036 ☼ Trust the process

Something that is not always easy

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. Todays newsletter is about the ups and downs of starting the racing season and the way to get to your best running version of yourself :)

Average Results mean not always something

This year's running year was characterized by rather average results. I told you about it. A good January, then a few illnesses, then the cancellation of the UTMB, then a below-average test run here and then last week the first real competition of the season, which, to cut a long story short, wasn't even average. Let's perhaps start with this race.

As described in the last newsletter, I was really looking forward to this first race. 10k in my office. More or less. An unfamiliar distance at a relatively early point in my summer season, but the plan was to run a 37-38-minutes-time. That was an optimistic to conservative estimate. What came next was a lesson in racing.

Race day

The day was hot. More than hot. The terrain here is generally very hot due to the many cobblestone passages and much of it is in the middle of the sun. The day was relatively relaxed. I ate something at lunchtime and drank a lot, but I had a work appointment at 6 p.m., so there was more or less no evening meal. I only had a small snack and that was it. What a mistake.

The combination of heat and bad food probably killed me in the race at 8pm. You can only guess afterwards, but I really felt completely empty during the race. The first two kilometers went according to plan in terms of pace, but then the times got worse and worse. At the halfway point, I considered dropping out.

Dropping out?

I have to admit that I'm not good at running completely below my expectations. So the carousel of thoughts as to whether I should drop out or not went on for a relatively long time until I came to the conclusion that I could perhaps benefit from finishing the race and that's what I did. It actually got better from kilometer 7/8 onwards, even if it wasn't good, so that I made it to the finish in good shape.

Now I can somehow still try to get something good out of the race. In the style of that I fought my way through it, but in the end it would have been completely ok to stop the race. After all, it wasn't the race of the season. It wasn't a UTMB trail race, where it's perhaps more important to keep going and overcome weak phases. But not in this 10K race.

I fought through it, but who cares?

The only thing I really took away was the food story. The next race will be later in the evening again, so this time eat well in advance.

At this point, let's draw the bow towards the title. ‘Trust the process’. Even though I have already completed many quality sessions this year, I am still relatively early in the summer season. It's only natural that not everything is going as well as it could. But that's also important. You can still see progress. Yesterday I completed a 5K test run and finished in 18:30 minutes. 40 seconds faster than two weeks ago. Easier than last week at the 10k race. With a significantly lower heart rate. There you go.

‘Trust’ - a difficult concept

And then it's simply a case of "trust the process". I will. Now I'm already looking forward to race 2 in one and half week. A half marathon. Just another step in the process towards really good 5K times at the end of the summer, but I'm still motivated to deliver.

Photographing the above mentionend competition

I took the chance that day to take a few photos of the other runs that day. Not digitally though, but with an old medium format camera. That was exciting and worked out ok. In any case, I learned a few things. For example, I photographed the fast people with too long an exposure time, which was difficult to do otherwise with the film I had inserted. The pictures that came out sharp definitely look good.

Leonardo-Campus-Run '24

Running update

61k in the books. Two long runs at the weekend. Still feeling well with the increased volume. 269k in June, which is the best result for a month ever.

Mental health update

Ok. Heat makes it always more difficult to be anxiety-free.

The end

📸 If you want to see and read more of my work, find my LinkedIn-page here and my Instagram account here. If you are interested in my running, have a look at Strava.

👨🏽‍❤️‍👨🏼 If you liked to receive this piece of writing, please consider to share it with others who might enjoy it as well.

💛 If you like what you read you can always support me by using this Amazon Affiliate Link. Your support is greatly appreciated!

🗄 Here is an archive of previous posts.

🖋 You are dearly invited to reply to this email to open up a conversation.