Getting out the door

Action creates motivation, not the other way around

Some days I hate running, and most days I love it… yesterday had both.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I was dreading yesterday evening's run. I run seven days a week and twice on Thursdays, though you can hardly call the 3.5km with Run-N-Rave a run. But the way I felt yesterday morning was enough to have me doubting myself for the following run.

I had an 80-minute tempo run in my schedule. Consisting of

10 minutes warm up

3x 15 mins tempo with 5 mins running after each set

Then another 10 minutes to cool down.

I spent all of my afternoon at work thinking and rethinking about how I could adapt this session so it would be easier for me, so I could take the easy route out and make up the kilometres and intensity elsewhere in the week.

I looked at every option, but the facts were staring back at me. I need to do the work if I want to be successful - whatever that means to me. Sure, I could have skipped the session. Done it this morning, trading my Thursday + Friday workouts. But that would just prolong the inevitable. This session (my second speed workout of the week) is made for Thursdays so that I have enough time to recover for my Long(er) Tempo run on Sunday.

I felt pretty awful leaving work. The sun had set, and I’d not managed to do much work due to this session being everpresent at the front of my mind. But I did what I could to get my head back in the game. This came in the form of three vegan protein bars from Lidl on the way home so that I at least wasn’t running on an empty stomach.

That being said, I was coming around to the idea of the run when I got home, at least until it became time to get ready. I did almost everything to stop myself from having to get ready for the run. Got sucked into my phone, lay down on the floor deliberating - how all good runs start, right?

Almost an hour later I dragged myself out the door. The run wasn’t going to run itself and the only way was to tackle it head-on. Michael Wayne Rosen wrote it best in We’re Going On a Bear Hunt:

“We can't go over it.

We can't go under it.

Oh no!

We've got to go through it!”

Just fucking walk out the door and start running, Paddy. I caught my housemate arriving home as I was waiting for my watch to connect to the GPS. She wished me a good run, to which I replied it was going to be awful.

As it turns out, I felt strong as soon as I started running. How ironic.

Towards the end of 2024, I strung together a streak of 50 days, broken only by the arrival of my parents here in Berlin. I muscled my way through a lot of hard sessions and went out for sessions that I didn’t particularly feel like going on just for the sake of this streak. I’d done a bit of research during it and realised that I’d unknowingly set my streak record during my time on the Camino de Santiago at a measly 18 days.

Maybe I should have cut myself some slack last night, but I know that it’s easier to quit and this isn’t an option come race day. Over the past 6 months, I have become slightly obsessed with running. It’s been my solace through the brutal acclimatisation to Berlin, life in a foreign country, and my first winter in over 2 years. Stack all of these things up with the fact that I hadn’t been paid for almost 9 months and was starting to run out of money and hope that I would find a job, and running was all I had.

Truly, running was the only thing that was keeping me going. When it felt like I had nothing (especially no hope), it was running that got me up in the morning. Running got me out the door. It felt like the only thing that was in my control. Not to paint a picture more hopeless than it was, but I was struggling mentally and the pursuit of pushing myself to the limit whilst running felt like the only thing that I had going for me. And to be fair, it kind of was. I wasn’t spending any money, focusing all of my energy on finding employment and getting faster.

Sadly, the latter was moving quicker than the former. I got into this headspace that I needed to push faster with each and every training session, which has been serving me well thus far. My half marathon personal best before Dresden was 1:33:04 and now stands at 1:20:35.

The first training run of this block was on September 18 - a 7.5km run around Bucharest, Romania. I had less than 6 weeks to train for the Dresden Half Marathon.

Since then I have run over 1,500km. All with the focus on building towards the Rome marathon in 5 weeks (which I’ve only just bought flights for).

But the real point that I’m trying to make in this article is to work towards something bigger than yourself. Knowing your why becomes incredibly important.

I’ve had this many times. I spoke about my why when competing in the Alpine Challenge 100km race in November 2023 - that I wanted to show my parents my having committed to something. Sacrificing mornings, evenings, weekends, and a social life in the pursuit of excellence. Again, this paid of as I finished in second place - but more importantly, was incredibly proud of the way that I put together that training block and how prepared I was for such a difficult race.

It’s the thing that makes you tear up just by thinking about it. In the lead-up to my Ironman in 2021 I would visualise myself finishing the race. Often being brought to the verge of tears and occasionally bursting at the thought of crossing the finish line and hearing the immortal words - Patrick, you are an Ironman. This didn’t change in the race either, as I had to control my emotions each time I ran past the finish line on the 4-lap marathon course.

It’s this feeling that I was channelling on my cycle home last night. The feeling of being proud of myself. No matter what happens now, no one can take away from me anything that I’ve achieved. Sure, the time it takes me to run a race is arbritary, but so is earning money. The best things in life require hard work and dedication, this just so happens to be what I’ve chosen to invest my energy in.

Often, when running comes up, people will ask if I run marathons, which I gladly confirm. Usually, responded to with remarks along the lines of “I couldn’t run a kilometre” or “I only run for the bus”. Which I used to find incredibly dismissive, but have since learnt to accept this form of self-deprecating humour as a feeble attempt to connect.

Yes, running 42.2km is a long way. I can earnestly say that the feeling of satisfaction when those magic numbers appear on my watch never gets old. In the same way that I sang out CINCUENTA (50) every time my watch ticked over that distance on the Camino.

But that’s beside the point. When someone tells you that they’re running a marathon or have run a marathon just remember that they’ve likely run 1,000km just to get to the start line. While trying to manage their load and not get injured - which happens all to often.

Before I toe the line of Rome Marathon - at the Via dei Fori Imperiali in the shadow of the Coliseum. I will have put 2000km of training into this pursuit. 2 million steps, and over 160 hours on my feet - not to mention all of the time thinking about running and dreaming of the finish line.

So that was how I eventually got myself out the door yesterday. Thinking about the finish line. Thinking about how proud of myself I can be. Thinking about how proud I am of myself in this moment, showing up for myself day in, day out. A feeling that no one else can understand but also that no one else can take away from me.