Experience

It is the time of year when it does not matter how much you do. It does not matter what you do. What matters is that you do something. And if you do not, then it is also the time of year to be kind to yourself about not doing it. Missing some runs in this period is totally fine and understandable. We are all busy, but as you will find out later on, I do have an imperative to keep running.

It can be hard to fit runs in at the best of times, far less just now when there can be many family activities going on, trying to catch up with friends who are home visiting for the festive period ,or just generally trying to find some time in the days off to just breathe and relax a bit. Rest is an under-rated facet of running fitness.

For me, I cannot say that I feel I have fully regained my running mojo which I mentioned in the last blog, but at least I have not felt under pressure to go and run. When I have run it has been because I have wanted to go out, sometimes on my own, but mostly with friends.

“a positive motivating factor”

It is the running with friends which undoubtedly has kept me going of late. That sense, even if one of you does not really fancy it, that not going out would let the other one down. It can be a positive motivating factor that is for sure, at a time when there can be few other incentives to run other than the thought that if you do not, then your fitness will diminish by the day.

In reality that is not going to happen, even if you miss a week or two, if you run regularly. Yes it will make it a bit harder when you get back to it, make the effort a bit more forceful in those initial miles back, but this is only a temporary phase and soon enough that missing fitness would quickly return. I recognise, for people starting out their running journey in particular, that missing a couple of weeks can make it feel like you are going right back to the start – and even a disincentive to actually returning to running – but if this is the case, I would urge anyone to just come back gently and persevere. No one ever said running would be easy – it is not – but the benefits are clear.

Let’s be honest, the weather has hardly helped. From the snow we got right before Christmas through to the totally crazy day we had when Storm Gerrit landed upon us, it has not exactly been conducive to lacing up the trainers and heading out. In fact, the snow we had on the Saturday before Christmas scuppered my plans for a longer run the day afterwards.

The snow quickly accumulated in the early morning

I had a long drive that day to pick up my mum and bring her up to our house for Christmas, and the weather was so foul – snow, sleet, rain and high winds all day – that I decided in the early evening not to go out for my longer run the following day. As it turned out, by the morning, most of the snow had disappeared and the run would have been entirely achievable, but I had made my choice and I still got out for a five kilometre run with a friend anyway. In the past, that kind of thing would have really annoyed me – and worried me because I would feel that I was missing out on an important part of any training programme – but I am a bit more sanguine about things now. That only comes with experience of course, and that is not something you can buy.

“runners are made when no one else is watching”

Experience brings you things like this. My calendar of running activities for the year from Strava. A year of another marathon, an ultra trail race, multiple half marathons and a few 10km races thrown in for good measure. But these are the peaks, what makes them possible is everything else. As someone wiser than me once said, runners are made when no one else is watching. And with a couple of days to go, I might yet reach 1250 miles for the year.

My Strava running calendar

There have only been a couple of weeks when I have not run – due to injury – and it is this kind of consistency which I find is so important in my running. It is not about running massively quick or running massive distances, it is about turning up regularly. And yes, that even means just now when so many other factors come into play. But as I said earlier, the world is not coming to come to an end if a few runs go missing from the diary.

In terms of highlights, three stand out, and these are the images below. Getting a sub two hour half again in Inverness back in March, doing my first ultra trail race in tough circumstances at Bennachie in October, but the standout has to be my sixth marathon, back in April in Rotterdam.

The important thing here is not really the times I did the races in, it is simply the achievement of doing them that truly counts. I vividly remember the intensity of those closing miles in Rotterdam when everything was telling me to stop yet I fought through it to get to the end. The crazy atmosphere of the crowds through that time, spilling into the road, sometimes making it hard to see a path through as they cheered, roared the names of the runners as they approached, and high-fiving those taking part with one hand while they held a beer in the other. It was brilliant, bizarre and at times, overwhelming, but it got me through to that finishing straight in the Coolsingel and the joy of another marthon finish. And all of the races give me memories for a lifetime. So while I have been finding things challenging in recent weeks, these strong, positive memories give me strength to keep going.

“very wet and windy”

Keeping going has been what a number of my friends have been doing through December as they take part in the annual Marcothon to run every day in December. This year, I think like last, they have had every type of weather thrown at them but many are almost at the end now. I went out with my friend Susan, who is taking part, and her dog Scout, when Storm Gerrit was blasting its way through the North East of Scotland and it was a very wet and windy run, but all that mattered was that we got through it. Well that, and it gave me a chance to wear my XXXXL waterproof running jacket that I wrote about a few weeks back. It stood up to the test.

