Eventrac News

Listen to the Bod

24 Jul, 2024 12:27 By:

Sometimes you learn more when things don’t go right, than when they do. This blog is neither about the rules for success, nor a do’s and dont’s list, nor any such one size fits all formula.

It’s about what happens when you fail to listen to your body, when you’re in autopilot and suggests how to avoid the counter side of keeping calm and carrying on. I would say that most of us fall in to this mind trap, at least once a year.

In a competitive context, our muscle DNA is wired to learn. Except we don’t always know when to listen. The biggest barrier to this is sometimes our aspirations, which can become so hard wired to the tramlines, they may keep us on a course which is headed for the terminus and not our intended destination. It can be pig headedness or it can simply be the need for variety and a desire to break the cycle of repetitive training, by racing when we are not yet ready.

Even in the relatively inconspicuous (at the moment in the UK but perhaps not for long) world of off road endurance, whether it’s trail running, fell running, whatever, it can be a very specialised form of physicality. Especially for those who don’t go extracurricular and  dabble in duathlons or adventure racing in between. Last year’s training may or may not have paid off. But did we learn enough from it to actually move on, and have we tried using alternative routes to get us off the tramlines?

Trying to rush back to fitness, too soon after a layoff and so failing to listen to the body, may be the number one lesson in forgetting to learn from our mistakes. Everyone’s done it. Everyone remembers what happens. But the mind is a duplicitous tool and as most runners I think, are of an optimistic bent, they try to will themselves in to shape.

Bear with me while I use bloggers license to use the first person in this article.  It’s allowed.

This year I decided to run The Grizzly for the second time, having enjoyed the adventurous course and general ambience last year. It’s 20 miles of undulating hills, brooks, bogs, pebbled beaches and a stairway called Jacobs Ladder, which speaks for itself. The race is in its 26th year and has a wonderful atmosphere of high spirited physical application without tangible reward. The only prizes on offer are spot prizes and a pretty decent technical t-shirt, if you survive. The marshals are superb, drawn mostly from the world of hashing, where enthusiasm comes pretty much guaranteed. One thing is for sure; you don’t aim to run The Grizzly half cocked.

The Grizzly is as much an inner challenge as an outer one and for that reason, you’ve got to listen to the body as it cranks through the gears, adjusting according to the terrain. Negotiating the cling and clench of Devon clay and silt, while sidetracking the negative voices over the traction defying shingle, which sometimes seems to laugh at the overblown rubber on your feet. This year, in contrast to last year’s blue skies, The Grizzly also included fairly cold 25 mph gusting winds and some brave attempts at snow.

In the weeks leading up to The Grizzly, I’d lost a lot of fitness due to reoccurring illness and a stroke in the family, which put running way back on the agenda. Being 40 now, but 30 in my head (well I’ve no kids yet, it’s easy!), I thought I could bridge the fitness gap in the time honoured fashion. This meant getting back on the hills, a few long runs, some strength in the gym and voila! But what we sometimes fail to learn, or I do at any rate occasionally forget, is to respect big brother time. Three weeks out in your early twenties is probably worth double that at our more mature stage of life.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it when, warming up for the run, someone said to me: “After you’ve hit 40, never trust a fart and don’t waste a hard on.” My imaginary thirty-year-old self laughed, knowing that this state of affairs will never arrive… Next year I’ll be 20 and these comments will seem even more obscene!

Will alone is not enough in making up for lost time. The rules of tapering still apply. Even if you think you feel good, if you’re not winding down before a race the week before, you’re over specialising. In this case, a  hard hill session on the Monday before The Grizzly, a gym session on the Tuesday, two runs on Wednesday and five miles on Thursday morning followed by ten in the evening and then a race on Sunday.

As I’d won The Grizzly last year, I was keen to prove (to myself) that I could do it again. Half a mile of shingle beach at the start of the race, sent shudders through the quads, which was only eased by the gradual tarmac climb to the reassuringly named village of Beer. But as most runners know, you can usually tell within half a mile of the start, what kind of race you’re destined for. I knew from the stiffness in the quads, what my payoff would be. Then the fields and the gradients and the mud imposed themselves.

By halfway, I had clawed myself back, by virtue of the flat bits and the descents, to the lead runner who to my shame I did not recognise (well done by the way). But the quads began to feel like granite tors on the hills, which are normally my virtue. That gnawing negativity, which every runner trains themselves to ignore, a sort of cancer of the will, began to encroach. The only voice that, being so drilled on forward motion, you really fear. “Give up, you’re not going anywhere.” It’s a strange dichotomy between pride and ego but so hard to tell which is which. As I mounted the crest of the short tarmac section just beyond Branscombe, probably a mile and half before the infamous ‘bog’, my legs more or less made the decision for me. Not since the English Schools cross country championships in Preston, when the entire course was a swamp, resembling the battlefields of the Somme, had my legs felt quite so disconnected from my body. It wasn’t anger or annoyance I felt, just deep disappointment at getting it so wrong as not to be able to continue. I’ll admit it, a little bit of shame.. But it was a foregone conclusion and for the first time since I could remember DNFd.

Embarrassingly, as it was the only vehicle available, it was a St John’s ambulance that picked me up, 45 minutes later, to take me the ten miles back to the start. I was wishing I’d hitchhiked. But at least I got to watch hundreds of runners in all their myriad of will power and sometimes dysfunctional movement, stream over the crest, that I had failed to transcend.

So what have I learnt that I can usefully pass on? (This is not a list): That it’s OK to treat a race as a training run, and don’t kid yourself. If it’s not in the tank and you’ll know if it’s not, be creative.

Choose an alternative challenge, which doesn’t necessarily involve the linear, specialised act of running against the clock or against one another. Whatever it is though, make sure it’s something you don’t normally do. A duathlon perhaps? (with the simple aim of going flat out), a spinning class, an adventure race, or if you’re lucky enough to live near some decent rock, some scrambling/climbing/running combo. This should take you out of autopilot mode and provide enough of a challenge to replicate a race. It also has the advantage of not allowing the mind to compare your physical performance with other years.  You can recruit the muscle groups which running, even off road running, often neglects; our lats and our glutes working in unison and our core strength.

I’m not packaging this up because it’s a blog, or saying definitively what to do or not, but I am saying, when you’re feeling anxious in the week before a race because your mind is forcing the pace, listen to the bod and get off the tramlines.