mental health – Running Ink

Beauty is in the awe of the beholder

The shift we require to experience awe isn’t in location, but in attitude…

I admit it. I’m one of those people who bristles at the overuse of the word ‘awesome’ to mean ‘good’ or ‘great.’ Awesome literally means to inspire awe or wonder, and should be reserved to describe things that do exactly that. But a recent study on the benefits of ‘awe walks’ gave me a new perspective on what might qualify as awe-inspiring. In the study, one group of people were assigned to a weekly outdoor walk somewhere new to them and encouraged to try to look at everything with ‘fresh eyes.’ A control group were assigned a weekly outdoor walk, with no further instructions.

The group that did eight weeks’ worth of ‘awe’ walks experienced more positive emotions and suffered less emotional distress compared to the control group, despite the fact that they’d both been getting the same amount of physical activity outdoors. They also smiled more.

It’s not news that physical activity benefits mental health, nor that natural environments can be uplifting and restorative. But what this study adds to what we already know is the idea that mindset can influence the experience we have during outdoor activities.

Just by asking the walkers to visit somewhere new in their locality and to really ‘pay attention’ to what they saw, the researchers fostered a sense of curiosity and adventure that made the walkers’ experiences more meaningful and rewarding. Rather than nature being a ‘green backdrop’ to a walk, it became part of the experience itself.

Another important aspect of the study is that while the awe walks took place in locations unfamiliar to the participants, they weren’t necessarily locations that would be billed as stunning or ‘awesome’. What this teaches us – or perhaps, reminds us – is that we don’t need to be standing by the Grand Canyon or witnessing the Northern Lights to experience awe. We can find it in the colours of an autumn leaf or the passage of clouds across the sky or the green sweep of a hillside. The shift we require isn’t in location, but in attitude.

I think the reason this study resonates so strongly with me is because this is a year in which I feel I have really woken up to nature, and most particularly, the nature on my own East Sussex doorstep. I know the same is true for many people, and frankly it couldn’t be more timely; not just because Covid-19-related restrictions on movement are likely to remain for some time, but because just as we need nature, nature needs us – perhaps now more than ever – to halt the decline in biodiversity and address the climate crisis. When something we hold dear is threatened, we find the will to act. But it may take a walk – or run – with those ‘fresh eyes’ to realise just how much there is to cherish.

Slowly down the river

Each time I retrace my steps along this river bank, I notice more.

Nature moves fast at this time of year. At the start of lockdown, my daily runs were cheered by a landscape awash with the sunshine yellow of rapeseed.

Those flowers are now mostly spent, turning the fields a duller shade; but the hedgerows that border them have erupted with the white blossom of the abundant hawthorn, or ‘may’.

This is the may of maypoles and may queens – traditions that celebrate a time of year when everything should be bursting with life – the cusp of spring and summer. Its unruly branches cut jaunty angles against the sky; its petals swirl like confetti in the breeze.

I skirt the fields that drop down towards the river, muttering ‘welcome back,’ to a pair of swallows (it’s not as if anyone will hear me…) as they glide and swoop in a joyful dance that doubles as an aerial buffet of tasty insects.

This stretch of the River Rother floats through a wide, flat-bottomed valley of lush pasture, crisscrossed with ditches and canals. A parade of pylons march along its far bank; the nearside is crowded with reeds and rushes. I used to find it a dull place to run – flat, monotonous. But these days, the river’s sedate pace instils me with a sense of calm. I slow… walk… stop… And each time I retrace my steps along this river bank, I notice more.

A heron motionless, its neck a fierce italic ‘S’. A flash of blue butterfly wings on the meadow grass. The acid-house pips and bleeps of an ascending lark asserting his territory.

A pair of swans have taken residence on one of the tributaries. I always look out for them, keen to see if there’s any sign of cygnets yet – earning an angry shake of the tailfeathers. Yesterday, there were four new arrivals.

The Rother runs a lot further than I do – 35 miles from source to mouth. I leave the riverbank at Iden Lock, a couple of miles from Rye, to close my loop, climbing the steep hillside that was once part of the coastal cliffs that extend all the way to Dover.

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In a broad ribbon of woodland, where the last few bluebells remain, I stop to listen to a cuckoo’s resonant call and the creaky-saw song of a great tit. I seem to have lost the urge to hurry during lockdown.

