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Stoicism for runners
Running is simple, just put one foot in front of the other, slightly faster than normal. Right? Does it really need a philosophy? Maybe not, but from experience, many runners would really benefit from just that…
Whenever you train hard, for a race, to improve on a PB, or just to exercise, there is one thing that is really difficult to accept. Not everything is under your control!
There are things that you control and things that you don’t…
The prime example of this are injuries. It is the plague of running which affects over 50% of runners every year! For sure you can and should take all the precautions to avoid injury. I have myself strongly advocated for ramping-up being one of the key practices that runners should implement preventatively, but still, it’s never 100% under your control.
Accepting that there are things outside of our control is one of the most important concepts of stoicism. We’ll get back to this.
The other key concept of the philosophy is the one of values being on the contrary 100% under our control. For example:
- Courage
- Moderation
- Wisdom
Those values are defined by the fact that they will always work in your favour. They will always help you.
