The Rise of Run Rage

Most of the time, Chris Coon is a mild-mannered, low-key pastor at Urban Village Church in Chicago.

But when the collar comes off and the running shorts—and especially a race bib—go on, the 49-year-old turns into a different person. An angry one.

The things that stoke his ire? Poor race organization. Course volunteers who don’t direct runners at turns. And cars, especially those that don’t yield the right of way or even acknowledge his presence in an intersection.

Not only does anger bubble up more frequently when he’s running, he says, he’s also more likely to act on it. “I’ve flipped the bird at many a driver over the years,” he says. “And if they flip me off then I’ll usually yell at them, ‘F you,’ or something like that.”

His reaction might shock any of his congregants within earshot—but it doesn’t surprise other runners or sports psychologists.

During training runs or competitions, or even during related activities like race registration or packet pick-up, many athletes and observers report a fast-rising fury out of proportion to any perceived slight. (For instance, a race shirt in the wrong size is one of the most common reasons participants yell at Kimberely Stedman, founder and race director of the F3 Half Marathon in Chicago.)

And—sometimes to their own surprise—they find themselves lashing out more than they would in any other situation. In effect, it’s a pedestrian version of the raised tempers that occur behind the wheel. Hence the term run rage.

There’s no real way to tell if it’s becoming more common. No agency keeps statistics on mid-run conflicts or race day complaints. But the term instantly resonates with both endurance athletes like Coon and sports psychologists like Gloria Petruzzelli, Psy.D., who works with athletes in private practice and at California State University. “It’s probably a lot more common than we think,” she says.

Even mental skills experts themselves aren’t immune from sudden ire. Take Denver-based Justin Ross, Psy.D. When he was training to qualify for the Boston Marathon, a woman walking her dog nearly tripped him on the retractable—but unretracted—leash on a trail near his home. “I kind of unloaded on her verbally because I was frustrated,” he says. “It interrupted an important training run. My physiology was so kicked up that it was hard to restrain myself.”

• Biology deserves a fair share of the blame for these incidents, say Petruzzelli and Ross. When you’re pushing hard in a race or lost in thought on a long run, your conscious brain tunes out and your basic reptilian instincts take over. “If you’re running outside or on the trails, you’re vulnerable to traffic, animals, and then other people,” Petruzzelli says. “Even when we don’t realize it, our brains are scanning for threats.”

The first sight of one, no matter how slight, and you’re instantly even deeper into flight-or-fight mode.

In this state, your stress hormones are surging, your heart rate is soaring, your muscles are tense. Especially when you’re already amped up for a race or fast workout, it’s a quick jump from competition to fear, and again from fear to anger, Ross says.

This explains why athletes tend to react in risky ways. “I have been known to slap the hoods of the cars of inattentive drivers,” says Claire Zulkey, 37, of Evanston, Illinois. “I’m not proud of this—you never know who might be super cuckoo behind the wheel. But I find it vaguely satisfying to ‘speak my mind.’ You know it’s jarring to hear something or someone hit your car when you’re in the driver’s seat.”

Wendy Curry, 39, of Chicago, found a driver who didn’t take kindly to that banging. “A few summers ago I smacked the back of a car that was pulling out of a surface lot in front of me and totally cut me off,” she says. “I run kind of fast, and I couldn’t stop in time. She yelled back at me. It got ugly. ‘B****, you BETTER not be hitting my car!’”

• A sense of entitlement is at work in many runners, Ross says. They feel an attachment to a physical space and the right to be there without interference. And, with your conscious brain quiet, you may regress to a childhood mindset, complete with the ensuing tantrum. “In our most primitive states, we’re like babies,” says Mitch Abrams, Psy.D., a New York-based sports psychologist and the author of Anger Management in Sport. “We’re very selfish. We take it personally when someone’s in our darn way.”

• Identity issues are also at work. When Abrams treats athletes for anger issues, he first asks one key question: On a scale of one to 100, how highly do they rank being an athlete as part of their identity? The closer to 100 they fall, the more strongly their athletic success is linked to their overall view of themselves, he says. As a result, they’re more likely to struggle when something goes awry.

“We spend a lot of time and energy and money to compete, and often with big ideas in mind,” Ross says. “People who are trying to run a Boston qualifier and there’s something wrong with the course, whether they’re misdirected or misguided, or somebody provides wrong information, that can just cause such great angst and anger.”

