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Ask any serious runner and they’ll tell you that being mentally sound is vital to success in the sport. The ability to enter a flow state of mind is something that Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has devoted his entire career to understanding.
In Running Flow, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi is joined by fellow psychologist Christine Weinkauff and running journalist and coach Philip Latter. This landmark work is the first book dedicated to helping runners achieve the state of flow in competitive and training environments. You’ll find comprehensive coverage of the phenomenon, unique practice exercises that stimulate its occurrence, and firsthand accounts from elite runners about their flow experiences.
The psychological barriers associated with training and competition can be as demanding as the physical ones. Destined to become a running classic, Running Flow will open your mind not only to better performance but also to a better, healthier, and more enjoyable experience.
Part I: Essence of Flow
Chapter 1. Experiencing Flow Running
Chapter 2. Nine Components of Flow
Chapter 3. Flow Personality
Chapter 4. Why Flow Matters
Part II: Finding Flow
Chapter 5. Antecedents to Flow
Chapter 6. Flow in Everyday Running
Chapter 7. Flow Racing
Chapter 8. Flow’s Limitations
Chapter 9. Flow Beyond Running
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a bestselling author, world-renowned researcher, and one of the fathers of positive psychology. His seminal work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990), was a New York Times best seller and introduced the concept of flow to mainstream audiences. Once the head of the psychology department at the University of Chicago, Csikszentmihalyi founded the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont Graduate University. His work has influenced figures such as Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Csikszentmihalyi wrote more than 120 journal articles and book chapters and authored a dozen books related to positive psychology. He researched flow and motivation as the founder and codirector of the nonprofit Quality of Life Research Center. Csikszentmihalyi passed away in 2021.
Philip Latter is the coauthor of Faster Road Racing (Human Kinetics, 2015) with two-time Olympian Pete Pfitzinger. A former senior writer for Running Times and current contributor to Runner’s World and runnersworld.com, Latter has profiled more than a dozen Olympians and written extensively on training methodology, exercise science, and sport psychology. He regularly lectures on flow at summer running camps and has used many of the techniques described in this book with the high school, college, and post collegiate athletes he coaches.
A runner for almost two decades, Latter earned five all-conference honors at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and holds personal bests of 14:47 for 5K, 31:24 for 10K and 1:12:11 for the half marathon. A former NCAA Division I head cross country coach at Radford University, Latter coaches runners at Brevard High School in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. He lives just outside of Brevard with his wife and two daughters.
Christine Weinkauff Duranso is a professor of psychology at both Woodbury University in Burbank, California, and California State University at San Bernardino. As a PhD student at Claremont Graduate University, Weinkauff studied under the mentorship of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and focused her research on the role of flow and exercise and how they contribute to thriving. Her dissertation considered how exercise, flow, and nature strengthen resilience and enhance well-being for college students.
Weinkauff has completed races ranging from 5K to marathon distance and has ventured into the triathlon world. She enjoys speaking to various groups about the role of flow and exercise in well-being and how flow can provide the motivation to persist in new exercise endeavors. A mother of four, she lives in Claremont, California, with her three youngest children.
“The concept of flow is the best explanation for why running is so enjoyable and satisfying. Bringing the perspective of a runner and coach who has personally seen and experienced flow, Phil Latter clearly describes how flow happens and how you can use it to make all of your running better."
Jonathan Beverly-- Writer and Former Editor in Chief of Running Times
“Anyone who has experienced flow on a run wants to do so again. This fascinating book will show you how.”
Scott Douglas-- Senior Content Editor Runner's World
Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
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Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
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Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
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Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Running Flow.
Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
Learn more about Running Flow.
Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
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Learn more about Running Flow.
Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Running Flow.
Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
Learn more about Running Flow.
Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Running Flow.
Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Running Flow.
Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
Learn more about Running Flow.
Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
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Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Running Flow.
Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
Learn more about Running Flow.
Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
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Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
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Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
Learn more about Running Flow.
Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
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Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Running Flow.
Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
Learn more about Running Flow.
Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
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Learn more about Running Flow.
Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Learn more about Running Flow.
Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
Learn more about Running Flow.
Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
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Phenomenon of Flow
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile.
