Welcome to my email newsletter 'Never not [thinking about] running' - a weekly newsletter about running and mental health. If you haven't subscribed yet and you're not sure whether you really want to receive an e-mail from me on every Tuesday, have a look at the archive. I want to thank everyone again who leaves such supportive comments here or takes the trouble to send me an email with their thoughts. That makes me feel really good. Thank you! Todays newsletter is about competing in a race without competing. Do you do that?
Making plans to stay motivated
I think it was in December that a colleague from work and fellow runner from the running club asked me if I would take part in a running series in spring. I said no and we agreed to sign up for it. As a little mutual motivational aid. It was clear that we wouldn't be running together in the competition - we run at too different speeds for that, but we would meet briefly beforehand to socialize, take a photo with the other runners from the club and then off we went.
The running series consisted of three runs within four weeks. The first race on January 28th was a 10k, the second two weeks later was a 15k and the last was the half marathon last weekend. The runs all fitted very well into my training plan for the UTMB as a small performance check. Well, anyone who has read the last few newsletters knows that I've been a bit unwell in the last few weeks and that I couldn't really think about competitions. My colleague also had only completed the 10K run by Sunday and had to skip the 15K.
How it went
This weekend, the half marathon was on the agenda and my first idea was that I could go there and make a training session out of it. A relaxed run and then maybe a 5k tempo run thrown in. Something like that. That would have been absolutely possible at this point. This week was already close to normal in terms of running, so it would have been a perfectly doable session.
But I didn't do it and I thought long and hard about whether I should go or not. And maybe you feel the same way in situations like this. My feeling is that if I go to a competition, then I will also run a competition. There are so many people at the start, everyone is pushing each other, even if someone is running in front of me, I have the feeling that I could automatically pass them. I don't think I've ever run a race just to be there. Although that's wrong again. I like running events and I love the atmosphere on site, the interaction with the other runners, the competition - it all works for me. But I don't run a PR every time or come in first every time.
Perhaps it's better described by the phrase - I've never been to a race without trying to get the best out of my body. A training session at a race somehow feels wrong to me.
Another running friend described it like that and to some extent that applies to me too. I think the standard expectation when someone takes part in a race is also that they do their best. The questions about what pace you're running at, the inquiries about whether you could run faster, all the explaining, everyone knows these things in different forms.
And you're rarely that strong-willed - no, I'm rarely that strong-willed to put up with it. I don't feel like explaining myself. The sentence: "I wasn't fit, I'll do a training run here today and see what happens" should actually be an easy one, but sometimes I'm just tired of it. I was also worried about overdoing it, drawn by the competition atmosphere. It didn't come to that.
How do you do it? Can you run easily in a competition?
I stayed at home and scheduled the training session for the day before, but I still ran really fast, was satisfied and had the Sunday completely free to recover. It felt ok. And my colleague didn't start either. So registering for the series was a real letdown, but on the other hand I learned something about myself again.
Therapy update
Had my first session of emdr-therapy and it was really exhausting. Eyes are hurting. My therapist said I should observe myself over the next few days to see what I notice about myself.
Running
Slowly getting back into the flow. In one of the next newsletters I’ll tell you how I changed my training plan because of my sickness. This week, the plan was to run 50k, with the only quality session on saturday - the above mentioned long run. That went wildly good. This week will be again for recovery - so stepping down the kilometers to 40, just to be sure, that my body can cope with the running after being ill.
You can find all updates on my training plan here.
UTMB-Obernai-Update
Found a new apartment. Going there now alone without the family, which is kind of sad and is a great challenge for me, but that’s how it is. Besides that, I am now officially enrolled, because my health certificate was validated.
The end
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Well, you could run the race as a training run and then say: https://dasz.substack.com/p/but-im-actually-faster-yeah-then // On a more serious note: I quite often participate in races without going all out. There's plenty of reasons why one should do this, for example if you pace another runner (did this during our 20k "Winterlaufserie" in Munich 2 weeks ago, for example), or to "practice" certain aspects such as nutrition, new shows, pacing strategies, etc., or as you mentioned to use the race as a training run with the benefit of aid stations and other runners to make time go by fast. But I get the point, that racing without racing is a tough thing for some runners. My wife for example ;-)
I was going to agree Jens that I’ve never wanted to do races like this either… except Chris’ comment reminded me I’ve run as a pacer for a couple of marathons and that was hugely fulfilling. But I think that falls into a different category than running a race without racing it…