A Conclusion: On Running & Therapy
18 Months | A Marathon
Words by Justin Reid-Simms (Insta: @houseofcardinal)
I recommend you read the first & second essay for context when you get the chance
Despite scrawling notes into my iPad in the aftermath of the marathon it’s taken months to sit down and muse on them. To break down what went into that day, what transpired over the 26.2 miles, and how the post-glow has affected me.
This journey is almost 18 months, from “I want to end my own life” to “I just ran a sub-3 marathon” I don’t want to oversimplify it like that but I think the timeline requires some recognition.
It stretches back beyond the first post here, and past the finish line back into the therapy room but the timeline remains the same.
The jump-off point was 10 weeks in, 12 to go. I’d toyed with the idea of writing a training diary again, but to be honest it had all seemed so unremarkable up until that point that I just used a combination of Instagram and Strava. I’m working mostly on recall here…
10 weeks of base building is the unsexy running that nobody wants to talk about anyway, and I really felt like I was living in the boring, the non-Instagram worthy workout prescription of ‘miles & miles & miles’ not too fast, not too intense, just a steady dose of mileage in the legs.
6 weeks out I was flying. Or more specifically, 6 weeks out my Garmin told me I was…
‘Peaking’ was the training status for the bulk of the week, I lived there, that in itself rang a few alarm bells, you don’t peak 6 weeks out and then truly peak again, but I passed it off and rode with confidence high into the final weeks. I was taking extra rest days when I needed to, deviating from the plan and not beating myself up about it as I have done in the past. Ever conscious that the lifestyle and work choices that I made every day were at odds with that of an athlete. Sleep, it turns out, is absolutely key.
I wouldn’t say my strength training was as focussed as it could have been, but I was still building, dreaming of that super-compensation, pushing the body to adapt and being mindful to recover from the hard sessions. That’s push led me to the training overdose. 4 weeks out, a heavy lifting session, making conscious effort to hit my full depth in a squat and banding up to get those glutes firing. I guess it was too much, I was sore for a few days afterwards but nothing unusual.
I skipped out a long run midweek, but longing for some teammate time I decided to hit West London, run to Wembley and back to the track to join in the warm-up. It was cold, I got lost, my phone battery died, all the fun things, but back on track I got into the warm-up, 1 mile easy, 2 x 400m jog the bend / stride the straight, 2 x 400m jog 200 / stride 200. Like I said, it was cold but I felt good just a little tight. I wrapped things up afterwards, 15 miles in total, and watched the session from the sidelines. That was on the 23rd of November.
24/66 miles on the training plan done, including a missed speed session — my plan was light on these up until this point
The next day my hamstring felt tight, it didn’t let up, it was sore. So I skipped out my recovery run, I skipped my long run, and I waited to see if it would settle down. Monday night run club came around and it still felt tight, still felt sore during certain movements — walking up stairs, turning too quickly. So I stopped what I was doing, I killed off my training plan and spent the next day on the bike, and the day after that on the cross-trainer. I called up Manni and he gave me some exercises to do, reassured me, the advantage of having practitioners as teammates cannot be overstated, he knows what I’ve been doing and outs himself through a similar routine. There’s comfort in that!
24/66 miles completed
Things settled down, or so I thought, and a Thursday night 11 miler solo seemed to be a good place to get back into things… I was wrong and the flare-up was real! I called Manni on the Sunday after completing just 4 miles of 17 mile long run, missing my second long-run in a row, and he helped settle my nerves, gave me some stretches & suggestions over the phone. It was December 3rd, 2 weeks till race day, 20/61 miles done, no speed workout, no race simulation in a half marathon.
Monday swung back around and it was the elliptical trainer to try and stay moving, a very sluggish / static coaching session for the Run Club as I hit 3 miles in an hour, 4.5 miles on the treadmill that Friday and 6 miles on Sunday.
13.5/44 miles completed.
Next Week was Race Week
By this point I was in week 2 of regular massage and consults at Fix London, Neil is a wizard when it comes to massage, I can’t recommend him enough. Between his expertise alongside Kristina and Manni @ Movement Perfected I’m certain they got me to the start line.
