Run With It

I want to start by admitting my ignorance about running. Tempo runs, carbo-loading, heart-rate training, and so much more are still new concepts. For me, long distance running is mostly about not stopping.

That said, I'm still interested in the comparison between tennis and running strictly based on my own observations/experiences. My family and tennis friends think I'm a little nuts for running marathons. They see me hobbling around on stiff legs after long runs with either missing or black toenails. They even saw me struggling to run while I was anemic and didn't know it. But for me, running isn't even a fraction of what I went through with tennis. Hours of training in the hot sun hitting ball after ball after ball until you got it right. Then we played matches. Then we did speed work. Not just speed work to do it but speed work timed where everyone in the group had to make time or everyone had to do it again. In the summers we would go out in the heat of the day with obviously no shade on the court. I loved the heat. I loved to practice and sweat and work hard until I couldn't give anything else.

Matches were different. The whole mental side of the game kicks in and you have to figure out how to beat your opponent without defeating yourself first. The mental side of the game was agonizing for me. Not even the losing part. Matches just took so much out of me because I won them mostly by working hard as shit and/or using my head. I was pretty good at noticing patterns and tendencies, and I liked to anticipate where people were going to serve or try to pass me at the net. Needless to say I was always thinking (whether it looked like it or not) and most matches I was completely mentally exhausted. This went on for years by the way.

Needless to say I needed a break, which is where running comes in. Running takes the part of tennis that I was good at, working hard, and isolates it and extends it for hours at a time. I may be wrong about this (still a newbie) but I don't think there's anything anyone can directly do to affect my run. Nobody's hitting a ball at you or having any kind of direct interaction. I've heard a little about opening up the race and picking up the pace and things like that, but that's all indirect. It's still a completely isolated and individual sport to me. It makes it seem a little easier to me. There's no mind games or cheating or anything that would affect my race, it's just me.

And while I don't have all the tools I need yet, I will run on sheer determination and hope that's enough.