“How was your race on Sunday”, a non-running friend asks. “Great”, I respond, “I had the run of my life, I really felt like it all clicked for me this time”. Did you win? Not quite. Top 10? Ehm not really. But you were training really hard for that, right? Yes, very.

I was actually placed in the 70s; I came last; I didn’t progress to the final (nor did I expect to). There is footage of me swaying and doubling over, looking very drunk indeed after the Irish National Seniors 1500m heats last summer, as Ciara Mageean strolls past and gives me a pat on the back.

To the trained eye, I was clearly swimming in lactic. To the rest, I just looked unfit? If anything I got loads of likes on Instagram for it.

It is hard to explain how you can be delighted to finish in the middle of the pack, or that it is an achievement to be fast enough to just enter the race at all – after it was years in the making. This is something most club runners experience when trying to justify why they’re so obsessed with running. Because the reality is, we are. We love it.

Explaining what we spend mornings, evenings, lunches, entire weekends doing it is often met with disbelief or a total lack of comprehension as to why this is a choice.

Many people see exercise as a chore or something they “have” to do in order to live a “healthy” life. I view my daily run as an absolute gift. The words “gift” and “gratitude” appear regularly in my Strava captions, along with things like “sunrise”, “spice girls” and “death by Munich lap”.

Running started as a way to keep the mind and body healthy during my final exams in secondary school until I figured out what sport I would take up in college.

I quit basketball when I realised I was never going to be played enough, and the negative atmosphere fostered on the three teams I played with didn’t make sense anymore. It was a “win at all costs” mentality, with rare positive feedback from coaches. I came home from matches on a low. I was far from empowered.

I committed the same amount of time to basketball back then as I do to running now, but I yield so much more. I regret not starting sooner.

The benefits are endless

There is absolutely no substitute for the feeling after getting the best out of yourself in a race. You ride on it for days. And while some people do struggle to understand why pushing yourself to exhaustion is fun (sometimes I ask myself this too), I have yet to meet someone who regretted a run, only the one they did not do.

I live for Sunday mornings. The long run is my favourite because of the team aspect. There is a buzz when the texts go around the various WhatsApp chats on Saturday, figuring out who isn’t racing or gone for the weekend.

Some weeks you could run forever, others you are grateful to have a pack to clip on the back of. The gang can tell whose turn it is to join the struggle-bus.

The girl gang is growing and we even let the boys run with us if we are feeling welcoming (read: if they feel like a slow run). More importantly, if you haven’t experienced a Sunday run until you have tried the scones at Phoenix Park’s Ashtown Castle.

RELATED: Sunday’s long run is much more than another run

Sometimes I feel like one of the football fans who travel religiously to support their team, no matter how well or poorly they are playing that season. Three out of my last four trips abroad were athletics related.

A week in the Monte Gordo sun, it was as much about the running as just being with the gang. A week in Berlin for the European Athletics Championships with some clubbing on the side.

The yearly trip to the European Cross Country Championships, the closest any spectator will get to making eye contact with the competitors, and an even higher chance of seeing Susan Krumin’s whiteboard with her weekly plan drawn on, hanging in real life. And I consume American athletics content like beer.

Photo: Andy Peat

Ask any injured runner – or myself for the entire 2016/2017 academic year (never forget) – if they enjoy being able to lie in and not feel so tired all the time, and the answer is invariably in the negative.

A friend once told me she would never run because “it’s bad for you, wrecks your knees and you’re tired after”. Running a lot probably isn’t amazing for you, injuries are the worst and you see older retired athletes hobbling around more often than not. But running gives so much more than it takes.

They say that “a healthy mind is a healthy body”, but I would argue that actually, “a healthy body is a healthy mind”. Of course, it doesn’t solve all mental health problems, and the dependency that I and so many others have on running can contribute to or worsen mental health issues when injured. But sport on the whole contributes largely to a person’s state of happiness, and is a huge source of stability to me.

Close friendships are formed often on silent runs, there is no greater sense of presence than running side by side to the tune of your steady breathing. My teammates have literally picked me up and re-hydrated me after a few tough race experiences this cross country season.

Life’s problems generally tend to sort themselves out on a run, with or without company. A friend and I take turns having niggles, when she feels one coming on she will let me know as it means that it must be my turn to have an amazing week, and vice versa.

So if you don’t really understand why a club runner grinds it out with slim chances of ever winning a race, I would say that it is as much about the process than the end goal. We are at our most alive when running. We feel empowered.

