The Road to CCM
As of now, I’m sure you are all well aware of my inconsistency in running over the past two years. This time two years ago I suffered a sacral stress fracture, which saw me pulling out of the Seville Marathon after just 8 miles.
While this was extremely hard to take at the time, the journey ahead of me was a lot more difficult to deal with. Yes, I was in the shape of my life going into the Seville Marathon. I was really confident about improving my marathon PB of 2:34, but the mental challenges I faced during my injury tested me a lot more than any marathon has.
Something I have spoken openly about is my struggles with addiction, mental health, and suicide. Running has been my crutch for so many years while I recovered from these issues. For this to be taken away from me that morning in Seville really scared me.
Am I now strong enough to deal with these setbacks? Will my mental health suffer because of these setbacks? And the scariest of all questions, will I relapse? This may seem a bit dramatic to anyone who doesn’t depend so heavily on exercise, and especially running, to deal with issues in their lives. But for me, this was going to be one of my biggest challenges yet.
I’m lucky to have an amazing wife in my corner, Sarah (aka Mary), who was there to help me on this journey. To be honest, I was so proud of myself for how I dealt with the whole situation.
I now know I don’t need to run for my mental health. Yes, it is a massive help for me, but if something does arise, I am strong enough to deal with it without the aid of running. That, to me, is better than any PB on the streets of Seville.
The last two years have seen many comebacks (not as many as Damian). I would get a few weeks of consistency and then lose drive and motivation.
If I’m being honest, injuries, and more importantly stress fractures, scare me. I have never been injured before besides that injury, and I suppose it scares me to see how easily all that hard work and fitness can just be taken away.
I’m fully aware this is the joy of running, and even more so long distance running, but that doesn’t mean I should just be happy to accept it.
I haven’t just been sitting on the couch eating Pringles either, I suppose. I have run 5 marathons in this two year period, albeit 4 of them were pacing. I think that was important for me, firstly to give back to a sport that has given me so much, and secondly to see if my body was strong enough. Yes, I know 4 marathons in a year is probably a stupid way to see how strong my body was, but I never claimed to be an intelligent runner.
Now that I have all that pacing out of my system, the fear of injury has kind of lifted and I’ve had a few bottles of cop-on juice, I am ready to take on my biggest challenge yet in regard to my running career.
Can I get back into some kind of decent shape again?
I think running really makes you doubt yourself more than any other sport I have ever played. The longer I have left it, the more I started to question if I could ever get back into PB shape. I’m turning 40 in September, so I would like to think I still have another few years of improvement in me.
This leads me to my next challenge, the Cork City Marathon.
Now, I’m not foolish enough to think I can bang out a PB in Cork, but I would like to think I can massively improve my fitness in a marathon training block and then use this as a stepping stone to maybe aim for a PB next year, if I can put together 12 months of consistent training.
This might sound bad, but I’m sick of going to races and being beaten by people that I usually finish ahead of. This is probably my ego, but I also think this helps to drive me on when I am in a training block. Surely I’m not alone on this one , it’s this competitiveness that gets us out the door on those tough days.
As I write this, there are fifteen weeks to the Cork City Marathon. I’m not going to set a goal just yet, as I will have to see how well I can absorb the training, but I will try and document my journey as best I can to show you how it is all going.