Mindful Running: How Meditative Running can Improve Performance and Make you a Happier, More Fulfilled Person

Tap into a powerful mind-body connection to optimize performance and boost happiness-on and off the running trails. What if the key to improving your running, shaping your body, and boosting your happiness was all in your mind? In Mindful Running, lifelong runner, coach, and fitness journalist Mackenzie L. Havey recounts her personal practice of meditative running and the influence it has had on her life. She taps a wide range of sources-from weekend warriors to Olympic runners, from coaches and sports psychologists to neuroscientists and meditation experts-to examine how training mental fitness through mindfulness can enhance your running practice and lead to a more contented existence. The research is clear: Mindfulness changes the very structure of the brain. Paired with physical training, mindful running has the potential to give you an edge when you''re out logging miles, as well as help you hone the ability to exist in the present, endure challenges and hardship with ease and find greater happiness in all things big and small. Mindful running is a total body and mind fitness regimen with serious benefits that continue even when the race is over. Regardless of your fitness level, the Mindful Running process is the same: We focus in on the body, mind and surroundings and begin to notice what thoughts, feelings and sensations exist in that moment; we fathom that information, consider how it all fits together from a holistic standpoint, and decide if we need to make adjustments; and by following these steps we enter flow, a state that embodies present moment awareness, concentration, confidence, optimal performance and joy.