Do you have a good balance between your life and your running? Are you giving as much attention to each as you would like? What about when you’re training for an event and the miles get long and the intensity exhausts you? How do you get the balance right then?
Everyone talks about work-life balance but I rarely hear anyone bring up running-life balance. As a runner of many marathons, I’ve found it very hard to balance these two things. Training can take up a lot of time and energy leaving less for you to manage life. You can be so exhausted, especially when your long runs get really long that you have very little in the tank for work, family and friends.
Similarly, life stuff happens, things come up. Your child gets ill, you have a big work project or your elderly parent has a fall. Then you worry that you’ve gone too far the other way and aren’t doing enough running to meet your target and won’t be ready for your event.
The pendulum will swing. There will be times that you feel you are running too much, at risk of getting injured or ill and feeling guilty about neglecting life. The next minute you’ll be worrying you aren’t spending enough time running and feeling guilty about that. It can be relentless and exhausting. It’s not good for your mental health and that’s a crucial part of your over all health and vital for staying well right through your training plan.
There is another way…
To protect yourself and make you feel a whole lot better, how about you accept that you can’t get a perfect balance? Just accept that the balance will swing. At times, life will have to take priority, at others, you can devote more attention to running. That acceptance removes some of the guilt and worry. Stop aiming for a perfect balance.
The ideal balance is virtually impossible to achieve right the way through a training block. It will swing back and forth. You can however take some steps to make things easier for yourself.
When you know your running is going to be increasing and using more and more of your reserves, you can make some plans to reduce the energy you need to use for life (emergencies aside). Here are some things you can do:
- Communicate. Talk to those close to you, your family, friends, work colleagues. Explain to them what your event means to you and why you are doing it. Share that you’re going to try to get a good balance but you know it won’t always be perfect. Get them on your side and get their support. Running might seem like a solo sport but when you’re taking on a big challenge, you need your team around you. A simple conversation now can save so much guilt and resentment later.
- Get organised. Look at your calendar and the coming weeks and see what’s on. What are your priorities? What do you absolutely have to do? Can you move your step back weeks around a bit to coincide with life commitments? In your biggest weeks, there may be things you can postpone or cancel. What can you delegate? That might be a work project or it might be booking an online supermarket delivery. Imagine if you’d already booked and shopped for the three weeks leading up to your event (and the week after when your legs ache) or booked a cleaner to come in and do the basics ! Lighten your life load as much as you can to free up time and energy for your running.
This is all about staying healthy and feeling well. It can sometimes take a bit of effort to achieve. At the end of the day, you have a finite amount of time and energy and you get to decide how you distribute it. My experience is that if you explain to people around you what you’re trying to do and why it matters to you, people will want to help. Many will enjoy feeling part of your journey and your success. You will have so many ways to thank them afterwards.
Take some time now to think about your running-life balance and whether you’re comfortable with it. If not, have a think about how you could address it and what steps you could take to make you feel better.
Featured image: Photo by DS stories at Pexels