A crazy day for running

So this brings me to the final thing about this year of running, and it is about a choice I have to make. This weekend, entries open for the ultra marathon I am considering in March -the D33. I need to commit. I am going to commit. But I am so full of doubt and nerves about the challenge ahead. This is another occasion when I have to look back in order to look forward. To find strength in what I have achieved before in order to summon the desire to go through it all again and more. Missing a few runs at this time of year is not going to make much difference, but the next couple of months promise to be hard going. Let’s see if I am up to it this time around.

Drag Race

I know it is because of the time of year. I do. I really do. It is because it is dark. It is because it has been wet. It is because it has been windy. And cold. But boy, do I really feel like I am having to haul myself out of the door on every run right now.

I have felt it a struggle for weeks now. Everything seems a bit relentless, not least, until the last few days, the appalling run of weather we have been having which has hardly been conducive to enticing me out the door most days.

“I have mentally checked out”

I am someone who is happy to run on my own and also to run with friends, so it is not that I am needing the reassurance of running with a group to encourage me to run – though there clearly are times when that helps. It is just that I think I have mentally checked out a bit of running for the year, and as such am struggling a bit to appreciate the positives.

I have written before on the question of what is it that gets me out running. Is it motivation or is it habit? There is no doubt at the moment it is habit that is the major driving force that is ushering me over the threshold rather than feeling really up for it. It is the habit of running a couple of times with my jogscotland group and then running both Saturday and Sunday is what is propelling me along. But on almost every run, I have those moments of doubt before getting changed to go out. “Wouldn’t it just be easier if I stayed in?”. “Nobody would really miss me if I didn’t bother going out”. “Why am I going out in this wet/cold/dark/windy/icy (delete as appropriate) morning/night?”.

“there are lots of questions”

I am not quite at the stage of saying “What is the point of all of this?”, but I think it highlights that even for runners who others may feel that it comes easily to them that there are lots of questions that run through our heads about why we are doing it. And I am not even doing the Marcothon event where a bunch of friends are running at least 5km a day throughout December – kudos to all of them who are now past the halfway point of the event – or other people who I know who are on runstreaks which now date back years of running every day.

That takes a special type of dedication, and this is not something which I possess. I need my rest days to enable me to run on the days when I can, even on the days where I feel that I cannot. That was certainly how I felt today when I went out for a 5km run with a friend and I struggled to complete it. Now this came on the back of running half marathon distance yesterday and a couple of six mile runs during the week so it was the end of a lot of mileage, but even so, that distance should not have felt as hard as it did (I am going to come back to this in a bit).

The half run yesterday did have a huge positive, the amazing sunrise view at Aberdeen beach when I was about eight or so miles in, having got out to run very early as I had to get finished and back home for some family commitments.

Love a nice sunrise

Now you might be reading this and thinking “what a hypocrite, here he is banging on about struggling to get out and yet he boxes off a half marathon having got up in the dark at stupid o’clock to do it”. I get that, but this is my reality. I struggle to find the motivation, the desire, the will, but from somewhere I find it. I guess this is what has got me to the end of my six marathons. Some kind of bloody-mindedness where, in the face of adversity, I find something from within which drives me on, even when going on is about the last thing I want to do. There is a great phrase about runners which is “we do hard things”, and I guess maybe that is what I do.

Perhaps I am too hard on myself. I mentioned earlier how much I struggled with my run this morning (bit of a confession I was out for a few drinks yesterday, but nothing extreme and I was home early so it was not that I was severely hungover). I could not really figure out why I felt so bad, not just during it but also afterwards. I actually felt quite faint and a bit sick hours later and it was only when I was looking through pictures on my phone that I thought I might have found the root cause.

Giving blood during the week

I gave blood this week, and while I felt totally fine after it – and particularly good on my run on Thursday night – perhaps I have pushed things a bit too far this week. I have no medical expertise to nail it down to this, but it might make some kind of sense. But while this would explain the run today, it does not explain the general malaise which I feel I am going through. As I say, I do think it is much more about the time of year.

Speaking of the time of year, I took advantage this week to apply a bit of festive cheer to my medal holders in my home office. It gives me so much pleasure when I look at all of these, for what they represent about the things which I have achieved since running came into my life around six years ago. From distance challenges to marathons; from 5ks to halfs; all of these medals represent hours of hard work and effort. Even, or more particularly so, on the days when I really did not want to get out and run. They are a great reminder of why I run, for the benefits it brings me physically and mentally. They are a physical manifestation of hard work.

From the marathon medals on the left to the rest, all are special memories

And I guess that is what I need to hang on to through days like I am experiencing at the moment. The bad days are, in fact, the important ones. They are the ones which make the others seem easier. The struggles to get out the door at the moment will pay off on the days when the miles pass easily under my feet and the horizons before my eyes stretch off into the distance.

