The Motivating Power of Shame*

The 4th of July. The day America celebrates its independence from England. Incredibly hard to believe now that a tiny country that gave us Shakespeare, blood pudding, and David Beckham once controlled Colonial Americans.** Harder still to believe is that many Americans probably have no idea what year America celebrated its first Independence Day (hint: it did not involve aliens and Will Smith). Americans associate Independence Day with barbecues, federal holidays, apple pie, sunshine, and fireworks. Americans do not associate Independence Day with running.

So, it was incredibly challenging on the morning of the 4th (Saturday) to get out of bed as early as I would on a workday to run "six to seven miles" or 72 minutes.*** I slept a bit later than I would have liked (6:30 instead of 5:30), laced up my Asics, grabbed my water bottle and tucked it into my running belt, brushed my teeth, put on my sunscreen, and headed west towards downtown Spokane and the Centennial Trail.**** I felt strong on the run--pushing myself, waving at other runners, trying to maintain an easy, even pace needed for my long, slow run. I incorporate several very short walk breaks into my long runs, as long runs are supposed to be slower, their purpose being to get your body used to so much time on your feet. Allegedly, run breaks not only allow you to catch your breath and grab a little water/gel without choking and/or pouring your water/gel all over your face and clothes, but they also help pull (push?) the lactic acid out of your muscles to allow you to run longer. When I started really running just over a year ago, I felt guilty, ashamed even, of taking walking breaks. In truth, I still feel a little of that, and I will extend the time between walking breaks on long runs if it means I can run past other runners, walkers, senior citizens on bikes.*****

This walking shame is about vanity, of course. But, in reality, I am out running more miles before breakfast on a Saturday morning than most people ever run in a row, period. But, walking shame is not the point of this post...this post is about the shame of quitting, of failure.

I always tell people that I am afraid of two things--aging and failure. In reality, I just hate both of them. My type-A(+) personality cannot deal with failure very well. So, while I, like most Americans, do not associate Independence Day with running, I do associate a missed long run as a failure on a small scale that could mean failure on a large scale (not being able to run the Portland Marathon in October). Certainly a portion of that fear is related to feeling as if I have let myself down, but it's more about the shame associated with telling people that I missed too many runs and therefore cannot run the Portland Marathon this year because, as anyone training for any big race knows, everyone knows about it. Everyone. Friends, family, co-workers, ex-boyfriends, the person who sells you coffee on weekday mornings. I cannot handle the shame associated with telling people that I am not running Portland because I quit or was lazy or just could not commit to the training. I ran Nike last year with a broken foot, partly because everyone knew I was training for it.

I am not hard core. I run because I am ashamed. And, I am not ashamed to admit it.

*I know I have not really been updating this, but please check back, as I will be filling in some of the gaps here soon (between October and now).

**One of these is not a good thing.

***My current Beginner Marathon Training Plan has all of these runs of between x and y miles.

****While a running belt resembles a fanny pack, it is not one. It is not worn by tourist to hold camera and currency; it holds in place a water bottle (think about running and holding a water bottle for miles in the heat) and tends to have pockets for keys, gels, phones, tissues, etc. that you might need on a long run. Okay, so it's totally a fanny pack.

*****This last one will be the subject of a later post.