On running addiction

Running addiction means that even though I'm injured I feel compelled to push myself to run. The injury itself is a result of overtraining, one symptom of running addiction. Running addiction is not itself, however, an injury (like runner's knee, from which I currently suffer). It is a state of mind.

What is it like to be addicted to running (subjectively speaking)? Running is obviously doing something for me and, whatever that something is, I want more of it. More fitness, more PBs, more positive feedback, more miles, more Strava maps...these are all great things.

But I also want more: endorphins, seratonin, endo-cannabinoids, and whatever other kind of chemical constituents of the runner's high I can lay my hands on.

There are internal and external motivating factors as well. Why do I run? Internally, it makes me happy. The running is itself the goal, not the time or the distance. It is the running no matter the weather, rain or shine, no matter who is with me, alone or in a group. It's all fine.

Actually, the social group runs have really been motivating because they're often surprising. For example I'll learn things about people and what makes them run, their backgrounds, where they're from.

Another thing that has been happening lately is I'll surprise myself by running with people who are a lot faster than me. The surprise comes when I actually keep up with them for a considerable period of time. You reset your sense of possibility to a higher level when that happens. And you really get the runner's high then too (like a hit of all those brain chemicals all at once, buoyed up in a sea of sociality).

External motivating factors are the PBs and the numbers, how fast I ran and for how long. Strava enables a lot of the externality of running, of the goal-driven, social media side of it. Strava is unique for a site of its type, not at all like twitter or instagram because it is based on achievement. Everyone who posts has achieved something, great or small, it really doesn't matter.

Strava feeds the addiction, but so do medals, and times, and gear. I love getting a new pair of trainers knowing that if I run a lot a new pair is closer to being mine. I recently purchased an all-weather waterproof running jacket, rationalising that it's winter, and that I'd had a bad run a few weeks back in wind and driving rain. In this way 'want' becomes 'need' the more you run.

But there's something more to it, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Why did I run 58 miles two weeks ago? Why have I signed up for four marathons in the space of just over one year? Why do I run to the point of injury?

Part of the answer is selfishness. But this is not the whole answer. I am selfish about running, sometimes. I run when perhaps I don't always need to, to make the time mine. It is inviolable time, no matter what happens. And then sometimes, too, when I'm injured, only then do I feel like I've earned a rest.

It's caught up in trying to prove that I'm working hard enough, and this is clearly related to other aspects of my life. The fact that I run has a tangible, and often a very positive, effect upon my career and sense of confidence outside the actual run.

Running has a knock-on effect into other aspects of life. It drives an energy wedge into things, and dispels hesitation, low self-esteem, and other confidence-destroying things. If you can smash your PBs in running, you can smash them in your job, your relationships, and in your relationships with time (and space) and money too.

After all, running is essentially free. There are very few startup fees, and only small barriers to entry. And you can build up both your body and your gear over a span of years. It doesn't have to happen all at once.

Conclusion: I'm addicted, but (mostly) in a good way. I'll keep monitoring myself, and reflecting on when I'm running for the right reasons or, conversely, when I'm pushing myself too hard.

For the time being (and for the foreseeable future), however, I'm really enjoying my addiction.

On injury and writing

What's the connection between injury and writing?

Here's a little backstory: Yesterday, at the Surrey Men's League race at Epsom Downs, I fell down on my right knee (and then all the way down) while taking a hard right turn about a quarter of the way through the race. It was muddy and slippery, and I was wearing road shoes, and I took that turn WAY too fast. I already had a niggle in that knee too (probably a mix of ITB and runner's knee).

That race yesterday was a victory, despite the price I paid in injury. It was my fastest pace so far, at 7:16 per mile over 4.9 miles, beating my previous 7:18 pace at Croydon, for a Surrey Men's League race. A PB of sorts if you will, even if the uneven, rough, technical terrain held me to my third best 5k time. It was a great day, guts and glory, mud, blood, etc. The Epsom Downs site is beautiful, and the mixture of sun/rain with bursts of light and thunder booming through the cloud-curtains and bulbous rain cumulus was quite spectacular. This, with excellent moral support from fellow runners and the crowds.

(here's a link to the run on Strava)

The long and the short of it, though, is: I'm injured. Now, this is not as depressing as when you find yourself injured for the very first time. Now you know your running career is not over. But you also know, once you're ready to actually admit that you're injured, is that you have to give yourself enough time to recover. This is easier said than done, especially if you're just a little bit addicted to running like I am.

What's the best way through this impasse? How do you force yourself to give yourself enough time? By which I mean, absolutely not running for two weeks or more so that you can achieve a full recovery? My strategy is twofold. I cross-train and I read/write. This blog post is a case in point. The fact that I'm writing it means I'm coming to terms with my injury, that I'm NOT running, and therefore that I'm getting just that little bit better.