For the moment though, while the motivation may be lacking, at least the habit is still there. Habit formed through many days and nights running on my own and with friends. There are certainly worse habits to have. And that is what I will use to drag myself out to run once more.

Cope

The middle of December is a tricky time. The days get shorter. The weather continues to turn colder or windier or wetter (or all of the three combined). While Christmas is just around the corner, it is still far enough away to feel like it is out of reach. For many, of course, Christmas is not a time of joy – despite what the marketeers would like to have us believe – so the dark nights can combine with dark days too.

I have had a stressful week. For reasons which I am not going to go into here, it has been very difficult to focus. While I had the pleasure of traveling for work and catching up with family and friends in London, which was great, that was very much counterbalanced by other negative influences. Which brings me to running.

I wrote last week of the guilt which you can feel (unjustifiably) when you make the choice not to go for a run. This week, going out and running was not the issue. I ran four times, even if ice did try and derail the first of those. No. Going out was not the issue. Guilt was not the issue. In fact, with running there were no issues, only positives. This is why it is so vital in my life these days – to help me deal with the other things which come along.

Mud spattered but satisfied

Now you might look at this photo and just seen a pair of mud spattered legs and trainers (and you would not be wrong), but what this also represents is resilience. It is guts. It is getting out and getting something done despite everything else. While this photograph is light, the start of this run was very much in the dark, leaving the house at 6.45am in order to meet my friend Susan after an hour or so and then run with her.

“helps to motivate”

I wanted to go out early to fulfill a target I had set myself some months back – to do at least one half marathon distance run every month this year. I am very target driven when it comes to running. Having a goal is, I find, an essential part of my routine. It really helps to motivate me through, particularly on the times when, like this week, it would be easier not to do it.

The halfs which I have done this year have been pretty varied. My best half performance was the half I did in Inverness back in March, while marathon training, when I ran under two hours again, achieving one hour and fifty five minutes. But the one that stands out for me was not a race, it was just a social run. It was in June, it was boiling hot, and I came so close to bailing out when I got to about eleven miles. Again, that would have been the easy option, but it would have annoyed the hell out of me had I given up at that point.

“a lesson for life”

And that is the lesson which running teaches you. About never giving up, even when things are difficult. A lesson for life, of course, and not just for running. But when I went out in the dark, the wind and rain this Saturday morning on the quest for the December half, giving up was not on my mind. A few miles later it was so I was so thankful to have Susan (and her dog, Scout), for company for the second part of the run to get me through it. The picture, I think, captures just how knacked I felt at this point, around twelve miles in!

I look so knackered!

Again, at this point it was about not quitting. It was about just keeping going. It was about reaching the end. It was about staying the course. Despite perhaps what my brain was trying to tell my, by this point, soaking wet feet and legs. Often, your brain is the liar, telling you to stop. It is about wrestling those demons and overcoming them. And the feeling at the end is one which makes all of the effort so worthwhile.

These feelings when I am running and then when I finish are what make it so valuable for me. It is also a place where – if I am running on my own – I can process the things which are going on in my life. And if I am running with friends, I can share my thoughts with them, and perhaps vent some of what is happening. Being able to make the most of both situations is something which I had definitely not anticipated when I started running. The physical benefits, yes, but the more subtle impacts, much less so.

“see the bigger picture”

The benefit of time on my own. Time for me to process things. An opportunity to try and see the bigger picture rather than a narrow focus on a single issue or problem. I guess it was crucial to help me through the Covid lockdowns, when our opportunities to go out and about were very limited. Thankfully those limitations no longer apply, but the way in which I use running to help me address any challenges which I may have has continued.

Then there are also the benefits, not so much around what I am thinking about, but what I am seeing. Living in a city like Aberdeen – for all that it is so dark at the moment – does combine the opportunities to run in the countryside and also beside the sea, due to its location. Had I not lived here, then I would have missed out on magical sights like this, when running with my friend Maxine. The beauty of the sunrise – even if it was on a bit of a cloudy and windy morning – never fails to impress.

Looking south east from Aberdeen beach

Returning to the theme of running a half every month, my half in November should, of course, have been the Falkirk Half Marathon, until the shambolic cancellation of the race only a few days prior to it taking place. On the day, I went out and ran a half marathon distance anyway and this week, I received the medal which some entrepreneurial people came up with the idea for. Adding it to the collection will be bittersweet, of course, for the opportunity to race with friends was denied us by those who were behind the organisation.

Now that the half a month target has been reached, there is one final target for the year, which is to reach twelve hundred running miles. I am closing in, and if everything goes ok, I should hit that in the next couple of weeks. The equivalent of one hundred miles a month is not just significant because of the distance, but is also significant because of the time it represents. Time for me, every week, every month, to let running help me handle the challenges of life. And the value of that is priceless.