• The way news travels can now amplify the reach of any one small event. For example, race directors of a mismarked course can face an overwhelming assault once the news hits social media, Ross says. And in a nation highly divided politically and socially, minor insults can quickly turn explosive. “Any kind of feeling that promotes an us-versus-them could certainly lead to an escalation when it’s really unnecessary,” Abrams says.

But as Coon points out, run rage isn’t exactly a partisan issue. “For me it happens regardless of who’s in the administration,” he says.

The downsides of this outrage range from physical harm (spoiler alert: the car is always going to win) to near-instant regret to poor performances. Minneapolis runner Tom Huberty, 65, vividly recalls a time 25 years ago when, atop a hill near mile 22 of Grandma’s Marathon, a car appeared on the closed course. Huberty yelled obscenities and threw a cup of ice at the driver, who was honking his horn to clear a path. “I am certain the cost was greater to me and robbed me of some energy the last four miles of the race,” he says. Still, the incident makes his blood boil years later.

• Use visualization, Abrams recommends. Before your race or run, picture everything unfolding perfectly, including the end when you cross the finish line triumphantly. Then, imagine something going wrong—a slower pack of runners clogging the course, a dog lunging at you. Picture yourself reacting calmly, quickly steering yourself back on track, and finishing strong. You’ll lay the neural groundwork for responding the same way in real life.

• Stay tuned to cues you’re reacting with rage. Some of these can be physical—sweatier palms, a scrunched-up face, a faster heart rate, Petruzzelli says. Of course, these are also common to running, especially in a competitive situation, Abrams points out. So stay dialed in to your thought processes, too. Notice when your focus shifts from your race goals or pace to crushing your fist against a slower runner or a wayward pooch. Those are signs you need to intentionally redirect your response, Abrams says.

• Talk yourself down by recognizing the threat you faced and then reassuring yourself, Petruzzelli suggests. Don’t gloss over it with purely positive self-talk. “Tell yourself, ‘Someone almost just ran you over or knocked you off the trail, but you’re OK. You’ll get through this; let’s move on,’” Petruzzelli says. Bring yourself to the present moment by practicing what she calls “radical acceptance”—recognizing that you can’t change what happened, but you can still make the best of the situation by altering your response.

• Channel your anger into a better run, Abrams says. After all, anger—a completely normal and at times useful emotion—is separate from the outbursts that follow. “Anger can absolutely help performance in sport; rage never does. Rage is that level that is uncontrollable, it’s disorganized, it’s not focused,” he says. “Sure, if you’re neck and neck with someone and the ribbon’s right there waiting for you and you hit the gas, then rage can help you. But for any kind of distance, it’s going to destroy your plan.”

• Practice this focused use of emotion—just as you wouldn’t toss on a new pair of shoes or experiment with your breakfast on race day, you can’t expect to turn frustration into fuel the first time you try it. So test the idea of running mad by conjuring a past slight before a hard workout. “Think about someone who said you couldn’t—or even your own doubts,” Abrams says. In other words, use your run to talk back to the inner—or outer—voice that says you can’t achieve your goals. “Say, ‘Oh yeah? Well, watch me.’”

If you can do this without flying off the handle, the strategy can pay dividends. “Moderate levels of anger can make you stronger, faster, increase your stamina, decrease your perception of pain,” Abrams says. “If you can summon the anger and use it, then that puts more in your tank than a lot of other people.”

In part because of his training in psychology, Ross says he was able to do that with the errant dogwalker he encountered, even after expending energy yelling at her. “I was really cranked up,” he says. “I was at the end of long tempo run and I was able to finish with negative splits at the end.”

• Forgive yourself. Ross’s example shows that, even with practice and awareness, you may still react with rage after a conflict. If that happens, let yourself off the hook. Evaluating and modifying your behavior is always part of the process of becoming a better athlete and a better person, Abrams says. Then do your best to forgive others, too. Vent to your running buddies if you need to, but also keep in mind the offending parties are humans and make mistakes, Petruzzelli says.

That’s a sentiment that helped marathoner and triathlete Peter Shankman, 44, of New York, change his approach. “I used to scream at people walking through a race,” he says. “Then one day, I realized I was being a complete tool—I realized it’s the endorphins of running that pushed me to scream, versus normal me who’d say excuse me and move myself.”

With conscious attention and deep breathing, he has moderated his response to avoid anger and rediscover the fun in racing. But, like most other runners, he’s still a work on progress. He holds one exception to his newfound compassion: “The a**hole who cut me off in the 2006 marathon then gave me the finger. I still hope he gets hit by a car one day.”

