The Plan
When you have a goal or agenda, you most likely have a vision in your head of how it ought to play out. But what about when it doesn’t go to plan? Have you failed? Or have your expectations simply be somewhat different to the reality that you now face?
When a picture perfect plan unravels, your next move will determine where you go. Essentially, how you react is paramount.
Monday morning and I was on “Week 1, Day 1, Session 1” of a 12-week marathon block when my Amsterdam Marathon plan hurled to a stop. Admittedly, I was not starting the week fresh. I was tired. I had completed a 2h 30mins trail run a couple of days prior; which was harder than I had anticipated and required a fair amount of concentration to keep myself upright for the 21km distance. Prior to this had bashed out a couple of weeks hard training in order to capitalise on the cooler UK temperatures.
Hindsight, the wonderful thing that it is… I can now look back at my training and see the screamingly obvious errors I was making. The runs were hard, but it was also the life that was happening between the runs. The bit that TrainingPeaks blissfully neglects to show. From weddings to family catch-ups, and house viewings; Jack and I bounced around the country making the most of summer. Fun, but not exactly conducive to recovering from sessions.
That Monday I planned to message Marcus and tell him our training plan wasn’t working out right; that I was shattered. I decided to go for my 60 mins easy run, clear my head and then get in touch. Instead, a few hours later, he got a message that I was lying on some chairs in A&E with a hole in my knee.
Less than 1km into my 60 min easy run, I clipped my foot on an uprooted tree root and went flying onto the muddy terrain. All apparently muddy apart from the one rock that my right knee decided to ever so precisely land on. I felt the rock penetrate my skin but felt no pain. As I rolled to my left I saw white through the hole that the rock had made (later to realise that I had seen my own patella), and my instant reaction was to vomit. Thanks to the body’s incredible way to protect, and create a state of shock, the pain took a good couple of hours to start settling in. However, I lost the ability to remember simple tasks like make a phone call. I stared blankly at my phone as my face unlocked the screen. No calls were going through, and upon later checking back, no calls were even made. I called out Jacks name in the hope that he would hear me whilst on his podcast walk. He didn’t. Instead I hoped that he had made the same turn as me at the cross roads. He had.
As I saw Jack’s figure in the distance coming closer, I lay down and waited for him to scoop me up, get me back to the car and then to the hospital.
Here we are 4 weeks on, and I’ve not run since; now 8 weeks out from Amsterdam Marathon. My wound has recently healed over, but my joint is still playing catch-up on remembering how to fully move. I would be foolish to think that mentally or physically it would be wise to drum up the training for a marathon. It’s simply not meant to be how I thought it was.
I was pushing through my training to make it work, the universe put a stop to that as I had ignored the warning signs. But there is no need for a pity party. In the past, I have felt absolutely floored by injuries, setbacks, or undesirable race results. Longing myself to find a silver lining. These prior experiences have led me down a road of self discovery, reflection and awareness. While not easy, the road was preparing me for my next fall.
I no longer hold such pressure on running, racing, or link my self worth to an outcome. How many times have we heard that someone achieves a goal, a race time or placing and yet nothing seems to change? It doesn’t bring them happiness. I still have my running goals; and I still want to focus on a marathon training block, but I don’t need to force. I certainly don’t need to rely on them for happiness. After all, when you truly lean into and love the process, you accept the process for what it is.
Amsterdam Marathon might not be what I thought when I entered it, but it’s exciting to see where I will be at in 8 weeks time. To see what I can learn and inevitably pass on to my clients.