I went through the motions at Run Club and managed 5.5 Miles, took it back to the treadmill on Thursday for 4.5 miles which felt awful. In fact, by this stage the past 3 weeks of running had felt awful, no run clicked, I was clunky, couldn’t settle, couldn’t relax. I think that’s a huge part of it. Headspace became essential — a real grounding.
Friday was a massage with Neil and then I flew to Puglia. Thrilled to be treated by the fireworks for Saints Day in Monopoli, that went on until the early hours of the Saturday morning. The day before a marathon is always strange, in my case my family had come out to watch me so there was some exploring to do, a race pack to pick up, and the obligatory shakeout run. Alongside the sleep hangover from the night before it made for a long day, and one that I was ready to end.
The shakeout run was a struggle, I stopped and started more times than I care to remember and clocked about 2.4 miles before calling it a day.
13.5/28 miles up to the marathon completed
Mileage
Training Target: 199 Miles
Completed: 71 Miles
[35% MILEAGE]
That’s a scary statistic for any coach to look at, and I’m my own coach…
I’ve mentioned it before, and this is a culmination of the Running & Therapy series (for now at least). The Headspace app became an essential tool alongside my weekly Therapy session. I wish I could tell you all how consistent I was — but the reality is I leapt from 3-day streak to 3 days off and back again more times than I care to remember. Although in the week leading up to the race the consistency came right back. Maybe it was the injury, the niggle, the extra time I had to think about everything else you’re supposed to do when you can’t / shouldn’t be running. Perhaps it is more prevalent in recent years but the pressure to do ‘everything’ right has been growing in the running community and wider Health & Wellness *shudder* world… and an endless cycle of Meditate, Eat Right, Train Hard, Recover Hard, Massage, 8 Hours Sleep (or more), Meditate Again, Do Your Strength Work, Recover.
It will come as no surprise to those who follow me on social media that sleep was something that really let me down this time around. I’m not a good sleeper, work in an industry that demands early starts and late finishes to get business, and I’m self-employed, a surefire way to add stress and worry to your daily diet. In many ways being self-employed afforded me the opportunity to train like I did for the first 18 weeks. Mid-morning runs, 2 long (ish) runs a week plus gym sessions and a nap whenever time allowed, but we are beginning to see that the real important sleeping hours for physical recovery are 7–9 and I can safely say that a nap doesn’t quite work in the same way as uninterrupted REM sleep. You get used to being tired, you get used to showing people that you aren’t tired. Like all struggles, those that don’t matter don’t see them, and those closest to you take the hit.
I think it’s worth talking about the technical build up outside of running, just the final week, maybe it will be useful to you or perhaps I’ll receive a nugget of wisdom back to correct my path.
The week of the marathon I pulled together what I could, that’s something I think everybody should attempt to do, you control what you feasibly can and leave everything else on the sidelines. The weeks looked like this, daily beetroot juice shots (70ml) no caffeine, I even had to ask my regular coffee spot if they did decaf — the shame! I was consistent with my meditation marathon week, and that paid dividends when it came to race day. There’s evidence to suggest that meditation only works while you’re doing it, that is to say when you stop you stop seeing the benefits, and in my case, I think it rings true. I had a pretty stressful week with sleep and clients but it felt manageable, I was certainly focussed on the upcoming race, maybe putting too much pressure on myself to achieve but in a fortuitous turn, my mind was put at ease the night before the race.
On 16th December 2017, I completed session 8/10 of the Headspace Concentration pack. After an awful shakeout run spent dwelling on the work I’d put in to get here and the sense of unfairness that the final month had been such a disaster I was confronted with this takeaway
Focus doesn’t know what pressure is. Focus is innate to the mind.
That resonated through me while I tried to get some sleep, I was piling on the pressure because I was so focused on the task at hand and it was detrimental to me. I scribbled on a couple of post-it notes ‘Trust Yourself’ & ‘Relax’ then tried to get some sleep.
The morning of the race came and I couldn’t stomach breakfast, 1/2 a pot of oats was paired with a Maurten 320 as we drive to Bari for the start. The race was along the coast, point to point and I’d recruited my parents, sister & her boyfriend to act as aid stations along the way with Maurten. They headed off to find breakfast and I transferred the post-it notes onto the palms of my hands… ‘Trust Yourself’ ‘Relax’
Wanting to avoid distraction I set my Garmin up to alert me every 5km, aiming to run 21:30–22:15 or 6:55–7:10 min/mile, I took a coulee of Gu Gels with me and 70ml of Maurten in an old Beet-It bottle and took refuge in the Cathedral with the other runners.