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us and become a patron. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The post Everything about running is special appeared first on Fast Running.

Self-confidence. Runners need it. Not in the arrogant sort of way though, but in the belief that the time they are putting into their training day in, day out is of value. Sometimes however, a runner can lose this feeling of security, and it is hard to know what to do.

So everything is going well. You are following the training plan, ticking off the easy runs and sessions, feeling good. With each passing race in the build up to the big one your performance improves, and head into each week of training with greater vigour and motivation.

You feel like you can achieve more than ever before, and you possess a certain air of self-confidence. And then it happens. You lose your running mojo.

It could be a niggle that has crept up on you. It could be an illness that has knocked you down and still hangs around long after you feel you have recovered, it could be that you have lost the mental will to keep churning out the miles or it could be that your body feels lethargic and reluctant to do what your plan asks it to.

The initial reaction to any of these is frustration, almost anger. All that effort you put into training, the happiness you had with your fitness and an eagerness to see where you could go. Then suddenly that all seems so distant. You could not feel any more different.

There is sadness thinking about the new speed sessions you’re now not going to be able to complete, the planned future races that hang in the balance. You begin to feel lost.

Our natural reaction is to feel anger, but why should we? Why should we be angry at our bodies and minds for losing that confidence? Something is clearly not right, and we can’t keep pushing further into the treacle and further from recovery. We need to accept, listen, and address it.

Recently I lost my running mojo. And it wasn’t for the first time. In the past, I have lost that drive to get out there – I have experienced that feeling of being lost and not knowing how I was going to overcome it.

Sometimes it has been the result of injury or illness, and other times for trying to do too much, aiming too high. Each time there has been something to learn about how I react to and how I overcome these moments, and I’d like to highlight a few of them here.

Change your plans

Losing your running mojo often suggests that your current routine has put you in a bit of a rut. It takes guts to realise this and then accept that it isn’t working, and confidence to break the cycle and change your plans to fit your individual circumstances.

Don’t over commit to certain races or training schedules – it requires patience and listening to how you are feeling from day to day to understand where you are at and what you are ready to do, both mentally and physically.

Don’t be scared to take time off

At first, it can be daunting to stop running – you’re scared to lose fitness, and you feel guilty for missing races. You can still run, but take a more spontaneous approach to it.

Don’t follow a plan, but add things to make it different from usual – find new routes, try that rock scramble that you always pass by on your local trail, run with other people.

Photo: Lucas Cheskin

You don’t need to set sessions, walk out the door and just start running, and as you run listen to what your body feels like doing. It may want to run easy the whole time, and that’s fine.

Sometimes it may want to stretch out, and you’ll fancy sprinting to the top of a hill, or legging it from one side of town to the shop at the other. By no means are you going to lose a great amount of fitness.

In fact, it can be so much more beneficial to unfollow the training plan – your body will absorb the training it’s been logging, and you will allow it to recuperate at its own natural rate.

Try other things

It is actually quite beneficial to sit around not doing much for a time, it goes some way to recharging the batteries. At some point though it is more advantageous to be busy again, but that doesn’t have to be running.

Find something new to pursue – book yourself onto a climbing course, take up sewing, it can be anything, sporty or otherwise.

Whatever it is, the important thing is that it creates a new stimulus and provides that sense of purpose and satisfaction that runners live off from doing running.

Make exciting plans

Making future plans can be very motivating. From organising a road-trip and running in places you’ve yet to discover, or entering an event that is unlike what you’ve usually done.

Going out of your bubble of usual activities is exactly what brings your running mojo back to life. Keep yourself flexible and willing to try new things, and the motivation will return.

Set new goals

Eventually, the time will come when you start to feel that tingle again to get back out there and train for a bigger goal.

There is no rush, however, so plan for races or other targets further into the future than you would normally.

At this time, it is much better to err on the side of caution. That way, you don’t run the risk of pushing yourself too hard from the off, and you will only surprise yourself as your training progresses.

Running is, in essence, an individual sport. We strive to better our own performance, but we can only do this if we are in the right place both physically and mentally.

Losing your mojo isn’t a bad thing. It’s a useful indicator for ensuring long term healthy and happy running.

Jacob Adkin features in the ‘Fast 10: class of 2019’ and over the course of the year will share his running journey. You can follow Jacob on Twitter and Instagram, while further information about the ‘class of 2019’ can be found here.

