Running is expensive, a mind f**K and makes you selfish – but it’s beautiful too.
I can say that – I run.
I have always been one of them people that have wanted to run; I liked the thought of it, read books about it, saw people jogging along and envied them, and had the Couch to 5K app prepped and ready for many years but never dared to do it.
Until I applied to run for the London marathon for the British Heart Foundation before I had even run a single step in my life. I knew I probably wouldn’t get in and I would feel good for at least attempting and going through the process, then I could happily put that to bed, along with my cheap Primark “running” trainers.
But it didn’t work out that way, as I got in.
SHIT.
While sitting on the edge of my bed looking down at my phone and reading the CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE IN email several times before I dared to tell anyone or speak the words out loud, I knew I had to email back YES before I changed my mind or threw up.
Being such a cliché, I got them very inappropriate trainers back out on the 1st of January, threw something on that resembled running gear and put my wired headphones in ready to press play on the Couch to 5k app and I stepped outdoors.
I was so nervous that my hands were visibly shaking, and I had a thousand thoughts running through my head as to why I shouldn’t be doing it, why I wouldn’t be able to do it, why I would look too fat and why I will probably fall over on the first hurdle…if only I could run as well as my thoughts.
I remember walking down the road I have now run down a hundred times or more listening to the trainer I had selected and knowing my first minute of running was coming up. I remember thinking please keep talking a bit longer as I am not ready yet! Then I saw my worst nightmare, a man working on the electric lines, and I had to run past him.
I was shaking even worse and knowing a stranger was watching my first attempt of running in public, it was terrifying. I thought I had to act like I do this all the time and when the countdown went down, and the trainer told me to go – I went – I was running.
The feeling of running when you’ve been so frightened is thrilling and honestly, you feel alive.
I made that first minute of running – just.
As adults when do we get to run? Or play? Never unless you are playing a sport or running.
Kids run everywhere and drive us mad; we don’t think anything of it but when an adult runs then we are even very late for something, or we will look nuts just running around in circles like children do. We forget how to play, how to feel free, how to have fun but running gives you that back.
I kept running and with eleven months of training, I completed the London marathon on October 22.
And I am still running now.
I have had one hell of a journey with running, I think everyone does and you have good and bad periods of doing it, but you still do it because it is something that is just yours. No one can run the race for you or beat that PB, only you can.
It is a race against yourself because everyone runs their own race and that is the thrill of it. On days you are stressed, angry, emotional, suffering from anxiety or the kids are driving you nuts, it gives you that free pass to leave the house, put your music on, run and escape.
Me, myself, and I.
You see when you want to go for a run, hardly anyone will stop you because you are doing something good, something healthy and who can argue with that? If you are training for something, then you have even more leverage because you MUST follow your training plan as you have a race coming up.
You see this is where the selfish part comes in because so much comes with doing a race from a 5k to a marathon and a lot of it will include your loved ones.
Yes, you will have all the training and the hours of running ahead of you, but you will become so consumed with your race that you won’t think or talk about anything else – you will boarder on being obsessed with it – and that is a lot for your loved ones to take on, as much as they love you.
If they are not in your running world then they can just look in and politely nod at the right time when we are reeling off our fuelling plans, what trainers we want next, what we are wearing on the day, this running article we just read and all the days we can NOT have any plans because we need to run, then stretch, foam roller and then an Epsom salts bath to recover…its’s endless and it’s selfish.
Because we expect our partners to be just as enthusiastic as we are and want them to be excited for race day, but they aren’t and as much as those hurts, that is the way it is.
People can’t drop everything because YOU want to run a race.
Surely, they want to support us and cheer. Well maybe at first but after a little while when they have seen you once, twice, a third time…they’ve seen you.
Running is a mind f**k when you are running endless miles on your own with only your thoughts to keep you company and you have to fight the demons the whole way but also when you see it is taking a toll on your family and you don’t want to stop.
Also, don’t believe people who tell you running is a cheap and easy hobby to take up – it is not.
You DO need the correct trainers, believe me, I know, and they cost a lot of money, you need some running gear, a belt, headphones, a watch, hat, glasses, a hydration vest, gels, energy tablets, gait analysis, a huge tub of Vaseline, endless plasters, running socks, head torch…
Running changed my life; running gave me so much, running gave me a family, community and the best of friends, running gave me my confidence back, gave me medals, gave me PBs and gave me that runners high you simply cannot beat.
Running in the rain, feeling free, and getting muddy like a child is amazing.
Having a hot shower, change of clothes and sitting down knowing what you’ve just done is even better.
Running is beautiful, selfish and a complete mind f**k but I won’t be stopping anytime soon.
Sorry.
This was beautiful.
"We forget how to play, how to feel free, how to have fun but running gives you that back."
I think all of us adults could use a lesson on this topic.