On the most important day of her life, Shelby Hyatt woke up unable to breathe. The 16-year-old high school junior from Bryson City, North Carolina, swept her hands all around the nightstand trying to find her rescue inhaler, but in the pitch-blackness of an unfamiliar motel room her effort proved futile. Shelby sat up in her bed and tried to remain calm, but the stuffy, stale air churning from the wall heater did her no favors. She had to get out before it became any worse.
"My chest felt really tight," she says. "I could take breaths, but I couldn't take a deep breath. I didn't panic as much as you might imagine, because I didn't want to wake my teammates up. So I just tried to be calm and collected."
Outside seemed like a whole different world. A violent rainstorm pelted the motel's roof and left the parking lot in standing water. It was snowing back in the mountains surrounding her hometown, but here in the lower elevations of the Piedmont it was just blustery and miserable. Shelby huddled against the wall and inhaled the cold, fresh air. Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. It was 5:30 a.m.
For more than a year, Shelby dreamed and prepared for the events of this very day - the state cross country championships. The year before, as a first-year runner competing in the 1A (small school) division, she had placed 11th - one spot away from All-State honors. In the ensuing year, running became her passion; running defined her as a person. That confidence translated into other areas as well. Shelby earned a seat on the homecoming court and began dating a popular classmate. Buoyed by these positive events, she appeared right on track to achieving her All-State cross country dream.
Pneumonia changed all that. For 6 weeks in the middle of what was supposed to be her defining season, Shelby gasped her way through hard and easy runs alike. Some days were decent; some left her holding back tears. A naturally quiet person, Shelby said little about how the physical symptoms were affecting her mental health. Still, the effects were obvious as the rough days outnumbered the good ones. Her teammates and coaches tried to encourage her as she put out tremendous effort with little to show for it. Doctors tried various antibiotics, inhalers, and corticosteroids, but the results were minimal. As every major race turned out a little bit worse than the one before, training was proving to be an exercise in faith.
Sitting against the motel room door, her three Swain County High School teammates asleep inside, Shelby tried not to feel sorry for herself. They still had big goals for the day, even if physically she wasn't 100 percent capable. Knowing her team supported her eased her mind but increased her worry. What if this happens again when I'm racing today? she thought. What if I can't do my best or help my team?
Eventually her breathing calmed enough to go back inside the motel room. She lay awake for several hours. Outside, it continued to rain.
A few hours later at breakfast, she told her coaches about the breathing episode, but already she was starting to downplay the event. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of team bonding and race preparation. By the time she and her teammates toed the soggy starting line, Shelby felt calm and collected. Her face portrayed no anxiety. The warm-up run had gone well. Her legs felt snappy. Most important, her lungs could take in air. Whether the panicked breathing episode was a catharsis or the calm before the storm couldn't be known, so she stopped thinking about it.
"I felt really confident, like I knew that after everything that happened things weren't looking good for me, but I felt good," she says. "That helped with the pressure. I knew I wasn't expected to do so well in the race."
The starter barked out a 1-minute warning. Shelby stood on the line next to her teammates and surveyed the wide expanse of puddles and muddy grass in front of her. Deep breath in; deep breath out. The rain had ended, but she didn't notice. Her eyes showed a steely resolve and a narrowed focus. Nothing else mattered.
BANG!
In the ensuing chaos of the muddy start, Shelby stayed wide. The leaders pushed through the mud, battling the course as much as themselves. The northern wind howled at a steady 20 miles per hour (32 kph) as they ran headlong into it. Shelby tucked in with a couple of her teammates, confident that this was the best strategy. The first 7 minutes passed in a blur of mud and runners jostling for position. At the mile (1.6 km) she was in 40thplace. Given her physical condition, it seemed wise to start at a moderate effort and continually increase the pace if possible. Her breathing remained steady and untroubled.
"After how good I felt the first mile, I decided, okay, I need to pick it up," she says. "This could go good or bad. I'm not sure. I just decided that I'd try to pick it up as much as possible and see what happens."
The next mile confirmed her suspicion. She felt better with each stride. With doubts about her breathing slipping into the background, Shelby aggressively worked her way through the field. She moved to 20th place, then 15th place, and finally crossed the 2-mile (3.2-km) mark just outside the top 10. Realizing her yearlong dream had merit, she redoubled her effort. Just ahead was her talented freshman teammate Emma. While Shelby's lungs fought through pneumonia, Emma quietly took the mantle as the team's number one runner. With clear goals in mind and no physical obstacles in the way, Shelby set out to reel her young teammate in.
