Author: Jess Guth

Dr Jess Guth is a Legal Academic. She blogs at jessguth.com She also doesn't really run - reallynotarunner.com

Coming back to running is like re-reading your favourite book

Jess Guth8 Comments

I did something today I haven’t done for ages: Instead of walking to where I needed to be, I ran there. Ok so it was a mile and a quarter going the long way round to my Mum’s but just last week I would have dropped in on my way to or back from somewhere as I drove past or at a push I might have walked. It’s all downhill really and I walked back up… see what my brain is doing here? It’s focused on the negative, on the ‘I never do this’, the ‘I walked back’ and the ‘It was only a mile’. Well sod off brain because it was a rather marvellous mile and a bit.

I packed my little red rucksack with an extra top to put on for the walk back up, a few bits and bobs I wanted to take to Mum’s and a lunchbox filled with mince pies and then I set off in the rain and made my way down the hill. The rain was blowing in my face with the cold droplets nipping at my face but still my breathing settled quickly, movement felt smooth and my feet light on the ground. It felt like running. The good running, the running that makes you want to go out again and again. There was no tightness in my calves and no sore feet. I stopped thinking about running and my mind drifted off enjoying its own journey.

It’s quite amazing how much you can think about in roughly a mile and a quarter. I picked up a thread of a thought I had a couple of months ago when Kath and I drove up to Keswick and walked round Derwentwater. It’s about running and favourite books. The thought struck me again as I reached the bottom of Ilkley Road and turned left to continue down our hill: Once you have some experience of running, running isn’t something you have to start again as such. It’s like going back to an old favourite book. You might not remember the storyline, you might not remember details or what happens next or who is who but it’s nonetheless familiar and comforting. It’s also a little irritating because you’ve read it before and it feels like you should remember but don’t quite or you misremember and get something wrong but fundamentally things come back to you more quickly the more you have read the book. You can skim bits, you don’t have to read things in order, you could skip to a favourite chapter and go backwards to read it again later. Going back to running after having some time out is the same.

No really it is. The act of running is familiar. The movement, the feeling in my lungs as I get out of breath pushing up the slope, the relief of air being sucked in as it levels off, the instinctive placing of my feet (in still awful running form – but that will change) and the feel of my muscles working and eventually the reminder (though not today) that there are plenty of weak spots to be worked on as something or another begins to tighten or niggle. I know this, I understand this. I have been here before and I got from here to Dopey fitness and to more and more effortless running. But the purpose is not the race at the end of a training plan or to be able to run a mile in a certain time or to be able to keep going for a certain distance. That’s not a reason to run. Like reading where the purpose is not to finish the book but to savour the story, running is also about the story. If the story about getting from A to B on a single run or from A to B in terms of a fitness goal isn’t a good, happy, healthy and fun story then what’s the point of having got to B?

So here’s the story of today’s A to B. It was a mile and a quarter – roughly. I have no idea how fast it was because I still don’t feel like knowing. I didn’t wear my watch. The cold rain made me happy and I missed it when I turned the corner and it came from behind me. Running downhill was easy and I felt effortless until the last few steps of the slope upwards when I realised that I a) had no real idea of how I’d got there b) was quite puffed and c) was too warm in my waterproof jacket. I turned again, went down a little baby hill and a long very very slight downhill slope, the rain was back in my face and all was fine again. My whole run was set to the rhythm and sound of the mince pies bouncing about in their box in my bag as I ran and I laughed at the thought of them being bounced into tiny little pieces. Almost disappointingly they were fine. I crossed the road, sidestepped one and jumped another puddle, got to the traffic lights and caught a glimpse of my rainbow laces as I waited for the lights to change. I smiled and that smile carried me to my destination.

How was your story?

End of term, nearly end of the year, but maybe not the end of my #Run1000Miles journey?

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Well running is still more miss than hit. It’s not that I don’t want to run, I do. It’s not that I don’t want to do my strength exercises, I do. We already know I am the queen of excuses but it’s been more than excuses, it’s also been exhaustion, end of term madness and general work insanity. I am now off work for two weeks and trying to reclaim some of my sanity and headspace.

