High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 182: Mindfulness in Sport, Life & Running, with Mackenzie Havey, Author & Runner

Episode Date: May 20, 2018

Mackenzie Havey is the author of the new book published by Bloomsbury, MINDFUL RUNNING. She writes about endurance sports and mind-body health and fitness for a number of leading publications, including TheAtlantic.com, ESPN, Runner’s World, SELF, and Outside. She holds a graduate degree in sport psychology, is a USA Track & Field-certified coach, teaches classes in the Kinesiology Department at the University of Minnesota, and has completed 14 marathons and an Ironman triathlon. Mackenzie lives in Minneapolis with her husband, 20-month old daughter, and vizsla pup. In this interview, Mackenzie and Cindra talk about: What mindfulness is The benefits of practicing mindfulness How we can practice mindfulness How mindfulness supports psychological skills training How mindfulness changes our brain You can find a full description of the Podcast at cindrakamphoff.com/Mackenzie. You can find more about Mackenzie’s work on twitter @mackenziehavey, www.mlhavey.com or www.mindfulrunningbook.com.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here ready to listen to episode 182 with Mackenzie Havey. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best leaders, athletes, coaches, and consultants, all about the topic of mindset to help us reach our potential or be high performers in our field or sport.

Now, before I head over to Mackenzie's interview, which was outstanding, I'm going to go and read a rating and review from iTunes. And this one is from Brooke Craven. Brooke Craven said, awesome show. Dr. Cinder Kampoff, host of the podcast, highlights all aspects of business performance and more in this can't miss podcast. The host and expert guests offer insightful information and advice that is helpful to anyone that listens. So thank you so much, Brooke. I'm grateful that you went over to iTunes and took the time to write

a rating and a review. So I'm grateful for that. over to iTunes and took the time to write a rating and review. So I'm grateful for that. And if you enjoyed today's episode, you can head over to iTunes. I'll make sure to read yours next time or Stitcher Radio or iHeart Radio and leave a rating and review. Now in this episode, I interview Mackenzie Habe, who's the author of the new book published by Boomsbury, Mindful Running. She writes about endurance sports and mind, body, health, and fitness for a number of leading publications, including TheAtlantic.com, ESPN, Runner's World, Self, and Outside Magazine. She holds a graduate degree in sports ecology and is a USA track and field certified coach,

teaches classes in the kinesiology department at the University of Minnesota, and has completed 14 marathons and Ironman triathlon. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and 20-month-old daughter. And so I wanted to have Mackenzie for a few reasons on the podcast. First, I absolutely love her book, Mindfulness and Running. And in this interview, we talk about specifically how mindfulness can help running but I wanted this interview to be much more broad about how we can use mindfulness in our everyday life and mindfulness in sport and business and so that's what this interview is really about how you can use mindfulness in all areas of your life. Now we talk about what

mindfulness is, the benefits of practicing mindfulness, how we can actually practice it, and how mindfulness supports psychological skills training and how mindfulness changes our brain. Now a few of my favorite parts of this interview were when she said 50% of our waking hours our mind wanders and that's why we really need mindfulness and then she also said quote a thought is just a thought we don't need to take it as a truth and what mindfulness can help you do is examine your doubt intellectually not emotionally end quote now I know you're going to love this interview with Mackenzie Havey and we'd encourage you to head over to twitter to join the conversation about the podcast you can tag myself at mentally underscore Strong or Mackenzie is at Mackenzie Havy. Without further ado, let's

bring on Mackenzie. So welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm excited today to have Mackenzie Havy here to talk about mindfulness. So Mackenzie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. All right, let's get started and tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do right now, Mackenzie. Sure, sure. Well, I am a freelance journalist and I write about running and other endurance sports and outdoor adventure for a variety of publications like Runner's World and Outside and The Atlantic. And my first book came out in September called Mindful Running. And it's about how to integrate the principles of mindfulness into your training.

