I’ve already processed many thoughts around the whys and hows of my inescapable and irrefutable loss of running. I’ve asked all the questions and I’ve cried in frustration at the apparent lack of answers. But I need to finally start being honest with myself about what running has become to me and how I find my way back from this place.
Did I push myself too hard, too soon, for too long?
Yes, I did.
Did I balance my running with other cross-training activities to strengthen and support my body and to help prevent overtraining?
No, I didn’t.
Did I rest adequately (or at all), making sure that I refuelled properly after hard training sessions and races?
No, I didn’t.
Did I race too much?
Yes, I did.
Did running feed my demanding and incessant Bastard Chimp as it bounced up and down in front of me, shouting, ‘You’re still not good enough, Rachel, or fast enough, or just … enough! TRY HARDER!’
Yes. Sadly, and devastatingly, it did.
Did I manage to tame the very same Bastard Chimp as it bullied me into bashing out many more miles and races than my body wanted to run?
No, I didn’t.
The chimp won.
Is this the result?
Yes. I’m quite sure that it is.
* * *
We’ve been learning about something called “The Power of Yet” at school today, Mummy,’ Tilly says, tucking into half a sausage roll as we amble down the lane on our walk home from school. It’s one of the many perks of living near a farm shop.
‘Really? And what exactly is “The Power of Yet” then, Tills?’ I ask.
‘Well, if you can’t do something, then you put a “YET” at the end of it,’ she explains, sounding like a trainee teacher in a young child’s body whilst devouring her pork and pastry combo, ‘and then it means that you just can’t do it … YET … but you WILL be able to do it at some time in the future.’
‘Wow! That’s a great way of looking at things,’ I reply, genuinely impressed with the whole notion of this ‘turning obstacles into challenges’ and ‘stamping out defeatism’ vibe.
‘So, I cried in maths today when I couldn’t work out why number 9 was the odd one out of the numbers 9, 12, 20, 36 and 45, when Delilah could.’
I temporarily switch off from her continuing chatter and drift into some dusty old mental arithmetic corner of my mind, where I frantically divide and subtract and race through my (very) basic knowledge of prime numbers before finally concluding that this is a test designed for six-year-olds. How hard can it be? Shit! What’s the answer to a six-year-old’s mental arithmetic quandary? I also drift back to a time when I had believed certain things about myself that were untrue: I’m no runner … I could never be ‘A RUNNER’ … I could never run a marathon … I couldn’t possibly exist without taking mental health medication … I can’t possibly find my way out of a lifestyle which has me trapped … I’m not up to motherhood … I’m just not capable of doing ANY of these things.
‘… But then I thought that I just don’t understand it yet,’ she continues, exaggerating the ‘yet’, delivering it slowly and deliberately, as though talking to someone of significantly inferior intellect, ‘… and that I will understand it some time in the future…
My mind is still racing to work out the answer to my six-year-old daughter’s mental arithmetic conundrum when I also consider the fact that I have applied the very same theory to myself and to my own previously self-imposed limited beliefs:
I can’t run a marathon YET … but perhaps I WILL run one, at some time in the future.
I can’t call myself ‘a runner’ YET … but maybe I will be able to, at some time in the future.
I can’t consider the possibility of existing without my mental health medication YET … but hey, that might be possible for me some time in the future .
‘Right, right. I see,’ I reply, still rifling through The Dummies Guide to Basic Algebra in my head as she continues telling me about her day.
‘The Power of Yet’. Not making the grade … yet. Not quite hitting the mark … yet. Not understanding the hows or the whys … yet. Not reaching the ‘qualifying standard’ … yet. Not getting there, wherever that might be … yet.
Yet, yet, yet. And yet …
It’s a big and generous concept, ‘The Power of Yet’. It’s intended to stop children quitting before they’ve battled with their own internal belief systems and to remind them that sometimes the answer isn’t always easy, and it doesn’t always jump out from the page. It teaches them that the qualifying standard might take many, many attempts – including multiple failures – and that giving up isn’t the right option. Word on the street is that ‘Struggle is good!’ and ‘It ain’t cool to quit, kids!’