I last did this in my forties, so I’m not sure how it works for people older than that. The VA sawbones told me not to do it now, especially using a cane, but it worked extremely well in my twenties, thirties, and forties.

The first part is the mindset. This is probably easier for women than men. You have to set out not only to tolerate, but to revel in public humiliation (assuming you have to run in public, as I did.

You start out on day one by running as slowly as you possibly can, then cutting your speed in half. At the first sign of discomfort, stop. Little old granny ladies using walkers should pass you with ease, uphill or downhill. When this happens and carloads of young people hoot and mock you, smile, wave, and slow down even further. It doesn’t matter how slowly you run, as long as you maintain the running posture. The minute you drop into a walk, though, you’re done for the day.

Young men usually have too much ego for this. Pride drives them to run faster to look better, and guess what: that hurts. If you’re not willing to tolerate looking like a lightweight for a fairly short period of time, you’ll never get there.

Don’t run two days in a row, and never let more than two days pass between runs. A good schedule might be Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Depending on your level of conditioning on day one, run as described above for anything between 30 seconds and three minutes. On day two, if you can do it without discomfort, increase your time by anything from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

The important thing at this stage is do*not*hurt*yourself. At all. You should never be out of breath. If you think you can add ten minutes, add five. If you experience discomfort during that last five, stop at that point. Do not push through it. Stop at any sign of discomfort. Embark on each run determined to look like the weakest, slowest, most pathetic PeeWee Herman act-alike in the lower 48.

The name of the game is not to add distance or speed. You want to add minutes. It doesn’t matter if you go from fifty yards in five minutes to fifty-two yards in ten minutes; that is a success. A substantial success. During these early weeks you should work on your form. You must absorb the shock of your steps with muscle, not bone. Get whatever advice you need on form from a successful distance runner.

As you creep upward toward thirty minutes, which could be a matter of weeks or months, you will at some point hit the wall. That is, all your ready-service fuel will be expended, and your body (which is your enemy in this endeavor) will start screaming at you that you must stop. You will be completely exhausted.

This is not defeat. This is your body’s last, desperate Hail-Mary attempt to keep you from losing weight and getting in great shape. It is tempting to push through this, but be careful not to hurt yourself. You might want to run right up to the wall and stop a few times before you attempt it. This assumes that you have built up to this point slowly enough that just before you hit the wall, you still feel pretty good.

When the day rolls around that you feel like breaking through the wall, remember to run as slowly as you possibly can, then cut that speed in half.

You will know when you break through to the other side. You’ll get a blast of renewed energy and a major endorphin high. You’ll feel great. Stop anyway. Remember, your number-one goal here is to experience no discomfort. If you push it to 45 or even 60 minutes too quickly, you will very likely regret it. Sports injuries are your body’s revenge, and you must not allow them.

Once you get used to pushing through the wall, it will get easier and easier. You will probably be adding time in blocks of five minutes, but this makes it easier to hurt yourself or lose your breath. Never, never lose your breath. You should be cruising way below capacity at this point.

And then, one fine evening, you will run for 60 minutes and feel fine at the end of it. If you’ve been doing it right, you won’t have covered much ground in that 60 minutes, but you won’t be out of breath, and you won’t hurt.

Now you’re running 60 minutes three times a week, and without even trying, or hurting yourself, your speed and distance covered will increase of their own accord, without pain.

I did this three times in my life, after backsliding and porking out. I credit my longevity to this, and to distance swimming when I could no longer run. My personal optimum was to cover six miles in that hour…except that sometimes I felt so good that I just did another three miles. When I did that, though, I was in my twenties and in fantastic shape…for me.

I’m sure I’ve left a lot out—for instance, never, ever, no matter what just *don’t* run in the heat of the day. Your run should end just as it gets too dark to be out running. Don’t wear those ridiculous suits that are supposed to make you sweat. Remain constantly alert for the beginnings of sports injuries. Prevent them by stopping.

Well, I guess your mileage may vary, but this has worked for me. It played a big role in putting me on the podium at the national championship in my chosen sport, lo, these many decades ago. I think there are very few people, even professional athletes, who wouldn’t benefit from this regimen. (Marathoners, of course, excepted.) If a person has osteoarthritis, or something similar, running six miles might not be indicated. I’m not a doctor and this is not medical advice.

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