Guilt

Sunday morning. My alarm goes off. I turn it off and while I do not go back to sleep. I do not get up. This morning, I am going to give the run a miss. Too cold. Too frosty. Too much ice on the pavements. Line up any excuse you want, this morning, running is not for me.

I can rationalise it all I want. Right thing to do in the circumstances. Right thing for me at the moment. Good to have a bit of a rest once in a while. Whatever. All perfectly reasonable and all fully justifiable. But at the back of it all, there is just this gnawing bit of guilt that I chose the duvet over trainers. This is despite the fact that, for quite a lot of the week, the weather outside has looked like this.

The snowy, icy weather has dominated the week

This is also where social media plays into the guilt trip, or the running app Strava, as you open it up to see that lots of other people, including your friends, did not choose the duvet. They made the effort. They got up, got out, and pounded out a valuable few miles while I was snoozing cosily away in the comfort of my own bed.

So let’s discuss these feelings of guilt. Firstly, there should be no guilt in doing what you think is the right thing for yourself. Make your decisions and stick by them. They are what you think is the correct option at the time that you make them. Secondly, missing one Sunday morning run is not going to wreck any fitness you have already built up, nor is it going to impact your ability to run the next day or the day after. In many ways, having a rest is one of the most important things you can do when training regularly (and I say this with full apologies to people doing Marcothon – the event where you run every day in December – or planning to do RED January where RED stands for Run Every Day). Good luck to you, but it is not for me.

“dangerous and wrong”

Exercise should never make you feel guilty – either for doing it, or for not doing it. It is one part of who I am, it is not the whole of me, and I have huge sympathy for people who feel guilt-shamed into either doing or not doing something. We are approaching the season where there will almost inevitably a story online or in a newspaper about the amount of exercise you need to do to burn off the (delete as appropriate) Christmas lunch/mince pie/Christmas pudding etc. This attempt to make a direct correlation between food and exercise, or even worse, viewing exercise as some sort of punishment to balance out the fun we have through the festive period is dangerous and wrong.

Exercise – while it might not feel it at times as we sweat and slog our way through it – should be fun. It should be a recognition of us doing something healthy which provides us with so many benefits. These can range from positive mood after a run, to feeling good about ourselves after a spin class, to enjoying others company while out on a bike ride, to experiencing beautiful views when out about on a hike. All of these things can bring so much joy into our lives, that there should never feel a sense of shame because you decided not to go out. Yes, maybe you missed out on these feelings and experiences, but hell, the bed was really comfortable too and your body benefited from a bit of rest and relaxation.

“ice is my least favourite weather condition”

It is also the case that I have already run a couple of times this week; once with the jogscotland group and then on Saturday morning with my friend Susan. It has also been a tricky week with the weather, with snow and ice prevalent and temperatures below freezing even during the day. Ice is my least favourite weather condition, due to the unpredictable nature of where it can be and the implications of falling when out for a run. The pavements around where we live rarely get gritted and there are large areas just now where the sun does not reach which just leaves them in a treacherous state.

This was why Susan and I chose to run from the beach area – which does not tend to be too badly affected by ice due to the proximity to the sea – into the city centre, rather than in the streets around where we live. We had planned to do a longer run, perhaps going up into the double digits, but in the end we settled for just over a 10km. It was still very cold, the car said -5.5C when I got out, but once we got going we quickly warmed up as always, though that was also helped by the fact that I had three layers on, a hat, gloves, a buff and for the first time this year, leggings. It was seriously chilly.

But as you can see from the pictures, it was still a stunning morning to be out, with clear skies, flat calm seas and quiet roads on which to run. So while I may have felt guilty on Sunday morning, I did at least have Saturday to reflect on and to acknowledge that, while I had not gone as far as initially intended, it was not as if I had not done anything this weekend.

I think the other thing which is looming over me at the moment (that sounds too dramatic, but I cannot think of another phrase) is the prospect of this. The suggested training programme for the forthcoming ultra which I am contemplating doing in March.

It has some seriously long runs as part of it and so I need to begin to build up so that come the early part of next year I am in some kind of condition to attempt them. While runs of up to twenty miles have been part of my training routine for previous marathons, this plan will take me into new territory, particularly if I try and combine them with the back to back runs which they suggest. As always, it feels very daunting at this stage, with the risk of feeling overwhelmed at the prospect.

But the one thing I should not feel – even as I look at this – is guilt for not going out. None of us should. I will be out running soon enough.

And in case anyone from last week wonders, the jacket I chose was an XXXXL.