Yesterday I mostly did nothing. I started off much the same today but then, after having braved town and done the food shopping for the Christmas week, I made it out. Kath came with me to stretch out her legs again after her early morning 6 miler. We set out to do our sheep loop and I didn’t want to be beholden to a watch or a beep so I left my Garmin at home. I settled in nicely and felt pretty good even going uphill. Sure I felt pretty unfit and puffy but I felt comfortable plodding slowly. Just before a mile (I know the route too well to not know where the mile markers are!) I walked a little thinking that I would have a little rest before the slope up into the wood. As soon as we walked my calves tightened up and then my feet started hurting. Even stretching them out didn’t help much. So we walked up through the wood and down the golf course. Once we reached the canal I ran again and although my feet were quite painful I made the canal stretch of the loop with just a couple of short walks.

It wasn’t the beautiful effortless easy comeback run I dream about (yes yes I know) and it was frustrating to feel relatively comfortable running and then have to walk because of tight calves and sore feet. But it was lovely to be out and we saw a sparrow hawk which was very cool.

I have been thinking about the Trail Running Magazine’s #Run1000Miles Challenge over the last week or so. I am still not through 500 miles. I have about 4.5 to go so chances are I will make the 500 but at the start of the year the 1000 was on. I’m absolutely fine about not reaching 1000 miles but I suppose struggling with running has made me wonder whether to sign up again, whether I want to stay in the challenge Facebook group and if I have anything at all to offer the running community through this blog or anything else. I don’t honestly know. I haven’t posted much in the group but I have been reading posts and they make me smile often as well as marvel at people’s achievements in awe. I guess I haven’t posted or blogged much because I have been insanely busy or just haven’t had the headspace to think about what the write or the energy to run.

So as I have been typing this, I have realised that I absolutely do want to sign up again and that I miss interacting with the group and that I also miss the blogging that goes hand in hand with my running – so I guess that means I have to run and I guess that means Kath has to make me a new spreadsheet. That’s my Christmas present sorted then.

So let’s see what happens for the rest of the year and then let’s see what 2020 brings for the rollercoaster that is running.

I’m not done yet

Jess Guth2 Comments

Is this the longest time I haven’t blogged since I started? It might be. I’ve barely run since the last post. I am still not through 500 miles for the year. You could say the wheels came off. Back in August I tried to hit the re-set button. Well that didn’t work too well because here I am nearly 3 months later and not much has changed. I could go over it all, analyse it, try and make sense of it but honestly it’s just bla bla and more bla.

I last tried to run properly throughout August but usually ended up walking a fair bit and my achilles or calf muscles were often niggly and very tight. I went to Keswick with Dad for a couple of nights and I ran a little while there – run/walk/run with lots of walk. I was grumpy about running. I went to a conference in early September and tried a run – it was fairly horrible and I walked lots and my calf was proper painful. It all seemed pretty pointless. And that sense of pointlessness continued through October. The notion that I might run, never mind be a runner just felt laughable. Still does in a way.

I haven’t blogged because I have nothing to say. As I stopped running or rather just gave up trying to run, I felt relief more than anything. Right, let’s all just stop pretending this was ever going to work. I’m not a runner, we’ve established that now so let’s just move on… I’m actually quite an effective couch potato! Term started, I didn’t miss running. I felt no pangs of envy as Kath pulled on her trainers and headed out. I didn’t even get a rush of excitement scrolling through websites looking at reduced trail running shoes. Nothing, nada. In fact really the only thing I felt was tired and a bit grumpy and a bit angry at the world and fed up and upset at everything and edgy and tense. And then I remembered:

‘You have depression you fucking idiot’ I reminded myself one morning a few days ago and a rare moment of perfect clarity. ‘Depression wants you to think that you can’t run, that it makes no difference, that it’s all pointless… but you can’t be sure it’s real’. Well maybe I had a point. So I went through all the things I was thinking and feeling about how generally crap I am at everything by listing them in my head and then (also in my head) marked them like I would a student essay – which basically meant going through the list and writing ‘unsubstantiated assertion’ in the margin over and over again and ‘You have some interesting ideas which are presented in a relatively coherent manner but your argument lacks evidence, contains factual errors and you do not appear to have consulted even the basic data available to you’ in the (imaginary) comments box.

