Going Forward (Running and mental wellbeing)
So much for the long run I had planned this morning. I just couldn't do it. 5K was my limit today, a combination of it being surprisingly warm for the time of year, the energy-zapping effects of a virus and no doubt a bit of mental exhaustion thrown in for good measure. (Not that I'm one to make excuses, of course!) But they say, "no run is a wasted run" and that's true. As 5K goes, it was thoroughly respectable, but I'm frustrated because I set out intending to do more and I failed. The question is, how am I going to tackle this half next month? I just can't see it happening. I'm neither physically or mentally ready.
Perhaps I need to cut myself some slack. Life's been a bit weird recently. Sometimes in life you get these odd blips. And they are just that, 'blips', nothing more, but you don't necessarily realise this at the time. Sometimes things happen which throw up stuff from the past, things that you have already dealt with, situations and people you thought you had moved on from. Old feelings that you had learned to suppress get reactivated and although you don't end up back at square one, you still feel that, after making so much progress, you've slithered down another snake. The blip may be short lived but life doesn't just start ticking along normally the minute it's over. It messes with your head a bit. You have more fallout to clear up, another 'ending' to get over, more emotional labour to do. In short, you have a bit of a wobble. Not as much as the first time you had to deal with it, but it still unsettles you.
It can take time to return to a 'normal', stabilised state of mind. The key thing is to ground yourself, to reconnect with reality, with the things that do make sense. Running is a great way to do this. Running is as real as it gets. There's no over-thinking involved. It's just about putting one foot in front of the other and getting from A to B. Running will connect you with the real world - the trees, the paths, the roads, the mud, the wind, the rain, the sun, etc. - unlike the world in your head where possibilities, probabilities and wild assumptions all bounce around unhelpfully like a bunch of hyperactive orangutans.
You see, we live life by going forwards, but when we try to understand life, we have to go backwards. We trawl through our past, looking for answers. It's true that we sometimes find them, but in a lot of cases we don't and we waste a great deal of energy trying to do so. There are so many potential explanations, so many plausible answers that there might as well be none. As my gran used to say, "it's as clear as mud." Sometimes you are better off just saying to yourself, "I don't have the answer but I'm okay with that."
It's kind of obvious but running is about going forwards. It's about tackling what's in front of you, what stands between where you are now and where you want to go. The past doesn't really come into it. Sure, the training you did in the past few months will have an impact on how you perform when you run today, past experience will play a part, but you don't think about your training whilst you're actually doing the race. All that matters is the race you're currently running, the mile that you are currently in. The focus is on the now.
All In all, I'm glad I went out this morning. I know my run didn't quite go to plan but I still think it did me good. I have a friend who tells me, "just get your head down and run" whenever I feel a bit low. He's right. 'Just getting on with it' can be a healthy habit to practice in all kinds of ways. People sometimes say it with an air of defeat - "Oh, I suppose I'll just have to get on with it", as if they have no choice. But actively choosing to get on with things, even small things, that bring you much needed intervals of pleasure is an empowering thing to do. There's nothing more depressing than letting whatever is going on in your head stifle you completely. There is ALWAYS something that you can do, always something that will remind you of what is real and what is just an infuriating, messy tangle of theories, expectations and second-guessing, stuck in your head.
So, today I laced up my trainers, I ran three miles and, although it wasn't my greatest run, it didn't have to be. It got me out there. It helped me re-establish the barriers between where I am now and the more troubled places I used to be. It got me doing something real. It didn't need any interpretation or mind-blowing analysis. And although I would've liked to have run further, I still got a straightforward, simple sense of pleasure and fulfilment from it. It's my constant in a wheel of changing events. A run doesn't have to be spectacular to give you that feeling. That's the beauty of running. Today's run was okay and perhaps being happy is more about lots of 'okayness' than about the occasional wow moment. Anyway, the endorphins will kick in even after the shortest trot and just having done it at all feels satisfying.
I'll be out again tomorrow, keeping on keeping on. (Then, when I'm home I'll try very hard not to think about why over-thinking is a bad thing, and I will try not to write another blog post analysing why running doesn't need analysing.) Here's to keeping it simple.
Perhaps I need to cut myself some slack. Life's been a bit weird recently. Sometimes in life you get these odd blips. And they are just that, 'blips', nothing more, but you don't necessarily realise this at the time. Sometimes things happen which throw up stuff from the past, things that you have already dealt with, situations and people you thought you had moved on from. Old feelings that you had learned to suppress get reactivated and although you don't end up back at square one, you still feel that, after making so much progress, you've slithered down another snake. The blip may be short lived but life doesn't just start ticking along normally the minute it's over. It messes with your head a bit. You have more fallout to clear up, another 'ending' to get over, more emotional labour to do. In short, you have a bit of a wobble. Not as much as the first time you had to deal with it, but it still unsettles you.
It can take time to return to a 'normal', stabilised state of mind. The key thing is to ground yourself, to reconnect with reality, with the things that do make sense. Running is a great way to do this. Running is as real as it gets. There's no over-thinking involved. It's just about putting one foot in front of the other and getting from A to B. Running will connect you with the real world - the trees, the paths, the roads, the mud, the wind, the rain, the sun, etc. - unlike the world in your head where possibilities, probabilities and wild assumptions all bounce around unhelpfully like a bunch of hyperactive orangutans.
You see, we live life by going forwards, but when we try to understand life, we have to go backwards. We trawl through our past, looking for answers. It's true that we sometimes find them, but in a lot of cases we don't and we waste a great deal of energy trying to do so. There are so many potential explanations, so many plausible answers that there might as well be none. As my gran used to say, "it's as clear as mud." Sometimes you are better off just saying to yourself, "I don't have the answer but I'm okay with that."
It's kind of obvious but running is about going forwards. It's about tackling what's in front of you, what stands between where you are now and where you want to go. The past doesn't really come into it. Sure, the training you did in the past few months will have an impact on how you perform when you run today, past experience will play a part, but you don't think about your training whilst you're actually doing the race. All that matters is the race you're currently running, the mile that you are currently in. The focus is on the now.
All In all, I'm glad I went out this morning. I know my run didn't quite go to plan but I still think it did me good. I have a friend who tells me, "just get your head down and run" whenever I feel a bit low. He's right. 'Just getting on with it' can be a healthy habit to practice in all kinds of ways. People sometimes say it with an air of defeat - "Oh, I suppose I'll just have to get on with it", as if they have no choice. But actively choosing to get on with things, even small things, that bring you much needed intervals of pleasure is an empowering thing to do. There's nothing more depressing than letting whatever is going on in your head stifle you completely. There is ALWAYS something that you can do, always something that will remind you of what is real and what is just an infuriating, messy tangle of theories, expectations and second-guessing, stuck in your head.
So, today I laced up my trainers, I ran three miles and, although it wasn't my greatest run, it didn't have to be. It got me out there. It helped me re-establish the barriers between where I am now and the more troubled places I used to be. It got me doing something real. It didn't need any interpretation or mind-blowing analysis. And although I would've liked to have run further, I still got a straightforward, simple sense of pleasure and fulfilment from it. It's my constant in a wheel of changing events. A run doesn't have to be spectacular to give you that feeling. That's the beauty of running. Today's run was okay and perhaps being happy is more about lots of 'okayness' than about the occasional wow moment. Anyway, the endorphins will kick in even after the shortest trot and just having done it at all feels satisfying.
I'll be out again tomorrow, keeping on keeping on. (Then, when I'm home I'll try very hard not to think about why over-thinking is a bad thing, and I will try not to write another blog post analysing why running doesn't need analysing.) Here's to keeping it simple.
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