It’s 75 and sunny on a gorgeous day in Florida and the only thoughts in my head as I approach the line are “wow –its go time– holy shit, my mouth is so dry,” and then the gun goes and two Missouri freshman bolt from the outside and the race swallows me and I’m buffeted by elbows and spikes and splayed hands and a half-formed thought “what if I’m just not good enough, what if I don’t belong here?”
I think every runner at some point has had these thoughts whether it be during training, during a race, or just on a hot summer day when merely stepping outside is enough to get you sweating, much less crawling through a recovery run. In some sense, imposter syndrome is maybe to be expected in a sport where suffering is not just a means to an end but is sometimes the goal in itself (looking at you ultramarathon fanatics out there). That doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. Imposter syndrome can be tough because at times it feels like admitting you struggle with it means its true. But that isn’t the case at all. While I’m sure there may be some insanely self-confident people out there that never question themselves, that is definitely not the majority of people I know at least. And hell, even Hobbs Kessler, road mile world record holder and indoor 1500m world bronze medalist has spoken about dealing with the fears that come with racing. These fears are normal, but they can and will ruin your day if you let them.
400 meters in and the Mizzou boys have dropped a 58 while I trail them and some others in a respectable 60-61. I need to make a move because the trail pack is slowing but I’m so far inside my own head at this point that I’ve already lost the handle on the race and it will proceed from here almost on auto-pilot. It doesn’t help that some U-Miami guy is running in the second lane a meter in front of me while I’m also trapped from behind, effectively leaving me boxed in.
The first key to fighting imposter syndrome is to zoom out. Like way out. On my team, I might be the only guy who never ran at a national championship meet in high school. That’s still scary competition. When I need to remember I belong, I look at the whole world of people. On my worst day, I can still get out of bed and go for a jog. Assuming I’m not sick or injured or whatnot, but in that case, I’d say deal with the physical issue and then I’ll get back to fixing the mental side of things. This comparison will look different for different people and some may decide it doesn’t work at all. If it fails for me I like to look back at what I thought I could do five or ten years ago. In high school, I thought I’d never in my life be able to run a sub 30-minute 8k. Now I can. Progress can be a helpful reminder that you are doing well, but it’s important to remember that it isn’t always linear. That non-linearity can be mind-bogglingly annoying in the middle, but truthfully it makes the payoff when things do finally take a turn for the better even sweeter. That was not going to happen for me in Florida though.
At 800 meters I’m screwed. I learned later that I clocked in at 2:05, right where I wanted to be but what I hear is 2:08, 2:09 and I feel terrible. I’m in survival mode at this point and I drop a 66 second quarter to get back to 1200 well off pace and I barely muster a kick to make it through 1500 in 4:00.15. Five seconds slower than what I thought my fitness floor was.
Running is almost as pure of a physical sport as you can get and yet it’s still mentally even more challenging than it is physically. Your fitness might limit your top end, but the mental game can make the difference between a dream performance and one that you didn’t think could possibly go so poorly. The issue with imposter syndrome is that it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I thought I wasn’t good enough, so I wasn’t. The opposite can be true too. I remember back in high school before I knew better, I would have these delusions about what I could run. Nobody believed me, but often I went out there, white-knuckled it, and made it happen.
I miss that delusion. I spent a long year getting told I wasn’t good enough over and over and that’s stuck with me unfortunately. The truth is though, when you step out onto that track and toe the line, you’ve already proven yourself to be good enough. The beauty of running is that it doesn’t happen by accident. Whether it’s a new longest run ever, a PB on the track, or a higher mileage week that you’re celebrating, there is one thing that remains constant. It takes work. The daily grind of miles and workouts is that proof. The race is just the dessert. It’s easy to say the pressure is a privilege from the safety of my room at home but it’s also true. Pressure only exists because of the hard work you’ve already done. The next time you toe the line and wonder if you’re good enough, know: You wouldn’t be there if you weren’t.
