Running is always the answer. This has been my mantra since my very earliest days of running, as I started to realise that there was very little that couldn’t be cured with a run. Feeling stressed? Run it off. Tired? Re-energise with a run. Fighting off a cold? Get out there and head it off at the pass. Time and again life’s difficulties were resolved, or at the very least temporarily stalled, with a run.
To even contemplate questioning this fact has felt almost sacrilegious. Throughout the pandemic the benefits of running, particularly on our mental health, have been extolled repeatedly across the media, and rightly so. Many of us have longed for the freedom of lacing up our shoes and getting out of the door, when so many other freedoms have been curbed. There is no doubt in my mind that running has kept thousands of people fit, sane and happy in these horrendously difficult times, myself included. So how could running not be the answer?
Training, by definition, involves placing the body under controlled, time limited stress. Whether that means chasing a PB, pushing distance or elevation, maintaining a running streak, or simply continuing to run for pleasure, all running is training, carefully stressing the body in order to help it grow. And in so doing, our mental health benefits from the physical exertion, from being outdoors, from the growing confidence in what our bodies can do if we look after them and push them just hard enough.
But there is a finite amount of stress that a body can deal with at any one time. Injuries are the inevitable outcome of too much physical stress placed on the body too quickly with insufficient care or understanding of our bodies’ needs, as I know to my cost. Having to come back from injury slowly and carefully is hard and frustrating, but there are few runners that avoid it completely, and our conversations are littered with references to aches and niggles, how to look after them, and how to avoid them becoming worse.
What we don’t talk about so often is when the aches and niggles are emotional rather than physical, when the need for rest is driven not by pain but by exhaustion or mental stress. Running has a huge impact on our mental health, but the reverse is also true – our mental health has a huge impact on our running. There is a significant link between life stress and physical injury, a link that seemed so obvious when my physio pointed it out, but one which we would all benefit from exploring further. If the amount of stress we can handle is finite, and that stress encompasses both physical and mental strain, then living through immensely stressful periods (like a pandemic perhaps?) is going to reduce our capacity to handle physical stress without injury. As with so much in life, it is a balancing act, and it’s when the scales tip either way that we run into difficulty.
So with that in mind, is running still always the answer? Broadly speaking, I am still firmly committed to answering ‘yes’. I rarely come back from a run feeling anything other than better, it is an outlet like no other and I could not be without it. But there are some sections of small print that need to follow that statement. Long term stress, or sudden, severe trauma, are as damaging to the body as illness or injury, and should be treated as such when planning runs at those times. There is no shame in reducing a long run, in taking it slowly, in acknowledging that caring for ourselves might mean running differently for a while.
If running is always the answer, the last thing anyone needs is an injury that puts a stop to it entirely. So if a day comes when lacing up those shoes is simply too difficult, be kind to yourself. Missing the odd run won’t make you less of a runner, but listening to your body might just make you a better one.
I Run Free 