But then it got me thinking: when is enough ever enough? When does ‘The Power of Yet’ turn on us and become some big old shitty stick with which we beat ourselves? What if the right thing to do IS to quit? Move on. Leave it there. Accept our limitations. What happens to ‘The Power of Yet’ then? Furthermore, when are we ever enough? When are our accomplishments, achievements, feathers-in-caps and certificates on the walls ever enough? When are we thin enough, or pretty enough? At what point do we declare ourselves rich enough, or successful enough? Are we forever doomed to kneel and worship at the altar of ‘The Power of Yet’, deeming ourselves – and all of our achievements – to be (offensively scrawled in red pen) ‘could do betters’ and ‘must try harders’? What if we have tried our best? What if that is as close as we can possibly come to hitting the bull’s-eye? What if – despite slogging our guts out – we simply can’t do or be any more?
What then?
You see, I’ve spent years in a silent, daily battle with The Power of Yet’s arch enemy, ‘The Curse of Enough’. I’ve spent decades chasing, wrangling and head-locking a little Bastard Chimp inside my head which told me that I simply wasn’t good enough … yet. I wasn’t fast enough … yet. Not thin enough … yet. Not pretty enough … yet. Not successful enough … yet. NOT GOOD ENOUGH … yet. I was under the misapprehension that some illusory, unidentifiable moment would occur in my future when I would reach this place – this pinnacle, this mecca of contentment – but that time was never here and never now.
‘The Power of Yet’ has been a double-edged sword for me. It has brought me great success; it has motivated me to try harder. Want to knock an hour-and-a-half off your personal best marathon time in the space of two years? Use ‘The Power of Yet’ – it really works! The medals, the certificates, the victories, the achievements … ‘The Power of Yet’ doesn’t know when to stop.
But what about enjoying the journey? What about putting a lid on our endless fascination for the desired outcome and noticing the small, momentary glimpses of joy along the way? Years of being catapulted between ‘The Power of Yet’ and ‘The Curse of Enough’, feeling like some stunned Wimbledon tennis ball being strewn around Court No. 1 have taught me to TREAT WITH CAUTION. And now I’m here – I’m broken, and I’m unable to run.
My mental health is swaying like a rickety old bridge across a gaping crevasse because I didn’t understand that I would be chewed up and spat out by ‘The Power of Yet’ and I would then fall foul of ‘The Curse of Enough’. I didn’t realise my sense of self-worth would never come from achieving a certain uber-fast marathon time and genetically, however hard I train and no matter which convoluted, gruelling marathon training regime I follow, I can only ever achieve a certain level of physical fitness and I will only ever be able to progress to a pre-determined peak. At some point, I would have to accept my limitations and I would be wise to declare, ‘Yes, Rach. All you’ve done – the progress you’ve made, the medals accumulated and the prizes you’ve won, the incredible experiences you’ve had – it’s enough. You’ve done enough.’ But sadly, it hasn’t happened that way.
The Dubai Marathon – which I finished twenty minutes slower than my personal best 20
14 marathon time – devastated me. I saw it as a huge failure for me and a regression from that elusive moment at some point in my future when it all makes sense: when I would finally be enough. It caused me to damage myself and to push myself to the point of breaking. It resulted in floods of tears and me knowing that what I was doing was no longer about pushing through invisible barriers, courtesy of the virtuous ‘Power of Yet’. It was about self-flagellation and punishment instead.
I ran as hard and as fast as I possibly could on that day. With every cell of my being, I battled for just over twenty-six gruelling miles and I crawled over the finish line in three hours and thirty-seven minutes. I conveniently forgot that only a few years before, this would have been a huge personal victory for me: Fucking hell, I’ve just run a sub-3:40 marathon!
But, ‘The Power of Yet’ combined with ‘The Curse of Enough’ stole my moment.