The last mile of the race played out like a Hollywood script. Shelby moved into the top 10, then the top 8. With a half mile (800 m) remaining in the race, she caught Emma just as the course doglegged into an open meadow. The momentum catapulted Shelby past her teammate as her coach and spectators screamed support. Shelby was in sixth place and closing on fifth.
The girl with pneumonia - the one who had worked so hard but felt she had nothing to show for it - was now surging faster than she ever had in her life. She crested a small hill at a full-on clip, the muted late autumn sun silhouetting her against the dramatic backdrop. Charging harder and harder, Shelby passed one final opponent to move into fourth place with only 200 meters remaining. Down the final straightaway a small smile escaped her face as her focus widened and the magnitude of what was occurring settled in.
A flow experience helped Shelby Hyatt run the race of her life in the North Carolina state cross country meet.
Courtesy of Jeffrey E. Sides.
Counted out just that morning, Shelby Hyatt ran the race of her life and finished fourth at the state meet.In the process she not only achieved her All-State goal but also helped her team to a school-best third-place finish. The cherry on top was setting a personal record (PR) while running through mud puddles in a howling windstorm.
"It doesn't make sense to me, but it felt easier [than any other race]," she says. "My breathing, my body, my legs felt like they could go forever."
In the aftermath of the race, as exhausted athletes sought out their parents and coaches, Shelby got separated from her team. When she finally found her coach, they embraced in a warm hug filled with shock and surprise. As they separated, Shelby took a step back and smiled. "I think I flowed today," she said.
Phenomenon of Flow
Shelby was right. She experienced flow, a phenomenon people often call being in the zone or locked in. Few experiences in life are more memorable than flow moments; these moments make life worth living. A great benefit of flow is that this state of consciousness is available to all people who engage their passions and commit to achieving their goals.
Running is unique in that it offers opportunities to experience flow in various settings and with a high degree of frequency. Racing gives competitive athletes a structured, challenging environment to test their skills. Trail running presents technical challenges and thought-provoking scenery in an anxiety-reducing environment. Running on the beach can lull you into a meditative trance as the waves lap up on the shore. Even flat road running can be highly pleasurable if you lock in on the rhythm of a smooth stride and the wonderful sense of lightness it creates.
While this book primarily focuses on runners and their flow experiences, note that optimal experiences of this nature can occur any time you direct your full attention to a challenging task. Researchers have studied and validated the flow experiences of chess players, rock climbers, dancers, cyclists, gardeners, swimmers, writers, basketball players, and actors. Although the details vary by passion, flow's causes and feelings are universal.
In general, flow occurs when you believe you have the skills necessary to overcome a challenging situation. Your perception of time warps as your attention narrows to the task at hand. This attention is so sharply focused on the task that all extraneous thoughts and anxieties disappear. Clear goals drive your actions while all internal and external feedback verifies that the goal is achievable. Despite feeling invincible, you are aloof to what others think of you as your self-consciousness recedes into the background. All that matters is mastering the moment.
It is empowering, motivating, and above all else, enjoyable. Flow experiences are so enjoyable that people seek them out even at a great cost, when no promise of material return on their physical, emotional, or economic investment exists. That's because flow experiences are autotelic; the activity itself is the reward. A runner in a state of flow runs for the sake of running. That doesn't mean that flow experiences don't produce external rewards. Many of the world-class athletes you'll meet in the coming pagesreported entering a flow state during races that produced Olympic medals and national championships. However, those same runners will be the first to tell you it's the experience, not the outcome, that resonates most strongly in their memories.
The overwhelming sense of pleasure that accompanies these experiences helps explain why engaging in challenging activities is still so prized, even as people live in a society where laptops and smartphones make leaving the couch unnecessary. As coauthor and esteemed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hereafter referred to by his preferred nickname of "Dr. Mike") pointed out in his 1990 bestseller Flow, enjoyment comes back to actively engaging our passions. "Contrary to what we usually believe," Dr. Mike wrote then, "moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . . The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (p. 3). Hence the reason a morning 10-miler (16-km) usually brings a runner greater pleasure than having breakfast in bed.
