On Control: The Power of a Plan

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

During my run across Mississippi, I stopped at the Meridian Freedom Project. They were my community/cause for Mississippi and had not only hosted us but invited us to tour their facility to see how they were building the next generation of our nation’s leaders. In one room, the young girls had written lists on giant poster boards of things they needed to be “queens'' of their own lives. Black and white to-do/be/acquire lists for their future selves. Of the six lists I glanced over, five had the same theme - the ability to control their lives. 

That struck me. It wasn’t wealth or assets or knowledge that made it on all five lists, but control. 

I know the idea of control well. I love control. Some may even call me a control freak. But I also know the weight that comes from feeling the need to control everything. So I also know the feeling of freedom that comes from losing control. More than that, I know how to get there. 

If you want the most direct route - whiskey. If you’re looking for the scenic drive to losing control? Mimosas are a good start and if you’re not there by noon, maybe I suggest switching your GPS to rosé.

I like the taste of alcohol, especially the first sip before dinner. I like the ritual of making a fancy cocktail and the smell of a good red wine. I love the sound of a champagne cork just a few hours too early on a Saturday.  There have been a number of days where I lived for the foam of a beer after a summer run or the warmth of a good whiskey in my chest after a winter one. Some of my most cherished memories are peppered with the sounds of clinks, toasts, and boisterous “cheers” with my dearest friends. I enjoy so many things about drinking, I really do, but I love the feeling of being drunk. More than that, I need the feeling of being drunk. 

I have a great life, sure I have my demons like anyone else (seriously no one runs across the country because they’re well adjusted with superior mental health). But I have been able to control those demons, mostly with running, allowing them out in fits and starts, in little manageable bits. I’m really quite a happy person, no matter where I find myself. I’ve been an overachiever my whole life - graduating college at 20, then straight to the Marine Corps as a commissioned officer. Graduate school and a PhD weren’t enough, I needed a second Masters - and maybe a few more. One marathon wasn’t long enough, better do two back to back, no, make it six. I’ve enjoyed these achievements and really enjoyed the growth, freedom (and ok the attention) they’ve given me. 

One of those freedoms was the freedom from scrutiny of my drinking. In a way, I think many of my loved ones excused my out of control drinking because of all my accomplishments. I know I certainly did. I was functional, hell I was highly-functional, so what did it matter if I let loose occasionally? And so what if occasionally was 3-5 nights a week for over a decade? My life was exhausting at times - managing all the parts of myself, chasing all my goals, accelerating my love affair with work. I told myself that I needed to lose control, to turn it all off and reset, and drinking was a great way to do that.

Sure I don’t love hangovers - I mean have you seen a Maggie-grade hangover? And I certainly don’t love the calories or the embarrassing apology texts I had pre-written for friends and acquaintances alike. But those were the tolls you pay to lose self-control, to feel that feeling of complete freedom and abandonment that comes from drinking. I love that feeling.

Or I guess, I should say I loved that feeling. At some point, maybe on the second day I woke up in jail, the scales between my love of control and love of lack of control began to tip. I pushed it too far, my good deeds couldn’t outweigh my bad behavior, because life isn’t a ledger of assets and liabilities. It started to get old, probably for my friends and family long before it did for me. I started to realize that the responsibilities, the cares that I was “free” from during my drunken episodes, were things, people and goals I loved. They were parts of my life I didn’t want to abandon, not even for a few hours. More than that, they were relationships, experiences, and dreams that may not still be there when the next hangover fog lifted. And it was more than the fear of losing something or someone. I fell out of love with losing control.

Much like relationships with work changed over the years, my relationship with control changed too. As I started shaking off, or outrunning, the pressure I felt to control everything - I began to appreciate and honor the things I could control. I started to realize that in my quest for losing control, I was willingly giving up my agency, my power. I started to realize that a lack of control wasn’t freedom. In fact, it was the complete opposite. 

Being able to control your life, your body, and your future - that’s freedom, and that’s what the little girls at the Meridian Freedom Project wanted, it’s what they saw as hallmarks to being powerful. 

They were so right. Power is the ability to control our destinies, the ability to control ourselves.

And one of the best ways to control our destinies is to plan for them. 

We understand this in running, and especially in ultra running. We love control. We carefully outline training plans, study elevation maps and calculate cutoff times. We prepare race drop bags and plan our nutrition. We schedule our kids’ social events and our own happy hours around our weekly long runs. We plan, and then plan again. 

We do this knowing that none of this planning can control the weather. We don’t pretend that enough preparation will prevent every stumble, injury, or GI issue. We know that flights get delayed and kids get sick every day. We know it’s random and at times unavoidable. We know there are plenty of things in running that we cannot control, things that can lead to the perfect race day or blow up 16 weeks of training. 

Those uncontrollable parts? Those are the exact reasons we plan. We try to mitigate their effects by preparing for the parts we can, by controlling what we can. We envision these guffaws and goofs so that when they inevitably happen, we don’t lose our shit. To quote a dead general - “Plans mean nothing, but planning is everything.” Planning lets us prepare, adapt, and flex. It reminds us that no matter what a race, a run, or reality throws at us, we have some control - over our reactions, our emotions, and the choices we make in response. 

To give all that up is defeatist and it’s privileged. To continually willingly cede control is a way of telling yourself that either you’ll always get it back or that you’re not worthy of it in the first place. Neither is true. Everyone deserves control, but control is never a guarantee. 

So I’m declaring a comeback of control - in running and life. I’m proudly displaying my 5-year plan, my 10-year plan, (and my backups for both) my running goals and all the ways I’m going to make them happen. Those girls were right, control is freedom and it is power and I’m claiming both. Break out the day planners and colored pens ladies, as Janet says, “when it has to do with my life, I wanna be the one in control.”