I've talked about my running on this blog a lot, and there's a reason for that. It has taught me so much, not just about my physicality, but about my psychology and my emotional states.
And it's helping me through these dark times of the pandemic, more than I realized. We're at a bit of a low point around the world - many people have died, many more are still in hospitals and new strains of the coronavirus are popping up, with the uncertainty about how they may change the disease.
But there is hope, in the form of at least two vaccines which will help protect our population. As I write this, first responders, medical professionals and the most vulnerable (the aged in nursing homes) are getting vaccinated, and hopefully in a few months, the general population will start to get the shots as well.
That's a few months away, and in the meantime, things may get worse. It's winter now, so people are staying inside more. COVID fatigue, as it's called, (really lockdown fatigue) is a real thing, and it's pushing people to meet up more often indoors than maybe we should. Christmas was yesterday, and I'm sure that many many families gathered together, potentially spreading the disease further.
What does this have to do with endurance training? Well, during a marathon, the first half is usually pretty easy; a trained running is used to running 18-20-22 miles once a week, so 13 miles is relatively easy. It's after that first half when things get harder. We call them 'the middle miles' - past the first half, but not to the point where you're counting down the last few miles (between 22 and 26, say).
And those middle miles are where the dark times come, along with the dark thoughts. The thoughts that 'I might not make it' and 'this is too hard' and 'why am I wasting my time doing this?' It's a time when the body and mind are both struggling, especially knowing what is yet to come before the end of the race, and how much more, and how much harder of an effort is still in front of us.
This is where a runner needs the inner fortitude to ignore the complaints of body and mind, to press on doing what must be done even though it hurts, even though it's uncomfortable, even though it starts to make no sense to continue. That's where training comes in - because we've been her before in our long runs. 13 miles didn't become easy overnight - as we train, we push out the boundaries of discomfort farther and farther into the run. We know these dark thoughts are coming - we've had them every week in runs for months, so they're more familiar to us; they are a part of our experience.
Those middle miles - that's where we are right now. The first half is past us - there's still a long way to go. But we know that at the end, there's a finish line - immunity for the population. it's still a long way off and we have to keep doing what we're doing - masking, social distancing, testing, self-checks. Pretty soon, the vaccine will be available to the rest of us - that's where the countdown to normalcy begins, those last few miles where we realize we CAN do this, we're GOING to do this, we're seeing those who have been successful returning to the race to help others. That bit is coming.
But the other element that runners need in those middle miles is encouragement, positive encouragement, to help amplify that inner voice that is telling the runner to keep going. That inner voice can get drowned out by the negativity, but it's always there. Hearing from our friends and family and the community that they believe in us and that they support us, can make the difference between celebration and defeat.
So let's stay out there, cheer on our fellow travelers, set the examples for others to follow, and plan for great celebrations (with lots of in-person hugs) for when we cross that line to success.
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