Running again with a mindset to train for the distance.
Tom Foreman is a correspondent for CNN, covering the news. He has been a journalist all his life, starting in high school and then a career working in radio and television. He has seen a lot of changes in journalism over the years. He appreciates the training he had in learning how to tell a story and make it informative.
Tom wrote a book titled, My Year of Running Dangerously. The title came about because he went from being an average runner to being a distance runner in a short period of time. Tom ran marathons when he was in his 20s. He was competitive and place well in the races he entered, even though he hardly trained for them. But he stopped running as career and family obligations took more time and attention.
Then his older daughter asked him to help her train for a marathon when she was in college. He started running again. And he went on to run 4 half marathons, 3 full marathons and his first 50 mile ultra, all in one year.
When Tom was young, as a natural runner, he barely trained for any races, but when he got older, in his fifties, he didn’t think he could fake his way through this time. So, for the first time ever, he trained for his races and found the training process to be fun.
He did some amazing things in order to promote his book, like running the Chicago marathon and then 2 weeks later he ran 5 marathons in 5 days, one of which was the Marine Corps Marathon. Two days after that, he ran the New York marathon and two weeks after that, he ran 50 miles. This led him to understand the appeal of running ultramarathons. For him the difference is that in ultra-distance running it’s more important to get into a kind of flow that feels like you can just go forever and appreciate the process of running rather than a time goal. That’s why when you have a bad moment in the race you have to have confidence in your training and keep moving until your head catches up and you can start fighting again.
The fastest marathon of his life was when he was 52 years old. He said he could have been faster when he was younger, had he trained back then. Tom still feels competitive, but he says the race is about the distance, the day, and what he brings to it. There are races where he hasn’t finished very well, but he has been proud of the race. He believes that the older you get the idea is that you try to do well, not because it brings you individual honor or fame or attention, but because you become part of that rising tide that lifts all boats. You expand people’s imaginations about what humans can do.
He always tells people that he knows of no more welcoming community of athletes than the ultrarunners. “The longer the race the more welcoming people are. And I think that’s because you’re a smaller community.”
For him one of the secrets of all distance runners is learning that switch in your head that says I’ve gone as far as I can go. That switch is not right. It’s right for your comfort, but it’s not right for your ability. And people are surprised when he says that in his experience when you get to the point of saying “I don’t think I can go any further” that you’ve got probably about 20 miles left in the tank.
Tom was running years ago, and he caught up with a 41 year old guy who was having a hard time. Tom found him in the woods, and he helped him to start running with him again. This man said, ”I feel so bad about being the last one out here.” He convinced himself in his head that he had to be the last person on the course other than Tom. He wasn’t anywhere near last, it was only his imagination. This is an example of how our mindset can get confused about reality and sometimes cause us to give up.
Some of the races Tom says he might consider is the Comrades Marathon, Dragon’s Back in Wales and even perhaps the Bigfoot 200 or Tahoe 200.
The phrase that describes Tom’s philosophy of life is,’‘If it is inevitable it is ideal.” Whatever circumstance you find yourself in, whether it’s in your career or in your life, that’s the circumstance you have. Which makes it perfect.
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