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.
