Addressing running, anxiety and 'scary' GPX files
Don't miss our round-up including marathon man Steve Edwards, running for rough sleepers and how 'Barefoot Ken' avoids stepping on stones!
I wanted to talk briefly this week about the anxiety that can sometimes be found - at least by me - in running.
A lot is, quite rightly, said and written about the mental health benefits of running, from mindfulness and stress relief to the joy found in heading out with friends.
But sometimes we put pressure on ourselves to do those big races which we have worked our way up towards. A time or a target can become all-consuming, and have a negative effect.
That isn’t to say setting challenges - whether time, distance, a run streak or whatever else - is inherently bad. Personally, I wouldn’t get out of bed if I didn’t have some sort of goal!
Nevertheless, it is important to keep a sense of perspective and, remember, unless you’re a professional athlete your run or race goals aren’t ultimately the be all and end all.
For me, I have an inherent ability to get anxious about pretty much everything.
I’m not sure if people who know me will be surprised by that or not. I generally try to cover it up - the sort of fake bravado that once led two Aussies workers at a Cairns Bunji jump to crack jokes about who would get my watch if the rope snapped!
I also tend to get withdrawn, even grumpy or agitated, when I’m worried about something - even if it doesn’t really matter. And then catastrophising time will be just round the corner.
Also on Running Tales:
Take the 10k event I completed this weekend.
Now, it may be a tricky distance for some people and that’s cool, but right now 10km is a pretty short run for me - I could barely walk afterwards and had to sit in the back of the car to stretch my cramped legs, but I’m still fresh from the Stamford 30k.
The Welly Trail Race I ran on Sunday was the first official trail run I’d done, but I wasn’t worried about that as I’d been jogging round plenty of trails during my ‘training’**.
No, what I was worried about was the discovery of the words ‘GPX files’ in an email prior to the event.
Having never used these files before and with no idea how to download them - or then upload them to my watch, which in turn did not even have the capability to use them - I managed to work myself up into a really anxious state.
It’s not as if I was about to run the Badwater Ultra, but suddenly I had visions of getting embarrassingly lost and taking several hours to get back.
Or having to stop every five minutes to try and find my way to the finish using Google Maps.
Of course, in the end it was really simple and I deployed my usual follow everyone else tactic to perfection!
The route was a basic out-and-back, and it would have been hard to get lost even if no-one else was there.
And, by the by, none of the other runners were using, or worried about, GPX files!
A little lesson - once again - to relax and just enjoy things. They’ll normally turn out alright.
And (a long and pretty - the route was almost 7.5 miles!) 10k later it more than had - with a decent run under my belt and a goodie bag waiting for me from Michelle.
So whatever you’re worried about, running or otherwise, don’t be afraid to talk about it - then confront it. Put one foot in front of the other and you’ll probably find you’re less lost than you thought.
Happy running,
Craig
** For ‘training’ read series of random runs, with slight increase in distance over time!
This week on…
The podcast:
Our latest Running Tales Podcast guest is with the ultimate marathon man, Steve Edwards.
For some people, one marathon is a lifetime's dream.
Others get the bug and go back for more, while the more hardy - and some would say foolish - push on into ultra races or towards the 100 Marathon Club.
Steve Edwards, the self-styled Man Inside The Machine, takes all that to another level.
He has already run 954 marathons, and is aiming to reach the 1,000 mark.
As if that isn't impressive enough, Steve only counts official races - no virtual runs for him, doesn't count marathons he has to walk in and is aiming to get to his goal with an average time of less than three hours and 30 minutes per marathon.
We caught up with Steve to talk about not only his marathon running, but his role as an ambassador at Every Run Counts.
The new initiative aims to reward people’s every day activities to make the nation fitter, healthier and improve their mental health.
Running Tales also spoke to Steve about marathon training, nutrition and how to avoid the wall, as well as his plans when he finally reached that 1,000 mark.
Substack:
Our long-form discussion with minimalist Ken Posner asked the big - and the less big (what happens is you stand on a stone!?) - questions about barefoot running.
We also spoke to Ken about the Shawangunk Ridge Trail Run, which he is the race director of.
The run winds its way through the Hudson Valley, near New York, and has half-marathon, 30-mile and 70-mile options.
What makes it so special is its unsupported format, which challenges runners to find themselves as well as their way round.
We also spoke to firm non-runner Stan Robertson, who runs rough sleeper charity Project 16:15 in Northampton, England.
The charity will be the beneficiary of the 16:15 Charity Run, which is being organised by Running Tales and Step Forward With Lewis.
Stan told us about the daily challenges people face on our streets and how humanity can be found behind every blanket.
It’s a sometimes harrowing read, but we hope it explains why we have chosen this charity to raise money for.
Thanks as ever for reading and listening to Running Tales. We couldn’t do this without your support - please back us to keep going by…