And what about running being a solution for my mental health difficulties? What about that? I thought I’d found an answer: I genuinely believed I’d found it. NO MORE PROZAC FOR ME! Having been diagnosed as suffering from bipolar disorder early in my twenties, I’ve had my fair share of mental health demons to battle. Running was the one thing that prevented me needing to pop my daily SSRI happy pills. I’d proven that ever since training for the 2011 London Marathon. You see, for me it was never just about the running in a physical sense. It was about discovering my mental strength and my own resolve to find a place deep inside myself I’d never known existed before. I’d spent twelve years on mental health medication. That’s over a decade of my life popping pills which I truly believed I needed (and for a short period of time, I probably did) whilst self-medicating with alcohol and living a life which I didn’t want to be mine. I gave running all the credit for this miraculous transformation in my mental state, whilst giving myself none.
‘So, did you work out the answer then, Tills?’
‘To what?’ she asks, temporarily distracted by her sausage roll.
‘Your maths puzzle. The random numbers and why number 9 was the odd one out.’
‘Oh yeah. It was because 9 is a single digit, the others are double digits.’
‘Of course, I was just about to say that,’ I lie.
Here I am, trying to solve a child’s algebra puzzle by involving complex multiplication, subtraction and square roots. No doubt my six-year-old daughter was doing the same thing with her genetically similar, overthinking mind. But the answer was so simple that we could barely see it.
I’m sincerely hoping that one day she will come home from school and tell me all about ‘The Power of Enough’ because sometimes the answer is so simple: trying your very best is good enough. I’m realising, just like my own daughter, I still need to learn this lesson.
I can’t run and I am – at this precise moment – filled with fear. I feel lost, vulnerable and devastated. So, what am I going to do with all of this? Am I going to wallow and wilt whilst sobbing into my sofa cushions, eating paprika-flavoured Pringles? (Yes, probably!) I’ve cried irrational, melodramatic tears; I’ve spontaneously combusted at the frustration of my running being taken from me without any explanation.
I love running. I love MY running. It pulsates through my entire being and makes me feel alive. But this is a journey that I’m going to have to learn from. Despite my tears of frustration and through my desperate ‘Tilly, you’ll have to run junior parkrun by yourself today, sweetheart, because I don’t think I can run 2km with you …’ sobs to my daughter, I need to turn this into something strong and positive, something that I can use to grow and to build from and as a fuel to propel me, missile-like, into the next phase of my life.
But I have no idea what that looks like. I’m learning, and I’m trying to find my way … again. And I’m documenting the journey of my progress and my setbacks. Some days, I feel mentally strong and defiant. Others, it’s as though at the slightest nudge, I could crumble into a pit of mental health woes and outrageously disproportionate fears. Those are my fears and all of this is now a part of my journey and my reality.
I must somehow navigate my way along a tightrope which spans the deepest, darkest crevasse between ‘The Power of Yet’ and ‘The Curse of Enough’.
I just daren’t look down.
1
LOSS
SUNDAY, 5TH FEBRUARY 2017
It’s exactly eleven weeks – or seventy-seven days – until the London Marathon 2017. How’s my training going? It’s going shit. I’ve already vented my frustration at having two weeks’ worth of KFC family bucket-sized ‘Do you want to go large with that?’ flu rampaging through our household, knocking me sideways, off my feet and away from any semblance of any ‘real’ marathon training, or any training at all.
And then it gets worse. I kicked my own backside so hard playing some misconceived game of marathon training catch-up, I’ve now brought on an injury to my lower calf/Achilles area. This caused me to go all E.T. and ‘phone home’ on Thursday morning’s run as I stood by a wet, lonely bench high on Norland Moor with sad, heavy eyes, waiting for my long-suffering Other Half to pick me up, just three miles from my own front door.
It has been a mere THREE DAYS since the E.T. incident and subsequent emergency physiotherapy appointment at which he – Magician Dave – said to me, and I quote – ‘So, you WON’T be racing the Dewsbury 10k on Sunday then, Rach, will you?’
I don’t answer.
I do believe in miracles, and I do turn up to the start line of the Dewsbury 10k road race. I know it’s a silly gamble, but my fragile running ego forces me to take the risk.
I set off knowing the grumblings are still there, but by only one mile into the race, the pain is intensifying. At two miles, there is nowhere to go and so I limp off the course and make an about-turn, facing the Walk of Shame back to the start. Runners stare at me as though witnessing the Resurrection, as I trudge slowly back down the high street in the wrong direction, towards the centre of the toilet bowl that is Dewsbury.
