Who loves to run? Apparently around the world 621.16 million people do. Are you one of them? Running is a great sport to reduce stress, keep fit and lose weight. It is also a sport that is being taken on by increasingly older people with the average age in road races increasing to 40 in most distances. Therefore, the sport is not only popular for athletes wishing to compete for gold medals.
But there are some runners out there that are under a lot of pressure and have trouble enjoying their sport. I should know because I am one of them. My story may be a little different from others. I started running seriously later in life and achieved some success, which made me push myself harder. I achieved some personal bests, but after a while I started to take things too seriously and the enjoyment of running started to fade.
The phenomenon is known as sports anxiety, and it can come about by a fear of poor performance and the symptoms can include hyperventilation, bathroom issues and muscle tension. Stress can manifest itself physically as well as mentally, and this can be because the athletes see competitions as a threat rather than a challenge or simply as fun.
I did some research on ways to help me reduce the anxiety and perform better, but I realized that this was the wrong approach. I needed to focus on how I can make running fun again. It took me a while to discover that the best way was to make running more of a social activity for me. I could still do my hard runs and enjoy those, but I could also meet up with others to enjoy running together. I decided to join a park run.
The park run was really what I needed. It is not your average park run. Nobody is really competitive, we just take a slow run together and chat as we do it. It is a great opportunity to run at slow paces and become more of an all round runner. I think I am on my way to becoming a less stressed runner. I will not give up on my competitive goals, but I will make sure I have fun doing it.
Just recently I joined another park run with my mother and brother whom I haven’t met for years. My brother and I did training together for the run, and then did the run. I did well in the park run. I impressed my mother and also conjured up old memories of when running was better than anything else in the world, when I was a kid. My brother never took running that seriously then, we just did it.
When I finished the run, one of the veteran runners said well done and while looking at my red sweaty face also asked if I enjoyed myself. I took another breath, looked at his long white beard and said, yes, it was great fun.
storysolutionstherapy@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/CounsellorTrent/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6646850/
https://runningwithgrit.com/statistics-about-running