As the flow experience resonates in the conscious mind, it increases the desire to pursue whatever task caused flow in the first place. This intrinsic motivation leads to increased desire to perfect your skills, leading to improved confidence in your abilities. As your skill level improves, you become better able to tackle bigger challenges, increasing the likelihood of flow. It is a highly positive cycle.
"Flow got me really excited about what was to come in running," Shelby says. "It changed my attitude. With the pneumonia I was feeling sorry for myself, and after that it was all over. A lot of times before I run, I go back to that memory and it helps."
Every runner deserves the chance to have an optimal experience like Shelby's. However, flow is a shifty phenomenon that doesn't respond directly to intentions. To increase your likelihood of experiencing it on a regular basis, it helps to understand how current understanding of flow has evolved to its present form.
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Antecedents to Flow
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow.
As stated earlier, the nine dimensions of flow do not haphazardly or randomly present themselves. In almost all instances, the three antecedents must be in place in order for the process outcomes to follow. Just as years of training, a good night's sleep, and proper hydration set the stage for a good race, you must have specific goals, an attainable challenge, and unambiguous feedback in place to experience flow.
Preparing yourself for flow actually begins well before the antecedents. You can't read this chapter and assume the mind will magically make up for a lack of physical preparation or overcome personal struggles that have left you emotionally wiped out. A sport such as running can take years to master. Understanding that mastery and where you want it to take you is paramount in the quest for flow experiences.
Clear Goals
Knowing what you want to accomplish is the first key to experiencing flow. Consider your runs. Sometimes you set out with no objective other than to enjoy yourself. You find value and pleasure in those runs for their own sake; hearing the rhythm of your breath, your heart, or your footsteps can be incredibly rewarding and peaceful. Other times you challenge yourself by setting concrete goals and pushing your body and mind to achieve them. These workouts and races test your limits.
The latter scenario is more likely to induce flow, even though the first run may be enjoyable in its own right. One important distinction between the relaxing run and the flow-inducing run is the type of goal. The first run exemplifies an abstract goal, one less tangible such as running for the sake of running. The flow-inducing run begins with a more concrete goal, such as running a predetermined distance at a specific pace. The quantitative nature of a concrete goal allows you to more easily measure performance. Knowing you're on the path to achieving your goal sets the stage for all the flow components that follow.
Think back to Shelby's flow experience. For months before her race, Shelby dreamed of placing in the top 10 at the state championships and running at a pace as close to 20 minutes for 5,000 meters as possible. These long-term goals drove her training objectives throughout the year, even as her health deteriorated. The panicked breathing episode the morning of the race left Shelby wondering whether those goals were still realistic.
"I honestly didn't believe that I could reach the top 10 that morning," she explains. "I felt confident that I would be okay while I was running, but I really didn't know what to expect from my body. I had trained since the end of track season for that moment, and I knew I had the fitness to reach my goal, but I just wasn't sure my lungs would keep up."
Despite those concerns, Shelby toed the line feeling well. She started with more conservative goals in mind, and as her body reacted well to the challenges at hand, she increased her expectations until they matched her season-long objectives. Those rising standards provided the necessary challenge to push Shelby into a flow state and led to an All-State performance.
Shelby's story provides examples of long-term, short-term, and moment-by-moment goals. Long-term goals provide needed directions on an epic journey. These directions can include a season-long training plan that successfully alternates hard and easy days, nutritional planning, supplementary exercises, and a tapering phase that helps you arrive on the starting line fit and fresh. Without a long-term vision directing your training, the odds of injury or staleness greatly increase. Setting long-term goals also helps you establish realistic expectations for progression over a series of months and years. If you run at a pace of 20 minutes per 5,000 meters, running that distance in 16 minutes by the end of the season is unrealistic. However, after 5 years of dedicated training, that goal may be attainable. Long-term goals provide the incentive necessary to keep training for an extended period of time.
Short-term goals are easier to bite off and dictate your daily training. Research in motivation (Dweck 1986; Emmons 1992) suggests that human beings are more likely to persevere toward larger, more abstract goals when smaller, incremental goals are present along the way. If the dream is to qualify for the Boston Marathon, then running a successful workout will increase your motivation to keep training hard enough to make it to the starting line in Hopkinton. With concrete goals in mind, a bad run or a bad week is much less likely to deter you in your long-term quest.