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The post How to regain your running mojo appeared first on Fast Running.

It was during the last lap of a Christmas Day parkrun when the conversation suddenly got serious. The first lap is always easy, even when you go too fast but the voices of doubt soon appear.

“You started too fast and you’ve blown this.”

“They’re certainly getting further away, you should ease off and think about tomorrow’s run.”

“Come on, who are you kidding, you’re not a 5k runner so just give up.”

Those voices of doubt don’t come from elsewhere, they’ve got a familiar mockney twang of my own voice and I know the speaker so well. Here starts another conversation. The Conversation.

When the going gets tough you need to be able to dig deep, be it in a training session, a 5k, a marathon or an ultra race. Your mind will often give up way before your body – which is outlined in Dr Tim Noakes’ Central Governor theory. Noakes may have said some disagreeable stuff of late but when it came to the Central Governor theory he was bang on the money.

The idea goes that, in order to preserve life, your mind will start to down regulate performance well before your physical limit is reached. Physical signals are sent from the muscles, you are flooding your body with the waste products of exercise, but it’s a choice to slow down, albeit a subconscious one. 

The conversation

Depending on the type of race the style of conversation might vary. In an ultra marathon it’s more a long and twisted dialogue about why and when you should stop. You question the point of your task and it’s a gentle persuasion either way.

In a 5k it’s a shouting match, between your lungs, your muscles and the finish line. There’s no gentle persuasion, it’s just a back and forth aiming at slowing you down. Sometimes you have to fight it with every step, because 5k running is so close to that red line. The same for the latter stages of the marathon, you have to go into that dark place and relish that battle with your mind.

Giving yourself a good talking to, whether in your head or out loud, is actually a scientifically proven way of bettering your performance. Self talk will make you run faster, harder and longer. Telling yourself you can do it, that you’ve done the hard work in training and will get that PB makes it more likely.

Front runner Kate Avery looked to be having a tough conversation in Tilburg and Stirling, but hung in well. Photo: Andy Peat

The perception of effort

Dr Samuele Macora of the University of Kent has a great theory, although it seems the academics are often at loggerheads, that effort is not the biological factors but how we perceive them (this may be over simplifying a little bit the theory). A similar physical effort might have a different outcome on any given day due to how we perceive that effort.

Imagine you’re in the last six miles of a marathon and there are two scenarios. In both situations your physical condition is identical. You’re the same fitness, have run the same pace and are on for the same time. It’s a perfect day for running in both too and the course even has a net downhill.

Now in scenario A you’re being overtaken, repeatedly, by other runners. In scenario B you’re overtaking people, just galloping past them. In both races, you’re physically the same, but one of these is going to feel easier isn’t it? The conversation is going to be a lot easier in scenario B. 

Nothing has changed physically but your perception of how hard you’re working is lower. The same could be said for smiling during a race, you’re tricking your mind into thinking it’s easier.

Talking to oneself in Spain

It’s all about how you focus. Focus on how hard something is and it becomes harder. Think about how fast you’re going and how much you’re enjoying your run then it becomes easier. It’s all in the mind. Well, not all of it.

For the Valencia Marathon in December, an over exuberance in the early miles – including a 5:20 mile – came back to haunt me in the latter stages. From mile 18 onwards I was slowing and the much talked about sub 2:30 was slipping away and I was helping several runners lower their own perception of effort by being overtaken.

“You’re being overtaken, you’ve messed this right up. Think of all that blogging you’ve done about running under 2:30. You wally” [I might have been something stronger than wally].

If I were to focus on those runners coming past me then it was just going to get worse. There was a saving grace that others had made more of a hash of the first half than I. A poor Spaniard was stopping for his second, that I saw, poo and he was slowing drastically after each. Focusing on those ahead of me slowing, even as many more passed more, helped keep my head up.

Ignoring those running stronger helped. I just slowly reeled in the one or two runners having a worse day and I kept going, even picking up towards the finish. The conversation was about catching them, rather than fighting my own fatigue.

“Catch that guy ahead and then we’ll talk about lying down on the floor… Just one more kilometre and then it’ll all be downhill to the finish, give me one more mile at 5:40 pace.”

Even just knowing there was a hill in the second half made everything a little harder as I imagined everything was a hill. There were a few downhill kilometres to the finish though, so I told myself I was on the downhill instead. In reality it was all pretty bloody flat.

The conversation

So what can we learn? Other than don’t run a 5:20 mile for mile two obviously?

