Catching Your Fourth Wind

Toward rushes of quiet presence.

Deena Kastor—one of the toughest American distance runners of all time—wrote in her memoir, “I hated running in the wind. No matter how often I told myself the resistance would make me stronger, I still despised it.”

It’s always been this way—humans at the mercy of gusts and gales. In ancient texts, stories of the wind speak to unpredictability, chaos, and loss of control—our inability to grasp the transience of life, our powerlessness in the face of divine judgment.

“How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?”
~ Job 21:18, New International Version

The adversarial relationship between runners and wind goes way back. But sometimes it’s at our backs, too. Do we notice when we’re buoyed by breezes? And what of the imaginary gusts that move us through the many nuanced phases of a run? That’s a whole ‘nother bag of wind.

George Sheehan wrote about a transition to easier running after a few minutes of movement—the well-known “second wind.” But it’s what he said in 1991’s Running to Win that got me thinking about the metaphorical moving air that propels us.

“About 35 minutes out, there is this third wind, and with it comes a rush of ideas, memories, and experiences …”

I’ll see Sheehan’s three winds and raise one. I occasionally experience four, and the last is as compelling as it is elusive. The “fourth wind” nudges me closer to myself and invites integration of my running with the world around.

It is the wind of presence.

First Wind: Catalyst for Becoming

Some days we fly outside to run. Others we need a little help. In both cases, it’s the first wind that gets us moving. This humble, workmanlike breeze scoots us into our shoes and whispers encouragements. It can also whip up a storm of negative self-talk (watch for that). But, on the whole, the first wind is our ally.

Picture the phases of a run mapped on a linear gradient: “becoming” to “being.” We could also plot our mind states to this diagram: “striving” to “settled.” Early on, we’re often distracted and busy. If we’re tuned in to the upcoming run at all, it might be in an anxious, future-oriented way: “I wonder what this run will bring.”

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Second Wind: Inhabiting the Physical

A few steps into our jog, we begin arriving in the body. This is a woo-woo way of saying, shit is often unpleasant. Maybe because we’ve experienced free and weightless running in the past, the stiffness and heaviness feels more acute.

History also tells us to be patient and let the run come (it usually does). If we’ve done the dance many times, we may even learn to welcome early sluggishness as a known first step on the path to something wonderful.

Sheehan said, “Once out the door, my body accepts the leash. It is willing to wait for the second wind. So I trot that first mile, deliberately making it very easy. I allow myself to savor the initial feeling of release, to experience that sensation of escape.”

Still, this savoring of the second wind merely points out that we’re still trapped in the mind, striving for an imagined future: “I can’t wait to be moving better.”

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Third Wind: Becoming’s Last Gasp

There’s more to the George Sheehan quote from the opening of the article. I saved it for this section to make a point. Here’s the whole thing:

“About 35 minutes out, there is this third wind, and with it comes a rush of ideas, memories, and experiences associated with whatever topic I have chosen to think about.”

Sheehan’s depiction of this common phase of a run as, “a productive time for thinking,” is on par with my own experience. In the third wind, I often have bursts of creative energy, sometimes outlining entire articles in my head. I’ll organize to-do lists and work through life’s challenges.

But even if we’re choosing to think—and intentional thinking is a lot more fun than the other kind, where we’re led along helplessly—we are still thinking. It’s as if the survival instinct baked into our DNA fires to keep us alert, lest we be eaten by a saber tooth: “I’m going to fill this time with problem solving.”

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Fourth Wind: The Stillness of Being

At some point, the mind might settle, our thoughts melding with the rhythm of our footfall tap tap then dissipating as vapor on our breath tap tap tap and gradually disappearing altogether tap tap tap tap.

Here, our body is barely separate from the earth and we’re shuttled along by an unseen hand. We aren’t in the landscape, we are the landscape. The fourth wind, when we’re fortunate enough to have it behind us, ushers a deep and peaceful presence. It is the gift of being. Effortless action. Acceptance. “I am.”

You might have noticed a whiff of “becoming” on the right side of the gradient. Even when we get whisked away to moments of presence, the brain inevitably reasserts itself [Forrest Gump voice]: “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll go home now.”

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The Finish Line

In 1978’s Running & Being, George Sheehan writes that runners are naturally more attuned to the present:

For those active in mind and heart and body, the child and the poet, the saint and the athlete, the time is always now. They are eternally present. And present with intensity and participation and commitment. They have to be. Should their concentration falter, should their mind wander, they will be undone. Only the now exists for them.

Sheehan paints a picture of effort and strain. This, to me, is third wind stuff. I live here most of my running hours, and you probably do, too. Nothing wrong with the third wind. But boy howdy, while I try not to cling to or reach for it, I cannot shake the memories of my spirit being caught by a fourth.

Run lightly,
- mike

P.S. - Today, Lisa and I celebrate four years alcohol-free. At its core, Running Lightly is about change, and sobriety has been nothing short of transformative in our lives. So there’s that! No newsletter next week… We’re headed to Sacramento for CIM, and are just so stinking excited. To the 325 RL subscribers, thank you for being here. And to the 35 who joined in November alone, welcome!

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