Its been a while, a long while. I’ve been waiting to know what to say, and when to say it. I have so many strands that I’ve wanted to write about, but now I think there are just two – training and mental health. The first has been a succession of interesting projects that has excited and informed me, and the second has stalled.
Training
I’ve learned much about the value of running slowly. Some call it MAF training (Maximum Aerobic Function), others call it ‘running steady’, or ‘aerobic training’, or just ‘easy running’. But what I’ve learned is that ‘easy’ is way easier than I had previously thought. Last year I followed a sub 2:15 half marathon training plan. I followed every training session, to the letter, and kept to all the training paces. On paper I should have nailed it on race day. However, race day came and I was way off 2:15, finishing in 2:22. The problem was that when I ran my ‘easy’ runs, the plan said that I should ‘be able to hold a robust conversation … and feel like you could go on for a lot longer at the end’. I never felt like that. I had ticked the pace box, but not how it should feel.
After failing that target, in September last year I started a new project, which is to follow the Maffetone training method. Its a big yellow book and supported with a few academic papers, but essentially it means training no faster than at a heart rate of 180 bpm minus your age (minus another 5 if you’re not in good form). With no races coming up, I had the space and motivation to try something new. It took massive amounts of commitment, because initially I could barely run at all with my heart rate beating no faster than 123 beats per minute. Some days even walking made my heart beat too fast so I’d turn around and go home. Very, very gradually, I’d progress from a few metres of running to a few minutes of running. Eventually, after quite a few weeks I started being able to run continually with a low heart rate, albeit at a very steady (for me) 13 minute miling – previous my ‘easy’ run pace was 11 minutes per mile. Over time 13 min/miling became 12, which was fast enough for a Comrades finish, and by the beginning of this year, my pace had improved to 11:15-11:30 min/miling.
As my pace improved so did the social side of my running, as I was able to return to running with my previous, and new, run buddies. The difference now was that I could ‘hold a robust conversation’ and at the end I really did feel like I was able to run for a whole lot longer. Running was easy, in fact really easy. At this point I did another half marathon, and took 20 minutes off my time, with no speed work during that period at all. It had worked!
So I’ve learned the value of running slowly, and I’m proud that I was determined to really stick it out. and to go through the embarassingly slow stages in order to make such progress. I’ve also learned that this type of training is not so popular with others. I’ve tried to sell it to other running friends, but so far I haven’t had more than one or two to buy in, so I won’t be pushing this too hard with anyone I coach as it just doesn’t have much appeal.
My running has gone well this year. After a 2:02 half marathon, I later managed a marathon finish at Milton Keynes that was only three minutes off my PB, which was set seven years ago. Since then I’ve tried to build on this stronger aerobic base with more focused speed work for another try at a fast time at Loch Ness next weekend. I’m very excited about having another go at a fast time after a focused few months of training. Sub 4:13 would be a PB, sub 4:00 would be amazing, and sub 4:45 would be enough to qualify for Comrades, so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.
After that I shall be looking towards South Africa again, and begin training for what will be my third attempt at getting to Durban next June for my first Comrades ultra marathon, after cancellations this year and last.
So that’s a quick update on training … the next part of this blog post is harder to write. My reflections will centre on my questions about what can and cannot be shared.
Mental Health
So much effort is put into campaigns to get people talking about mental health, but I wonder where the boundaries are in what is socially acceptable to share and what isn’t. Physical health difficulties are usually blame free, so sharing difficulties with arthritis, or bowel cancer, or Covid means sharing cases of what is probably seen as bad luck. Some mental health difficulties can be like this – post-natal depression, or anxiety that’s triggered by pressures at work that are nobody’s fault, because everyone accepts how difficult some jobs are, whoever is in charge. Dementia just happens to some and not to others, and depression can sometimes just hit, either out of the blue, or be triggered by events that may have happened when a person was a child. Its nobody’s fault, not anyone that’s around at the moment, that is. To me I see these things as easier to talk about than distress that is triggered by those who are around now. Not the ruthless boss, or that one sexual assailant or the uncle from twenty years ago, but people who are friends of friends, or in fact who are just friends, now.
How can you talk about mental health distress when its the people who are around now that have triggered this?
Being expelled from a running club and all that this represented was really hard at the time, and I found myself plunged into a very dark space for two years. Over time the lighter moments got longer, my new running club started to grow, and some friends said and did things that made me begin to believe that perhaps some people genuinely liked me and valued me. This was such a relief. I began to believe that I’d be able to leave that period behind and start getting on with life. While the pandemic created such heart ache and suffering for so many, for me I benefited from a release from FOMO. I stopped worrying about missing out because there was nothing happening to be missing out anyway. I thought I was getting better. When restrictions started to lift, I got to run with more than one person, and realised that maybe even groups of friends might appreciate having me around. However, this didn’t stop me from getting home and then fretting about how much I thought I’d hogged the conversation, and thus had probably pi$£ed them off, and that in fact I’d been right in believing that these friends were simply tolerating me, doing a good deed rather than actually enjoying my company. I knew these were irrational thoughts, and on a good day I could challenge myself, get myself to disregard such ideas as they were daft. Of course I’m likeable, and I just need to stop over-thinking.
On occasions though, I get triggered by the slightest thing and I find myself spiralling down a path of negative self-talk that I know is irrational but seem unable to control. This is when I find myself feeling obliged to either keep my thoughts and feelings to myself, or just to make only vague comments about having a difficult few days. I have friends who say they’re my friends and who have been so supportive, but when its their photo on a Facebook post, or their comment that triggered these thoughts and feelings, I struggle to engage with anyone, and just want to retreat into myself again. I don’t expect people to be on egg shells around me, nor should they be, yet I get triggered so easily. And yes, I did try counselling. My counsellor couldn’t understand why I teach these principles to my students, and yet were not applying them to my own life. I had no answer to that. It made me wonder whether CBT is flawed in its core principle of individuals being able to change beliefs at will. I know my beliefs are probably irrational and that changing them would stop me crying, but at times I just seem unable to do this. Its hard to challenge a belief that others find me annoying and don’t really want to be with me when my running club closed their door to me. Why else would they have done that if this belief is not correct? It wasn’t just one person that decided they didn’t like me – the entire committee all agreed that I wasn’t good for the club. While some left the club in protest, most members remained, presumably because they agreed with the committee’s decision that I wasn’t good to have around.
I don’t think I will ever get over this. I suspect that the sick feeling I get whenever I see the huddle of my old club vests at races and parkruns will always be there. While I love the buzz of races and parkruns being back with us, that feeling happens every time, however much I try to be strong ‘get a grip’, ’get over it’ and ‘grow some’. However rational I try to be, when I see posts of my friends out with those people who threw me out, I don’t know how to stop that belief that its because they’re simply more likeable than me.
Should my wife and I just move away, and unfriend anyone that has any links to my old running club and start afresh?
Should I take a look at myself and try and see what the committee saw and fix my faults? Who will help me do this?
Should I just learn to live with these thoughts, and ride the periods when they take over for a while? It is grief, after all, and its something we just have to live with?
Should I have shared this at all, or should some parts of our mental health just be kept private, so that we don’t annoy people, or make them feel uncomfortable? Maybe its writing stuff like this that is the very thing I should stop doing? ‘Put up and shut up’?
What I do know is that my wife loves me, and my Dad does, and in his own way, our son loves me too. During the darker times this is my lifeline, literally, and for this I am profoundly grateful.