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| The ones that limit your expectations and cause regret in later years. |
My Eight Running Lessons
After all these years of running I thought I’d try to explain in eight easy lessons some of the things I’ve learned in running over 25,000+miles in marathons alone. I mean, you can’t run 1,134 marathons without learning a thing or two, can you?
Lesson One - Planning
I’m sure we are all aware of the sayings, ‘The Devil’s in the Detail’ and ‘Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail’… I’ve used them both so many times over the years when explaining to clients how much my ‘Preparation Process’ has changed when planning and packing especially for the Marathon des Sables. I’ll freely admit that until meeting Mrs. Coleman, my approach was rather ‘Gung-Ho’. Using her attention to detail on my more recent trips, I packed out of sheer necessity rather than desire and it’s become the focus of my minimum weight 6.5Kg race rucksack.
And if I were to run the 2004 Kms from London to Lisbon again, in consecutive daily 50km chunks, as I did in 2004, I’d be planning that one a bit differently too. The two Michelin Road Atlases with a route highlighted in with a pink marker pen, one for me and one for the crew, would now be planned to the nth degree with GPS pinpoint accuracy and ‘Google Maps’ being the main mapping weapons of choice. A Spot tracker would be most welcome in the heart of Spain for instance and in this social media age, my daily updates would be sent out live instead of sent out to 100 pet email addresses, minus images. Talk about the dark ages!
Lesson Two - Failure isn’t an Option
Of course, it isn’t. I mean who sets out to ‘Fail’. Yet folk are only too quick to throw the towel in when the going gets tough in my opinion. I’ve set out 1,134 times to cover 26.2 miles or more. It could be said that I’ve worked within my ‘Comfort Zone’ and that I’ve been lucky to avoid problems on my travels. However, in marathon #998 I fell, fractured my shoulder and had a deep wound on my knee but I still finished. Sure, it hurt like hell and severely bruised my EGO but I wasn’t going to let that get in the way of my planned #1000 at Nottingham the following month.
Becoming ‘Bombproof’ comes from the huge amounts of training and commitment that I’ve invested over the years. It means that I feel at one with my body and therefore know just what I am and what I’m not capable of.
Please don’t ask me to ‘Ironman’ as I can’t swim very far and certainly not for 2.4 miles in open water plus - I don’t want or in fact feel the need to do so. However, I’ve been in races, especially in some of the longer Ultras and Desert Races, where it would have been far too easy to give in but still toughed it out. The stakes have always been far too high and the negativity of a ‘DNF’ would be like ‘Kryptonite’ to my very black and white ‘Starter Completer’ brain.
Coming back from the Marathon des Sables as a ‘DNF’ for instance on a plane with other people wearing their Medals and Finishers’ T-Shirts would be hell on earth for someone like me and reason alone to finish ‘The World’s Toughest Footrace’, at all costs.
Pain’s an interesting one. The dictionary describes it as ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage’. In reality, it’s just an ‘Occupational Hazard’. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever’… It doesn’t help that much when your feet are mashed. Over the years, I’ve learned to understand pain, manage it and mostly to try and avoid it. Getting to Lisbon from London running 50kms a day for 43 days has taught me a lot more about looking after my feet than reading the book ‘Fixing your feet’ ever could. It’s meant I’ve finished the MdS blister-free for years now using the techniques I learned the hard way out there on the hard shoulder.
I swore after finishing the 145-mile Grand Union Canal Race with the sole of my left foot flapping off in 1998 that I’d never wear inappropriate trainers with really worn foot-beds or cheap supermarket socks ever again.
Lesson Four - Learn for Yourself
I had to when I started running . I didn’t have any kit whatsoever in the beginning. I didn’t even time my runs and it was only just before my first half-marathon in April 1994 that I bought some running kit and went to a running shop and bought some proper training shoes. I simply enjoyed the freedom that running brings and never worried about completing with Garmin or Strava accounts.
I’ve learning the hard way and from my own mistakes rather than copying others, I remember a friend of mine saying he ran without socks so I tried that one out only to regret having bleeding heels post a Marathon in August ‘97.
Compression, Heel-Drop, Barefoot, etc. are purely man-made objects invented to part the ‘Keen-Runner’ from their hard-earned cash. Running should be more of an apprenticeship and to be a world-beater, takes many years not months. For me, it’s a lifetime’s work and Yes - I’m still learning.
Lesson Five – It’s a place Place to Shine
If you are looking for a new platform to achieve, then look no further. It was very much a blank canvas when I started researching athletic feats and ultra-long distance running. My ‘detailed’ research was in fact the 1998 Guinness Book of Records and the November issue of Runner’s World.
The former told me I was too slow, and the latter told me that I’d actually missed the bus when it came to running ‘Ultras’. However, there were ‘Gaps’. Huge, gaping, Gaps – well in Treadmill Running and with folk running Multi-Day Desert Races from the UK and these are the ones I’ve exploited those. Also, Meg-Day Marathon running hadn’t been exploited either, so I thought of running the ‘Premier League Grounds’, ‘London2Lisbon’ and ‘Stoptober 2013’ provided a great platform to shine and build my running profile.
Lesson Six - Strengths & Weaknesses
It would be easy to list the qualities that have enabled me to achieve (Big Yawn) but back in the real world I’m honest about my strengths as well as my weaknesses. You see, like most men, I’d rather concentrate on the plusses and being an empire builder. But I realise that I’m not Super-Human, certainly never an Ironman, Sub-3-hour Marathon Man or Sub-40-minute 10km runner - I’m just me and I’m happy with who I am and what I’ve accomplished so far.
Lesson Seven - A New Perspective
Seeing life in 4K UHD Colour for the first time is an amazing experience. The clarity of vision and attention to detail bring a whole new dimension to our senses. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get the same 4K vision into our own existence? I call it ‘Taking off the Life-Blinkers’ the ones that limit our expectations and cause regret in later years. There will always be races and feats that managed to ‘Get Away’ for me. Spartathlon, Badwater, running the London Marathon every day for a Year to name a few but I’ve probably ticked more of my ‘Bucket List’ than most.
I know that my experiences have helped me overcome some huge life-issues especially when I was ill with ‘Guillain-Barre Syndrome’. Getting a cure for GBS is like asking for a shoe recommendation for a marathon. Everyone has an opinion and yet NONE have the real answer. My Doctor’s now known by me as ‘Armchair Pundits’ have no idea of what the condition is like to have and only have previous experience of patients they’ve treated. If you’ve been there, experienced it only YOU will know…
I looked online for help and found that most folk that are GBS talk more of the symptoms mainly ‘Pain’ rather than a solution, sound familiar?
So, like my early days of running, I found my own way out of paralysis and against the odds have completed 158 marathons since my first steps in August 2016.
Lesson Eight – So what have I actually learned…
I’ve discovered a lot about life in the last 28 years. Regrets? Well, I could have been faster. Yes, faster than my marathon PB of 3:24:21 but also faster to where I’ve got to in my knowledge today. A person with a better understanding both of myself and of other people. It’s taken a long time and thousands of miles to get here but I implore everyone to make the most out of their running. It’s brought me so much joy.
So please, be open to change, be the person you’ve always wanted to be and ENJOY the whole running process as much as I have as there’s so much more to this than just getting the medal…
1,134 Marathons - 264 Ultras - 15 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records
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