During my warm up I spotted a couple wearing Steel City Strider vests, and thought there can’t be a Steel City in Puglia, they must be from Sheffield. That’s when I met Ashleigh & Martyn.
I figured I was in about 3:10 shape and Ashleigh wanted to run a similar time so we went out together. The first thing I did was cancelled my workout on my watch, accidentally of course, and I’d already turned off all notifications. No check-in every 2 miles like I’d been used to. Ashleigh wanted to bank time and despite my better judgement I went with it, I glanced down at my watch 6:36 min/mile felt good and I remembered a quote from an interview with Paula Radcliffe on racing, I’m paraphrasing here but she said ‘I don’t look at my watch, what if it says I’m going to fast? Do I slow down and tell myself I can’t run at that pace even if it feels good? If I do I’m unlikely to speed up again’
The course went down to the coast in each town before coming back onto a road that ran parallel to the sea, it was on this ‘main’ road that we met an Italian guy who invited us to tuck in behind him, work together, that was the plan. I took the first stint at the front and quickly realised that Ashleigh was falling off the pace a little, there was a headwind that ate into your energy and as I glanced down at my watch again we established that she was about to run a PB for the half by a good couple of minutes, it was pretty unlikely that was going to happen in the second half. My desire was to slow down for Ashleigh was strong, up until that point I’d thought of it as another pacing exercise, focus on somebody else’s race made my race and making my effort about them somehow made my own effort feel easier. Then I realised it was going to change, I let her drift off the back as I carried on with the Italian man, through some broken English & even more broken Italian we managed to establish he was aiming for a 3 hour marathon, oh and he was 53, way to put the pressure on me, I had 23 years on him! Each person we passed was greeted with ‘Ingelese’ an abrupt apology from me and a friendly warning from him to not start a conversation
Up until this point I’d only had a Gu Gel, the salted caramel almost solid in the 9º temperature. As we came through halfway I lapped my watch, 1:28:30. We were running strong, and as 23km came round I saw my sister with a 500ml bottle of marten 160, in hindsight I should have bought smaller bottles… it was s shock, I was expecting them at 25km but they said I looked strong so I took a couple of swigs and threw the bottle behind me for her to collect. We were making good time and I didn’t want to slow down. As we pushed through the 25km mark my Italian counterpart started to fall back, I didn’t stop, we acknowledged that I was going to push on and parted company.
The thing about this race was the half marathon joined a little after halfway, it’s quite a boost to have fresh legs pulling you forward, especially in a smaller marathon. With a field of 1500 runners, it was a welcome sight having the half marathon runners to battle with. There were battles with a couple of runners, but it was more motivation and passing the time than real positional scraps.
So much of running is about other people, but this race really took me with it, I didn’t have anything to prove to anybody but myself, I went into this with the intention of running a 3:10 comfortably and regrouping to go sub-3 in the new year. In my wildest dreams I’d seem myself crossing the line in 3:05, visualising what it looked like, what it felt like, but as I came through 20 miles and hit lap again on my watch that visualisation started to change… not the 3:05 dream from the night before, but a 3:01, the time that had seen my friend & teammate Manni through to Boston, incredibly apt as he was the one who’d told me in the lead I needed to visualise this race, visually the way I was going to finish, see the time on the clock, could I really do it?
Then came the stitches, I glanced down at my watch again knowing that I needed to stay around the 7 min/mile mark to bring myself through on time, I very rarely get stitches, maybe it was the Gu Gel, but things were starting to hurt, the struggle was real. I dug deep into my memory banks to find a solution, breathing deeply into the stitch and holding my breath there, waiting and waiting for them to pass as they shifted from left to right and finally settled under my ribcage.
