How Having No Expectations Made Me a Happier Runner

Last week, I ran a half marathon in the middle of the summer and had one rule — no expectations.

I am training to run a 2:25 marathon in the fall, but in the past, having lofty expectations has made me very unhappy when I don’t run the times I want. I have done this while working as a special education teacher for several years, going to law school at night, and working as an attorney in big law. I have many excuses to not run much or not run fast, but I still hold myself to lofty standards because it is how I have operated since I started running at 12 years old.

One night, I found a local half marathon that cost about $25, so it was much cheaper than most. My personal record is a 73:51 in the half marathon, and I believe myself to be better than that.

From the website of the race, I learned it was slow. I learned it was incredibly hilly. I learned that some years, it is incredibly humid. This made sense for a race that took place in the middle of the summer. I looked at the times of the race historically and they were slow — local runners better than me struggled to run times I knew they could usually run easily on a hard workout.

Thus, I was not coming into this race to run a personal best. I was just coming in to do a harder long run. I would have been happy as long as I worked hard, so it was nice not to have that pressure on myself and have no expectations.

When I actually got to the race, I chatted with a few other runners who have run it in the past. They confirmed my suspicions that the race was hilly and slow, and that I needed to pace it slowly and carefully. I figured I would just compete and have fun.

Despite expecting nothing, it ended up going very well. The course was what it was with almost 1000 feet of gain, and the combined heat and humidity still had the dew point around 60, which means the conditions were not great but not horrible.

It wasn’t what happened but how it happened — I did not force anything and just let the race come, and finished strong. I ran 5:44 mile pace for a half marathon, all while having no expectations.

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Screenshot from the author on the Montgomery County Road Runners Club website

When the race started, I started running with another runner who has beaten me about a half dozen times and who I know to be one of the best runners in the region. I usually just try to keep up with him as long as I can before calibrating the race more to my fitness. However, on this day, he was having an absolutely great day and I went out much faster than I intended.

I have made a habit of not looking at my watch much during my runs so I’m not counting down the minutes until the run ends. Also, I sometimes get too in my head about how fast I’m going. I did not look at my watch until I hit the mile mark.

It was a 5:17 first mile. I knew I had to slow down because I knew I was not going to maintain 5:17 mile pace for the rest of the run. Another runner and I slowed it down a bit from there, but not by much.

In the next couple of miles, I made a conscious effort to slow down given how fast we went out. We still ran miles 2–3 in the 5:20s and 30s, and while we ran together, he was going faster than I wanted to go at that point. I eased my effort a bit and the second place runner dropped me. I knew that on a humid day and hilly course, I needed to save energy for later.

While this other runner gapped me, I kept him in striking distance. Because I could still see him and he was still within 30 or 40 meters, I had a big psychological benefit from chasing this runner while running my own race. I kept running hard on miles 4–6, but I was going at a more sustainable pace than before, and we navigated a turnaround prior to hitting big hills.

On mile 7, we went uphill. I caught up to and passed the runner in second place, then never looked back from there, literally and figuratively. I did not exactly feel amazing, but I had paced the race well and saved energy. We were in the second half of the race, and I just focused on getting to the next checkpoint and not checking my watch until we hit an hour or so. I saw the other runners behind me when we hit a turnaround, and saw I had built a gap, and I felt good enough that I didn’t think anyone would catch me at that point as Iran on an island to the finish.

After the turnaround, we ran downhill. l. I felt amazing — I was running 5:30s, and when I checked my watch, I saw that I was running much faster than I thought I really could on that day. I was on pace to run in the 74-minute range on a very difficult course and hard day and was on a roll.

I felt so great I could keep encouraging runners I was passing going the other way and thanking race volunteers. On races where I’m really working and not feeling good at this point, which are many, I have zero energy to say anything to other runners and the race volunteers.

