By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

In a recent phone conversation with a runner I train, she expressed concern about two consecutive bad runs she had just experienced. She had an important race coming up in a few days, though not a goal race. She began to freak out a little bit, thinking she may not be ready, or she may fail, or she just wasn’t a good runner.

I told her that these things happen to everyone. That they are an inherent part of running. When you have good days, the bad days are around the corner. Just as when you feel on top of the world but then you feel underprepared and crappy when it counts. It is part of the process, one from which you should learn, so you can keep them at bay.

One of your running dreams will eventually come to die in porta potty (Photo Pexels)

Keep running and it will happen. “What will happen?”, you ask: Everything! Both the good and the bad.

One or more of these dreadful things happening, even simultaneously, doesn’t mean you are finished as a runner, or that your race is doomed. Just as one or more great achievements don’t mean you’ve made it. It only means you are travelling through one of the typical high-and-low cycles of life, which also reflects itself in your running.

40+ years in running have taught me that if it hasn’t happened yet, it is only because you haven’t run enough. Keep running and it will happen. Guaranteed.

The Bad:

• You will fall. Hopefully, you won’t break a bone, but you will fall.

• You will underperform in a race, just when you thought you’re PR was in the bag.

• You will crap/pee in your pants.

• You will twist an ankle. How bad, that’s another conversation, but it will happen.

• You will have a close call with a car. Hopefully, it won’t go beyond that.

• You will have a close encounter with an angry dog. Be prepared.

• You will have to stop a run far from your finishing point and require help getting back.

• You will eat something that unsettles your stomach and spend a pre-long-run night throwing up or sitting on the throne.

• You will have a bad night of sleep, or two, or three; just before your goal race.

• You will experience uncooperating weather during your key training run or goal race.

• You will miss an important run because life just got in the way.

If any of these hasn’t happened yet, just keep running.

Remember: Experience is what we get when we don’t obtain what we originally set out for. Make sure you take advantage of the inevitable and learn a lesson, so you minimize the chances of it happening again.

Good things you haven’t experienced will happen if you keep running. Here is a small sample of them.

One day your battery will die and you will need help getting back to the start. (Photo Pexels)

The Good:

• You will experience an unexpected PR on a race when you thought it wasn’t even a possibility.

• You will overcome obstacles to realize you are stronger than you thought.

• You will reap the rewards of having embraced the lesson from a previous failure.-

• You will find the assistance from a running angel at the perfect time, or even better, you will be that angel for a runner in need.

• You will run farther and longer than you once thought possible.

• You will inspire someone who didn’t know he/she was a runner to fall in love with the sport.

• You will become friends with people you couldn’t believe you had much in common.

• You will find some of the best friendships of your life by hanging out with likeminded people.

• You will surprise yourself and your doctor with the results of your annual physical.

If any of these hasn’t happened yet, just keep running.

Anything you may want to ad to these lists? Let me know in the box below.