On 25th May I ran 13.1 miles. 10 weeks before the furthest I had run in was 5km. This is the story of how and why that was possible, and what I learned along the way.
When social distancing began in earnest, one of the first things (aside from having to cancel a trip to see my mum) that I felt grief in losing on a daily basis was my trips to Frame. I had been going to boxfit and lift 4-5 times a week and it had changed my life, and suddenly that outlet had been taken away.
I live in a first floor flat, so jumping up and down doing online HIIT classes wasn’t an option, which meant if I wanted to work off my anxiety (and in the midst of a pandemic I had plenty) my only option was to run.
I wasn’t completely new to running, I was a pretty regular park run goer. But I was always someone who stopped to walk up the hill in my local route.
I was skeptical about being able to really do anything. After years of being told I had no physical ability in PE and being discouraged from sport, my confidence that I can do anything exercise related remains incredibly low.
So the first big hurdle was deciding to just run. I think I watched this video of a lady who decided to run an ultramarathon with no training (she is otherwise a fitness YouTuber and former IronMan athlete) around the same time as I started running. While I obviously wasn’t running 50 miles, I was aiming for 5km, the idea that I could just decide that I could run was really powerful. That’s what I did. I managed to keep running for a whole 5km without stopping. For me, that was huge.
I sort of rode a wave of “wow, if I can do that maybes I can do more” for weeks. The more I proved to myself that I could do, the more I believed that I could do even more.
I was running almost everyday for a good while, 5-10km every time. I was running because I was excited to be seeing progress in myself in a time when everything else was so stationary. But I was also running because I was fearful about what would happen if I stopped. Would I lose my progress? Would I gain weight? Would I become lazy? Would I lose the worth I had started to assign to myself?
It wasn’t healthy in more ways than one. While I can’t say I’ve got over all of those mental hangups, I have at least realised that rest is as important as running.
But to be fair, I did only realise that because I put so much stress on my knee that for a few days it hurt to stand.
Once I started a more healthy running schedule, I decided I wanted to run a half marathon and that I was going to slowly build up to it, over about 5 weeks, by increasing my Sunday runs. Having a goal that felt achievable and that I shared to make myself accountable was one of the few things that was keeping me sane. It was a marker in a time when we live only in the present without enough certainty to plan for the future.
I just built up the distance 2km at a time. Had I tried to run it in a certain time or in a certain way, I don’t think it would have been possible. I just focused on distance, a single variable. I didn’t worry about my pace, about my time, about changes to my body. I just focused on being able to take myself around those 13.1 miles and to run past the much missed sight of Kings Cross.
As useful as that goal was, I think it also worked against me. On the day I was nervous. I’d been running for weeks, but I’d built this one run up to be something more. That was completely unnecessary. Just because I’d arbitrarily chosen that day to run a bit further, didn’t really mean anything. The progress was what was important not the marker. Just because I’d decided that day was going to be it, didn’t mean it had to be. Just like when I’d decided that I wanted to run every day and my body said no.
About three quarters of the way round, I had to realise there’s no shame in catching your breath, in walking up a steep hill if you’ve already run 11 miles (eve n if you hadn’t). The only person I was accountable to was me. There was no point hurting myself to prove something to myself. These were two and a bit hours of my life I wouldn’t get back, I may as well try to enjoy them.
But I got round. I was proud. I was proud until someone asked what I did at the weekend then poo-pooed my time. Then I was proud again, because even if I wasn’t the quickest, if you’d told me 10 weeks earlier I could get myself round I would have laughed.
I don’t know what my next goal will be. I think for now I’m just going to enjoy being someone who can just lace up their shoes and go, as long as I’m not nursing an injury. That’s pretty powerful.
Running has given me some of my independence back in lockdown. I’m so grateful I’ve been able to do that for myself, that my health and my community have made it possible.
I’m also glad I stocked my playlist full of Destiny’s Child bangers. I think that’s the real lesson here. A good playlist can get you through anything.