Running not working its usual magic? Me neither…

So here I am, with all the time in the world… and I’m trying to figure out why my beloved running feels so bloody hard.

Imagine someone offering you the chance to train without interruption. You can run daily, if you choose, on near-traffic-free roads, through parks swaying with blossom, woods carpeted in bluebells. And you’ll still have time for that daily core workout or strength session, too. Nutrition-wise, there’ll be no dinners out, no takeaways or boozy evenings fuelled by crisps and peanuts. All your usual commitments and routines – work, travelling, errands, family visits, nights out – will be temporarily put on hold while you focus entirely on your running. It sounds like something I might have wished for in the past. But now? Well, here I am, with all the time in the world… and I’m trying to figure out why running feels so bloody hard.

Maybe it’s all the energy I’m expending on worrying. When will this be over? What if I get it? What if I give it to someone else? Will a hug ever feel safe? What will become of my business? Will my teeth decay? Should I try to dye my own roots? Am I drinking too much? Am I thinking too much? Will life ever be the same? Should I want it to be?

Or perhaps it’s just that running’s lost some of its purpose. When we say we ‘love running’, is it truly the act of running – the process of putting one foot in front of the other – that we mean? Or is it the end goal that drives us? The shiny medal, the time on the clock… Or the opportunity to connect with others in a shared experience? Or the need for some respite from all the things that normally crowd our days and overfill our diaries? With all these ‘drivers’ absent, some of my reasons for running have just melted away.

In the lockdown world, I find myself setting out for runs and simply conking out halfway through. I slow to a walk while my body and mind squabble over the question ‘what’s the point?’ It’s not a happy place to be – so I’ve been looking for solutions. I’ve found it’s better when I run with a purpose – doing what you might call a ‘session’ – rather than just a run. Having to concern myself with hitting or maintaining a specific pace, or running for a set distance or duration, makes it feel less futile and more engaging.

Other distraction tactics have also helped me stay the course, which I’ve outlined below. Regarding number 5: At the end of yesterday’s run, utterly spent and walking, two magpies landed in the field next to me. I cursed, and wearily executed 10 squat jumps before carrying on. For some reason, I felt better afterwards.

Count your cadence (the number of steps you take) for 1 minute. Then see if you can up the number by 5-10% over a subsequent minute, by thinking ‘fast and light.’
See how many different types of birdsong you can hear, or even identify (although birds are bastards and hide/fly off so you can’t identify them!)
At the end of each km you run, speed up for 20 seconds before returning to your previous pace. This is called surging and a) teaches you to recover on the move and b) prevents you getting into a plod.
Pick up a pebble or stick. Run fast for a short time – such as 30-60 seconds, put your item down and jog back to where you started. Now run fast again, aiming to get at least as far as your pebble/stick. If you get further, move it before jogging back. Repeat as desired. Works on hills, too!
Play running roulette: you pick a random scenario – eg. you see a cat/postbox/magpie on your run. A red car (or any car, if you’re in the sticks!)/horse/bus passes you. Any and every time this scenario happens, you stop running and do 10 jump squats (or pick your own poison!!) before continuing.
Run for a view. The bluebells are out in force at the moment. Blossom trees are in bloom. The fields are awash with sunshine yellow rapeseed. Go and look at something beautiful.

Keep the faith, runners!

You might be finding it hard to find purpose in lacing up your trainers and getting out there at the moment. I know I am. Races, parkruns and club/group sessions nationwide are all cancelled until ‘further notice’ and it’s impossible to know how long the current situation will go on for – or if it will get even worse and render us unable to get out for runs at all.

So, difficult as it might feel (and provided you are well, of course) I gently urge you to maintain your running. Running helps to reduce stress and anxiety, both of which have a negative impact on the immune system. In fact, running itself helps to maintain a healthy immune system, provided you don’t run to exhaustion. Being outdoors is far healthier than being cooped up inside, especially if being indoors means close proximity to others. (I do find it hard to believe that UK Athletics has issued a directive to cancel all running group sessions, when gyms and yoga studios remain open.) Keeping your routine, as far as is possible, helps to bring a sense of order at a time when everything feels a little out of control.

If you are used to running with others, you might struggle with the idea of going out alone. Perhaps you could team up with a friend or fellow runner from your running club or group? Or go out as a small group, keeping your distance from each other and avoiding any spread of respiratory droplets by refraining from spitting, nose clearing, coughing and sneezing.

