“You’re bloody useless you know”
“Here you are staggering around – you’re thinking of giving up aren’t you? Your time is going to be dismal again. You’re getting nowhere fast”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get moving you big girl’s blouse”
“Hang on, what’s all this girl’s blouse blithering? That’s just a great big bunch of nonsense. What you got against blouses anyway?”
“Never mind that. What’s with giving yourself all that shit? Since when has that ever motivated anyone?”
“Well, it’s the sort of thing that football coaches and P.E. teachers used to yell at me when I was at school.”
“And did it motivate you?”
“Well, it did, after a fashion. It was not really because of what they were saying, but more that I knew they were disappointed and I wanted them to be pleased with me, and possibly even proud to have me in their team.
Of course, if I made several mistakes and found myself exposed to a porcupine of such barbs then I would retreat as far as possible and accidently find myself in positions on the field where the ball was unlikely to come. I would inch through the rest of the match in a fuddle of despair, knowing that I was too useless to help, so should just keep myself well away from everything.
However, the barrage of abuse was useful, in short bursts.”
“OK, so mostly toxic but occasionally it prompted your desire to please people and the side effect of that was that you were motivated. Now answer me this – if you were helping another runner to train, would you tell them that they were useless and call them a ‘big girl’s blouse.”
“Well, no, obviously not. That would be horrible.”
“Then why on earth would you do it to yourself?”
So with a total of 3 different voices in my head it was getting really quite crowded in there.
I have been getting quite frustrated with myself. I am right back to the start of my running journey again and finding it incredibly difficult. Before the injuries I could run fairly long distances and had been whittling down my 5 and 10k times too. Now the furthest I can run is 5K and I seem to be stuck at around 33 minutes. It is extremely annoying.
However, yelling abuse at myself inside my head probably isn’t going to help.
I need to make a small achievable plan for now. I need to be not too disappointed if I don’t achieve it and celebrate my success if I do achieve or surpass it.
I remember when I first started my running journey some years ago that getting under 30 minutes for 5K felt like a really big deal. Therefore I will set myself a target to get under 30 minutes for the return of Parkrun on the 5th of June.
That will still be hard work but I reckon as long as I keep at it then it is achievable.
BTW, isn’t it brilliant news that Parkrun is coming back. I’m so looking forward to it. Also for anyone who wants to listen to a beautiful tender moment from the Parkrun podcast, ‘Free, Weekly, Timed’ then tune in to the 26th February 2021 show at 20.46 when Vassos Alexander asks Tom Williams where he is going to be when Parkrun restarts and will he have a tear in his eye. Tom chokes up and cannot speak for a long long time. It was lovely to hear such passion and I’m grateful that the podcast team carried on recording and left that pause in there. It was such a sweet moment.
I look forward to seeing everyone again at Parkrun on 5th June.