When you’re having the conversation with yourself think about what you say. Practice it beforehand on how you’re going to convince yourself that it’s easier than you think. Practice the conversation in training and choose your words wisely.

Even just keeping your head and looking forward (never look back) is going to make things easier. Focus on where you’re going, don’t talk to yourself about how far you’ve come, just convince yourself to travel the next mile ahead, the next 100 metres, the next step.

And if you lose the conversation, if the voices slow you down or make you stop. Make sure you learn. Every conversation is a lesson in suffering well, so take it in your stride and get ready for sterner words next time. 

RELATED: Chasing sub 2:30 and nearly blowing it!

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The post The conversation and the perception of effort appeared first on Fast Running.

It’s a message that comes through regularly on Steve Magness and John Marcus’ ‘On Coaching’ podcast. The two US coaches are responsible for guiding the careers of a lot of elite and collegiate athletes where the pressures can be huge.

Yet both coaches preach that you don’t need to chase perfection. In an insightful interview with Lauren Fleshman, the US 5000m champ and finalist at the World Championships, they speak about how that ‘perfect day’ comes to fruition.

Athletes want to do everything perfectly before an A race and the focus can often mean the main objectives and simple things are overlooked. We want to be as fast as possible, but forget to turn up rested. Training is ‘perfect’ in the build-up, but we’re moving house two days beforehand. Suddenly perfect becomes unattainable and the mind cannot cope.

Perfection on a hot day

Watching the Highgate Harriers’ Night of the 10,000m PBs you saw hundreds going for personal bests. The whole day of competition was stacked with races starting early in the day with fast runners throughout.

It turned out to be quite hot for the early races and the goals set by the runners in their pre-race estimates were almost certainly based on a ‘perfect day’ not considering the conditions. Make or break. Now or never. The weight of anticipation is piled onto the shoulders of athletes by themselves.

This is often heightened when a medal is up for grabs which we sadly saw with Callum Hawkins at the Commonwealth Games.

However, it is when we stop searching for those perfect days or the perfect training session, that we achieve our best. Take Stephen Scullion’s interview after running 62 minutes for a half marathon at the start of 2018. Scullion said the penny dropped that he didn’t need to smash every session, that just easing off a little allowed for the consistency to build.

At the London marathon this year, in very high temperatures, it wasn’t a perfect day for anyone. Those who chased the perfect race, take Jonny Mellor for example, suffered. Yet Scullion ran a big PB and had a great race. Certainly, the Irish athlete can go quicker than 2:15 in the future, of that we are sure. However, dealing with adversity and not chasing perfect led to a perfectly paced run.

Photo: Stephen Haas

Consistency 

The consistency of training is often affected when chasing perfection. Giving every last drop of strength to hit your time splits on your mile reps or doing an additional midweek track session for that bit extra.

Understanding when to ease off is a difficult skill. There is certainly a time and a place to give it your all, but it isn’t every single Tuesday down the track with the lads and gals.

2:19 marathoner Carl Hardman, who trains with the Sale Harriers group under Norman Poole said it that it took an experienced coach to tell him to slow down and think of the big picture.

“I’d be gunning the 3000m track workout on a Tuesday and Norman would want me to think of Saturday’s session as well,” said Hardman is a recent interview with Fast Running. “The consistency of marathon training was so important and not smashing every session meant we were ready for the next one.”

Especially with marathon training, no one workout is more important than the next. It’s the combination of training that produces a great result.

How can you avoid chasing perfect?

Take a leaf out of the Stoics’ philosophy. They realised that nothing is ever perfect, so expect the challenges and take them in your stride. Lily Partridge certainly didn’t plan to fall over at the start of the Great Manchester 10k, but she did and dealt with it like a pro.

Be prepared for the unexpected. Expect your day not to be perfect and when something happens, like a shoelace snapping, forgetting your favourite gel or a hot spot appearing at mile 16, understand that it’s now part of your day.

The world is watching on Strava, apparently

Strava can be a wonderful training tool, but too often many worry about what people will think about their workout. Interval sessions look super fast because athletes stop their watch for the recoveries, but then miss out on vital feedback from the session because of vanity.

They want to look perfect, but it might actually hinder progress.

A recovery is part of a workout. How well you recover, how quickly you float between intervals or if you just stay still can be a mark of progression. You might do 6 x 1km once a month, at the same speed and not see improvement if you don’t watch the recovery.

