45 weeks, 10 laps of 7.5 miles and a reminder of what pain can teach us

I like that I have a high pain threshold. It is something I have learnt to moderate over the years and it has helped me achieve things I never would have come close to otherwise.

The physical side of pain I am very good at shutting out. This has a positive impact on my running in that I can stay in races when suffering with cramp or minor injuries, the flipside of this is that I sometimes mess up fuelling during the race and try to survive too long on what I’ve already consumed.

The running I have done this week only consisted of 7.5 or 15 mile runs and without sounding arrogant, I was able to shut out pain from a sweat rash on my back and a friction rash under my arms for the time it takes to cover that distance without too much effort. Outside of when I’m actually running, my threshold has been embarrassingly lower and I have spent most of the week in some level of discomfort. The nadir of this was when I asked my wife to use a hair removal cream on my back yesterday. Whilst it was successful, it was definitely the most acute pain I’ve been in this year!

The mental side of pain is something I try to take the opposite approach to, shutting out psychological pain isn’t a technique you’d find approved anywhere. I have found over the last 10 years that when I experience anxiety about things, running and reflecting on them has helped massively.

Since getting into listening to podcasts over the past year, I have still tried to do some running without them to enable me to do this. When there are quick fixes to things such as remembering what I’ve forgotten or formulating a plan of what I am going to do, this is normally alleviated at the end of the run and I can follow through as a result.

Unfortunately in life, you are sometimes thrown things that do not have quick fixes. From listening to Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography last year, there was a memorable part where he said people don’t go to his concerts to learn things, they go to be reminded of things they already know. I’ve tried to use my running recently to achieve a similar outcome about myself. This has been around ‘convincing’ me that I still show up when things don’t go my way and that I maintain my integrity and kindness to others especially when this happens. I think this was eloquently expressed in the Cheryl Strayed quote below.