How big is your box?

I'm having one of those school years where work is really, well, work. It's mentally taxing in ways it hasn't been before. Some days, it feels like the best way to approach the day is one task at a time. Other days, I can take on the big picture. Today my friend and I gave a training for other teachers, and that was work (but in a different way). So we followed that up with our first-ever run together.  

I told my friend about the box today. Let me qualify this by saying that these mind games are really for those gut-wrenching, long-distance runs that seem like they'll never end. The box is a mind game that another friend taught me when I first started running. And I'm all about the mind games that you can play when running. A couple of my favorites:

Step counting: When I think I can't go another step and when the gravel side of the road looks as inviting as a down comforter, I start counting. 50 steps on. 50 steps off. 100 steps on. 100 steps off. 500 steps on. 50 steps off. I pick some steps and run/walk them until I feel like I can adjust the number. It gives my brain something to do while my body is suffering. 

Do the math: Can you? If you can still calculate the number of miles left in relation to the number of miles in the total run (or, in common speak, if you can do fractional math), then you're not yet really fatigued. 

And the box. The space on the road in front of me is a rectangle, and I adjust the size of the rectangle based on however much I can mentally handle. But the point is to keep running towards the front edge of the box. Sometimes the box is a mile long. Sometimes, the box is ten feet. But whatever distance I make the box, the deal is that I can't readjust the length until I get to the front edge. The goal, too, is that when I get to the edge of the box, I run another ten steps beyond it...cause I can do anything for ten steps. 

My friend needed the box today. She hadn't run this distance in a while, and we were out running in a 20 mph wind on some rollers around her house. And it kind of made me think that I really need to be more aware of "the box" when I'm not running, too. When work is really work. The box is as big as I make it. And I can always go a few steps beyond it.

What are your favorite mind games for runs?