And I'm a longtime runner myself. And I kind of talk about some of the personal stories of using mindfulness in my own training in my book because it's been really important to me in terms of making running a sustainable, healthy practice. And so in terms of my running background, I've run a bunch of marathons and I've done an Ironman and some other shorter triathlons over the years. And that's kind of me in a nutshell, I think. Awesome. And you got a graduate degree in sports psychology from the University of Minnesota. So tell us a little bit about, you know, just pursuing that degree and how you got to where you are now in terms of

as a writer and now a published author? Yeah, sure. So I, you know, started as a runner very early in my life and was always interested in sports. And that turned into an interest in sports psychology, which is what led me to pursue a graduate degree at the U of M and also become a USA track and field coach. And I do some instruction at the U of M now in the kinesiology department for some of their physical activity classes. And so, you know, the graduate degree was definitely just an academic, excuse me, interest in the research out there. And it's really, I think, helped me a lot in my journalistic career because it's allowed me to really understand some of the exercise science and psychology research out there and try to put it in the layman's terms in my writing. And the graduate degree was just a really important piece to the puzzle in terms of helping me translate kind of some really complicated stuff in my,

in my stories. Yeah, I hope people hear that. Because I think what you said is that you, you know, you learned about the academic part of sports psychology, but then knowing that and having that background helped you right into layman's terms. So yeah, I think that's important that you said that is in terms of that it did give you this background to write about this content. So, you know, obviously you studied mindfulness while at the U in terms of getting your degree, but then, you know, this opportunity to write this book gave you more time to really invest yourself into the mindfulness and the mindfulness practice. So tell us a little bit about why a book on mindful running, like what made you decide to write this book in particular?

Sure. Well, it really kind of came largely from my own experience as a runner. I had gotten to a point in my running where I was really getting burned out. I was encountering a lot of injuries and the sport that had always been so important to me and a big source of joy became more a source of stress. And so I, I kind of had to step back from my running and reframe the way I was approaching it. And, um, it, it, it meant stepping back from kind of the constant push and the constant drive for, for goals or, you know, qualifying for this race or that race or, you know, achieving a personal best and stepping back from that. I mean, I wasn't, you know, running in the Olympic trials or anything. I was, you know, really just competing with myself.

But really, it was leading to this feeling of burnout. And so to kind of reframe my approach to running, I began to apply mindfulness to my training. And that meant just being more present in my everyday training runs and really paying more attention to the process of training rather than getting so wrapped up in focusing on that end goal or that whether it was a time or a specific race I still would set those goals but I started to just kind of take part in the process more and I found that that was really transformative for me, not only as a, in terms of like my joy of running kind of returned, but also, I think as a byproduct of that, I performed better so I felt like, you know, there's, there was really something there. And then once I started talking to other runners and coaches and Olympians about, you know, their practice with being present in the process of their training, I found that, you know, there's a good number of athletes who really find a lot of value in applying mindfulness to their training. Yes. Yeah, that's awesome. And so what we plan to do in the interview today is obviously talk

about how mindfulness can help runners, right? But just the broader conversation about sport and even performance. You know, we perform every single day in our job or as our role, in our role as a mother or father or sister or friend, right? And so mindfulness has broader applications to just running, but obviously has a clear application to running. So Mackenzie, tell us, what did you learn about what mindfulness is, like in terms of studying the research, but then talking to these experts about mindfulness? How would you define what it is for us? Yeah, sure. Well, so mindfulness is really just a practice of paying attention to what's happening in the here and now

without judging it or wishing it were different. And so mindfulness can help us direct and sustain our attention in really intentional ways in order to better manage thoughts, emotions, situations, to just allow us to have a its core you know some people are uh kind of chafe at the idea of mindfulness meditation um but really at its core mindfulness is just attention training and it's like bicep curls for the brain you know every time you notice your mind has wandered and you bring it back to the present moment, you strengthen those neural pathways. And, um, so it's like a wrap in the gym. And, um, in terms of the research, um, the, the brain research is really interesting looking at mindfulness. Um,

