Saucony 2009 - Molly Huddle

I’ve been thinking a lot about fear the last few days. Surprisingly, it was sparked by an article I read in one of the pile of mostly trashy magazines I brought on the odyssey of a plane ride home from Eugene last week. As entertaining as they are, normally I don’t come away from reading Us Weekly or Star with a realization any deeper than “man Paula Abdul is ALWAYS on that embarrassing outfits page in the back”- but this was an Oprah approved article so it was pretty insightful. The article was about how sometimes people use a fear of failure as a subconscious motivation to self-sabotage themselves just to end the anxiety of worrying about failing. I know it sounds convoluted and makes no sense, but naturally I tried applying the idea to racing. I was familiar with the Nelson Mandella quote about not fearing greatness, and the idea that fearing the new expectations and the power that come with success may subconsciously hold someone back, but this was an interesting new angle on the idea of fear getting in the way of someone accomplishing her dreams.

I’ve lined up at five US championships now. Sometimes the goal is just to gain experience, sometimes to hang in there as long as I can and sometimes it’s to qualify for a team and over the years I have definitely felt the pressure increasing along with the size of the aspirations. Maybe this last goal is a tall order, because there are some truly great women in the U.S. distance arena, but I have not yet made an Olympic or World Championship team. Somewhere between 2004 and 2008 I decided I am not afraid to take on the high expectations and pressures of representing the US at a championship meet, so on a small scale I faced the possibility of ‘fearing greatness’ and I don’t think I have that fear (now I just need to work on the greatness part, ha). I can’t stop thinking about the other kind of fear, though. Although it requires some typically taboo negative thinking, maybe I need to face the fear of NOT making a team and all the results of that. For example: maybe my value as a runner decreases, maybe when all is said and done my career won’t be as bright, maybe I’ll have to watch the stupid thing on TV again, etc. Anyone who has raced before knows that there are times when anxiety can creep into your mind in the few hours before a big race, so I think it is possible that a runner might drop out, or blow up to escape that feeling, as the article implies. It would make sense then that facing the fear by acknowledging the worst of the worst scenarios and how you’d deal with them might make them less of a big deal. Personally, I’m not sure how true the whole phenomenon is because for me most fears and doubts feel like they float away with the gun smoke, but the subconscious is a tricky bastard after all, and at the least it’s an interesting idea. As for this year’s USATF championship, I can’t say fear had anything to do with it. Though I’d say I made a mistake in not being more aggressive, it was mostly the cut and dry excuse of being injured and unfit for too long.

Regardless of what the complicated workings of fear are, I’m going to make a conscious effort to have less of it. To be more brave. More courageous. At least when the spikes are on. I’ll still need my nightlight in the bathroom….