The downhill would end, but I still felt alright on mile 11. But then mile 12 came, and I stared up this massive hill that was about 200 feet of climbing. It may not have been as bad at miles 1 or 2, but at mile 12, with more than 11 miles of half marathon fatigue in my legs, this hill completely stopped my momentum in its tracks. It was steep and long, and I thought it would end multiple times before I would turn a corner and see it keep going. I knew that it was likely just as difficult for all the runners behind me, but it lasted for more than half a mile, and I realized at that point I just had to finish.

Once I crested that large hill, there were still rolling hills where I was climbing to the finish. I did that, got to 13 miles, and made a turn to where the finishing area was. Once I could see the finish, I let my adrenaline take it from there. I sprinted to the finish, finishing in 75:24.

By the end of the race, my watch said I had gained almost 1000 feet.

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Screenshot from the author on Strava

Happiness is often the difference between expectations and reality, so my high and often unrealistic expectations for myself in running are the source of significant unhappiness. The same goes for my expectations for myself in my day job as a lawyer, when I don’t get as much done as I want on a given day.

On this run, I just wanted to go out there and get a harder long run in, so I went into the race with no expectations and would have been happy with anything, as long as I controlled my inputs and worked hard.

The problem with expectations, sometimes, is they often tie happiness to something outside my control. The weather, conditions, and elevation can be horrible, but there was a time I always thought it was a bad race if I did not run a personal best.

I am working on decoupling my performance from my identity when it comes to a bad time. A bad race or workout does not erase everything I’ve done up to this point, and detaching from the outcome is a lot easier said than done. The important part is giving effort and trying, and I don’t always embrace that message if my expectations are super high.

In July, I ran about 430 miles, more than I ever have in a month. A lot of this was on the back of a 120 mile week. It took a long time to build up to this type of mileage. I’ve been very happy with the process of trying to run a 2:25 marathon, even if that ultimately doesn’t happen. I know I can stack on this journey for a later training cycle and will likely improve nonetheless, so I am happy about the process even if the outcome does not come.

There is a certain part of me that feels like high expectations are a curse, not only in happiness, but in actual outcomes. I think they can be a form of jinxing a bad outcome. It could be a valid observation — nerves and cortisol get high with too much adrenaline and anxiety and can negatively impact performance. But I think there are other considerations, like just getting too greedy and not having enough solace and gratitude for what we have.

Running is supposed to be fun for the vast majority of us who are not professional athletes. While it is true that running is supposed to be for fun, I don’t think that quite captures it. Anyone who runs knows it is not always fun, and there are workouts or races that can be quite painful. There are plenty of runs that generally do not feel good.

However, I would say running is still fulfilling. It brings meaning. For those of us with a more spiritual orientation, running does sometimes have an existential feeling of transcendence. It’s transcending my limits of how much I have run before, how fast I’ve run before. It’s often transcending the monotony of my white collar job to a more active and endorphin-inducing activity.

And expectations, for me, have always dampened that feeling of transcendence. I recall that some of the best races in my life have come when I have not expected much. These races often came when I just stumbled upon a super fast pace by accident and just held that pace.

During my junior year of high school, I randomly ran a 16:13 5k in a charity 5k where it was pouring rain, finishing 25 seconds ahead of my next teammate. Several of these teammates were outperforming me in track season, but it said quite a lot at the time that I completely broke out and dominated in a race that did not matter.

It meant a lot that the race did not matter and had zero stakes in defining my identity as a runner. I could have run 17:30 and not thought twice about it because it did not matter, but I went in a lot less stressed and at ease and I do think, on that day, my performance benefited greatly from that lack of expectations.

Let me be clear — I ran that pace in that high school 5k because my coach had us training hard, and I have been averaging 100 mile weeks to be able to run this recent half marathon.

But for so many of us runners who default to caring and wanting it too much — I think we can take away some of that message. It’s just running. In the grand scheme of things, we work hard and we derive meaning and purpose, but it’s just running. So much of it does not matter. And once I internalize that message, I can run with a lot more freedom, purpose, and above all, happiness.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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