one of the, this isn't sport in particular, but I think it's, it's an interesting study out of Harvard that shows that our minds wander somewhere around 50% of our waking hours. And I think that's kind of like shocking to think that, you know, we're zoned out basically to what's directly in front of us half of the time we're walking around or driving or whatever we're doing. And that same research showed that we tend to kind of time analyzing the past or trying to predict the future, getting just distracted by unhelpful thinking. And this causes us to mindlessly react to whatever is going on in our head rather than to respond to what's happening, you know,

in front of us. So the MRI research is really interesting in this field. And it shows that so like when they put people in the MRI and tell them to let their minds wander, the brain called the default mode network lights up and becomes very active. And that area of the brain is, it's really important for certain things, but it's also associated with self-referential and negative thinking. And so it's not a place you want to get stuck for too long. And when they put people in the MRI and tell them to be mindful and to meditate that the default mode network goes offline. And, you know, so that,

that means that we tend to be in a more present space, which the research suggests, uh, we tend to be in a little better state of mind oftentimes. So, um, the, the studies show that mindfulness meditation can reduce the biomarkers of stress and reduce our perception of pain and discomfort, which is obviously especially important for athletes who are training really intensely. It can help us gain better body awareness so we know when to push during training or competition and when to back off because maybe we have an oncoming injury. The research shows that mindful individuals tend to more adeptly cope in stressful situations. So like dealing with pre-competition nerves or, you know, for a runner, like in a marathon, taking a bad mile in stride and not panicking going in the towel um and it it also helps us just kind of redirect from negative thinking and focus on the most relevant data in the moment so that we can

perform our best and that that uh obviously can be connected to self-confidence and increased optimism. And there's quite a laundry list of benefits that the research tends to show. Yeah, this is a lot of reasons why we'd want to practice mindfulness. So if mindfulness is, and assuming you're using Jon Kabat-Zinn's definition, which I know you talked about in the book, but it's paying close in a particular way to the here and now without any judgment, right? And I like what you said about not wanting it to be different. So tell us how you think that we can start practicing this, this in terms of mindfulness in our everyday. Sure, Yeah. I mean, so in the book, I talk about these three scanning exercises. Um, and, and I just, it was my way of kind of deconstructing what I was doing in my own mindfulness practice. Um,

and I apply mindfulness to running obviously, but also other activities. And so I really think these exercises can be applied to all sorts of things. But they just involve first doing kind of an environmental scan, like looking at your surroundings and paying attention with your five senses, really taking in the sights, the smells, the sounds, dialing into where you are in that moment. And this can just take a minute or two. And then doing a head-to-toe body scan. So just slowly scanning down your body and deciding you know are there any is there

any tightness is there any pain am I feeling good today um and and so I taught in the book I talk about how to do this during a run but I mean this could even be like you know in a meeting at work and you know I feel some like tightness in my chest, because I'm really nervous, or so it's all it's just about becoming aware of where your body is at in that moment. And then finally doing like a mental scan. So just kind of where what's your emotional weather that day? You know, what are the thoughts top of mind? Are you kind of obsessively cycling one worry? Or are you just really preoccupied with your to-do list for the day? And it's not about changing that thinking, but it's about noticing it. And I think that's one of the huge points of mindfulness is that we just don't even

have a sense for where our minds or bodies or environments are at in general. That's super good. So three scanning exercises, environmental scan, head to toe body scan, and then the mental scan. So tell us a little bit more about the mental scan, Mackenzie. So it's not about changing your thoughts. It's just about noticing them. Maybe tell us about, you know, a way that we might practice that. And how would you encourage us to actually use that scan? Yeah. So, well, one skill I think that can be really important if you're looking to implement mindfulness is affect labeling. And so it's just about recognizing and naming your thoughts and

emotions. And research has shown that that kind of can help quell some of those emotions. So when you have a thought come in your head, you actually notice it and you label it, oh, that's an anxious thought, you know, or that's a negative thought. And it's just about kind of monitoring your inner experience moment by moment. And I think just by being able to put your feelings into words, it allows you to better manage those emotions and those thoughts and to see them more objectively objectively rather than when your mind's kind of running on its own and laundering somewhere say an anxious thought oftentimes will lead to another anxious thought and another one in it

and it has this down spiral that gets out of control and then and then your breathing starts to quicken and and you have a physical response then. And so when you're able to actually notice a thought or an emotion, label it and become aware of it, you know, really consciously aware of it, it helps you think more clearly about what is happening in the moment. And I think a lot of times, you know, you'll find that you notice that your thinking is kind of off base, you know, that these anxious or stressed thoughts, like if you're standing, you know, at the start line of a race, say, and you're getting worked up, I mean, if you can really be mindful and tap into, okay, that's an anxious thought. It just kind of helps reframe it and it helps you, helps turn it into a more kind of intellectual experience rather than so emotional.

