Skip to main content

What does running do for you?


Last week, during a professional development session I was asked to draw a picture of a future where I could do whatever I wanted, so I said I would love to write. The coach said "Could you do that now?" "So why don't you?" I had a bagful of the usual excuses: I don't have time; I don't have anything to write about; I don't know how to, etc. but I said "I'll try". Since I had that conversation, I've spent a lot of time, mostly during my runs, thinking of a suitable topic I could exploit, and finally something came up.

So here I am, a week later, dusting off the cobwebs of this blog and trying to get the creative juices running to write about the only thing (or one of the very few things)  that fills my brains in between doses of work, sleep and living in general.

Social life

Over the last 8 or 9 years, my whole life has been so dominated by running that I wouldn't know what to do without it. Thanks to it, my social life is non-existent - as any dedicated runner can tell you.  But that's not a bad thing! I mean, hey I'm not twenty-something anymore so let's not kid ourselves thinking that, given the chance, I'd be out partying 4 nights a week.  I'd probably be watching football beer in hand so, the outcome is much better this way.

Finances

Let's not talk about finances. Surely, the amount of money I spend on running clothes and marathons (fees, flights, accommodation, food and pressies) would pay to keep up a small village for a year. Incidentally, I just read about a guy who went $9,000 (USD) into debt to run the Tokyo marathon only to find out it had been cancelled because of the Coronavirus. All of the sudden I don't feel so bad. Let's go buy some more clothes.

Running has had positive impact in my life

This is the serious part of my post. The physical and mental benefits of running are obvious and have been documented ad nauseam elsewhere, so I won't go into detail in here. Maybe some other time I will. Instead, I will talk about one indirect benefit running has brought to my life.

Because of my running, my oldest son picked up athletics about 5 years ago and now he's competing at the national level for his age group. He had previously played rugby but his heart wasn't really in it. Still, I insisted he had to do some sport and running seems to be his thing. Like all teenagers, he has his moments when he cannot be bothered and that's where dad/coach/motivator kicks in and we have a chat about the importance of sport as a proxy for life, the importance of setting goals and working towards them. It seems like some of this message is sticking and that is important in its own right.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Visualization for beginners

I've been a competitive athlete all my life. I've been involved in different sports at different levels since the age of 8 and along the way, a lot of coaches have spoken to me or my team about visualization. "See yourself scoring that try" "See yourself winning that match". Only now I realise that I never understood what they meant. It's easy to close your eyes and see yourself scoring a try, a winning goal or whatever, but all boys do that when they play footie on the street. So how does that help you achieve anything in a proper competition? That's the piece I never understood and maybe my coaches never did either. I think the confusion comes from the overlapping of two concepts: imagination and visualization. Imagination allows you to see yourself on the pilot seat of a spaceship to Mars to rescue Lady O'Mygodyouregorgeous but has nothing to do with reality. Visualization on the other hand, is about seeing yourself achieving things that you...
2 comments
Read more

How will races look like post COVID-19?

I think racing the way we're used to is gone forever. There! I've said it. No more long queues at the portaloos before the start. No more corrals with 1,000 runners touching, shaking hands, and wishing each other luck. No more post-race hugs and tears, not unless you're part of the same household. So let's reverse engineer a race and see if we can come up with a picture Social distancing So, there are 10,000 of us converging into one spot in the city. How can you make sure we all observe social distancing? That's a bit of an issue unless we're running in the desert or high in the mountains where there are acres to spare.  The queueing system We start by creating an orderly queue. In fact, we create many orderly queues around the access area to prevent overcrowding. First of all, the zone must be cordoned off for the queue system to work. Otherwise, everybody does what everybody does when there's no system in place: we invade the zone. So, all ru...
Post a Comment
Read more

How was 2018 (Part II)

So, with one successful in the bag, I was excited to test myself in the Frank Duffy 10mi race in August to see if the longer distances were improving too. Here's how it went: August - Frank Duffy 10mi As with the 10k race, the organisers moved the venue from Phoenix Park to Swords. I didn't have a clue about the route or the profile of the race. Mind you, I couldn't remember the last time I had run a 10mi race so couldn't figure out what pace to run at and this was critical.I just figured out it had to be slower than a 10k but... how much? No clue. So I ran and picked up the pace in the final 2k to come in at 1:17. I was happy with that but a friend I met at the race said "you can easily run the half in 1:40". I had never done that or got even close to it. Still as you can see, I was still improving. September - Dublin Half Marathon Crazy targets, unrealistic expectations, unachievable goals... these were some of the thoughts that were going through ...
Post a Comment
Read more