Hard Running

Today, after what feels like many, many months of preparation I will be running what promises to be a rather wet, windy and grueling 10k.  My original plan when I started training was to blog my progress weekly, hoping to keep track of blisters, minor ailments and training woes on my way to great athletic heights.  Unfortunately, my desire to do this was cut rather short, together, in truth with my desire to do anything at all.  Running is really hard.  Running when it takes every ounce of will power to get out of bed and leave the house with clean teeth and matching shoes is something close to impossible.  Sadness sucks.  Hard.

Over the past few months I have discovered the wonder of an upward emotional cycle driven by exercise – endorphin's really are pretty cool little things – and when the going has been good I have felt better than I have for years and prouder of myself than I can remember.  Being naturally obsessively hard on myself this really is a massive achievement.  It’s just that sometimes getting in to the upward cycle has required more than I have.   Small injuries which should have meant a day or two off from training gave me an (subconscious) excuse for a week of evenings spent lying on the sofa in an emotional slump that at the time I felt I would never get out of.   Sometimes even without the excuse of aches and pains my emotional state left me feeling too bruised to do anything, despite knowing that logically that going for a run would be the best thing I could possibly do.

 

After several weeks of darkness I started to feel that perhaps this was something that I couldn’t do.  Not physically, I have always known that completing the course in a vaguely sensible time (basically before they pack everything down) would be a close to impossible task, but the idea of completing the course when I couldn’t imagine anything other than going to sleep for a very, very long time, preferably several years, was slipping further and further away. 

I’m very lucky.  At the point where I thought I’d lost my cheer leader and felt my lowest and loneliest I was reminded that I have many people in my life cheering me on and supporting me.  I went home, smelt the sea air and tried my hardest to feel vaguely normal.  The love and support of my friends and family gave me the push I needed to get back onto the upwards cycle.  I reminded myself why I was running and also how lucky I am to have a life to lead when others have theirs cut so short.  This wasn’t easy but I am stubborn.  I haven’t let anyone break me yet, I wasn’t prepared to be broken by myself. 

I have learnt that I need stability and routine, and that I need access to the people I care about most.  When those things are taken away everything starts to unravel worryingly quickly but they can also be fixed, I just need to allow myself to be supported by the people who care about me.  None of us can do everything alone.    That support helped me to get back on my feet and back pounding the pavements, paths, roads and anywhere else I could think of to run and keep myself busy and interested.  The ongoing support of my friends, family and total strangers has kept me going and kept me getting out of bed.  The support and encouragement of Grahams family in particular has been invaluable.   Running is really hard.  Running when you know you have support and encouragement is slightly easier. 

I haven’t written this piece as a sob story or as a thinly veiled memo on depression, nor have I written it to prove that my life is any more difficult that anyone else’s, there will be people running today who have over come far more than me I have no doubt – we are all climbing mountains.   I am writing it because these words have been going around in my head for months and need to be released.  I am writing it to remind myself that I have overcome more than physical barriers, that I can carry on from what seems like the end of the world. That I am proud of myself for doing something I didn’t think I could do.  Lets go running.