How Running Changed My Life…

What have I gained from running? Specifically, ultra running? I am 4 days out from my longest run to date: 250km – so here is an exploration as to why I find events like these so valuable personally.

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#hybridathlete #running #hybridtraining

I’m currently 4 days out from my biggest ever Ultra endurance event so far and I am terrified but I know that the amount of value that I get from training this way has and will continue to be life-changing and I don’t mean that to sound dramatic I do genuinely genuinely

Believe that all of the years that I spent solely focusing on powerlifting and top end strength has given me loads of value personally and I still love training that way I actually focused on some top end strength today but more on that later at the the other end of the

Spectrum with endurance training there’s so much value to be found and I feel that as an individual training at both ends of the spectrum as a hybrid athlete has given me loads of insights value and lessons about myself that I can use to develop moving forwards and that’s where

I see the value in training this way and why I genuinely believe it’s been life-changing some of you might be aware some of you might not I have a podcast it’s called the modern mind it is linked in the description down below and we are on episode number 95 with the episode

That’s gone live today in fact being a Q&A on the 250 km itself from me myself and I so a pretty unexciting guest if I’m being honest but more recently Lewis robling former professional rby player turned Ultra endurance athlete himself and I had a conversation about what it

Is about Ultras that we find so valuable and that is exactly what today’s video is going to be about so before we dive into that please do make sure to like the video comment with your thoughts feelings and perspectives down below and make sure that you’ve hit subscribe

Let’s dive into it what do you think it is about these long endurance events what what what is it that really helps us with that like what it’s it’s such a the unknown the undistracted time the exposure to The Outdoor World the elements to the experience I you know what you know what

I think it’s the Simplicity it’s pretty when you look at on paper you run 75k on day one you run 50k on day two A to B A to B something quite Primal about it in that not to get too woo woo but if we

Look at the way we evolved and um how we moved forward in communities and how we used to fend for food it was very A to B that’s the goal type of um system there was no complexity to it it was there’s a job to do I’ve got a goal here um moving

From A to B was typically moving over long periods of time running hunting it’s all measurable isn’t it that’s the key detail whereas life is actually well let’s Okay lifting always a great example I use um training in general but lifting all lifting was what made me

Fall in love with this process because it’s black and white I always say that Lifting for me when I was really suffering with my depression ironically allowed me to suffer for much longer because it was the only coping mechanism that I had so whether that’s a good or a bad thing I’m

Not quite sure cuz it allowed me to be miserable for longer but also was the only thing that on a day-to-day basis stopped me feeling so miserable so I’m still not quite sure how I feel about that one but in a very gray unpredictable subjective dayto

Day weights on a barbell were black and white so if I went into a gym and I had 90% for three sets of three and they moved well and then I had let’s say stiffle deadlifts to follow up and this week I was doing 152.5 kilos rather than 150 that is measurable trackable

Progress which is a win yeah in a period of my life where I didn’t feel like I was getting many wins and for the by the sounds of things for you your Ultra was distilling down and removing all of the gray area around this this BJJ match in your head that was

Going on about failure where you could then just set your focus on going from A to B and if you got from A to B that was a massive win and that was the first time you’d felt like you’d won in a while which therefore sort of opened the door to

This new frame of reference perspective which allowed you to start thinking about things that you hav’t thought about for 10 years perhaps yeah that was very eloquently put um it’s it’s the nail on the head any Ultra that I’ve done since esec specifically multi-stage stuff where it’s not like real life that

You you remove yourself from real life really with like you said one goal in mind um you’ve got yourself it’s very empowering um especially because you you spend so much time on your own as well um and I love how you can break it down to just moving forward one step at a

Time um the I remember finishing the first ultr it was very much like this this the ultimate life metaphor it’s the ultimate life met no matter what this course no matter what life throws at you you’ve got the choice you can continue to move just as simple as one step at a

Time and it kind of breaks it down and makes it um a much more achievable goal than uh thinking about the big picture scary stuff which like you said there’s so many unknowns there’s so many unknowns in a race as well you don’t know how how you how the terrain is

Going to be up on up on the mountain ridges you don’t know you know what the weather’s going to do in half an hour so um yeah maybe that’s it maybe that’s it so people often throw stones sometimes when people start doing a lot of exercise over a shorter period of time

And like to potentially present it as a coping mechanism rather than potentially an explorative one shall we say so do you think the journey that you’ve been on with ultr running has helped you understand the things that you’ve needed to understand to be at peace with who

You are and what you want to achieve in life or very point blank question are you still almost masking some of the things that you need to confront in your own head through running towards the pain depends how hard I convince myself um to start with I was very much in the

Running away using it to kind of turn the volume down in my head to quiet quiet the voices and just to kind of keep again there was no awareness but I think um I think with every experience with every with every race with every um place that you you see you’re the reason

You do it evolves it changes um and as you learn more and more about the like how you enjoy those things then yeah I I feel like like it’s a difficult question to answer there there probably will always be an element of using it in that kind of slightly

More negative way um because I don’t think that part of you ever really leaves um it it’s always there um it’s part of your experience and it’s part of makes you you um but I feel like over the last few years um I’ve cultivated enough tools to be

Able to use it as a as something that is is is helpful and is helping me live a life that is aligned with Who I Really Am um which is another part of um what the therapy was so good at and and also like like understanding your values not

From a sense of um honesty Integrity these blanket terms that really mean off they’re on walls and recruitment offices yeah sure it’s understanding your values from a point of what what what what what do you actually do like what what do you turn to when it’s the fan that for

That’s that was something that I recognized Within Myself And when a fan I I turn to exercise I I I can trust exercise to make me feel better about myself and um yes it might be a coping mechanism in that moment but that coping mechanis mechanism might just create

