Keep Breathing!

Mile 31…In the 7th hour of running.

My legs are feeling very heavy. Lower back is stiff and the hip thrust for moving my leg forward feels like moving a log of wood.

Something I have reminded myself during the later miles – BREATHE. KEEP BREATHING! WATCH YOUR BREATH! KEEP BREATHING!

It feels counterintuitive but in the moments the body is exhausted on the runs, it chooses to conserve and preserve by keeping the stale breath in and reducing the intake of fresher air. Obviously some breathing is happening, else I wouldn’t be alive to write this. It’s just that the volume of oxygen intake reduces.

The technique to fix this is simple – pay attention to the breath for a few minutes. And breathe in an out as though all you are doing is breathing. No more than 2 minutes.

Fascinatingly, that’s all it takes to get the body breathing again.

And voila – in few short minutes, the energy levels in the body start rising again.

The heaviness in the legs eases just a little bit. A little bit is all I need to keep pushing for another 3-4 miles.

While there is a lot to explore and go deeper into the science of breathing during running, the most basic component of all that complexity starts with a simple step – to pay attention and to keep breathing.

If you are not sprinting, you should be breathing.