Meditation during endurance events
This is something that has been on my mind for some time now so I thought I'd bring it to the team.
There is a lot of research about meditation and it's effect on the mind, body, heart rate, etc. Most recently the coach of the Thai boys soccer team that was trapped in the cave for two weeks credited meditation for the survival of all 12 children. (The coach happened to have studied as a monk for years prior to this incident and was a very skilled meditator.) When the children were finally rescued they were in a great mental and physical state, despite having had little to no food and water for two weeks, sleeping in a cave with no warmth, and staring an almost certain fate of death in the face.
Yes, that is an EXTREME case, but couldn't we take those same principals and use them at the end of 140.6? Or from mile 75-100 in an Ultra or mile 150 in a gran fondo? When our legs are about to fall off and our mind is in that DEEP DARK UGLY PLACE, what if we used the same techniques as these children?
I personally have a daily meditation practice that I follow, but have never explored this application.
I am interested to hear your thoughts-
Comments
I have never engaged in any formal meditation process or program. I have read about and talked with others (including my wife) who do formal, regular meditation. So take what I say in that light. My comments...
It may go without saying, but I'll say it anyway. If one is going to adopt meditation techniques during a race, it is of course best to have practiced that during training. While longer runs, rides, and race rehearsals are the obvious place to do that, I would think that EVERY workout is an opportunity to engage the mind in that fashion.
Second, those who read my posts on racing will often hear me say something to the effect, "Get your mind out of the way of your body!" After close to sixty years of racing and endurance activities, it's something which has become second nature to me. So that makes me a firm believer that training your mind to help it get out of the way is a key part of athletic success. There are MANY examples of athletes who explicitly or implicitly do this. E.g., whenever you hear someone talk about being "in flow" or "in the zone"; or when Jens Voigt says "Shut up, legs!", they are in essence practicing mindfulness or meditation techniques.
Now, for me personally (this might not be the approach others will take), I think part of what I'm doing is mental ju-jitsu. Meaning: I do not believe in suffering, in the sense that I don't use that language. I feel myself turning the sensation of "hurt" or "agony" into a feeling of personal power: the fact that I am able to keep going is not a conquest of mind over suffering, but of recognizing the power my body has to keep going when my mind is trying to create reasons ("suffering") to stop. As an example, I do not call the place where I bike on the trainer in the winter a "Pain Cave". It is my "Power Penthouse".
@Al Truscott
Al- to your point in your first paragraph, Meditation is a practice in itself. Someone can not just show up and meditate. At least not the meditation I (and probably your wife) am talking about. I have recently engaged in a meditation while "taking a walk" which really made me think of this.
Secondly, you have close to 10X my years of experience in endurance, so I take your suggestions to heart. However I think (not sure yet) that the approach would be to not get out of your head, but just the opposite. Get deep into your mind and let the body just go. (Maybe we are saying the same thing). The meditation that I practice is not sit, relax and empty your mind and listen to "tibetan bells" but to actively focus single pointedly.
To another point, when people are "in the zone", I don't think that they need meditation or that it is a form of meditation at all. I call that Things are cruising along. I am talking more about when the wheels are going to fall off and you are hurting. Meditating on some virtue, not thinking about the pain, may do the trick. Jens Voigt saying "Shut up, legs!" (brilliant by the way), I am not sure is as much meditation as it is "I acknowledge the pain".
"the fact that I am able to keep going is not a conquest of mind over suffering," - what if it could be?
I don't know to be honest. This may be a dumb to to think about and not at all applicable to endurance racing. My meditation practice has benefitted me in many parts of my life, so wanted to explore if it could do the same here. Maybe the is No.
Thanks for your insight- always a pleasure to read the thoughts of the wise and experienced.
Really great topic, and I would love to hear from other members who practice meditation regularly about how it might be applied in situ.
Some initial thoughts or wonderings are about the act of mindfulness versus dissociative strategies in endurance events. The research shows that experienced athletes exercise the former while novice athletes exercise the latter in endurance tests/events, and I believe its something that we necessarily bake in while we're on the road to training, and then on that road week after week, month after month, year after year: we get much more attuned to our bodies and the signals that it is sending us, and this attenuation becomes almost a default state of mindfulness or meditation.
The question also has me wondering about being in a meditative state, on one hand, during an event (which probably has a bunch of good benefits), versus or against the role of optimal arousal that is required to get the fight or flight response working at its best. Do those to forces work against each other? Can they operate in concert? For example, I personally go through a few exercises to increase mental arousal before certain key, time-limited training sessions, hoping that where the mind goes, they body will follow (think Eminem "Lose Yourself.") But on a race day, and particularly 95% of an IM, I'm in a much much less aroused mental state (think "Peaceful Easy Feeling"). I think the second is better suited to executing a long day and not making aggressive race mistakes, but the first is critical if I want to catch bibs and make things happen starting at mile 18. So the question starts to become "how can I regulate the meditative state for the demands of the situation?"
Anyhow ... some precaffine musings. Glad you raised this and again, i'll be really interested to hear others, whether they engage in some kind of mindfulness exercise, or not.
@Dave Tallo
"week after week, month after month, year after year: we get much more attuned to our bodies and the signals that it is sending us, and this attenuation becomes almost a default state of mindfulness or meditation." -I never thought of it this way. Through traditional meditation practice (from a Buddhist perspective), the point of the meditation is to get familiar with a "virtue" or "state of mind", so you can recall that virtue when needed. We are indeed doing the same during training.
I agree 100% that gangster rap is a necessity when you need that umph and are trying to "grab bibs" at mile 18.
*Off topic, but in the interest of full disclosure, I believe Eminem is a genius!! There I said it.
Meditation vs Optimal arousal- I think you want to use both strategies at different points of a race depending on where your head is.