So after giving my own argument a hard fail I decided it was worth going to my second strength and conditioning session with Katy from RunRight (more on them, why I didn’t want to go but did and how it’s been so far later because they really do deserve their own post) and then the next morning, in spite of soreness in core muscles I had no idea even existed, I went for a run.

We went to Bolton Abbey and we ran the short loop using 30 second run/ 30 second walk intervals. We stopped for photos, we soaked up the colours and we enjoyed being out. I see things differently when I run than when I walk. I see more. That might sounds counterintuitive but it’s true. When I just go for a walk I get too lost in my own world and thoughts. When I run I am much more focused on the surroundings, the colours, the sounds, the smells and I am much more likely to see the wildlife, the birds…

So I ran. It was slow and ploddy but it was ok. I’m not done yet. I did miss it. I just didn’t know I did.

Stop and Re-Set

Jess Guth3 Comments

So, time to try and hit the pause button for a sec, time to stop the self-sabotage and re-set. I’ve been thinking that for a little while but of course my brain is sluggish and muddled with depression so doing that is easier said than done. As you know running hasn’t been going to plan at all and one of the side-effects of not running enough is a real dip in mental well being. And of course the dip in mental well being makes it much harder to go out and run. Thanks Universe for that cycle of nonsense.

Yesterday I had a panic attack which I guess was pretty major except that it was nothing compared to the old Bradford panic attacks and I knew what it was so just rode it out. My train was cancelled and then the next two trains coming through were cancelled too so 4 trains worth of people eventually tried to get on the next one. I was squished in a corner next to the toilet with a bloke’s rucksack sticking sharply into my chest. It was airless, noisy, uncomfortable and a bit smelly and within minutes the oh so familiar blood rushing in my ears, jelly legs, inability to breathe and racing heart kicked in. I tried to distract myself on Twitter and I tried to consciously ground myself and breathe. I sort of tumbled off the train in Leeds and sat on a bench for 15 minutes or so before I trusted my legs to take me to the office.

At work I sat and stared at my screen for a while mostly close to crying for no apparent reason. I was close to tears all day and my heart rate stayed high. I had a lovely PhD meeting and briefly felt better. I had two other meeting though during which I did my usual high functioning, perfectly on the ball keeping it all together act and then I left the last meeting and walked from our beautiful Headingley campus to the station with tears streaming. When I got home I should have run but I felt exhausted. When the alarm went off this morning I should have run. I know I should, well let me change the should. I want to. I want to be out there running but I am struggling to convince myself. It’s hard to explain.

Instead of running I’ve been eating crap, craving sugar mostly, drinking too much coffee, eating out, eating mindlessly, putting on weight, moving less and less… I’ve been faffing with work and worrying about things I should just leave alone. I haven’t been good at holding myself to my own standards of sensible working hours, not engaging with idiocy and prioritising work based on what is important to me. And the thing is I know I’m doing it. Depression tells me it’s easier and trying to do anything else is pointless anyway. It tells me I can’t run, it tells me doing the things I want to do at work will make no difference. Depression is all about the insecurities hiding in the background all the time and pushing them into consciousness and then into the foreground. Depression lies but it does so convincingly.

As I was struggling to breathe on the train yesterday morning I decided I needed to re-set. I haven’t managed that today but I have made a start! I didn’t manage to be more positive at work really but once home I really wanted to try and get out for a run. I lost the battle though and only managed to cover a mile and a half and had to walk most of that. Of course my brain is being bitchy and reminding me of how useless as I am. But I’m trying. I got out even if for a little bit. Then I managed to cook a relatively healthy meal and I am trying to be kind to myself and take things an hour at a time. I still feel tearful and a bit useless but also that maybe I’m beginning to turn a corner. Writing this takes some of the power out of it. The panic attack yesterday was a clear sign that things are not ok and I think maybe I needed today to spiral a bit before hitting pause and re-set.