And realizing it's just a thought. We don't have to believe that thought, right? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, a thought is just a thought. And so I think a lot of times we have a thought and we take it as truth. We have a negative thought that we're slow or we shouldn't be out there, that we're not good enough. And when you're not mindfully taking note of those things, we tend to just kind of internalize them and believe them as more than a thought, as truth. Yeah. So the key is to notice them, notice how it's impacting how you're feeling. And I like what you said about labeling it. What would you tell us to do next? Like, okay, so we labeled it, you know, we're monitoring our thoughts and our experiences moment to moment. What's important can be in the case of running, I talk about choosing an anchor, which would be like your breath or your foot strike, and having that be your anchor to the present moment to always come back to, you know, when your mind has wandered, you notice the

anxious thought and label it and you come back to your anchor. But in other activities, I mean, it could just be what what you're doing, what's directly in front of you, if you're like throwing a free throw, to just pay attention to what you're doing in the moment, or if you're at home with your spouse, you know, redirecting to that person in front of you in that conversation. I think, you know, in terms of relationally, we, our minds are wandering a lot of times. So it's like, notice, okay, I'm, you know, getting anxious here, or I'm getting stressed, and then redirect to what's directly in front of you. And that's really, that is the practice of mindfulness. It's just noticing your mind has wandered bring our mind back to the present moment. what works one day might, you know, be less effective another day. So, I mean, for running, you know, foot strike and breathing are really common in seated meditation. You'll usually hear

people refer to paying attention to their breathing. But you can really choose anything. You could choose something, you know, in your environment, you know, I use the example of running again, just, you know, the, you pay attention to the trees or the sunshine or the sky or, obviously, you want to maintain an open awareness so that you're paying attention to what you're doing still. This is not about just zoning out. It's, it's really about being completely aware. And, and so you could choose, if you don't feel comfortable choosing like a specific point to anchor to, you could just choose your, like everything you see, you know, you could choose everything and you're just trying to really pay attention to the sights and smells and sounds that are all around you

and to just really tune into that. So I think, you know, it can be a lot of things. Like I usually run with my dog and sometimes I'll just pay attention to her, you know, trotting beside me. So I think, you know, kind of depending on your mood in the day. Um, and I would say in terms of putting that into practice that, you know, in the beginning, you can just do that for a couple minutes, um, whether you're walking or you're running or gardening or whatever it may be. Um, and, and with practice, it gets easier and you maybe can lengthen that time

that you kind of decide to devote to being mindful. And Mackenzie, what about those people who might say, well, actually it seems to be better for me if I stop the thought and then I talk back to it, right? Kind of like this powerful and positive self-talk. What would you say to them in terms of if they're like, well, I don't know. I don't know if I buy into this mindfulness. What's your thoughts on that? Yeah, well, I think, you know, just traditional psychological skills

are still really important, you know, positive thinking and that kind of thing. I think mindfulness just allows you to more effectively wield those skills, you know, to identify which, you know, right now, like, I need to think positive or right now, you know, I'm going to start using my mantra or so I think sometimes mindfulness can replace that if positive thinking just doesn't work for someone. Just acknowledging the negative thought and redirecting to the present rather than trying to smother it with positive thinking. That works for, mindfulness can kind of be used in tandem with it to help know when to deploy that skill. I like what you just said, that mindfulness, if you're more aware of what's going on with your body and your mind, right,

