Are you a Do’er or a Don’ter?

Maybe 'Yes' next time?

It’s a question I asked myself on getting up at 3.30am on a Saturday Morning to catch the first train out of Cardiff to London to speak at this year’s Marathon des Sables EXPO. Stepping out into a dark and wet October morning, so early, one does question one’s sanity but then I’m a Do’er and not a Don’ter. 

A proper 100% Do’er I’d like to think too…

Whether you’d call it ‘Going the Extra Mile’, ‘Being the Eternal Optimist’ or plainly ‘Being far too Over-the-Top’ - it’s an attitude that’s delivered more than hindered my progress I believe.

I’m off to the Expo, to speak to next year’s intake of competitors’ preparing for the ‘Desert-Life-Adventure’ that’s only six months away and ticking! For them the prospect of surviving the Sahara will be a pretty daunting goal but for my race in 2017, it was a goal in a different sense as I used the race as my focus for my GBS recovery.

I thought I’d see where I was at Christmas 2016 with just four months training to go. Luckily, I wrote about it at the time and looking back, it wasn’t all a bed of roses…

Coming off the prednisolone had taken its toll and by Christmas 2016 and I was knackered. However, I’d got through the ‘Steroid-Detox’. The key point for me is that no doctor I met had experienced GBS for themselves and how it felt to be completely wiped out. So, I became my own expert – as I was the one who was ‘living’ with GBS and had to find a way out. I was the one breathing the condition and by then, all my medical ‘crutches’ and physical ‘crutches’ were gone – I was on my own.

Every year at Christmastime, we go to Jenny’s parents. They live in a picturesque part of Cardiff on the side of Caerphilly Mountain in a large house, which our kids love to run around in. Her father Mike is an amazing host and cooks a Christmas dinner to die for – it’s become a ‘Festive Tradition’. After, I always go for a run to try and burn some of it off – I did that year but found myself, running at over 20-minute miles, being overtaken by people out for post-Christmas Dinner Stroll themselves. 

My performance was just pitiful... 

Trying not to be too disheartened, for the next few days, I'd run to the bottom of the mountain, feel broken and then head back… The level of de-motivation some became extreme. I thought, I could walk faster than I was running. Why was I even bothering? I was running so slowly that I looked like I was running in slow-motion. People were looking at me, thinking, ‘What the hell is that guy doing?’ Back at the house, I just sat there, completely wiped out.

Jenny saw how bad it was and said, ‘You need to realise how far you've come. You were only in hospital three months ago’. It woke me up out of my nightmare. She was right. I had come a long way. My expectations were way too high, and it was distorting the truth in my own mind.

In my pursuit of being ready for the MDS and cracking the 1000 marathons mark, I’d lost the plot. I was thinking way too far ahead and not ‘in-the-now’. Not being able to run back up that hill was a reality check. It was life's way of telling me: this is going to be a long journey - you're a novice runner again. 

Accept it, and in fact celebrate the idea that you're even able to walk up a 271-metre high mountain today. When you put it into context like that, it all became a much healthier perspective. It became a growth mind-set instead of a defeatist one.

It had taken me some time to realise my new perspective and I had a great run the next day. How bloody typical was that?

That mountain became MY mountain…

I wanted to get that mountain conquered no matter how slowly it took it me because in a hundred days’ time I was going to run the MDS again. Running at 20-minute miles in the UK, I knew I’d be timed out at the MDS and that would spell ‘D I S A S T E R’. I'm a proud starter-finisher and to be pulled out of a race would be everything I'm against. I NEVER give in, I NEVER give up – and I don't get pulled out of races for being incompetent so that was playing on my mind.

I ran it every day…

On January 5^th, everything clicked into place, I felt in a moment like a runner again. It felt brilliant. From there on, the constant switching between feelings of feeling great and then feeling knackered became more the former and the bad days lessened.

The 10-minute miles returned, my parkrun time subbed 30 minutes. My progress quantum leaped, but still I wondered whether my body would be able to complete the MDS because of my fatigue but then I knew the race inside out and all I had to do was finish...

Well, the rest is history of course, well twice over since then but it’s really easy to see how fragile a situation is in hindsight and how easy it would have been at the time to stay at home rather than be a ‘Do’er’.

Okay, there are extreme circumstances and goals in my case but I’m sure there are occasions where you wished you’d said ‘Yes’ rather than ‘No’ – I believe it’s far better to regret having done something rather than not to have done it at all, so when you find yourself in a similar situation, why not give being a ‘Do-er’ a chance?

1,025 Marathons, 248 ULTRAs, 9 Marathon des Sables & 15 Marathon des Sables