Having a moment-by-moment awareness of your goals makes them more pliable and can better fuel your motivation. These goals can be immediate (e.g., controlling your breathing up a steep hill) or a constant reinforcement of important short-term and long-term goals (e.g., running 3:10 in the marathon to qualify for Boston). As discussed later in this chapter, flow experiences narrow your focus almost entirely to the task at hand. By keeping your goals at the forefront of your thinking, you stand a better chance of achieving them. At the same time, being able to adjust your goals on the fly - if your skill level or the challenge at hand proves to be higher or lower than expected - better allows you to maximize your potential on that day.
No matter what type of goal you're setting, it should always relate to the activity. Setting a goal of experiencing flow sets you up for disappointment, and according to some research (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), it may actually hinder you from experiencing it. Shelby had hopes of experiencing flow while competing at the state meet, but her goals were specific to her race. Flow was the byproduct of a perfect storm, not the storm itself.
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Amy Hastings' Flow Moment
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it’s mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto.
Amy Hastings
Adam Davy/PA Photos
Two-time Olympian, 2:27:03 marathon PR
Flow moment: 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials
Some days, the universe seems to throw it all at you. Sweltering temperatures with no shade and no heat acclimatization because it's mid-February? Check. A repetitive, uninspiring urban course through the middle of a concrete jungle? Ditto. Dirt covering the road from recent construction? You bet. Oh, and how about in these conditions running 26.2 miles with a trip to the Rio Olympics on the line? Absolutely.
The media, fans, and plenty of competitors locked in on these miserable variables and declared the race would be a "suffer fest." Amy Hastings was not of the same mind. The Kansas native and former All-American at Arizona State University had already endured the cruelest fate professional running offers, finishing fourth at the Olympic trials marathon in 2012 in a race where only the top three qualified for the London Games. At the prime marathoning age of 32, Hastings wasn't going to enter this race on a downer vibe.
"Ahead of time, you heard so many negative things," Hastings says. "The number of turns on the course, the heat, the dirt on the road. It gave me a little more confidence. After we checked out the course, I realized if I can be okay with these things, it's going to be an advantage. I made the decision I wouldn't let the little things bother me."
Instead Hastings and her Bowerman Track Club teammate Shalane Flanagan ran comfortably in the pack early on, then around the halfway point they found themselves up front. Over the next hour they would become the face of these Olympic trials as they led the field in front of a national television audience. The teammates shared fluids and small conversation, much to the amusement of the commentators. Their fluidity and comfort in the horrendous conditions spoke to Hastings' commitment to achieve greatness on that day. She was in flow, and she knew it.
"It's a very specific feeling and I kind of know it now," she says. "I've gotten better at getting myself into the right frame of mind where it'll affect my physical self. It's something I can absolutely recognize when it happens, and it does happen fairly regularly."
A kinesiology major who had learned about sport psychology over the years, Hastings frequently evaluates her physical and mental state to make sure they are optimized for the right day. For Hastings this means zeroing in on her goals and ridding herself of anxiety. She does so by finding a quiet place before a major race and focusing on her breathing. "I remind myself that races are supposed to be exciting," she says, "and that helps a lot."
For 23 miles (37 km), the only excitement in the trials seemed to be whether Hastings and Flanagan would win by 2 minutes or 3 minutes. Hastings felt the pace was manageable, as though she wasn't even racing yet, and even then she and Flanagan were gaining 5 to 10 seconds on the field every mile. Eventually the heat caught up with Flanagan. That same national television audience now watched Hastings encourage Flanagan, and when words could no longer do the trick, they saw her selflessly slow down to stay beside her teammate. Not far behind, 2012 Olympian Desi Davila gained with each step. With the gap under 30 seconds and only a few miles remaining, Hastings wished Flanagan luck, then surged away from her competitors to win the trials in impressive fashion. Davila finished second, with Flanagan collapsing across the finish line into Hastings' arms for third.
It was a fitting end to a perfect day, one where the ability to block out the negative and focus solely on the goal at hand allowed her to perform her best when it mattered most. "I had been thinking about that race for years, thinking about everything leading up to it," she says. "When it came down to it, I was incredibly confident and in a very happy state and excited state. Physically I felt like I was ready to do it. It was one of those days where I felt whatever happened, whatever was thrown at me, I could handle it because of where my frame of mind was."
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