‘Are you OK, there?’ a kindly marshall asks, as I lumber pathetically by.
‘I’m injured,’ I say, feigning a sorry smile, whilst hobbling melodramatically and pointing to my left leg.
A St John’s ambulance pulls up next to me and a particularly keen hi-vis-adorned First Aider shouts out of the window, ‘Do you want a lift back to the start, love?’
‘Yes. Yes, please, I do!’ I reply, as the prospect of shuffling a further 1.5 miles back down the Dewsbury U-bend isn’t altogether appealing – and certainly not in (short) shorts and a thin running vest, albeit one of the real runner’s variety to which I have become so accustomed.
I hop on board the non-emergency ambulance and reluctantly make polite chatter with the First Aid crew, who look grateful to have something to do. Having barely broken a sweat, I turn down their kind offer of an emergency sports drink and confirm that I don’t need bandaging up or pushing anywhere in a wheelchair, which seems to dampen the mood slightly.
Once safely dropped off at the race start/finishing area – and now shivering profusely – I bump into Andy, a local runner I know who also happens to be hampered by injury. He offers me his warm XXL winter coat and the oversized arms swing down around my knees like a lazy octopus. We chat about our respective injury-induced misfortunes whilst another lovely friend, Claire, and her baby Amber walk over to join us. Claire’s husband is racing today. She hugs me as I stand, cold, helpless and without words in Andy’s octopus overcoat, and it helps, but I am still devastated.
Claire and I traipse across to Wetherspoons, where I dunk one of my small complimentary biscuits into a large mug of free-refill coffee. The hot coffee warms me up, whilst the small sugar hit makes me feel incrementally better and helps to ease my non-running sorrows. The boys have joined us now and begin to chat about their race times, tactics and performances.
‘It was definitely much colder than last year,’ my Other Half says to Claire’s husband, Tim, just seconds before inhaling the second half of his b
acon sandwich in one bite.
‘Yeah, and the start was absolutely packed!’ Tim replies, clearly jittery and still buzzing with race adrenalin. ‘It took me at least a mile to work my way through the crowd and find any rhythm.’
I glance over at baby Amber, who is smearing cold beans across everything in the immediate vicinity, and my adrenalin-free heart sinks as I so desperately wish that I could join in their running chatter.
Once back at home, I sit down and I begin thinking:
Who am I if I can’t run? Who am I if I can’t run? I simply don’t know the answer. How does it make me feel? What is my state of mind? How will being unable to run around the Yorkshire hills impact on my mental health? What will I do if this lasts for much longer?
Of course, this may seem a little melodramatic (I’ve been told that I can be inclined towards ‘catastrophising’) and rather hasty, as I don’t yet know the full extent of my left limb’s blatant refusal to play along with my London Marathon hopes and aspirations. But these are questions that I will ponder over the coming unspecified period of cross-training, rehabilitation and … REST (NO, NOT THAT WORD!).
It does admittedly make me want to shrink and recoil in my own skin to think that I’m already struggling with a small overtraining injury and with the certain knowledge of an indefinite period without running, whilst there are plenty of people who are experiencing greater irritations in life – their very own warts on an otherwise peachy backside. And yes, there most certainly are far bigger problems to be facing in the world, right now. But still, rational thought doesn’t always seem to help – if indeed it ever does. Mental health issues don’t usually respond in such a convenient manner, so I’ve found.
I will put some more thought to this and to the glaring flaws this highlights in my own emotional ability to handle the prospect of an unspecified period of significantly reduced running, if I can even run at all. And I will ponder on why this minor bump in the road is already threatening to send me into a headspin of such epic proportions. I’ll have plenty of opportunity to think about that over the coming days, weeks and – dare I even say it? – months ahead. I do know that I’m terrified. I’m terrified of not running because that’s what I love to do, but mostly I’m terrified of what’s already going on inside my head. I can feel everything changing and my equilibrium is shifting. It’s like being a house built on the very edge of a cliff, just waiting for a landslide to come and sweep me into the sea. When will I succumb to the waves? Is this a waiting game of erosion and eventual destruction?
A Midlife Cyclist Page 2