They settled, and as I came through 35km I only us caught up with my family — right before an aid station… I think they knew I was hurting by then but seeing them was the boost I needed. I took on as much Maurten as possible in the 20m or so that I held the bottle and tossed it behind me, we came around the bay interrupting fisherman going out to work on a Sunday morning, and I settled into it again. 7km to go, that’s when it was time to hurt, up until that point it didn’t really hurt, it was uncomfortable but didn’t hurt and now was my time to push. I always think of the marathon as a warm up until the final 10km, once you’re through 20 miles you know what to do, you’ve run countless 10km’s in training, it’s a manageable distance, and yet nobody can pull the trigger but you… maybe my thoughts on when the race really starts will change as I shoot for faster times but for now, I like the idea of 10 miles, 10 miles, 10km.
With 3km to go I started to wind it up mentally, 8 laps of a track, I could break 3 hours if I really pushed, if I dug in. You start doing the maths in your head this whole thing could be over in less than 13 minutes, but your brain is fried, it can’t concentrate on the complexity of moving between km’s and miles. I got to 2km to go and was staring at my watch like it was in miles thinking I’d blown it.
A turn was coming up back into the city off the coast, with the option of running into the sea or turning right I found myself screaming at the marshal asking him which way to go. I stopped with the mathematics and got my head down, I needed to end this, and then as I turned into the final straight I glanced up at the gun time on the clock. 2:5X:XX I couldn’t believe what I was seeing so I pushed, that push that happens at the end of a long race where you think you’ve dropped the hammer only to see your pace drop by 00:01 second/mile but it feels like a sprint. In a flurry of heel strikes and hot air I crossed the line with my arms up, I’d done it. 2:58-something on the clock.
I looked around, I couldn’t see my parents, my sister or her boyfriend. I just walked around the town square wrapped in a space blanket staring at the scene around me. An Italian Christmas market in the midst of a marathon finish line. I kept walking, towards the stage where the awards would be held and then turned around back to the finish line. Then I saw my family, they were waiting patiently at the finish for me to come down the chute, as surprised to see me walk up behind them as I was.
I didn’t cry, unlike the first marathon they saw me run, I just stayed quiet, there was so much to take in.
I’d done it, I’d broken 3 hours (2:58:30 Gun & 2:58:08 Chip Time)
11th Overall & First Male 18–34
Looking back in my training there was nothing spectacular, no workout to end all workouts, no bragging rights, just a steadiness. A stillness in amongst the graft of a worker who doesn’t know what the working week will bring. In many ways, it echoes my journey through therapy, stillness and a seeming lack of breakthrough but the foresight and commitment to stick with it.
This quote from an excellent essay by Peter Bromka stood out to me the moment I read it, and although my own build-up wasn’t perfect in the final month it rang true. The average pace of my training miles sat around 8:15 min/mile, and on race day my average pace was 6:48 min/mile.
“When appropriately trained and reasonably fit the term “Marathon Pace” is an elusive estimation.
“MP” for short, it stands for how much you’re willing to wager for a little too long. MP feels like a lie you just may be able to justify.
A pace that felt too fast only weeks ago is suddenly….manageable. The body is incredible because it adapts. The pace isn’t great, it’s nowhere near “comfortable,” but when gambling correctly it’s oddly sustainable.
I gambled with myself, not with the expectations of those around me or the pressure I put on myself. I watched the pace change, fluctuate up and down as I lapped my watch at 13.1 miles and forged ahead to 20 miles with the fresh legs of the half marathoners by side. I ran by feel pushing when I could and dialling it back when I had to, all the while sitting on the line and trusting that I could hold it or close to it. Despite the plans of a Garmin alert keeping me honest as each 5km passed us by I relied on my internal clock to keep me honest.
I can’t tell you how many times I looked down at my hands for a reminder.
‘Trust Yourself’
‘Relax’
I suppose all gambles involve a certain element of faith, in this case, I put my faith in myself, which leads me back the therapy room and the rippling effect it has had on the rest of my life. I’ve broken myself down in that room, confronted parts of my character that are unpleasant at best and unspeakable at worst, see the patterns of my life repeating over and over and been forced to sit there with them trying to understand why. I’ve had to stay there in the stillness and the silence, where you don’t feel like any progress is being made but you trust in the process to break through the other side, maybe in a whoosh or maybe as a trickle.
I’m not done yet, but all these parts led me to this moment and to this final thought
you have to know yourself before you can trust yourself