like it'll help you use the psychological skills more effectively because you'll know what you need and what's working, what's not working. Exactly. Yeah. I think a lot of times we, you know, you'll just kind of read a blanket recommendation about what to do, whether that's physical or mental training. And we just push through without really paying attention to how we are responding as an individual. Yeah, I was actually watching a lot of tennis this weekend. So as you're talking, I'm thinking about tennis and like how it's such a grueling sport in terms of like you need so much, like you have to embrace the discomfort because it's so tough. And this match I was watching lasted like for four hours. And the hands were cramping, the legs were cramping. So you know, how do you think mindfulness helps in terms of like embracing the discomfort? Mackenzie, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, the research is really

interesting on mindfulness and pain and discomfort. You you know some of some of this research really uh was born out of uh doctors trying to decide what to do with people who had chronic pain that that wasn't being addressed through traditional methods okay um, and then since then, obviously, there's been a lot of research into how it can help athletes. And I think the big thing mindfulness can help you do is discern, first of all, the difference between, you know, good, quote unquote, good pain and bad pain, because athletes are always trying to walk that line in terms of, you know, pushing right up to that point, but not getting injured. And so I think being mindful, gaining better body awareness, knowing when you're about

to push past the point of no return and knowing to back off is really important. But then when we're talking about the good kind of pain, the good kind of discomfort that just means that you of curiosity and help shift it from a physical and emotional experience to a more intellectual one. So if you're, you know, in a training session and pushing really hard and you're, you know, your legs are burning and your lungs are burning and you're breathing hard. When you're kind of lost in thought, it's easy to go over to the negative and start getting obsessed with how much this hurts and how uncomfortable it is. And then pretty soon you're backing off without even really noticing that you're backing off. Whereas the mindful approach would be to really tune into those feelings of your muscles burning

and your lungs burning and get curious about those feelings and to know that, you know, that that's part of the process. And so kind of examining them and taking this intellectual view can help keep you from kind of emotionally reacting, which might cause you to back off too soon or, you know, to give up or just to go too far into the negative. And I think that there's something called the ironic process theory, which suggests the more you resist a feeling or a thought or an emotion, the more you end up caught up in it. And I think that is so true with discomfort in physical training, because it's so easy to want to resist that discomfort and push it away. And what mindfulness does is it just teaches you to kind of engage with it.

And oftentimes you find that it's actually not as bad as you thought. When you don't have all these negative emotions attached to the discomfort. So it works better to just kind of acknowledge it, not burn a bunch of energy trying to resist this inherent discomfort that goes along with training um and yeah like i said there's a bunch of really interesting research out there and like one study and this was just uh they were using like a heat probe on people's skin you know just a lab exercise to to um check for pain intensity and they found that just 20 minutes a day of mindfulness reduced people's

pain intensity ratings by 40%, which is, I mean, pretty significant. So I think with athletes in the midst of training, you know, really tuning into that discomfort, seeing it for what it is, not attaching a bunch of emotion to it, can really put it into perspective. Absolutely. I think there's so many times, I was telling Mackenzie, I was telling you before the call that I am back into running and trying to run pretty hard. I published my book in September. And so I've been running, but just not quite as often as I would want to.

And so I've had some self-criticism, like, why am I not so fast? What's wrong with me? I look fat. I'll just be honest because some of the same things you wrote about in your book. I'm in terrible shape, right? And then when we're struggling, and if we don't necessarily embrace it, if we're fighting it, then we're kind of thinking about, oh, you know, why, why is this happening? Why am I not in good, good shape? Or, you know, I'm not going to be ready for this race I have coming up, right? So what would you tell us to do in that moment? Do you think one of your, the tools that you mentioned,

would that help? Or what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, well, like what you're talking about, in terms of we, we do tend to be hard on ourselves sometimes. Yes. That, you know, like we were saying how a thought is just a thought. So allowing you know mindfulness isn't about not having those thoughts about like oh you know i'm so slow or i'm fat or you know yes but people in the cars passing by are thinking of me and uh exactly to notice it notice the thought that you're having and then redirect to the present moment and uh because the alternative is basically letting those thoughts spiral completely out of control you know one thought leads to another to another um so it's just about not giving as much bandwidth to that kind of negative thinking and a huge part of mindfulness is, is self compassion and, you know, allowing yourself