As one of my group members so wisely commented this morning, ‘physical distancing’ would be a better term than ‘social distancing’ – in these anxious and uncertain times, we need each other more than ever. If you do run alone, you can still share and discuss your achievements on social media platforms – we are posting our twice-weekly Rye Runners sessions on a virtual whiteboard and inviting members to report back when they’ve completed them or any other runs. This helps us all feel like we’re still part of a community – and that there’s a point to getting out there and clocking up some miles.

What if you don’t feel comfortable about running at all in the present climate? You could use this time to do one of those many running-related tasks that there’s never time to do. It could be something physical, like strength training or plyometrics. Drills in the garden? Or if you’re not up to that, why not do a kit inventory and clear-out, or clean those mud-laden running shoes? Running isn’t going anywhere. It’ll still be here when all this craziness is over.

Keep the faith and stay safe.

Listening to your running body

If you listen to your body, what do you do when you hear a red flag flapping in the breeze between your ears?

‘Listen to your body.’ You’ve heard it a million times if you’re a runner, and you know that it means you have to pay attention to those warning signs of forthcoming doom in the guise of injury, pain, illness or temporary burnout.

But it’s not always that easy to tell exactly where these warning signs are coming from. Are they kosher? Have they been issued by the central governor in your brain (who I like to think of as my inbuilt hard-hat-wearing health and safety officer)? Or are they from a different place in your mind – perhaps a region of the brain concerned with motivation or emotions?

The reason it matters is that it might affect what you do when you ‘listen in’ and hear a red flag of some kind flapping in the breeze between your ears. Is it the rational, if somewhat over-zealous governor speaking? Or is the ancient reptilian part of your brain trying to protect you from attempting something that might cause you discomfort or that you might not succeed at – like an 18-mile long run with the last four miles at goal marathon pace?

Yesterday, my plan was exactly that run. But I woke up under a dark cloud and the idea of surmounting such a session felt almost impossible. My muscles ached as if I’d already done the bloody thing, and I was devoid of bounce. Aah, I thought. Better listen to my body. It’s definitely saying ‘no thanks.’

Decision made, my mood brightened and I got on with other things. Physical stuff, like digging in the garden and chopping wood. By late afternoon I was so energised I felt inclined to do the run – but knew there wasn’t enough daylight left to fit it in. Tomorrow, then.

That is, today. It loomed large in my mind from the moment I woke up. My calf felt tight. My stomach felt a bit funny. My socks didn’t seem to fit right when I put them on, making me worry about chafing and blisters. But this time, I acknowledged the alerts and carried on with my run preparation regardless. This, I decided, is not physical, it’s mental.

The run started off feeling harder than it should. ‘WE FEEL TERRIBLE!’ my body told my central governor in a panic (it’s always shouting). ‘HOW WILL WE MANAGE 18 MILES? WE’VE ONLY DONE TWO AND WE’RE EXHAUSTED!’ ‘We’ll be OK,’ replied the guvnor. ‘We’ve got plenty of water and energy gels and it’s a beautiful day. Only seven more miles till we turn for home…’

I shaped my face into a smile (making sure to include my eyes in this forced expression of joy) and carried on. I took in the vivid blues of the sea, lakes and sky, and the yellows and greens of the fields. I listened to the birds singing, ate my energy gels, turned at 9 miles and sped up at 14. And I made it home without my calf (or indeed, anything else) hurting, my stomach exploding or my socks chafing.

Listening to your body is good advice, but knowing whether it’s got something worthwhile to say can be a tricky business.

In praise of Jim Fixx – pioneer of running for the masses

One Sunday morning in the late 1970s, my dad suddenly appeared in the kitchen donning a tracksuit and towelling headband and announced he was going jogging. He returned, 20 minutes later, red-faced and sweat soaked, but by the time he’d come down from his shower even a Beano-reading nine-year old could see that he had a new spring in his step.

Unfortunately, Dad’s enthusiasm for running shrank faster than his polyester tracksters – most likely as a result of him attempting to practise his new hobby every morning and failing to allow enough time for his 40-something body to adapt to this new rigour. But his brief foray into the sport did give me a glimpse of the running boom that swept our nation in that era, a boom that – according to a survey conducted at the time – saw two million Brits donning their trainers at least once a week.

‘The purposes of this book are first to introduce you to the extraordinary world of running, and second, to change your life.’

