The mentally unwell side of running

I'm sure that this is a post that no one wants to have to read.

It's not attractive.

It's not glamourous.

It's not particularly flattering of this sport about which so many of us are passionate.

But it's brutally real.  At least for me.

I've always said that I have a love-hate relationship with running.  In short, I've never really liked running (ever since my days as a rotundly-shaped pre-teen with no cardio to speak of), but in the last 10 years or so I've been allured by the prospect of training and racing.  That's always served as the carrot that was dangling in front of me ... or so I thought.

Somewhere along the way I began to feel really proud of getting regular exercise in, especially first thing in the morning when much of the world around me seemed to be sleeping or hitting their snooze buttons.

I also began tracking my workout data with a GPS watch, as recommended to me by my first official running coach.

Not long after that I discovered Strava, and a whole community of runners that I could follow and with whom I could share my running exploits.

It was glorious!

And in some insidious way it was disastrous.

I started to become addicted ... not to running per se, but to the appearance of running.

Don't get me wrong - I was putting in the workouts.  It's just that now other people could see it.  They could track with me how far I was going, how fast, where it was all taking place and with whom.  I began to develop a bit of reputation as a rugged and relentless all-conditions runner.  Again, it made me feel pretty good about myself.

But somewhere along the way my striving to achieve hopes and dreams became a quest to continue to meet expectations.

It's not like the people around me voiced it in that way.  I'm not sure that any ever said (or even would have said) that they 'expected' me to keep running, or keeping hitting certain race times, or to maintain a certainly monthly mileage.  I think that the people around me are too thoughtful and polite to do that.

It was all happening in my own head.  I felt, and still feel the weight of other people expecting me to keep running and keep performing at certain levels (even my non-runner acquaintances who think of me as 'a runner').  When I look around and observe others running and completing their workouts and races somehow I feel challenged by what they're doing.  Not in a good way, mind you ... in a 'why can't I go as hard/fast/far/consistently as them' kind of way.

Instead of running as a means of getting healthier and stronger, it has become a means of staving off guilt and shame.

It's bad enough that I already have body-image problems, but to stack on top of that self-flagellation as it relates to my running habits/accomplishments meant that things were definitely going off of the rails.

Where this has all led me is to do a few things at this point in time:

1. I've made all of my Strava workout entries 'private' so that it's basically for my own tracking purposes only.  I recognize that that may be unfair to some or all of my connections on Strava who may be looking to my workouts (as some have said) as motivation to get their own workouts in.  Honestly I feel like I've gotta 'secure my own oxygen mask first' before I can be of any kind of help to anyone else.
2. I've given up stepping on the scale daily.  It's become all too depressing, even though I realize that any right-thinking human being would probably shout me down for being insane for thinking that I'm overweight.  But that's the point, isn't it ...?   There's a certain insanity at work here.  It's not unlike a conversation that I had not so long ago with a good friend of mine as he revealed that he was struggling with orthorexia (as strange as it sounds, that's defined as an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy) ... sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees.
3. I'm stopping running.  This is long overdue - even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown I've kept up training and running at least six times a week for the past several months.  Even as I type this I'm thinking that the amount of running that I've done pales in comparison to others who I've been tracking on Strava and well-meaning Facebook groups.  But my body is starting to provide some negative feedback, and while I'm sorely tempted to ignore it all I would probably do that at my own peril.  So it's time to switch the machine off.

This post isn't particularly cathartic or opinionated (I hope) - it just is.  

Maybe you will see me as weaker than you thought I was.  That's cool with me.

Maybe someone can relate to where I'm at, and in that way it could be helpful.  If so, fabulous!

At the end of the day I'm not asking anyone to sympathize, over-analyze or even understand.  To some degree I'm even embarrassed to be occupying real estate in cyberspace at a time like this with this disclosure when I could and should probably instead be putting more energy into sharing anti-racist information and strategies.  #blacklivesmatter

However if you've read this far then I appreciate that you have had enough interest or care to hear me out, and I wish you the best with your own journeys and struggles.

Maybe some time I will see you around, possibly running.

The mentally unwell side of running

another brick in the wall

this is my first blog post to require the category label of "rant".

last year, my wife was one of the coaches of a program at our kids' school called "girls on the run".  as an after-school extracurricular, it combined elements of exercise, self-esteem development and character building, culminating in a celebratory (read:  non-competitve) 5k run that brings together all of the other GOTR groups from schools within the GOTR district.  last spring's 5k run had something like 800+ students and coaches participate - an awesome and inspiring sight to behold.

as a dad to four girls, i was excited to have three of them participate in the GOTR program (although our littlest was granted an exception to participate since mom was coaching), and two of them (the age-eligible ones) ran the 5k.  

as a runner, i think that it's great that there would be an organization looking to promote physical activity/fitness (involving running) at the elementary school level.  

as a man, i believe that it's vital to do whatever we can to help promote positive self-image and emotional health among women of all ages.

which is why i'm frustrated that there's no such program running in our region this school year.

from what i gather, the local incarnation of the GOTR organization disbanded over some intra-office political and territorial issues.  i confess to not understanding all of the issues involved, except to say that because the group's leadership could not figure out how to make things work for this region, girls across this school county have been deprived of this important opportunity to participate, grow, and run.

boo.  red tape wins the day again.

all i can say is that if you have this program running in your neighbourhood or school, i encourage you and your kids to take full advantage of it.  and hopefully one day it will return to our area - before its too late to make a difference in many more lives.

another brick in the wall