You can run but you can’t hide
It was as if I wanted to inflict pain on my body as a distraction from the pain in my mind. Of course, it was futile. A reckoning came.
The impetus for change does not always come from the direction we expect. And sometimes it’s not a change we want.
This year, especially, with its upheaval and chaos, has seen plenty of change. For some that has meant illness and isolation.
For others, it has meant the pain of losing a job or a business, careers dashed or put on hold because of a pandemic.
I won’t pretend to imagine what that is like. But I do remember what it was like to be made redundant from a job I loved and trying to figure out how to cope.
The funny thing was, the way I thought I’d cope was wrong. I threw myself into running.
It was just before Christmas when the axe fell and I had a big race that I’d entered coming up in March.
Easy, I thought, I’ll dedicate myself to training the wretched thoughts away, digging in hard, taking the one thing I could focus on and really, really focusing on it.
Stepping back a bit, I’d actually started with this mentality when the so-called consultation process began. The whole process was a thing in my life I felt I couldn’t control – in reality I knew that whatever I said would not make a difference as to whether my colleagues and I would be axed.
But running? Oh, yes, I knew all about how to control running.
It was something in my life that I knew so well, having done it for so long. It was the salve I needed, something I could control, at least that’s what I thought.
So I set about pushing myself harder than I had for a long time. Wake up early, fretful and worried about the future? Get up and run. Mind racing, panicking about what’s going to happen? Run even harder.
It was as if I wanted to inflict pain on my body as a distraction from the pain in my mind. Of course, it was futile. A reckoning came.
I was on a run on the west coast of Auckland, a trail race that took us up a steep climb. Here I was, ready to drive my legs and rip my lungs apart getting to the top as fast as I could, impatient to feel the lash of the wind roaring off the sea.
But something strange happened. As fast as I wanted to go, I had nothing.
It was like the energy was draining from the soles of my feet. I’ll come right, I thought. But, nope.
Eventually, a friend I’d met at previous races trudged past and gave me a gentle tap on the shoulder. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like, ‘‘Are you OK?’’
And I can’t remember what I said, but it was something like, ‘‘Yep, sure, mate. Good as gold.’’
I wasn’t. He knew it. And now I knew it. His caring inquiry broke the spell. No amount of pushing myself ridiculously hard was going to work. I couldn’t run away from anything.
When I got home, I wrote to the organiser of that race coming up in March and withdrew.
Training my guts out for a race was not the answer.
That summer, I still ran. But I ran for the love of it. Not for the pain.
I ran to give myself time to think. I ran to give myself time to be upset, sometimes venting to the wind when I was angry, sometimes letting the air rush past my face to dry the tears when I was sad.
On those runs, and also with my family and friends, I figured out it would be OK.
On the Dirt Church Radio podcast this week, we spoke with Tauranga-based athlete and coach Craig Kirkwood. In 2013, he was made redundant from a well-paying job.
He needed to do something, and he finally started coaching full time, something he’d thought about for a long time but never made the leap to do.
It wasn’t necessarily the change he would have made had he not been made redundant, but he has never looked back.
‘‘The money is nowhere near as good now but I love what I’m doing,’’ he says.
He coaches a bunch of champion runners and weekend warriors, taking joy from each of their achievements, thrilled to help them along the path they’re taking.
Change can come when we least expect it. And sometimes the way we deal with it isn’t how we’d expect it to be either. And we never know where it’s going to lead us.