I will try and run more – I want to and it’s hard to explain why I haven’t and even harder to explain why I’ve been eating crap, spending too much time on the sofa, too much time behind a screen and not enough time outside. I don’t know why I’ve been drinking too much coffee and eating too much sweet stuff. That’s depression for you. Nothing really makes sense.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings. I am aiming for neutral with a healthy sprinkling of self care or at least a lack of self sabotage

“I got bored of rules”

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In my most recent therapy session which is a week or so ago now we were talking about some of the more creative things I am doing with my teaching for the coming academic year. As we were discussing those things I suddenly heard myself say “Well, I got bored of rules”. It’s quite a big statement that and I am sure it’s one we’ll come back to in my sessions but I’m not quite sure why or how but we didn’t linger on it and got side-tracked into something else. I don’t remember now. But that simple statement and how I had no idea I was going to say it, how I hadn’t thought about it and how it surprised me as much as anything in that moment have stayed with me. I’ve been thinking about it on and off since then.

I got bored of rules. Well yes I did but not recently. I think I probably got bored of rules a long long long time ago. I got bored of rules the minute I figured out that most of them make no sense, that most of them serve no real purpose, that most of them are bad rules. Was I a pain in the arse child that constantly asked why? I honestly don’t know – ask my parents. I am, like we all are full of contradictions though. I mean it seems a bit odd for someone bored of rules to study law, right? And perhaps even odder then for someone bored of rules to teach law. It’s also odd for someone bored of rules to have coined #MyRunMyRules as their running mantra. So here’s where the blog post splits – keep reading here for the running bit or click over to my academic blog for the other stuff.

“I got bored of rules” seemed to, in that moment, sum up so much of life. Sometime in the middle of the London Marathon – probably about when I picked my tired body off the tarmac around mile 15 – I was done with running rules. I was done with the unwritten and unspoken rules that you have to enjoy the achievement even if not the run, I was done with training plans, speedework, hill repeats and running familiar paths and loops. I hadn’t really realised just how done I was with the rules around running, even the ones I made myself until I said it out loud in the little quiet comforting space where I go for help to unswirl my mind. I have tried, with some success to free myself from some of the running rules which are not helpful to me: I try not to be ruled by pace. The rule that faster is better doesn’t apply to me. I try not to be ruled by distance – I don’t have to go further and further or higher and higher. But fundamentally my rules are still rules. I must run. Running is good for my mental health so I must run. But I don’t want to. But I also don’t want to not want to run. I want to want to run. If you’re rolling your eyes – welcome to my world, I roll my eyes at myself all the time.

So what about running without rules, without a watch, not setting a distance, choosing routes with options and just seeing what happens. Ah yes, those runs. Those runs have hidden rules. They’re the runs I must enjoy. They’re the ones to rediscover the why and the fun and the love of running. That’s what they are for. But at the moment I don’t like them. I don’t like feeling like I have to rediscover a love of running I never really had in the first place. I have vague memories of quite enjoying the odd run and not hating running but… Anyway running just seems so full of rules, so full of things I ought to be doing or not doing. So not running is the obvious solution isn’t it. Finding something else that I want to do which gives me some of the same benefits. Well yes but while I don’t actually want to run I also very much don’t want to not run. I miss running while at the same time hating every step of every run I am doing at the moment. And while I am somehow pushing back against all the shoulds, musts and ought tos in all sorts of areas of my life I am also craving the discipline of a running programme.

I want to follow sensible rules. I want a programme to tell me how far and how fast I should run on any given day. I want the programme to make the decision for me. I want the rules there, on my wall planner and I want to tick each run off with a little sticker and more than anything I want to break the rules. I want to do Wednesday’s run on a Friday and cheat on the hill repeats and add a mile on on Sunday and skip the speed session altogether. I don’t know what any of that means. “I got bored of rules” somehow says everything and nothing about how I feel about running right now.