Running On Empty – Legitimate Excuses Why Your Running Sux When You’re Grieving

When I run, I get lost. Lost in thought, lost in nature and lost in the process. That is, until a vicious lap dog, breaks free of its owner and comes chomping at my ankles. Then I snap back to reality, press the turbo pace button and high tail it out of there at the speed of a thoroughbred, with the look of a new born foal. In the last couple of months, I have been trying hard to maintain some level of running sanity. I’ve been trying really hard to get lost. A running escape, yet it turns out reality is a more persistent and powerful directive than a rabid ball of fluff.

The frightful running response

Recently, when an escapee dog came tumbling after me, I fumbled for my turbo button and failed to find it. I pressed, I pushed and then I panicked when I just could not pick up my pace. I wasn’t running particularly fast and wondered what was hindering my ‘run for your life’ reaction. Surely, I couldn’t be that unfit? Maybe there wasn’t enough adrenalin fuelled fear of the approaching pooch? Instead of continual questions I decided to take action. I needed to test my pick-up-the-pace capabilities to see if it was a temporary malfunction in my turbo switch or a full on short circuit.

To stem my fear of eternal slowness, I picked a light pole in the near distance and decided when I reached it, I would go from trot to canter, just until I pass the next post. A quick glance at my watch confirmed my lack of speediness. Hmmm, maybe the watch wasn’t working properly. I will recover for a few power poles and try again…even slower, wtf? This silly watch obviously can’t keep up with my swift pick up in speed.

My eternal optimism and ever so slight delusions of my speedy abilities doesn’t sway. I rationalise this with so many excuses – I’m not wearing my normal shoes, my plantar fasciitis has been playing up, it’s later in the day, it’s a full moon, I really wasn’t trying that hard…

So, when I ran out of excuses I was forced to unlock that rarely coveted other part of my brain. You know, that logical chunk that insists on making sense of the world around me – it struggles big time, but I do occasionally call upon it. While my heart aches for all that I’ve lost in my life at the moment, maybe my heart really does ache? Maybe stress and grief has more than just a mental impact. Or, maybe I’m just making excuses for my slow-ass runs lately?

Clever people make up their own thesis about running hoplessness

Like any clever person (yep, that’s me calling myself clever!) who wants the rosiest possible answer to why they aren’t performing how they expect (Read: it couldn’t possibly be my lack of ability, training or effort – it must be something much deeper causing my slowness) I put on my scientific research hat and decided to make a case for ‘it couldn’t possibly be my prowess’ that’s at fault.

There is no doubt about the benefits of running for helping with grief, but little seems to exist that adequately answers what it’s done to my ability to escape chomping beasts tumbling towards me. So, while I may have stumbled on some bright idea for a crafty pHd student to toy with, I thought I’d try my own thesis. The categorisation of  grief on Kylie’s running performance into the impact it has on the mind, the muscles and all the mushy chemicals (commonly known as hormones) wreaking havoc on her body. To be completely transparent, while this may be useful info for others, it is an utterly self-absorbed quest to explain, excuse and legitimise my slowness.

Legitimate excuse 1 – The mind and perceived effort of running

Everyone knows that feeling when you’ve been slogging away at a race (or any task that takes effort) and you can finally see the finish line in the distance. Something mystical happens – you’re possessed by some finish line poltergeist that gives your legs superhuman capacity and your previously horrific exertions miraculously fade away – you could be like me and just distracted by mentally preparing for the best finish line pose, or it could be that your ‘perceived effort’ is altered due to the finale of a long haul.

When you can see a specific end point, your mind tells you that you can rest afterwards, so your perceived effort (usually fuelled by your oxygen deprived batty thinking from overwhelming fatigue) is overridden with the concept that all the ‘pain’ will be exorcised in the not too distant future.

This doesn’t work with grief. You have no endpoint, you feel empty with no apparent refuge. There is a hole in your life that is impossible to fill, despite any effort, perceived or otherwise. Matt Fitzgerald, in his book 80/20 Runningsuggests that “Even though perceived effort is ‘all in your head’ it tells you how your body is doing in a holistic way that pace and heart rate do not. Any factor that affects your body’s capacity in a given moment will alter the relationship between mental effort and physical output in a way that you can perceive…It will take a greater-than-normal effort to produce a normal level of performance, and you’ll feel it.”

When I read these words, I felt slightly less crazy than my normal cray-cray (yes, that is a completely legit oxymoron – we are all a bit normal crazy :P). Everything feels like an effort, let alone running! So, there you have it. Excuse 1 is locked and loaded, my perceived effort is that running feels really hard, and so it is! My brain is working overtime on other emotions and I’m hitting the start line of my run with a half empty cup of effort.

