The Second Leg of Your Running Journey: Discipline

This is the third part of our series looking at the book Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice by Belden C. Lane. Today, we’re taking up the second leg of the journey where he discusses discipline. Check out the previous posts if you want to get caught up on the intro and the first leg: Departure!

The journey begins with a moment of excitement that gets everything started, and by the time we make it to the second leg of the journey, that newness has worn off. We come to this middle place that isn’t so exciting or glamorous. This is where the running coach tells you that it may take seven to ten years of consistently running easy to reach your personal potential. This is where the thrill of early spiritual experiences gives way to the daily practices that become your response to God’s action in your life. What matters regarding running discipline on the spiritual journey? Let’s see what Lane has to say. Then I’ll offer you my reflections.

Lane on Discipline

On the second leg of the journey, Lane reminds us of the richness that comes from discipline. He discusses both the inward practices of mediation, prayer, and fasting, along with the outward practices of simplicity, solitude, and service. He also shares four gifts from his backpacking discipline.

• First, it offers him the capacity to separate from the crowd.

• Second, it offers him the ability to nurture his true self rather than his façade. He calls it “soul gathering.”

• Third, it grants him access to the mystery found at the core of our being.

• Fourth, it helps connect him with the larger, otherwise hidden community of the natural world.

He continues with a clear message that this discipline of returning to the wilderness is not an end in itself. Like any good spiritual discipline, it awakens a larger sense of responsibility to all of creation. As we enter into it more and more, it awakens within us a desire to respond. This is a step on the journey: What do we do with the gift we’ve been given? What fruit does it bear? More on that in later legs of the journey.

A few other notes worth including here in the discussion of wilderness spirituality: Less is more. Less expectation or focus on the past allows for more staying in the present moment. Less equipment allows the journey to feel lighter. Less gadgets allow us to receive those four gifts he mentioned above. And in what I’ve over-simplified for this post, Lane would describe wilderness spirituality as welcoming solitude, traveling light, and pursuing mindfulness. The journey is the destination, so keep returning to the present moment because “the kingdom of God is among you.”

Running and Discipline

When coaches discuss discipline in running, it often comes down to consistency. I have no judgement for anyone who isn’t consistent in their running. It’s totally up to them and their journey, but when they find themselves on this second leg, we often talk about progressing towards getting out the door five or six days a week. That leads to discussions of putting together injury-free training blocks, but that can be interrupted in numerous ways. That’s where consistency in listening to your body and consistency in learning best practices comes in.

Consider a few examples. If you increase your distance, intensity, or vertical gain too quickly, you will likely find a limit where you either lose the motivation to run because you are so fatigued, or you will develop an injury. That is the most common problem for newer runners. Next, I hear some stories about successful runners not lifting weights, but I think that is the exception that proves the need for consistency in strength training. Another facet of consistency has to do with food and drink. Both consistently living at an energy/electrolyte/hydration deficit along with under-fueling your long runs will interrupt your running discipline.

At Pilgrim Endurance, we’re opening space to embody your spirituality, to engage the spiritual and emotional elements of running. Running may take different roles in your life as the years go on, and maybe you’ve already seen that in your past. Your body isn’t simply a machine to fuel and maintain. You aren’t simply a machine. There are an untold number of factors that affect you running consistently, and volume increase, strength training, and diet are only three.

So how do we develop consistency in running discipline?

I often discuss consistency with runners around the image of stoking the fire and maintaining that stoke. In my first meeting with every athlete, I open up space for them to explore why they run and what that has to do with how they are responding to God’s action in their lives. Then we discuss how to celebrate their why and what God is up to. That can look like goal events or races or anything else they can imagine. Often those conversations bring up the gifts they receive from running, and those are exactly what help them begin to develop consistency in running discipline. It’s a relationship, and the stoke we feel shows up in numerous ways to help build consistency.

Let’s look to Lane’s four gifts from backpacking, and relate those to running. First, running can give us space to separate from the crowd. We have time and space to encounter ourselves out there. You can explore yourself while running in ways you can’t while in the midst of your people. It’s worth listening to yourself and what you’re becoming aware of while you run.

Second, running can be an opportunity to nurture your true self. So you meet true parts of yourself out on your run or in relation to your running discipline, and it gives you the opportunity to nurture yourself. When you feel big pain on a run one day, you can nurture yourself by taking up to three days off without any worry of lost fitness. Or maybe you notice a desire in yourself to have more chances to play, so you take that attitude into your runs.

Third, running can grant you access to the mystery at the core of your being. “Wow! What a promise, Chris!” I wish I could offer a few sentences here that could adequately unpack that. I welcome your questions on this gift, but for now, I’ll say that I understand mystery to be something that could be explored infinitely. I believe that there will be no end to your exploring the core of your being and that the fruits of that journey are surely without end too. Running can lend access to those fruits.

Fourth, running helps connect you with the larger, otherwise hidden community of the natural world. It looks like tuning into the network of mycelium under your feet or the first green of spring. It looks like noticing how the seasons change your typical running path or a growing curiosity to learn more about the landscapes you enjoy. These take time and consistency to encounter. On this second leg of the journey, these four gifts take us only so far. It is your ever developing response to the question, “Why do you run?” that will bring you through the next leg: descent.

Consistency and Purpose

I’ll close with a note on purpose in running. Many races were canceled because of the pandemic, and I could hear a rising tide of people questioning their purpose in running. They said that it’s just selfish and that it doesn’t actually do good for the world. This is not true. One of the catalysts that brought Pilgrim Endurance into being was this need, exposed by the pandemic, for clarifying purpose in one’s running discipline. Plenty of people found that their purpose, their “why,” wasn’t good enough to keep them running, to maintain the stoke. I’m not here to say everyone has to run or even that you have to keep running. We maintain our disciplines because of the “why” behind them. Anything worth doing will include its challenges, but maintaining connection to your purpose will be the strongest factor for persevering.

“Nevertheless, she persisted.”

Responsibility, Respond-ability

More than staying connected to your purpose as it changes over the years, you will notice that running will awaken in you a sense of responsibility. Like any good spiritual discipline, it awakens a larger sense of responsibility to all of creation. As we enter into it more and more, it awakens within us a desire to respond, to respond to the gifts we’ve been given. It could be anything. These experiences motivate us to advocate for better air quality or restoring rivers for salmon runs. Running opens up a special space in life that gives us so much, and the overflowing of that gift gives us energy to love our neighbors, to engage in co-creating God’s Kingdom on earth, to being active in local, regional, national politics as a gift. Imagine that.

This is what Pilgrim Endurance hopes. We hope to contribute our gifts to you, to anyone who is seeking God in the wilderness, as part of our discipline stoked by our inner flame to expand wilderness spirituality. So welcome solitude, travel light, and pursue mindfulness. We’ll be a companion on your journey when the next leg comes. Ours is inevitably a path of descent.