That little bit of space for me to address the thing that needs to address later um so I yeah I think definitely started to use it more so as a way to to kind of improve my life yeah yeah I I often find I tap into the past a little

Bit more when I’m right up against it which is the thing that often makes me reflect on HM is there a are you trying to prove something to an older version of yourself here or is this genuinely in your heart of hearts a self-discovery forward motion

Exercise and I think it is the latter but I do sometimes find myself thinking well essentially why the are you doing this I have to stand that go hm right okay let’s reflect on the past and I think a lot of it comes down to being

Very grateful for the fact that I get to do this stuff having spent a period of my life with no concept of what the future looked like or whether the future even had me in it and I think that’s why the the word explore is one of the main pillars with

Why I do everything I do from a training point of view it’s because you’ve got a heavy Atlas stone at one end of the spectrum and then you’ve got stupidly long run at the other end and there’s lots of different exploration points along that spectrum and I think there’s

Lots of different value to extract from them but I think people get too caught up in their own little boxes thinking that this box is the best that box is the best you why are you doing that haha TR athletes why choose to be average at three Sports rather than one

Says the average Runner and it’s just like why why are we here and why aren’t we just happy that people are extracting value from things that they could otherwise not be doing and I think you said something that was really at the core of how I think which is

Is this helping me I can’t remember how you word it but is this helping me be the person who I want to be or the person who I want to become and I can imagine you have a much better understanding of who that person is now than you did before the therapy before

The ultr running for example so who who is that person and sort of what are the values at the core of why you do what you do now there’s also the accept and the fact that who I am now is going to be very different to the person I am like based

On experience but who I am now is someone that I feel like I’m gratitude like you mentioned being grateful for for what we get to do um I’m grate I’m at a point now where I feel like I’m grateful for every as grateful as I can be for every single

Experience that’s got me to this point today and I feel like um what I’m doing now is a reflection of those lessons um and who that person is is someone that wants to where I derive kind of value now it comes from from many different places

But um and I don’t want it to sound wanky like some sort of misor thing but like the service to others like I gain so much from that ultramarathon experience is the reason I’m coaching now is because I want to re I want to help people find their own version of

Whatever that was that I found in it I’m really that that gets me going I well that sounds a bit weird but like it it really excites me like the the prospect of being able to to help someone like I wanted to be helped back when I was

Playing rugby find that in themselves so that’s cool but also you want to give them the key I’m going to steal that I need to give them the key yeah take it um so that’s the other that’s one aspect of it um but also with with a team sport

There’s so much value to be drawn from that team sport and that environment and how that can lift everyone involved and um I found myself at a point now where I’m very grateful it was a complete accident this happened but um I’ve been able to put on my own uh multi-stage

Ultramarathon uh this will be the third year this year and um it’s a 250k um multi-stage event and it’s not a race it’s simply a challenge so where there was conflict between individuals playing rugby within this environment there is no conflict between individuals there is

Not it’s not a race the whole purpose of the thing is to finish 250k which like I’ve said already is a massive achievement in itself and and the way you get there is by supporting yourself supporting others and there’s a team goal there’s a common goal like we spoke

Very briefly about like that Primal aspect like the goal was to get food for for the camp the goal is for everyone to raise money for a charity that is going to give back to people in the way that it’s given to us um so who I am I I like

To think as a representation of that environment I trying to create that like the sense of community like the in fact um I don’t want to be big up this this this too much um but the the kind of slogan that I came up

With that maybe sums it up is is was was in kind of three or four lines and it was purpose Beyond yourself that feeling that there’s something bigger than like it’s it’s bigger than you um it makes you very very small in the best possible way um the purpose be on yourself it’s

The power in human connection uh which is what that Ultra environment creates um it’s pursuing past physical and mental limits which is growth which is that part of that exploring what our potential is is who who can I become um and then the final line is together as

One um which which again is is that tining to that community so who I am is trying to um trying to be the person that represents those those values um whether I’m doing it well enough I don’t know but I think if I if that’s kind of a blueprint as to

How I I want to to live um that’s not fixed to ultramarathons and I think that they are the underlying core values that I try to uphold and as time progresses and maybe my body can’t do what it does in 10 years time or or my passions and

Something that I’m curious about it changes and my life takes a different direction maybe I can cultivate those same values into to what’s next so that’s another very long-winded answer of kind of descri trying to describe who I am I suppose so there we have it an open discussion on why Ultra endurance

Training and training in general can be so life-changing and important for self-development if you have any perspectives you’d like to share please do comment them down below again I am 4 days out from when this video is being uploaded to when I start running from here in Edinburgh to the top of Ben

Neevis 20 50 kilm and I’m very intimidated very scared but that is ultimately the point because Ultra endurance training is meant to be scary it’s meant to be challenging and it’s meant to push your boundaries and your limits and I am truly doing that but I think the important message here is that

Relatively speaking for me I’ve worked up incrementally over the years to be taking this on but for you it could be running your first ever kilometer unbroken it could be running your first ever 5 kilometer unbroken it could be training for the London Marathon whatever it may be your Mountain your

Challenge your goal is relative to Ability as it is to me so I don’t want you to ever look at what I’m doing or what anyone else is doing and think wow that’s sort of what I should be aiming for everything is just forward motion forward progress and unfortunately for

Me hopefully if everything goes to plan with the 250 there will be another ring in the ladder that I’ll probably find my brain exploring at some point but you’re all here for the ride because you’ve hit subscribe haven’t you other than that please do comment with your perspective

Down below make sure that you like the video and please do check out the podcast it’s also available on all major audio platforms and there are 95 episodes to choose from with some guests that are far far far more intelligent and interesting than I thank you very

Much for watching see you next time