You have to keep this going somehow. Last time I was injured, after the Endure24 race in Reading, I started using my bicycle a lot. Two things about the bicycle: you have to ride a LOT and HARD to get anywhere near the return that you do from running (like 20 miles minimum). The second thing is that if I do in fact ride a lot and hard, I find that bicycling gives me hemorrhoids. I'd rather run a marathon with full-bore ITB than sit for one single hour on my ass with a hemorrhoid. They're horrible.

I do yoga and pilates with weights for strength and mobility. This never fails me, and I know for certain that I will always have this practice to fall back on. The other thing I know I will always have is reading, and reading always precedes writing. Both (well, all three, yoga, reading, and writing) are an excellent way to spend time while you're injured.

Here's a list of what I've been reading, and what I'm planning on reading (through injury and beyond):

1 Stephen King, On Writing
This book is very straightforward to read, and it is full of excellent advice. The brilliant thing about it is that it is told as a story, making it compulsively readable, a lot like King's novels. It packs in much of the standard advice about how to write but in a way that makes you feel like you are being swept along in an adventure. You come out of it wanting to write, and there's a harrowing personal story of injury as an appendix. An absolute must-read.

2 Timothy Noakes, Lore of Running
I've mentioned this book a couple of times in the past when I was part way through it. The truth is, this is many books in one. It is the foundation of knowledge for runners, even if it can be improved upon in each of its parts elsewhere, the base of evidence utilised here, and the breadth of knowledge produced is truly astounding. I have found that this book re-pays a close reading of its details, especially around running strategy at different distances, on how individual elite runners have approached training, on how this is applicable for everyday and amateur runners; how not to overtrain; what to do when you do overtrain; the psychology of running addiction and injury; how to avoid becoming a selfish runner; stretches, grids, medical advice, the lowdown on de-hydration v hyponatremia, etc etc etc. There is so much in here to assimilate, it is beyond what one might call a runner's bible. It is a runner's garage, toolbox, and clinic, all in one.

3 Adharanand Finn, The Way of the Runner
I read this first, before the seemingly more popular Running With the Kenyans, because it really really intrigued me. First, I just wanted to know what IS the way of the runner, and once I got sucked in, I found myself just fascinated by the levels of support Japanese corporate and popular culture find themselves willing to provide (even if the running itself is often very grim and repetitive, this just increases the fascination for me). Finn is an excellent writer, very straightforward, to the point that you find his book ending all too soon. He also makes it compelling despite multiple failures to connect with his Japanese hosts, and I know first-hand from my own experiences doing ethnographic fieldwork how hard it can be to keep moving forward when things fall down like this. It is inspiring at multiple levels, and worth multiple reads.

4 Richard Askwith, Today We Die a Little: Zatopek, Olympic Legend to Cold War Hero
This book seems to occur in two parts. First we have the part where Zatopek is young and training hard. Zatopek seems to have invented the idea that speed-training is the most important aspect of training for ANY length of race. He took this philosophy to extremes, in terms of the number and speed of repetitions he undertook to run, doing the standard 400 and 800m segments at a variety of speeds, but most crucially, at absolute TOP speed. He broke all the shorter distance records very quickly, but then he won the Olympic Gold Medal in the very first marathon he ever ran. It was the speed-work that did it. The second part of the book is about his decline. As Noakes has noted (see above), hard years of training over a runner's lifetime can take their toll at the end of that life. Zatopek's wife, a javelin-throwing Olympic medallist, for example, looked ten years younger than him in her final decade, and they were born on the same day.

5 Scott Jurek, Eat & Run
This book will get you thinking about ultras, if not just in theory, then in practice too. One of the first things you notice is that it is a VEGAN cookbook, and that Jurek, one of the top ultra-running racers of all time has this amazingly healthy diet that is like rocket fuel to his running. He also references a great deal of other literature, and subscribes to Noakes's 'central governor' theory, whereby it is the brain that controls how fast and how far we can run. Training resets that central governor to higher levels allowing for greater and greater levels of performance. Having a healthy and well-thought-through diet doesn't hurt at all either. Find inspiration and fortitude in this memoir of a life in running.

6 Chris McDougall, Born to Run
This is the one that started me on my reading about running journey. It will get you thinking about why we run, and why we run in the ways that we do, with good dollops of history, anthropology, and riveting descriptions of and stories about real races run, mostly of the 'ultra' type, with star appearances by some of the top runners in the world, but almost always, here, in quite obscure locations in both the US and Mexico. This is the story of the world's greatest runners, and about what they eat (beans and corn), and what they wear on their feet. Read it!

Next on my reading pile:
-Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans (can't wait to read it)
-Christopher McDougall, Natural Born Heroes
-Anna McNuff, The Pants of Perspective (A woman who runs 3,000 miles across New Zealand)
-Adrian J Walker, The End of the World Running Club (science fiction about running).

Conclusion: I have lots to do to keep me busy while I'm recovering from that injury!