And many, if not most, of them have one man to thank. Jim Fixx. Heard of him? His seminal work, The Complete Book of Running was released in 1977 and sold over a million copies, topping the New York Times bestseller list for months. Yet ten years earlier, Fixx was a non-runner who weighed in at over 15 stone, drank and smoked two packets of cigarettes a day. Running transformed not just his body – he lost more than four stone and went from last place in his debut 5-mile race to winning a state championship in his age group two years later – but his whole life. It was with the zeal of the newly converted that he set about writing The Complete Book of Running, which states in its introduction ‘the purposes of this book are first to introduce you to the extraordinary world of running, and second, to change your life.’

No wonder middle-aged men and women worldwide – especially those who had never dared to believe they could be runners – were lacing up their trainers in their droves. The only trouble is, seven years later, Fixx – the man who gave running to the masses – dropped dead while he was out running. He was 52 and had suffering a heart attack resulting from two blocked coronary arteries, forever proving to the lazy, the reluctant and the sceptical that running was a bad idea.

We are in the midst of another running boom, albeit a very different one from the first. And since its now forty years since Fixx’s book came out I opened it expecting to be amused, bemused, irritated and horrified by the advice and information it contained. And while it’s easy to snicker at statements like ‘the cure for an inflamed Achilles tendon is to run only on hard surfaces’ or ‘if you want to run well, try not to be satisfied with staying at a normal weight’ much of the book’s content remains valid – as well as interesting, insightful and witty. We like to believe that our sport has undergone nothing short of emancipation in the last forty years. You no longer have to be skinny, fast, male and competitive to be a runner – anyone can wear the label proudly, even if they have no intention of ever pinning on a race number. But on the yellowing pages of Fixx’s book many of the running converts he quotes talk not about race times or pounds lost but about a sense of independence or freedom gained, a lifting of anxiety or depression, relief from tension and improvements in self worth.

Running IS different this time round. Nowadays, it is as much a social activity as a form of exercise, a way to connect, not compete, a road to self-expression, not self-improvement.

Thanks to technology, social media, initiatives like Race for Life and Parkrun, its many benefits have filtered through to more people, different people. And this time, we’ve taken all the alarmist ‘Too much running bad for the heart! Headlines in our stride. But Jim Fixx and all those he inspired to run 40 years ago were the pioneers – who were stared at, mocked, imitated and warned off – they opened the doors for us. Thank you Jim.

This is an extended version of a Murphy’s Lore column, published in Runner’s World magazine.

Splendid isolation

I’m bundled up in my sleeping bag, listening to the river tumbling along its rocky bed. The sound of running water has become my nightly lullaby on this trip – it shushes, tinkles, burbles and roars. Beneath its music, I occasionally catch another sound so like the faint murmur of voices that it makes me understand why brooks are said to babble.

It’s been a long day – eleven hours of walking – and, despite wall-to-wall sunshine, the hardest yet. We’ve toiled across miles of pathless territory, first traversing the slopes of lofty Beinn Dronaig and later, (after some respite along a clear, if soulless, forestry track) picking our way through disorientating boulder fields. Lucky I married a former British Orienteering champion who, with map and compass in hand, took it all in his stride.

We stopped to cook dinner in a sheltered spot among the boulders while the last of the sun lingered, realising that by the time we made our descent to the river where we planned to camp it would be getting dark. We were starving, as usual, so Brownie points to me for not throwing a huge tantrum when Jeff KNOCKED THE PAN OFF THE STOVE, and our Mexican chilli ended up on the ground (Morris quickly moving in to hoover up).

We salvaged what we could, and after we’d negotiated the horrible stony descent and pitched the tent in fading light, compensated for the calorie deficit with huge mugs of hot chocolate.

As I lie on my now-mended sleeping mat, enjoying the feeling of being horizontal – and straining my ears to make out those watery voices – I reflect on how stripped back and simple (simple, not easy) life is on the trail. Our entire focus each day is to get from A to B successfully, to be fed and watered and to get shelter and rest. We have no connection – virtual or actual – with the outside world and therefore no distraction. It’s remarkably liberating – and, I reckon, good for your mental health; like having a holiday from your usual self. The craving for news, the fomo, that habitual drive to share everything on social media – it all fades into the background when the big issues of the day concern dry socks, hot drinks and whether you’ve got any Pepperami left. Luckily for Jeff, I have…