Correlation and Vulnerability!

Welcome to my second blog entry and as always thanks for reading.
 
It has certainly been an interesting and busy week. I had a GP appointment on Monday to speak about my mental health issues and that went pretty OK – I know that I have a long road ahead and it is not going to be easy or a quick fix. I have acknowledged that many of the things I need to do or change are not going to happen overnight and that it is going to be one step at a time.

In many ways it mirrors the approach that I am taking with my training for the Richmond Ultra and how I will need to approach the event itself.

I know I need to put the training in and there are going to be times when I am just not in the mood to do it but I know that consistency is key – usually when I am in that frame of mind and I get out of the door once I get going I am fine. I know that every run I do is not going to be perfect and I am going to have some sessions where I wonder why I bothered at all.

There is a correlation here with my mental issues at the moment – there are certainly going to be days when I just can’t face doing certain things or being around people or there are going to be days when I just wonder why I am even bothering at all – however it is all part of the same journey really.

I know what the end goals are and it is good to have them in mind but I try not to focus on them all the time, instead I am concentrating on all the steps needed to get to there.

I have started a little mantra when I am out running to help me focus – ‘one step, another step, then another step’ – with each step forward I feel I am getting closer to my goals.

As I said in my previous blog entry I am target/goal driven and this week I have set myself some small goals to achieve – I need to eat more healthily for starters. Training for an ultra is not going to be easy and a belly full of beer and a chicken biryani every night just doesn’t work for me. So I have started being a bit more disciplined with my diet – again one small step.

I’m a creature of habit a lot of the time and have started to ask whether this is more to do with me not wanting to remove myself from my comfort zone. It got me thinking and I came to the conclusion that if I feel I am out of my comfort zone there is a certain level of vulnerability associated with that and with vulnerability comes uncertainty and risk.

By training for an ultra I am certainly well out of my comfort zone and there is a huge amount of uncertainty and risk involved – have I bitten off more than I can chew? Maybe but I will only find out on the day of the Richmond Ultra.

What happens if I get injured and the setbacks involved? I may get injured or I may not – if I plan my training correctly than I minimise the risk of that happening and if I realise my limitations and don’t over-train then that risk minimises further.

What happens if I lose motivation? That may well happen but I need to look at it as small steps all the time – every step is a step closer to reaching the end target.
I need to acknowledge that there are going to be setbacks on this journey and those setbacks will be taking me out of my comfort zone and present levels of vulnerability but I need to tackle them one step at a time.

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