My review of The Running Mind (World Publications) by Jim Lilliefors appeared in the May 12, 1979 edition of On The Run. – JDW
A coach – football, of course – once told his team that “the game is fifty (50) percent physical and sixty (60) percent mental.” It is yet to be determined if that potbellied preacher of pigskin parables was a master of subtle emphasis or simply a poor mathematician. If we presume the former, the point of The Running Mind is obvious. Runners and their literature have been preoccupied too long with the physiological side of the sport. It is time to give at least equal concern to the mental, emotional, even spiritual, aspects of running.
How many of you would pay $10, $50, $100, even one thousand dollars or more to run faster, to improve, to set new personal records?
You can all lower your hands, because – chances are – you can improve for just $3.95. Sure, that smacks of major hype, but if it is hype, it is justified. The Running Mind has its flaws: profligate with typographical errors and often uneven, repetitive and obtuse. Even boring at times.
Yet a number of the chapters are so worthwhile for any runner that most objections are immediately overshadowed.
Jim Lilliefors has divided his book into three portions. The initial section – “Running and the Psyche” – deals with such matters as the psychology of running, the brain and the mind, depression and addiction, and, of course, the ubiquitous runner’s high.
The final section – “Frontiers of Running” – discusses running vis-a-vis ego, and human potential. Surely some perceive running as a personal and social panacea for the future. Here, too, we find the obligatory chapter entitled “The Running Religion.”
The middle section – “Racing and the Mind” – makes The Running Mind exceptionally interesting, and not just for competitive runners. Mind training, contrast preparation, mind pictures and psychological tactics are delineated in a comprehensible and utilitarian manner.
Mind training is the crux of The Running Mind, and Lilliefors successfully explains how this is accomplished.
“The psychological basis of the mental image is this: if a person imagines himself in a situation enough, that image becomes more realistic, tangible, and often the person becomes motivated to make it actually occur….”
“The idea is to capture a full image – not just the victory or defeat, but the succession of factors responsible for that victory or defeat.”
The idea is to read The Running Mind, because it is often motivating and frequently encouraging to all runners – from the plodder to those incredible seekers of Olympic medals.
Fred Wilt has said, “There is no thread of life as narrow as that which separates those who win from those who lose.” Jim Lilliefors has written a book that may help many runners cross that narrow thread to victory. The Running Mind is already there.
Any day I can quote Fred Wilt is a good day.
Probably a coincidence I ran my fastest marathon five months later.
I was big and I was slow – and prone to injury – but by the time this was pointed out to me, it was too late. I was already a running bum.
Fast-twitch, slow-twitch? I had NO-twitch. But what was often said – twice – about me… “He ran like he was out of his mind.”
I imagined myself having better form with a tailwind and a booster rocket on my back.
One hot half-marathon, I pulled into downtown feeling about to die, like I was shuffling, and Frank Shorter’s reflection told me I was crushing that final mile.
It ain’t pain if you don’t feel it.
Imagine that.