to not, not getting down on yourself when you have that negative thought. I think it's so common for athletes to be like, why am I thinking that way? You know, it's, you know, you know, it's unproductive, but instead of just acknowledging it, taking it in stride, knowing it's just part of our human nature to have those self-compassion in terms of mind-wandering because people get down on themselves and athletes who try to meditate get down on themselves because they can't stay focused 100% of the time and they get mad every time their their minds wander um but it's just it's you know part of that's going to happen to everybody even the most practiced meditator is going to find that their minds wander so it's important to be compassionate not to make a big deal about it and get down on yourself just acknowledge it and return to the present moment um because it's just not productive to get down on yourself for having

certain thoughts or for letting your mind wander. So it's all about kind of rewiring your response. And I think in terms of those thoughts that you're talking about having, which are super common, you know, whether you're new to a sport or you're just coming back after an injury or time off and you're maybe not in as great a shape as you used to be. I think using like Socratic questioning can be a great tool. So would I say that thing that I'm saying to myself, would I say that to my training partner? You know, like, would I say, what's wrong with you? You know, why are you so slow? Of course you wouldn't. Like, you know, you would have a lot more compassion for your training partner. And so you should for yourself as well.

I like that Socratic questioning. And, you know, in your book, you said the most common types of negative self-talk or self-criticism, like, you know, I'm not athletic or I'm in terrible shape. Self-doubt was the second one. You know, I'm never going to be able to hit that pace or I don't have the right body type to be a blank. And then the third one is self-pity. You know, gosh, I have the worst luck, you know, but then you said self-compassion is an essential pillar to any mindfulness practice, right? It plays a big role in helping you deal with a negative self-talk. So I thought that was powerful. And I like what you said about the Socratic questioning.

Would you really say this to your best friend or your training partner or your spouse or your kid, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the other questions I wanted to ask you, Mackenzie, is tell us what you found in terms of the research about mindfulness and flow and the connection for flow. So, I mean, obviously, you have to start with like the skill of the athlete and the challenge of the activity have to be balanced for flow to occur. And so that has to, you know, those circumstances have to be there. But then mindfulness can just kind of help set the stage because it keeps you from getting distracted from just random thoughts or outside forces. It

keeps you from getting caught up in judging yourself or the activity. And it allows you to just really be in the moment. And I think some people get a little confused about like conflating flow and mindfulness, and they aren't the same thing. Mindfulness really requires effort, whereas flow feels effortless. And mindfulness really requires you to sustain awareness of the present moment. In the flow state, you know, action and awareness kind of merge. And in my book, I talk to Dina Castor and she talks about how flow can't be forced. It just kind of has to happen.

And so mindfulness can help kind of create the right conditions for that to happen. Because if you're, you know, stressed or distracted or whatever, you know, there's no way you're going to be able to get into that zone. That's super good. Actually, when you were talking, Mackenzie, I pulled up that part of your book and had it open. And I was reading what Olympia Dina Castor said. And she said, it starts with an intention to create a mindset that allows flow to happen. Flow can't be forced because the force is met with a counterforce.

But flow is something that has to happen without tension or pushing. And I, you know, for people who've studied flow, Czech Sekhmihai's work, right? Like clearly shows that mindfulness and flow isn't the same thing or the same concept. Right. How do you think mindfulness helps us experience the flow? I mean, I think that mindfulness just really can put you into the moment so that you can enter that that state of mind um and you know it's it's uh it's you know where you're gonna feel and perform your best and it's that kind of elusive feeling and so i think just expecting it to happen uh isn't gonna work so well. You have to be really intentional about the way you are approaching your sport or, you know, flow can happen in all sorts of different activities.

