Written by Luke Gibson
Every second counts, and as we juggle the many components of our lives to make the pieces fit, different parts of our journeys inevitably overlap. The best possible example of this came during my recent Forster Half Marathon.
The course consisted of two laps, and it rained heavily throughout the first lap. While others around me complained, I embraced the difficult conditions. I’ve recently come to understand the concept of accepting the things that are beyond my control. If it was raining, did I have a say in how that panned out? Could I end the downpour through hope? The answer was a resounding no. In some ways, without recognising it at the time, I was engaging in my own version of mindfulness.
When this concept was first mooted to me a couple of years ago, my mind went to the picture of me falling asleep on a massage table, oblivious to the woman walking up and down my back. I also imagined that mindfulness involved doing a downward dog in a yoga class or practising deep breathing in a park on a summer’s day.
Yet apparently, mindfulness is the ability and practice of being aware of the present moment, being fully present and approaching it with acceptance and without judgement.
Here I was, running a half marathon in late winter while copping a torrent of rain and having every reason to complain about my circumstances. Yet, in the words of Maxwell Smart from the hugely popular TV series Get Smart, I found myself saying out loud, despite the conditions, “And… loving it.”
I was in the moment. I was fully present. The rain was liberating, and encouragement from friends and strangers alike spurred me on. And in among all this, I was able to embrace the often-quoted phrase, “It’s not what happens, it’s how you deal with it that matters.”
Somehow, I was practising mindfulness while simultaneously exercising, this time in the form of an event. It seemed somewhat counterintuitive, yet at the same time made perfect sense. Why couldn’t I be doing mindfulness at the same time as running a half marathon?!
Not satisfied with doing two things at once, I threw in a third element, just to make things interesting.
Session two at Charles Sturt in 2026 for me is the subject of Foundations of Psychology 2, as I pursue a part-time, online Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology). The subject had four assessments, and I had recently completed the first one: an online quiz. Turning my attention to the second assessment, I initially thought it would be the hardest task across all five subjects I’d undertaken.
We were given the methods and results sections of a research report, and our assessment was to write the other three components: the abstract, introduction and discussion. This world of research reports was completely new to me, and I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. Yet the day before the half marathon I’d forced myself to understand the basics of this task.
So as the rain tumbled down while I ran a half marathon in the middle of August in Forster, I embraced the conditions and practised mindfulness. And I talked through my second assessment.
Remarkably, by the end of the 21.1km run, I had been able to compartmentalise what was required for this assessment and had a much clearer idea of the direction I would go in.
It wasn’t carefully planned, but it happened organically. In the process, I realised that during every training run, I consciously or subconsciously process the tasks I need to attend to, whether university-related or otherwise.
The morning of the Forster Half Marathon was a masterclass in managing different aspects of my life simultaneously. Who says men can’t multitask?!
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