One More Light

 This light has been flickering, blinking erratically. It's time to conserve energy.

Recently I read a most timely article from irunfar. I do like that website because it tends to have pieces by writers who have something insightful to say, something that is often thought-provoking and causes me to reflect. I'm not interested in reading about shinyness or gushing write-ups about how a runner is winning everything all the time- I can't relate to those things and there's nothing in that kind of article that inspires me. 

What I read was all about balance. 

Finding balance is something I have always been very bad at- I tend towards an all-or-nothing, throw-everything-I-have-and-am-at-it kind of person. When I'm enthused about something it becomes all-absorbing, all-consuming. That level of obsessiveness is both a blessing and a curse. It's the thing that has kept me going through the years as a single mum and, before then (in a previous life), helped me with creative endeavours but it is also the thing that has lead me to where I am now- burn-out.

"The question to ask isn’t how many miles a week you need to run to complete a 50 or 100 miler, but how many miles (or time) can I sustainably do without getting that balance wrong. This might vary week to week or month to month, and needs to take into account all other kinds of life stressors too. A tough day at work can hit you like a 10-mile threshold run, so chucking another on top in the evening needs to be considered as such."

I've got the balance all wrong. Physical exercise, whether it's running or the CrossFit I've learned to love, is good for both the mind and body. But it's also a stressor. Even if, as I've begun to do, you take a day off in between training sessions or vary what training is done each day, if every day is full of stresses from life and work then actually your body and mind can't recover from and adapt to that training. It's just one load of stress dumped on top of another, day after day after day. I've tried telling myself that it's just perimenopausal malaise and that getting up and out will make it better but that feeling of malaise has become harder and harder to fight. Robbie Britton writes in the article that

"What is possible for one day, one week, or one month can still be too much if you struggle to consistently stay motivated and un-injured. If you find yourself struggling for time to run, it might just be your mind trying to hold you back from doing too much. Levels of enjoyment can be a key indicator of overdoing it (as can more objective data like heart rate variability and sleep quality) but if your training is making you unhappy, then maybe you’re not too busy, but instead overtraining".

It's quite challenging to consider that overtraining could happen when you're barely running 20 miles a week but I think it's a deeply insightful comment. If life stresses have as much impact as a hard or long training session then the amount of time spent training is irrelevant. Sometimes even just a little bit is too much.

Right now work is tough, all the Covid stuff is extremely stressful and I'm in a permanent state of anxiety about trying to stay healthy whilst having to work in very close proximity to children. I'm worried that my own children, one of whom is vaccinated the other who isn't because of needle phobia, will get sick and do badly in exams next summer (we will have GCSEs and A-levels going on so this year is a big one for them both). And I'm constantly torn between all the responsibilities and duties I have as a parent to two teens and as a daughter with a terminally ill parent who lives 250 miles away. I should be in Wales now at a race but I pulled out because I'm too used up and ill-prepared; and I feel guilty because if not in Wales then I should have made the 6 hour drive to my parents. But I'm at home, exhausted. Too frayed even to follow a knitting pattern, read a book or concentrate on a movie.

Last weekend I went back to get some treatment on my dodgy right leg. Compartment syndrome is back but it's not as bad as before, at least not in terms of pain. Training very little doesn't seem to reduce the symptoms and neither has the work I've done on running form. The massage definitely helped but already the benefits of that have worn off. Not sure what the answer is, but for now I think it's time to take some months off. A few weeks back I entered the Centurion One Community event that runs January to April next year, but even though the money's paid I don't have to do it. Certainly I won't be booking any more races for the foreseeable. 

So there is something to do. As someone commented on my Crunch Time post, it's time to take time out. It won't be so hard to regain running fitness if I do want to run again, but if I don't walk away for a bit I'll never heal.

Other hurts also need healing. Those, well I'm not so sure what to do. I don't know if I have enough left of me to take the energy needed to set that process in motion. The hurt itself saps my energy and has dimmed my light, weighing down my soul. All I know is that I can't go on like this.

Hopefully I can find a way to fuel that light so it can shine steadily once more.

with thanks to Robbie Britton, @cavershamjimruns, Linkin Park, and everyone who has sent love and best wishes my way over the last few days