Running in the present

I’m coughing and spluttering, all the while as I try to gulp breaths of air running along on the ‘dreadmill’ (a nickname I heard another runner give speed training that is done on the treadmill). The man next to me, who is going at the enviable speed of walking pace, grumbles something about ‘bloody runners, getting in the way of you on the street and making loads of noise in the gym....’ I lose track of his moaning, as I try to focus on not flying off the treadmill. I would say that I care about what this man is saying, but I am finding it simply too hard to get a good rhythm on the dreadmill and I am having to use every ounce of concentration to complete this workout. Not a pleasant experience.

It seems even Google is willing to confirm this, as typing in ‘treadmill history’, immediately brings up posts about treadmills being invented as a form of keeping idle prisoners active and productive in the early nineteenth century. I base this on a Wikipedia post, so how reliable that account is another matter; but what it does state to me is that treadmills were never invented with a positive purpose. Even if they have been adopted en mass by the fitness industry, my speed session is certainly not a pleasant one.

I have never really been a big fan of the treadmill, but circumstances have forced me to adapt training. After nearly six months with my new club, I have decided that it is not feasible to train with them. My commute does not allow for this, as it involves leaving work at a time that even though it may be allowed; would not be permissible in busier parts of the working year. I appreciate that it is a two-way relationship between a runner and the club they choose; however I do not feel like I have ever been properly engaged by that club. A case in point is running cross country. At my old club it was seen as strange if you did not race cross country, in my current club I have not even been asked/ offered to race cross country for them. I know that I am not the fastest runner to grace a marathon, a muddy cross country course or track. Though I would like to think that as long as someone puts in the effort, enthusiasm and training; that they would be offered to participate with the club they are paying their annual fees to. I admit I could have done more to get involved with my new club, but I don’t know how many times I can keep asking about running cross country and being met with vague answers. There were things that my new club and I could have done better. Ultimately I don’t think we are the right fit for each other.

To this end I am trying to get the best out of the situation that I find myself in. It was whilst this situation was evolving- not the one on the treadmill, but the general one about my new club. That I started reading a book called ThePower of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I am not going to give you a detailed review of the book, but only what I found useful in relation to my running.

The book asserts that the only true state we can be in is the here and now (hence the title). Any attempt to either project ourselves into the future or to constantly look back into the past, can lead to us feeling a sense of resistance to our current situation. Therefore leading to pain and frustration with the state we are in the current moment. Tolle states that the solution is to find ourselves in the present, surrender to the current state and then seek to understand what we want to do.

Whilst the book has sold millions of copies, it is not something that I know a lot of people have read. For the few people I know who have read it, some of them found it to be too abstract to put into practice. For myself and for my running I found it to be very useful. I suppose the book could be summed up quite neatly, by saying you can’t change the past and you can’t control the future. In this sense Tolle’s logic is inescapable, as we only exist in the moment to moment of daily lives. It’s not to say we don’t have a past or a future- and this is where I may disagree with Tolle- it’s just the only moment we can truly change is now.

So you may be thinking how does any of this relate to running? Well for me, the second half of 2018 running-wise has been pretty tough. It seems every time I started to string together a month or two of running, a setback/ obstacle would come up. This led me to start reminiscing about what my running used to be like, and conversely looking into the future about how if I get this done then I will be better. I completely ignored what I could do to help recover in the immediate, i.e. an action I could do that was within my control and would point things in a positive direction.

When reading that may sound obvious, and it may well be to a lot of people; however I hadn’t realised that I had made a number of assumptions about how I was training. So rather than enjoying each day of training, I was constantly thinking about how I had fallen behind on my previous bests and was always looking into the future to improve on the next big workout. Over the Summer I kept thinking if I can just improve this workout a little bit more than I can get back to where I was.

It made my training feel stale and pressurised, as I didn’t really feel like I had my focus on the current workout and was always thinking about tomorrow. Again this may just be me, but I didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment when I had completed a good workout. These thoughts alongside not being able to train with a running club, made for a toxic combination.

With 2018 drawing to an end, preparation for the London Marathon 2019 will start to begin at some point in January for most runners. I really don’t want to put the same pressure on myself for London, as I did last Summer. I want to enjoy the process of training for the marathon (I would use the phrase ‘enjoying the journey’, but it is just too cliched for my liking.

I am still trying to get to grips with the dreadmill, but for anyone who is interested in doing workouts on it there is an excellent bit of training advice from Marathon Talk that you can listen. Right now I will just focus off the treadmill as my small victory for the moment.

It will be easier said than done, but I want to enjoy my running for what it is; running and not just constantly thinking about a time. The main ingredient that will make this happen is change, but for now I will just focus on the moment.