Running FOMO is REAL
I received a notification this morning of money paid in (yes, in!) to my bank account.
*PING* £53, what a nice treat, I thought, for all of one second, before my heart stopped when I registered the obscure reference and cold realisation crept in- it was a refund for my place at Barcelona Marathon.
The finality of seeing that £53+ stopped me in my tracks because I knew that after all my deliberating there was now no going back- I was not running the Barcelona Marathon in March.
I immediately felt so sad, and tried to unpick why. After all, I wasn’t coerced into putting my place back into the marathon’s market place (btw, what a brilliant idea) and in my logical brain I knew it was a clear, well thought out, rational good decision that I spent the necessary time over. Was it because I was making a massive mistake and my gut was trying to tell me this?
Seemingly just to really rub salt in the wound, I went back on the website and read again the marketing that captured my enthusiasm and now seemed even more appealing, as I read again their key initiatives to promote female participation, with women-only training sessions, mentorship by female marathoners, and the marathon being framed as a “multi-day celebration of running and inclusivity”. Argh what have I done?, I thought to myself. This is literally my MO!
Back in October when I was struggling to find my running mojo (which I wrote about here), my husband suggested I train for another spring Marathon. He thought my lack of usual oomph was being caused by my lack of long-distance miles (he swears it wasn’t because he wanted me out of the house for hours on end….), so suggested a European break with a marathon thrown in.
As soon as I started researching I thought that Barcelona just looked amazing, it ticked all my boxes- it was reasonably priced compared to Paris marathon (which I have run several times previously- you can read about last year’s efforts here), the timing was right and so was the hype around the new course, with a funky new slogan Barcelona Hits Different. I lapped it all up as I read about the “unique feeling of Barcelona, present in every corner, in every step and in every stride, from the streets full of history to the contagious energy of its people” and booked my place then and there.
But that was back in October, and now, as I stared at the £53 in my bank transactions, I could feel myself losing grip of my belief in my good, logical decision making that had happened in the time since. Shit shit shit, have I made a mistake? My FOMO Runner’s voice, which rears it’s ugly head every now and again, became suddenly very loud, I have to run this marathon, it’s who I am, I can and will fit the training in…
The thing is, my FOMO Runner’s voice is really hard to argue with because it’s not completely crazy. Not only do I love running marathons, I love training for them, and even more so in the winter. There is something so magical about pushing yourself to the so many points that you didn’t think you were capable of.
Last Sunday I’d arranged to run with a RunVerity member (and friend) Olly, I knew the weather forecast was bad, predicting strong winds and harsh rain (yes yes ok, it was a storm, but a little one!), but I knew he wouldn’t bail on me pretty much however bad it got. Neither of us took our phones and halfway through the run the gale force winds and hail hit us full force, and just keeping upright was a struggle.
We turned left, away from the harshness of the coast, but it was a hard mile up a trail path before we would hit the sure footing of the main road. We were cold, soaking wet and slip sliding through the mud like “Bambi on ice”. Olly said something like (it was hard to hear with all the the wind), “this is why I love running, the challenge of it, we have no choice but to keep going, if we turn round, it’s further back than moving forward.” I agreed with him and told him that I love these conditions too- there isn’t anyone else around, just us fighting the elements, seeing how deep we can dig, this is when I channel my inner secret agent persona! If the call comes, I’m ready.
Hours later, I have finally logged off my banking app and dragged myself away from the Barcelona marathon website. I am still feeling a twinge of regret but it is slowly balancing back as the good, rationally sound reasons I chose not run this Spring recirculate in my brain and I can feel my FOMO Runner’s voice fading back into all the other background noise.
Because I know that I wasn’t in the right place when Barcelona marathon training was meant to start. I was still exhausted from the previous 4 marathons and 4 training cycles all within 2 years, and that my lack of running mojo wasn’t because I needed to push myself harder and further towards something new, but because I simply needed a rest.
A rest is a really hard thing to allow yourself, especially once you get on the marathon train and become seduced by them and the tough-as-nails mindset that is necessary to complete them becomes part of your everyday thinking- winning is everything, failure is terrible, I must always improve, I must always run faster, if I don’t succeed I will disappoint everyone, if I miss a training session my entire progress is ruined, if I don’t run this marathon I might never be able to run another one… you get the idea.
Because, on average, not many people run marathons, so when you have and do you feel special, you are special, training for a spring marathon is about spending months in possibly the worst weather, the absolute hardest weather to jump out of bed with a YAY! when it’s dark, blowing a gale and pissing it down, running long runs, then resting from long runs and then preparing for the next long run and on and on…
Marathon hype and hysteria can create a real sense of missing out. Sometimes we can lose sight of our own personal well-being as the chase for personal success is relentlessly pursued. And over the last 2 years, I’ve walked a fine line on this tightrope.
I know I’ve made the right decision for me for where I am right now and where I was when I entered, because if I’d carried on regardless, caught up in the self sacrificing glory of another winter of hard marathon training, I know I would have either ended up injured or worse, pushing my relationship with running too hard, and giving up running altogether.
Even with all my years running and races behind me, I still feel FOMO and it is very real and it’s hard to stop. The difference now is that I don’t let it control me, I don’t make decisions based on it, and my relationship with running and my mental health is all the better for it.