Chicken, Socks, and the Evil Eye

or, how we use superstition to get things done

It’s two days before my big race—the Zagori Mountain Running 44km mountain run. Over the last several months, I’ve run up and down trails and hilly streets; I’ve trained for balance and strength; I’ve stretched and yogaed; I’ve worked on my mental game; I’ve practiced my nutrition (all thanks to expert coaching). But there’s one all-important thing I have to do today. I need to buy myself an evil eye.

Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash

As a good Greek, I’m always knocking on wood or saying ftou ¹, to fake a curse on good things to keep the evil eye from cursing them for real. But as I’m actually in Greece right now, I feel it would be almost churlish not to purchase an evil eye of my very own to have as talisman against bad luck.² I’ll stick the blue-glass eye inside a pocket and it will—the logic (?!) goes—prevent the many ills that could befall me during my nine or ten hours of running up (and down) 8,000 feet of elevation.

miles 22-24 out of 27

This won’t be the first time I’ve used a charm or talisman. There was a time when I felt I couldn’t sit down to write without my “lucky scone” beside me and a cup of coffee. And for several years once I began competing as a rower, I wore the same hot-pink lucky ankle socks for every regatta I raced in. I raced in the same baseball cap until it frayed beyond functionality. Now, I eat the same meal before a race, whether it’s a skimo race, a running race, or a regatta: pasta and egg, a simplified carbonara. Yes, the carbs and protein combo makes good nutritional sense, but I’d probably eat it anyway. Because I always do.

This is what’s behind the magical thinking of sports talismans—and talismans for any other work we aim at. It’s some combination of tested, proven good sense (carbs + protein = good race fuel) and magical thinking (this will help me because I believe it will help me). The repeating word in that previous paragraph was “same”. And this is indeed wisdom: never do anything new on race day! The Red Sox player Wade Boggs notoriously had his chicken. Downhill skiers seem to always click their poles together in the starting gate—not for function, but for luck. And I had my lucky socks and hat and carbonara.

I say “had” in past tense because lately it’s only the carbonara that remains. I’ve moved away from routines and habits. So much so that in thinking about this newsletter, I realized that in asking others for their habits—as I am about to do—I had few of my own to offer first. I wonder if that in itself is, for me, a kind of magical thinking, too:

I don’t have a routine and that’s my routine. I take care of the details and the hard work and the practicalities so luck won’t matter.

But here I am, on the eve of the eve of the big race, feeling the need to go get an evil eye. The mati will be like the key that makes all the other pieces of my training legible. Practice, fitness, nutrition: it will all work because of that little piece of blue glass. Right? Right?

What’s your lucky charm, or superstition, or routine that helps you get through big projects or events?

1. Contrary to popular belief, or representations in a certain oft-viewed rom-com, Greeks do not actually spit. They simply say “ftou” or “ftou sou” (which means sort of “spit to/for you”).

2. Note that, in true Greek dour fashion, the charm isn’t to offer good luck. It’s to protect you from the bad luck that is otherwise surely coming your way.