Still Running (weakly). Issue 141

PAST – inspiration – “He was never the same again,” was what they said about club captain, Keith Read, when I joined Surrey Walking Club in 1976.  Keith had started coaching me informally and he had reasonable speed – perhaps 9-minute miles over the shorter distances – but I learnt that he had once been much faster.

You see, he had become a Centurion the year before – something almost all race walkers aspire to achieving – walking 100 miles in 19:20:21 for sixth place in the Surrey-promoted event at Ewhurst, and the wisdom was that the LSD (long slow distance) training he had done for that race, combined with the effort of the 100 itself, had added at least a minute a mile to his times.

It was a shock to your then-18-year-old correspondent that one campaign could make such a significant and permanent difference to an athlete’s body, but we have all heard it said that, for example, a boxer was “never the same again” after a particularly damaging bout, or that a golfer “never recovered mentally” from losing a big lead in the final round of a major.

I remember another Centurion walker, Bob Dobson, commenting that he was fascinated by all endurance events, and that he had even at one point considered swimming the Channel, until he discovered that some scientists reckoned that the effort could shorten your life by 10 years – which made him reconsider that idea!

PRESENT – perspiration – “To come away with a bronze medal at the age of 21, that was pretty crazy,” said Ben Pattison of his 2023 World Championship triumph.  (He also won bronze in 2022 Commonwealth Games 800.) 

Injuries and the huge upsurge in world 800 standards have hampered his subsequent medal quests, but it’s good to see my Basingstoke and Mid Hants clubmate return to great form with an indoor personal best (and fifth place on the British all-time ranking) with 1:45.53 for third in the Millrose Games in New York last weekend.  He commented: “Tactically quite a few mistakes.  That’s why I’m doing indoors this year, to learn that sort of thing.  Tactically I think I need to improve a lot, based on Tokyo last year.”  He had placed fifth in his semi-final in the Tokyo World Championships.

Pattison’s previous indoor race had been 5 years ago in Manchester, where he ran 1:49.04, so a personal best was certainly on the cards.  But to see him run this fast, even without great tactics, bodes well not only for the World Indoors in Poland from 20th to 22nd March, but also for an outdoor season that will include the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow from 23rd July to 2nd August and then the European Championships in Birmingham from 10th to 16th August.

FUTURE – suggestion – Is resilience – like Ben Pattison’s resilience in coming back from injury – something that can be taught, tutored or trained, or is it something that you are simply born – or not born – with?

I am reminded of an old sprinting coach’s reply to the proposition, “Sprinters are born, not made,” i.e. that you’ve got to have immense natural talent to succeed in those shortest of athletic disciplines.

The very experienced trainer said: “That may well be, but there’s not a sprinter born who can’t be made better with the right training.”

And so I believe it is with resilience.  But how do you develop your resilience?

I believe that, with resilience, you are either in the vicious or a virtuous circle.  When challenges confront you, you either fight against them – thus reinforcing your resilience – or you simply give up – piling more negativity onto your already-flagging willpower.

You are either in an upward cycle or a downward one.

That is all very well, I hear you say, but what if I am stuck in a vicious circle, with a lack of resilience, no willpower – how do I turn that around?

I think that you can start by artificially manufacturing minor, testing situations to which you can practise responding positively.  Choose to go out for a run when it is raining.  And wear a singlet while you’re doing it.  In the gym, do a double load of the exercise you hate most.  Run your interval session on a lumpy field rather than a smooth track.  Wear a rainsuit for a run on a hot day.  Always do one more rep than what is stipulated.

You get the idea!

Of course, you can take this too far.  I remember the story of a weightlifter who would try and make himself tougher by showering – and then not drying himself before dressing.  Emil Zatopek would hold his breath until he blacked out.  American footballers have been known to practise their tackling by running into trees.

The important thing, of course, is that you DO respond positively to these challenges.  And, because they are fairly time-limited, ringfenced and controllable – and invented by you – you are giving yourself every chance of being able to do so.

And, if you do start to doubt whether you can rise to the challenges, if you can feel them start to get the better of you, invoke your sense of humour.  Humour is a big part of resilience.  Or, to put it the other way around, you are unlikely to be able to respond positively to everything that running can throw at you WITHOUT a sense of humour.

Whenever I was having a particularly tough time in a long run, I would say to myself, “What are you going to do, then, Steve, sit down by the side of the road and have a good cry?”

Humour delivers perspective.  And, if you’ve got perspective, then you are more likely to be able to keep the faith, know that “this too will pass,” and push on through.

As I have said elsewhere, you’re only in the pain box for a short time, so extract yourself from the seemingly insurmountable negatives that press in on you, gain some perspective on them, and you will get, garner and grow that vital resilience.

You are simply trying to turn yourself into the sort of person who does not give up.

Final point: in the end, it comes down to pride.  Only you choose to put yourself through this.  And you do that because not everybody could or would attempt it.  And that’s because it is worth doing.  Worth doing because it is by definition hard.  Gain pride in yourself from that knowledge, hold fast to your reason for doing it – the target that makes it all worthwhile – and build that resilience brick by brick.