Tip that seems to be helping me 

I am a science based girl (nerd if you want to name call) and there is so much evidence about the usefulness of meditation and mindfulness. Surprisingly, there is a significant difference between the two, but they can be intertwined. I have been practicing meditation for 5 minutes per day (okay, okay, not every day, but somewhat regularly) and have noticed a difference. To be honest, I don’t feel it seems to help with my sadness per say (still the same torrent of tears) but it has certainly helped calm me at times of anxiety and invigorate me at times of emotional fatigue. Both of which contribute to my perceived effort. There are heaps of apps to help you out with this, give it a try and let me know if it helps you!

Legitimate excuse 2 – Hormone fireworks running high

Grief is like the ultimate fireworks display for your hormones. They are spat out in huge bursts that have dramatic effects. Some cause you to jump into action, others scare the crap out of you, and some are just a little underwhelming, deflating your hopes and expectations. Grief elevates the circulating adrenalin in your body. If it remains elevated you become susceptible to fatigue. Your poor old adrenals get a bit over the stress of grief and, like that slump midway through a run type feeling, just do the bare minimum to function. I’m specifically avoiding the mention of ‘adrenal fatigue’ (oops, it just slipped out) as it is NOT a recognised medical condition, but that is not to say it won’t be with future research.

Prolonged stress leads to your body systems being overexposed to cortisol – making it less effective at its normal job of the fight or flight response from ferocious puppies on the attack. Hence my failing turbo switch. This can lead to numerous issues, namely the one I homed in on was the increased belly fat (I’m pretty sure this is the reason for my rapidly exploding tummy – it has nothing to do with ice magic intake). Excuse 2 -blame it on your overachieving adrenal glands, that kind of makes you a winner, doesn’t it?!

Tip that seems to be helping me 

I’ve been doing a little experimenting with ‘good-mood-foods’. I have been trying to incorporate more foods that promote the production of serotonin and dopamine (those natural little gems that give you a happy buzz). Some examples of these include bananas, walnuts, salmon, green tea, dark chocolate (any excuse really), avocado, strawberries and sesame seeds to name a few. Most of those are pretty easy to eat every day! Trying to balance hormones with good wholefoods is beneficial in more ways than one!

If you’re interested to know more about this, I will be writing about it in the near future (my experiments need a little longer to pass through the extremely anecdotal phase 3 clinical trials). I’m creating a weekly meal plan for testing on friends that volunteer as guinea pigs. If you’re keen to be one of my lab rats, let me know and I’ll buzz you when it’s complete!

Legitimate excuse 3 – Physically tired muscles from more than running

I’m just plain buggered (that’s Aussie speak for plum tuckered, oh that’s Aussie speak too. Umm, I’m just really, really tired)! Everything physical seems like it’s an uphill battle with the force of gravity paying extra special attention to pushing me down (gravity is rarely nice to me!). Hang on, maybe I’m not being fair to gravity, as I think grief is just as much of a heavy weight that sucker punches you whether you’re awake or asleep.

Sleep is the time when your body needs to recover and repair. More specifically, deep sleep is the time your muscles recover with the release of growth hormone (ahhh, back to the pesky chemicals again!) to repair and grow new cells. I have always been a reasonably good sleeper. However this grief monster is playing catch-me-if-you-can as it races through my mind of a night, often without me realising. I have been having a lot of vivid dreams, which tend to happen during REM sleep. They are not exciting or scary, just my usual unusualness and more pertinently – they are taxing!

The issue is I think I’m lacking some good old deep sleep. Without enough, or good quality deep sleep, you face losing muscle mass and diminish your exercise capacity. AND, scarily, if it is a prolonged experience it can speed up the ageing process (yikes – gravity and now sleep are ganging up on my wrinkles). Excuse 3 has been put to bed – I am not in the prime physical condition that sleeping beauty was when the prince woke her from her muscle recovery slumber.

Tips that have been helping me

I’ve cut out afternoon coffees (an obvious solution really) and have a peppermint tea before bed (mainly because I like it, but it’s supposed to promote restful sleep). I have stopped setting my alarm and try to wake naturally. This is a little counter-intuitive for me as I like the sense of being able to conquer anything if I have done an early run, but I also know that it will be a disappointing effort (see perceived effort above) and feed the vicious ‘questioning my ability’ cycle, if I don’t get adequate sleep.

Being eaten alive by a chasing dog is not defeat, it’s just grief stopping you from running faster

All in all, some days I feel sucked dry by this leech called grief, other days I acknowledge this parasite without feeding it too many tears. For now, I will just have to heal my body, take it easy on my mind and lay down and be licked to death by the rabid furballs that come snapping at my ankles while my turbo button is being recharged.

So, if you’re grieving (which could be about anything – loss of a loved one, a broken relationship, an injury or the closed sign on your favourite café) and find yourself fumbling for your turbo switch don’t beat yourself up. It’s not about you being hopeless at running or lacking physical prowess. It’s purely your body acknowledging that you deserve to take it easy on yourself. If in doubt – quote any of the completely legitimate excuses above from the authority on avoiding reality and go get that good kind of lost!

Run on and take care

xk