High atop the Flat Top Mountain, four miles of run-hiking and nearly 3,000 feet of climbing into a big day of training at the If failure wasn’t an option, I would try to, campers pulled jackets and sandwiches out of their bags. As a leader at the camp, I handed out pens and postcards to each camper. We endured hair-whipping wind and sat on a rocky perch under Colorado’s blue sky to write.
The task: Write a letter to yourself. Earlier, we coached the runners through a goal-setting session, and this writing assignment was built on that foundation. What would you say to your runner self down the road, before your end-of-season competition? The girls hunkered down, inking their intentions.
Writing is a potent tool for runners and coaches of all abilities, no matter the training or racing cycle. For Melody Fairchild, multiple-time U.S. Masters National Champion, NCAA champion, and the first U.S. high school girl to break 10 minutes for 2 miles, writing has added a deeper dimension to her running.
“During more intentional eras of my running life, such as training to make the World Championship team in the 5K in 1997 and for the trials in the marathon in 2000, sitting down to record my run, beginning with the nuts and bolts—distance, time, conditions and then how I felt—would morph into multiple pages of reflection on what I was chasing with the effort I'd just put forth, and often what I was running from,” she says. “The writing left me feeling truly complete with the days' work, as it was the way I tended to my mental game, keeping me honest and fresh about my mental barriers and feeding the positive thoughts essential for moving forward.”
At the wide intersection of running and writing, you’ll find elite runners who write as well as famous writers who run (Haruki Murakami, Joyce Carol Oates, Malcom Gladwell, to name a few). But you don’t have to be famous or fast to use writing to improve as a runner. Here are three ways that writing can improve your running life.
1. Find Focus and Motivation
Lauren Fleshman—a retired pro runner with five NCAA titles and two U.S. championships to her name who cofounded Picky Bars and coaches elite athletes—attributes the best years of her professional racing career to when she started her blog The Morning Shakeout. “Writing about my experiences for a larger audience with a commitment to truth-telling helped me see my running as a larger, more holistic pursuit than simply chasing an Olympic dream that may or may not ever come true,” she says.
For her, writing carved out mental space that allowed for racing breakthroughs, including her second U.S. Championship, a Diamond League 5K win, and the highest placing by an American at the World Championships. “I learned to assess my training and racing performances with more nuance as a result of becoming a writer," Fleshman says. “Also, getting to know the inner-critic in another arena outside of sport took some of its power away in my racing."
Fleshman has since teamed up with Roisin McGettigan-Dumas, a former pro runner and current sports psychology consultant, to create the Believe Training Journal series, a set of in-depth training logs that includes writing prompts.
Fleshman also went on to create WILDER running and writing retreats. Marianne Elliott, a writer, researcher, and human rights advocate who teaches writing sessions at the WILDER retreats, says that writing helps her cultivate mindfulness when she runs trails. “I’m not the kind of runner who sets goals or has a training log. I run for my mental health and for my soul,” she says. “I wrote recently about a big run I did—a 75-kilometer traverse of a mountain range near my home in New Zealand. There were times on the run when I really needed to stay in the moment; thinking ahead to the many miles I still had to go might have overwhelmed me. In those moments, my writing practice was really helpful. I came back to noticing the details I would want to write about: the color of the light, the smells of the trails, the feeling of the cold water in the rivers that we crossed.”
Ready to give writing a shot to find your own focus? Use the five prompts below to get started. Try writing each prompt for at least five minutes, preferably with pen and paper, somewhere comfortable and quiet.
- I run...
- Let’s Stop Glorifying Grit...
- If failure wasn’t an option, I would try to...
- In front of me, I see…
- On my run, I smelled, heard, and tasted...
2. Set Goals
A 2015 study from Dominican University of California found that professionals who wrote down their goals and shared updates on those goals with a friend had higher rates of success than those who didn’t. For runners who want to set seasonal benchmarks, this is a great excuse to reflect on what it is you hope to achieve with running and beyond.
What is a big goal you dream about but haven’t said aloud? How would you like to feel as a runner? What are potential obstacles? What is most important to you? Set aside at least 15 to 30 minutes to write out answers to these questions and brainstorm your goals. Let your responses marinate; go for a run or take a day before reading what you wrote. Then, keep these tips from the Believe Training Journal in mind as you chose which goals to set:
- How to Master the 5K. Whereas outcome goals are often dictated by other people, weather, or unforeseeable factors, process goals focus on the effort you put in.
- Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. Feel free to scribble down all of your deepest desires, but then start small and take it one step at a time.
- Declare what you want. Be clear on what you’re going after, not what you don’t want.
- Share them. Tell someone—a friend, family member, run buddy, your whole social media following—who will hold you accountable in a supportive way.
3. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Keeping a training log serves multiple purposes. First, as Fleshman and McGettigan-Dumas write, “It is a powerful tool for momentum-building and accountability.” For Fairchild, logging training is “like an extended ‘cooldown,’ the very last part where I process the ideas, insights, or questions which came up during the run.”
Second, a training log is a historical record of the good, bad, and ugly. Keeping track of distance, pace, weekly mileage, terrain, cross-training, and/or any lifestyle factors that influence athletic performance (stress, sleep, nutrition, hydration, physical therapy and massage, new shoes, etc.) creates a reference for what works and what doesn’t.
At a minimum, training logs generally include the numbers (miles, pace, time) for a given day. Whether your preference is to record the basics or the kitchen sink, it can be helpful to also add a rating of how a run felt, perhaps with a word (“Awesome!”) or even a smiley (or frowning) face. Sure, there are plenty of apps that can help you do this now, but you might find the old fashion way is even more relaxing or beneficial.
Why Runners Botch Pace on New Race Distances The Morning Shakeout podcast and newsletter, uses writing to communicate with his athletes and as an athlete himself to dig deeper into a result. “After a race, tough workout, triumph, or disappointment, I like to ask myself a series of simple questions—e.g. What happened? Why did it happen? How did you feel? What did you learn from it? Would you do anything differently? etc.—to better understand what I just experienced and how I can learn from it,” he says. He’ll write his answers down, and encourages other runners to do the same. “It gets you to think about things on a deeper level, which when done consistently, can help make you a better athlete,” he adds.
As a coach and writer herself, Fleshman knows that writing can be a very personal practice. “It may light a fire that goes out but changes the landscape; it may light a fire that keeps burning. It's a personal choice, and no choice is final,” she says. “That's the thing: Writing and running are always there, and as you grow and change, they will be there for you when and how you want them.”
