Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Summary
On episode 131 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Gary Dudney, a longtime UltraRunning Magazine columnist who has completed over 200 marathons and ultramarathons, including 50 hundred-mile races, to talk about his book The Tao of Running.
Gary explains how a Taoist approach, accepting the run and its discomfort exactly as it is, changes the experience of running, and shares the mental strategies he’s picked up over 40 years on the trail and road.
The conversation covers positive self-talk, mantras, and the story of a 70-year-old runner’s unforgettable finish at the Western States 100.
Links
- https://thetaoofrunning.com
- Episode 393 – The Mindful Runner with Gary Dudney
Key Takeaways
- Running scales to any fitness level. You can push hard for two miles or mix running and walking for twenty minutes, and older runners in particular can adjust the workout to how they feel that day.
- The story of the three vinegar tasters illustrates the Taoist approach to running. Confucianism finds the vinegar sour (life falls short of an ideal past) and Buddhism finds it bitter (life is suffering), but Taoism finds it sweet, because the Taoist accepts the vinegar, and by extension the run, exactly as it is.
- Difficulty is part of the experience, not a sign something’s wrong. Gary argues that runners who fight or resent the pain of a hard race have a worse experience than those who accept the whole range of it, discomfort included, as part of what makes finishing meaningful.
- Staying relentlessly positive changes how pain is interpreted. Author JoAnn Dahlkoetter’s lesson, from her book Your Performing Edge, is that when a race starts hurting, that isn’t a sign of being unprepared, it’s simply what running near your limit feels like.
- You can’t outrun pain, but you can acknowledge it and move past it. Gary describes recognizing the pain, accepting that it’s there, and then shifting focus to the next aid station or the next block instead of a finish line still miles away.
- Reframing the math of a race keeps you moving forward. Instead of thinking “I have five more miles to go,” Gary tells himself “I’ve already come 25 miles, I can handle five more,” turning the same distance into a more manageable thought.
- A repeated mantra can carry you through the hardest stretch. Gary’s favorite is “infinite patience, steely determination.” Allan uses a mantra of his own, “I do not quit,” which he first developed during military basic training and later leaned on during marathons.
- Gunhild Swanson’s Western States 100 finish shows age doesn’t have to be a limit. At 70 years old and still running 50 miles a week in training, she finished the 100-mile race, which has a 30-hour cutoff, with just six seconds to spare, one of the most exciting finishes in the race’s history.
- Running is a social sport at most distances. Outside of the longest ultras, Gary says races bring people together from all over the country, and that camaraderie is part of what he misses most when he isn’t running.
“Infinite patience, steely determination.”
Gary Dudney