I ran my fourth Great North Run this weekend. It was a really tough one, but I am proud of myself for completing the race and raising over £1,000 for Pancreatic Cancer UK in memory of my Mam.
I was pretty well prepared for this race. I had completed an 8-week training block and set a 10-mile personal best just a few weeks ago. I slept seven hours (not bad for race day!) and arrived at the starting area with plenty of time to drop my bag and use the loo.
If you’re not aware of the Great North Run, I’ll paint a little picture: this isn’t just any running event. It’s the biggest half-marathon in the world. Over 60,000 people take part in the race from Newcastle City Centre to South Shields, a seaside town. The logistics of an event of this size mean that it’s pretty chaotic. There is a lot of waiting around, and getting to the start line (and home from the finish) can take hours.
Having completed this race before, I knew all of that, so I made a playlist and made sure to eat a decent breakfast. However, there’s only so much you can do to prepare for standing in the sunshine for over an hour in a crowded pen, knowing you have 13.1 miles until the next sit-down.
When I finally crossed that line, I started at my steady pace, crossing the famous Tyne Bridge with a big smile on my face thanks to the support of the three-deep crowd.
But after the bridge, the first incline hit me like a ton of bricks. I shouldn’t feel like this so soon, I remember thinking. I was flagging even before 8km, which is where my in-laws stand every year (marking where my husband’s grandma used to live).
I kept on struggling and saw my mother-in-law in the distance. I collapsed into her arms and shook my head: “I’m not good,” I said, but I carried on.
The rest of the run was a serious physical and mental battle. I had to walk several times, which isn’t like me at all— I am a slow runner, but I usually prefer to keep shuffling whenever I can.
While the torture continued, I started to ask the same question over and over again:
“Why?”
I was analysing my sleep pattern, menstrual cycle, what I’d eaten for tea, what I’d had for breakfast, hydration… just about everything possible to try and work out an answer to that question.
“Why is this so much harder than usual?”
The truth is, my brain really struggles when there is no concrete answer.
Back in the first year of parenthood, my daughter barely slept at night. On a good night, she would sleep in 2-3 hour chunks, usually next to me, breastfeeding while I dozed. We had several periods of 1-hour wakeups, and even a good few split nights where a baby is wide awake for 2+ hours in the middle of the night.
I was obsessed with trying to work out why this was happening.
I tracked every nap. Every feed. Every wake up.
I still have this data on my phone. Here’s a snapshot from when things started getting a little better when she hit 9 months old:
It turns out, there were no answers in the data.
Because a baby is a lawless being and, sometimes, there is no why.
She simply didn’t sleep as well as other babies. It wasn't anything I was doing wrong, and it couldn’t be solved. I had to ride the wave.
And at mile 9 of this year’s Great North Run, I realised that I probably needed to just ride the wave. I felt nauseous, so I stopped to walk. I ignored my watch; any hope of a PB was lost after the first 5km. I just needed to finish the race, and stop trying to work out: why?
That was easier said than done, and I still sit here now trying to work out why I struggled so much, when just a few weeks earlier I was flying around the Rising Sun, setting a personal best, and running 5km and 10 km that my pre-baby self would be very proud of.
There isn’t always an answer to the question: why?
And that’s something running (and parenting!) has taught me— and continues to beat into me every day.
Life isn’t a data set, and an algorithm cannot predict what happens tomorrow.
It’s all chaos.
And I guess I'd better get used to it.
Previous newsletters about running:
In this section, I summarise topics dominating the online discourse this week.
Far-right influencer and activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead in the US yesterday. Kirk was a vocal proponent of the right to bear arms.
Keir Starmer met the Israeli PM at Downing Street. I have no words.
Banksy painted a mural on the Royal Courts of Justice in London, and it’s already been scrubbed off. Police cited the building’s listed status as a reason for protecting the site.
Need I mention that
and I hosted our very own CONFERENCE(!) yesterday. Access:Given was created from a place of passion, and it went so, so well. I will do a full write up of the experience, and how we created something from nothing, in a future issue. I am currently still processing it all.A few other things I’ve enjoyed this week:
📚 Dance Move by Wendy Erskine
📺 The Day of the Jackal (NowTV)
📺 Love is Blind UK (Netflix)
Ellen x
💌 About this email
I’m Ellen, and I write about mental health for the chronically online. I am a freelance copywriter, strategist and web designer, and I work from home with my husband, Craig, at Content By The Sea. We have two rescue greyhounds, Potter and Harmony, and a toddler.
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I remember those huckleberry days. I overanalysed too it was so hard, always blaming myself for something I had done/eaten or drank. You are so right that sometimes there isn’t a reason and it is what it is. Well done on your run 💪🏼