Choosing Experience over Performance

Coach Mallory here! Excited to be sharing my first ever mindRunner blog post!

This past July through October, I had the honor of coaching 19 women from the Bay Area, and supporting the training plans of 12 women from LA through a partnership between Renegade Running and Hoka to bring more women - particularly women of color or from other underrepresented groups - into the world of trail and ultrarunning. Along with selected Community Managers, we worked to support the cohort of women to be prepared to run one of the distances at Kodiak by UTMB races.

I've written a lot on my Instagram page about this experience, and the experience has definitely clarified a lot for me my goals, passions, and interests as a coach and beyond - it has inspired several upcoming projects and dreams coming to life. Hoka and Renegade basically gave me and a couple other leaders free reign to bring our passions for running and other topics together in a way that could bring to life the world of trail and ultrarunning for the cohort of women. Some of the things we did included mindfulness trainings, nutrition and strength workshops, an advocacy training, arts and crafts, and film screenings and artist panels with Rising Hearts to learn more about how indigenous sovereignty, advocacy, and trail running intersect.

The night before our race, one of the Bay Area Community Managers and I were invited by the project lead to host a brief pre-race mindfulness session for the women. I had an idea of what I wanted the women to walk away from that session feeling. I wanted them to feel strong and confident, with a deep sense of belonging - to one another, to themselves, to the trail. How do I express to them that they are more than a single race? How do I help them see that a race outcome is nothing compared to a deeper experience with oneself, with others, and with the trail?

A week before, during one of my last shakeout runs, I left myself a voice note, because as is so often the case, my mind felt light and free on the run and all the ideas were coming to me all at once about how to convey these feelings and thoughts to the runners.

Below, I will share the script of the portion of the mindfulness session that I led. If you're reading this, and the words resonate with you, keep them - they're meant for you, too. If you needed to hear this today, I hope you know that I mean it. I hope you give yourself permission to choose experience over needing to perform a certain way. If you let yourself lead by experience, performance will follow.

Take a moment to get settled and comfortable in your seat - feel your feet or bottom on the floor. Put your spine in a line - alert but gentle. You can gently lay your hands in your lap. Allow your heart to angle toward the sky. If it feels comfortable, close your eyes. If not, feel free to gently look downward to your lap.

Grounding into your breath, or the feeling of your body against the floor or chair, take a moment to notice what emotions are showing up for you right now, heading into race day.

Maybe it’s joy, peace, happiness, excitement. But maybe there’s also some nerves or anxiety or uncertainty about how tomorrow will go. I just want to tell you that all these feelings are normal, and they are not who you are. We can view them as guests. We say hello, we say thank you, and we can watch them come and go like clouds floating by in the sky. 

And of course somehow I’m going to make this about capitalism. We know that capitalism thrives on output, productivity, efficiency, and performance. and a lot of us experience fear, nerves, and anxiety when the focus is performance. So in this moment, I’m going to invite you to try and drop the need to perform. Breathe it out of your body. 

And see what it feels like instead to prioritize wanting to experience. What does it feel like to trade needing to perform, with wanting to experience? 

And try it on for size. Try breathing into it. What happens when we replace performance with experience? In our bodies? In our hearts? 

Oftentimes, fear and the nerves and the anxiety about racing is about outcome, hanging our hat on an outcome tied to performance. But most of the time, we only have so much control over that. What we do have control over is our ability to be present for an experience, and respond to that experience. Keep breathing. Don’t forget to breathe. 

A lot of us spend our whole lives seeking the feeling of achievement that comes through performance, productivity, et cetera, et cetera, all those things. We're rewarded when we push ourselves harder when our body is screaming at us to relax, you know? Go to work when you're sick or, you know, say yes to that obligation when really you want to rest. And again, all that's tried to reward through performance. 

But take a moment to think about what it would feel like to be enough? Already. On the start line. Without needing to do anything between the start and finish line to prove that you're enough. Or that you did enough. What would it be like to know deep in your bones before you even hear the gun go off? That you are already enough. 

So as we start to wrap up this portion of our sit, I’m going to remind you that you’re enough. You’re always enough and you are loved. No matter what happens tomorrow.