6 x 1k reps with 45 sec jogged recovery is a huge improvement on 6 x 1k reps with 3 min static rest. With the goal of looking perfect this can be missed.

Race day

Yet race day is when chasing perfection can be most damaging. How many great success stories have hiccups too? How many have overcome adversity? Mo Farah has fallen on the track but still won Olympic medals. Paula Radcliffe took a toilet stop on the way to winning the London marathon and Daniel Wanjiru didn’t get his drink at the 2017 London Marathon, but still went on to win.

Adversity will happen and it can still be part of your best ever day. It may even be the reason for it.

 At the 2015 World 24hr Championships, I had stomach issues in the first six hours.

It caused me to have to slow down and let the sun go down before picking up the pace again. That sounds like a nightmare but it most likely led to my best ever performance.

Had I not slowed, then I doubt I would have been able to finish my final 26.2 miles in 3:23, clinch third and help the British team to a gold medal and team record. A ‘perfect’ start to my race might have been a hindrance.

So take it easy

Don’t chase perfection. The pressure it puts on you is probably worth 10% of performance. Lift that weight off your shoulders, aim for your best day and accept that perfection really doesn’t happen.

Focus on doing the best you can on the day, because that is all you are capable of doing.

Whatever idea in your head is perfection, might well be unachievable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t set a PB, win a race or even an Olympic gold medal. Just realise it doesn’t need to be perfect.

The post What is the secret to a ‘perfect’ race? appeared first on Fast Running.

Fast forward to the present day, and Neil is a now a multiple marathon runner, lover of trail running, and an active member of the UK based running club, Vegan Runners.

Neil reflects on how he fell in love with running.

Why have you started running all the time? You never used to run, why the sudden change? Wouldn’t you rather be down the pub? You’ve changed, who are you? Why do you bother?

These are all questions I have faced since taking up running a couple of years ago, questions that I have struggled to answer in the past, questions that got me thinking.

Why do I run?

It’s definitely not something that has come naturally to me, at school I hated sport of any kind, which I put down to being rubbish at it, I was always the kid that was last to be picked, and usually last in any races.

So what’s changed?

I took up running to raise money for charity, and I still hated it to start with. I really wasn’t enjoying it but raising money for a charity close to my heart made me stick at it, after all it was only 6 miles and then I could give up on my very short lived running career. The trouble was it soon became addictive and a way of challenging myself.

WARNING! Here come the tiny violins! I guess I’ve never really felt like I’ve achieved anything, a feeling that something has been missing from my life, like I’ve never reached my full potential.

Running has changed that, I run for the sense of achievement I get when I complete a race, or when I run further than I have managed before, or the sense of achievement I get when I beat my pb. I run for feeling I get when I set myself a target sometimes a year in advance, and then train all year to reach that target and then finally smashing it.

I run for the sense of freedom that trail running brings, the sense that while out running I am more connected with the natural world, that life goes on around me but not really taking any notice of me running past, the feeling that running is the most natural thing on Earth to do, just as our ancestors have run for thousands of years.

I run for the exploration, when you get to run somewhere new. I’ve always walked and hiked a lot but you get to see so much more with running, some of the places I’ve walked seem different when I return there running. You get to cover a greater distance running meaning that you can reach parts within a day that you couldn’t whilst walking. Nothing beats running around a bend and being greeted with a stunning view that you didn’t know was there.

I run for the runners, for the sense of community. I have met some truly great people through running, people that I now class as good friends. The trail and ultra running world really does feel like one big family, everyone watching out for everyone else, you know that if you get into difficulty during a race that others will stop and help you out.

This sense of community really hit home a couple of months ago while attending the “Ultra magazine festival”, it was late and we were sitting around a camp fire, I looked up and looked around and it suddenly hit me, here I was sitting with some of the best ultra runners in the world, runners that have completed some of the hardest races in the world, and pushed the boundaries of what the human body can achieve, and it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter that they could be classed as professional athletes, it didn’t matter that I had never run an ultra, the only thing that mattered was that we all share a love for running. I have yet to meet anyone through running that I haven’t got on with.

I run because whilst out running I have no worries, and no stresses, normal life doesn’t matter for those few minutes or hours whilst running.

Why do you run?

We would love to hear why you started running and what inspires you to get out there and run.

You can follow Neil’s running journey on Twitter or by visiting his blog.

The post Why do I run? appeared first on Fast Running.