Running Downhill.
"Don't get stuck in the eternal race to nowhere..."
-RF
Episode 54.
Running Downhill.
Hill repeats. 2006...Back when I had just gotten the triathlon bug and was training for every sprint- and Olympic-distance race offered locally. I ran with a friend, and on every downhill, his sneakers apparently morphed, Transformer-style, into rollerblades. He surged ahead as I efforted my quads to move faster, tensing every muscle fiber with the curdling sensation of slamming the brakes on each downhill stride.
He was barely winded as I reached him for our U-turn and the uphill somehow seemed a welcome task. I revved my cadence to keep pace with him once again.
“What the heck?” I finally spurted, after the third iteration of this cat-mouse pursuit.
“Capitalize on the downhill. Close the gap on the downhill. Open it up on the downhill. Use the downhill.” He said nonchalantly. “It takes some trust in letting go of the effort. Let your arms be weightless, lean forward, allow your legs to spin, as if you are pedaling a bike downhill- no resistance; no bracing; no braking. Drop the efforting.”
“Efforting, huh?” I considered aloud, clinging to the verb-form of this word. “Ok, I will try less ‘efforting’.” I added with a smirky smile, both of us keenly aware that I was one to put forth MORE exertion, never to back off the effort or grit.
We kept at the hills- not just that day, but all week; and I kept pounding my Asics into the pavement, utilizing my strength and exerting force with each step. It was a principle deeply ingrained in me- push harder to go further and faster. But as I muscled with more intensity, he kept passing me with ease.
But one of those days, I conceded to the form of release. I mirrored his fluidity and dropped my resistance; I let my chest pitch forward and my legs move without gripping; and I finally got it. I somehow trusted in this loosening, opening, surrendering during my downhills.
Muscle memory.
2021. Running. Not doing hill repeats. Not training for a race. Not running to get ahead. Just running. This time, my downhill was at the end of a run next to a different friend; a downhill that I have run hundreds of times, but for some reason had not “unleashed” the strategy of non-efforting that had been harnessed 15-years ago.
This day I did. Muscle memory was on my side and I opened a gap of 20 feet in mere seconds. I didn’t try. I actually just let go.
It was an immediate rush. Not because I felt “fast”, but because I felt LIGHT. My body and mind had an immediate and poignant recall of "not efforting".
I was able to run faster, to gain speed, to be more effective; not when I tried harder, but when I trusted to let go and unclench. I had to trust my physical body to relax and be at ease. I had to trust my mind to open. I had to trust myself to fall forward with each footstep, instead of bracing myself with a grasping catch, which tensed my muscles and created impact, slowing my pace. This seems like technical run-speak, but how relevant to so many of our life’s moments. Release instead of grasp; ease instead of tension; allow instead of restrict; trust the fall instead of brace for the impact.
You don’t have to be a runner to experience this…we actually walk by falling. In between each step, we literally fall and then catch ourselves. It is a momentary collapse, and then a recovery. We endorse this continual plummet with acceptance, because it does not threaten to break us. It is merely a subtle transition to get us to the next step, and ultimately in the direction to where we are going. What if we could expand and extend this acceptance of falling into transition, to the not-so-subtle falls in life. What if surrendering to a fall, allowed for greatness to emerge. What if we dropped the resistance and allowed for an effortless downhill.
How much effort and strain do we put forth, in attempts to be stronger or faster or better? How much do we struggle and grasp our way through moments, days, tasks, activities, jobs? How much automatic, autopilot tension and resistance do we hold in our bodies, our minds, our hearts? How much lighter could we be with a little less resistance?
Trust. Lighten. Ease. Release.
Run downhill.
In life.
For life.
Love, Jessica
"To be at ease is better than to be at business. Nothing really belongs to us but time, which you have even if you have nothing else."
-Baltasar Gracian
"Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness. Let go. Let Be. See through everything and be free, complete, luminous, at home - at ease."
-Surya Das“When your real, effortless, joyful grateful nature is realized, it will not be inconsistent with the ordinary activities of life.”
-Ramana Maharshi"When I'm running fast, I don't feel anything, it's effortless, it's like my feet don't even touch the ground, it's like I'm flying."
-Evelyn Ashford
Do it all with Love. Nothing is promised. But everything is workable.
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