So approaching it with some intention and really being present and immersed in the activity is, you know, such an important part of flow. And so you kind of have to set the stage for it to occur. You can't just, you know, in running, go out for a run and just expect to enter that headspace while you're cycling your to-do list and your worries about the other things you have to do in the day or ruminating about some past conversation you had or this or that. I mean, being actually present and mindfulness is connected to, you know, really enjoying activities more. And so having that just kind of inherent joy is in that just the intrinsic motivation is a really important part of reaching that flow state and fully experiencing it. Awesome. Sounds good. So Mackenzie, I always ask people to tell us about

a time that they failed, a time that wasn't very successful for them. And so what I'd love for you to do is tell us about a time that failed for you or that you failed, right, a time that didn't go perfectly for you and how you might use or have used mindfulness to deal with that. Because I want people to think about how can they use this approach, not just in their athletic career or not just in their work, but, you know, these moments in time that we do experience adversity. So do you have an idea or a story you can tell us?

Yeah, of course. I think a big one that comes to mind for me is I think it shows the difference between like a mindless approach and a more mindful approach to competition. A number of years ago, I was training for the Sioux Falls Marathon and it was really the hardest I had ever trained um I really kind of had set aside the summer um to training and work and focusing on that and so I was I was running you know 75 miles a week and doing these amazing long runs and like nailing my tempo runs and doing really well. And, um, and my husband and I both decided to do falls because, um, a, we could drive to it and it was the last weekend we could qualify for

Boston, Boston, that fall. Sure. So, um, but then race day ended up being like really hot and humid and there was very little shade on the course. And so, but I went into it like with this mind that like my training went so well,

like, I'm just like, I'm going to dominate this. And, um, but like by six to seven miles in though, I knew I was getting into trouble. Like I was having some stomach cramping and just like feeling really overheated. And, um, really I did not adjust my pace or hydration for the circumstances, despite the fact that, you know, I write about this stuff for a living, you know, I should have known better, but I got so focused on my end goal and like um you know and convinced that I was going to run this pace and not adjusting for the kind of extenuating circumstances and paying attention to what my body was telling me in those in that heat um so it was this just this pushing through sheer force of will. And so a pretty mindless approach, really. So by the halfway point, my stomach was completely in knots. I had

fallen too far behind on rehydrating and had been pushing too fast. And the wheels just completely came off. And, you know, my hips started hurting then. And, you know, who knows that? I think that was psychological, but, um, I, you know, came across the finish line, like 20 minutes slower than I wanted to be. And so I was, you know, I've never been so upset after a race because my training had gone perfectly.

And I had just, I had like planned for this and run exactly the, the workouts I needed to and all indicators were that I could, you know, run a good race. So I took a week off or so and I kind of reeled in my thinking and began to understand that I had become so focused on that end goal that I wasn't really taking part in just the moment-to-moment experience of the race. And adjusting when I needed to adjust. And noticing what, you know, my body was telling me in those, in that weather. And so a month after that, I just decided to go out and run Twin Cities Marathon for fun,

you know, it's my hometown race. And I just kind of decided, I'm going to take a more kind of mindful approach. And this was still kind of in, you know, earlier in the years when I was still kind of developing a mindful running practice. So this was, you know, a real revelation for me, because I decided to approach it more with just a present state of mind. And I was just gonna take the race one step at a time, enjoy the run, enjoy each mile, enjoy the scenery, and enjoy just like being really fit. And, and so I went out, you know, and ended up running a Boston qualifier there. It was too late to qualify for Boston that next year, but it would qualify me for the year after. And I think it was just like a perfect example of how, when you can just relax into the process a little bit and not fight all these outside

forces and really just go with the flow, react and to the, or respond rather to the things, whether it's in your body or your mind or the environment with some skill rather than just mindlessly trying to push through, you usually end up performing better. And I think, you know, the same goes in business and in relationships and all sorts of things. That's excellent. What a great story. I actually think that I was at the Sioux Falls race, but I ran the half marathon. I remember it being very, very hot. So I was picturing the course as you were talking and everything like that. But what a great example of just like being mindless, right? And maybe even really focused on the outcome and pushing yourself to this like outcome of this time instead of enjoying the process of being fit and responding,

right? Not just reacting to the things that are around you. So I love this interview, Mackenzie, mostly because I work to practice mindfulness as well and do incorporate into my practice. And the things that I really appreciated that you talked about was like the scanning exercises, like the environmental scan, the headed-toe body scan, or the mental scan, like these different ways that we can practice it. I also appreciated what you talked about related to affect labeling, just like

