Hello UVRC Fam! Generally, I try not to give out unsolicited advice but it’s my month to write the Letter from a Board Member, so I am going to do exactly that! But I only try to give out advice on things that I actually have experienced or feel that I am at least competent at. That being said; I am not a guru, nor am I a life coach, or a psychologist, or an advisor. What I am is a human who is trying his best like the rest of you, and I have learned some stuff along the way that aids in that process that I will now share.

My sage wisdom for the day is; disrespect your comfort zone. And what I mean by that is tell that little voice or gut instinct in your head that says “don’t do that, you might fail” or “you can’t do that, you’ll look silly”, or the worst “don’t do that, you’re not good enough.” Yeah, that voice. You know the one. Tell that voice that is trying to keep you in your comfort zone to disrespectfully eat dirt, and then do the thing it told you you couldn’t, shouldn’t, or don’t want to do. This of course does not work for all cases and scenarios, but when it comes to 80% of our common insecurities involving athleticism and social displays of athleticism, the advice holds. And I say this because when it comes to running (and other activities of course) your comfort zone is usually holding you back.

Now don’t get me wrong, what we refer to as our comfort zone is a complex thought process based on learned and perceived experiences that were made by your brain to keep you safe. There are many many scenarios where you should absolutely stay in your comfort zone for safety. However for everything else, considering we are far removed from our hunter-gatherer survival days when death was likely and survival was not, we’ve relegated our comfort zone to less life or death scenarios like letting it talk us out of meeting new people, or trying to run further or faster, or really doing anything where failure is an outcome. Not to get on a soap box but it feels like in our society failure is treated as this concept to be avoided at all costs (it shouldn’t be), that it is a stain on the record of our humanity (it isn’t), and that somehow it equates to our worth (it doesn’t).

But the thing is, failure is always a possible outcome. Everything and everyone fails all the dang time. It isn’t efficient, but it is the very natural way by which we learn. And also in the grand scheme of things for most of us the consequence for our failure when we step outside of our comfort zone is a few minutes of humiliation or perhaps a story that gets brought up at social gatherings. Because, and this is some of the greatest social advice I’ve ever heard that has helped me get past my own anxieties and that is “No one cares about you as much as you think they do”. And I don’t say that to suggest that all of humanity is dispassionate and unempathetic (because I do in fact care about you all and your well-being very much) BUT what I mean is that realistically no one has the time or energy to be clocking, remembering, or dwelling on your actions, whether they be positive or negative, for more than a few minutes because they have their own business to deal with. Especially when it comes to running; we certainly have a quorum of teamwork and compassion but apart from that most everyone is focusing on their run and not on you. Personally, I can barely be bothered to remember what I had for breakfast much less think about what someone else may or may not be doing. This is all to say, if you are staying inside your comfort zone because you worry what people might think, don’t. You are literally wasting your time thinking about a problem that doesn’t exist.

So why am I telling you all this? Well at the very least I hope someone finds this little anecdote funny as spreading humor is always my goal. But more than that, these are things I wish someone told me when I started running and my small perhaps unrealistic hope is that for some this will be a kick in the pants to do things they’ve been telling themselves they couldn’t do. Because I hear y’all. I hear some of you doubt yourself or feel too intimidated to try things like coming to the Tuesday workouts.

I get it, I was there too. Remember, I didn’t actually start running until relatively recently and before that, I was a running naysayer. I was worried that I couldn’t keep up or that I would be by myself and in the latter I think lies the issue that I think might be holding some of you back. Here’s the tea y’all; if everyone thinks they won’t have someone to run with, and they don’t go, then it becomes true because there is no one. However, if we all do the opposite, and you take a step out of your comfort zone and take a risk, then there’ll be plenty of people there and the odds are dang good you’ll find someone!

Y’all there are over 300 members in our club. It is almost a statistical certainty given the range of paces that a human can achieve, that there is at least 1 other person you can run with. But you have to show up. We can reserve the track, we can coach you, we can make races and workouts, but only you can make yourself show up. Only you can set your anxieties or whatever is holding you back aside and show up. Or support your friends and have them show up with you (we love when people bring their friends to running club!). My little dream is that one day we have so many people come to our workouts that Tim has to reluctantly say “There are too many of us for introductions so let’s just get started!”. And I believe in you, not from a place of naïve optimism but rather it is factually accurate that if you have the time and the means, you can show up and run. Whether you can run 2 minutes faster than your regular pace at the drop of a hat is a whole different story (but one we can help you with!). Which is to say, show up, but set yourself up for success by being realistic with your goals. And I believe that if you show up, you can find community, and you can enjoy running. Don’t be intimidated by the speedy folk or the workouts, because in the former case, they’re just like you, they came to run and have fun and then go back to their lives, they aren’t there to judge you (and they wouldn’t anyway, because I have personally found that everyone in our club is unilaterally a nice person). And in the latter, the workouts are there to help you, they are not commandments though, just a guideline. We don’t care how fast, how slow, or how you run, just run. And don’t give me any of that “I’m not fast enough to be a called runner” nonsense. Stop doing that to yourself. Runners run, if YOU are expending enough energy to get your body moving faster than you normally walk, you are running and you are a runner. We gain nothing as a community by dividing ourselves into who qualifies as runner and as long as I am Captain this ship I shan’t have any division on who is and isn’t a runner. Whoops, how did I get back on this soapbox? Well anyway, while I’m here let me just finish by again inviting you, all of you no matter where you’re at in your running, to step out of your comfort zone and give stuff a try. Disrespect your comfort zone and surprise yourself by doing things you thought you couldn’t do. As hokey as it might sound, you really don’t know unless you try. And remember that I honestly and truly do believe in you (believe in you to accomplish and exceed your realistic goals, provided that you show up).