons] are just complete control freaks. ‘Cause, you know, it’s all about YOU! [laughs] Yeah, they say anyone who... does any kind of ultra-sporting, that they are just complete control freaks. What you learn is that you are completely in control!

You know, you can do a thing – even a thing as big as this – if you just break it up into bite-size chunks. But there is no way you can go out and run 26.2 miles without training. There’s just no way. I know people who are cross-country champions, people who are really elite runners, and (after their first marathon) they say, ‘Well, I’m a really good distance runner, I'm fast, I run a 6- 7-minute mile. I thought I’d have no problem on a marathon. And I was doing really great until I hit 16 miles. Then I crashed.”

The thing about marathoning is, it doesn’t matter who you are, you have to train for it. Your body --- It’s such a huge feat on your body that you have to break it up. You have to get your body into some kind of condition to run it. And it takes time! It takes, minimum, 4 months, and you should allow 6 months...

Now, I look at everything in terms of, "OK, here’s the goal. Here’s the Big, Hairy Audacious Goal: I want to sell my company. Here’s the goal: I want X amount of dollars." So, then you just turn around and go, “Well, what’s the training schedule? What are we going to do -- monthly, weekly, daily -- to meet this goal?” You have to work it out. “Where am I at the halfway point? Where am I at the three-quarter point? What are my milestones?” Just like in the marathon! Then you know, when you get into it, you learn the process, you’ve laid out your whole plan. And it doesn’t have to be like a 50-page business plan. It could be a mental plan, but you’ve laid it out, so you know, “By this date, I’m here.” And when you hit that date, if you’re not there, well, you readjust. And it keeps you from panicking. It keeps you from panicking.

Same thing when you’re running a marathon: You’re at that start line, the gun goes off, you’ve trained, you don’t know what your time is going to be, but you know you’re ready, and you know, in that first mile, you actually have to hold yourself back, because you have to conserve your energy.

And when you hit the first 5K, you think, “Hey, I just ran a 5K!” You’re not thinking, “Oh my God, I still have 23 miles to go.” You never think that. You think, “I’ve done the 5K.” Pretty soon, “Oh, I just ran a 10K.” Soon after that, it’s “Look, I’ve finished the half-marathon.”

OK, then you hit the wall, and everything in your mind and body says, “Oh my God, stop now!” And yet, you’re going, “I only have a 10K to go! Look how far I’ve come, and all I have left to do is 6 miles.” You know, you just start breaking it down that way, and that's --- That has helped me tremendously with everything in life. I don’t care if it’s gardening, if it’s remodeling the house, if it’s helping my husband get a new career going, whatever it is, I stop and say, “What’s the goal?” and “Let’s break it down.”

Even turning 40 and 45 and all that stuff, even at that point, I’m able to now say, “OK, when I’m 50, I want to be here. Where am I today? How difficult is that? Is it really possible? And what do I need to do to get there?”

So, getting back to the whole control issue, you know, people are called control freaks, and we take that to be an insult, really. But in actuality, it’s not an insult. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being in control. It’s just being in control of yourself verses controlling other people. There’s a big difference.

It just occurs to me as I said that, that the best part about coaching kids to run the marathon – and now I have a team of women runners that I run with – is that, it’s so funny: We as individuals don’t always believe in ourselves, but other people who don’t even know us that well can have tremendous faith in us. And it’s so easy, just by encouraging people, when they say to me, “Oh, I’ll never even run a 10K,” I’ll just have to chuckle to myself, because, after a couple months, they’re out there running and training, and the next thing you know, they’re running a 10K! And they don’t even remember that old voice, you know, that self-talk of “I’ll never, I can’t.” You know, they did it!