labeling the emotions and kind of monitoring your experiences moment to moment, but not judging those, right? Just a thought is just a thought and then redirecting your mind to the present. And then the third thing I really got out of the interview is the Socratic questioning. You know, would you say the same thing that you say to yourself to a friend or a training partner, like you said? So I appreciate the time and energy you took

to tell us a little bit about your expertise today. You know, one of the studies you mentioned suggested, you know, 20 minutes a day can really, you know, help us. What would you tell us to do in terms of, like incorporating this into our life, to our lives, into our training or to our work or, you know, our business? What would be the advice that you'd give us kind of moving forward? Yeah, I mean, I think mindfulness is really a, you know, it's a personal practice. So you kind of have to decide like, what works for you. For me, you know, I started by applying mindfulness to running. And little by little applied it more and more, I do, you know, apply it to part of a

run some days of the week. And sometimes, sometimes you know as I kind of got better at it I would do it more um and then eventually now I do a seated meditation practice too several days of the week where I'll sit for 10 or 20 minutes um and meditate that way as well. Some people are more comfortable, you know, choosing to, you know, just turn off the radio on their drive home. And really, you know, you're obviously paying attention to your driving, but also just being present in that drive and noticing everything around you not getting lost in thought completely. Or some people will choose to, you know, I know I try to really be present with my young daughter. She's 20 months old. And so whether I'm like giving her a bath or playing with her at the park, I try to, you know, how,

where am I at? Like mentally, physically, like am I really present and paying attention in this moment? And so I think you can choose different activities to apply mindfulness to. If you're comfortable doing seated meditation, great, but you can also apply it to other activities as well and um i think starting with you know a couple minutes of really trying to be present you know maybe you you do those scanning exercises and then just try to kind of either have that open awareness for a couple minutes um or choose one of those anchors. And then what the, you know, research on neuroplasticity shows is that with, you know, over time and training, but not actually that much, your brain really starts

the structure and function of your brain really will, will change to support that mode of operation, that more mindful presence, mode of operation. And I think that's one of the things that encouraged me really in my mindful running practice was I noticed that not only was applying mindfulness to my runs, making my running more enjoyable and fruitful, I was noticing that state of mind spilling into other areas of my life that I was, I was finding myself being able to be more present with my daughter and not distracted by all the things I had to do just being able to be with her. Or, you know, I'm, I'm, I think a more focused writer, I'm not so distracted by email, and, you know, this and that and social media.

I'm able to kind of more intensely focus on the thing in front of me. And so, yeah, and that's what the brain research suggests is that when you practice mindfulness in one area, that it can really just make you more mindful in all areas of life. Excellent. So mindfulness is a practice. And so if you'd like to grab the book, which I encourage you to do, I have mine right in front of me here. It's called Mindful Running, How Meditative Running Can Improve Performance and Make You a Happier, More Fulfilled Person. So Mackenzie, tell us where we can pick up a copy and follow along with you. Yeah, sure. So you can get it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or most major

booksellers. And you can find me at MackenzieHavey.com or MindfulRunningBook.com. Excellent. And are you on social media for us to follow or connect with you? Under Mackenzie Havy, I'm on Instagram and Twitter and LinkedIn. Awesome. Mackenzie, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us today and share your expertise. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for joining me today on the High Performance Mindset.

If you'd like to learn more about the mental game in business, sport, and in life, you can pick up your own copy of the Beyond Grit book and workbook at beyondgrit.com. The book and workbook covers 10 practices to help you gain the high performance edge and provides practical strategies and tools that work. Adam Thielen, a Pro Bowl wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings, wrote the foreword, and you can learn his insights on how he implements the mental game. And a special offer for the listeners of the podcast, you can use the code FREESHIP, that's capital letters and all one word, FREESHIP,

to get free shipping of the book and workbook at beyondgrit.com. Have an outstanding day, my friends, and be mentally strong. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you like today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend, and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out DrSindra.com.