By Alison Conway
You can run, but you can’t hide—at least, not forever. Those demons that are chasing you? They will catch you eventually. One morning, injured or simply exhausted, you will wake up to find them sitting on your chest. Or, in the middle of a race, you may feel them jumping on your back, happy to catch a ride.
I’m talking, of course, about the demons of anxiety and depression or whatever other monsters might lurk in the deep recesses of your mind. Last week, Alex Hutchinson wrote a column in the Globe and Mail in which he reviewed findings about the links between exercise and mental wellness (12/2/24). It’s not news to those of us who feel lousy when we miss a run that a regular boost of dopamine is a good idea. But what happens when we look at the issue through the other end of the telescope? That is, what happens when we play the tape–that sport is therapy–to the end?
Jill Colangelo answers this question in a recent episode of Running Explained (Season 2, Episode 40). In her discussion of overtraining syndrome, she looks at the relationship that endurance athletes develop with their training programs and how increases in training volume correlate with higher, rather than lower, rates of mental illness. Is it cause or effect? Someone who is looking to cope with troubling thoughts may seek the solace of the runner’s high, or she may start to experience dread or anxiety about performance. Warning signs will begin to manifest in the body, and without an acceptance that sport is hurting, rather than helping, and that a recovery program, including therapy, may be in order, the athlete can find herself confronted with a full-blown breakdown. In this scenario, cortisol, not dopamine, is the drug coursing through the body.
Colangelo advocates for a deepened respect for the body and the signals it sends. Recently, I learned this lesson the hard way when I found myself in trouble 17 km into a marathon—not even half way! In the weeks leading up to the race, there were red flags. I had a summer injury that meant my build began a month late. I didn’t have enough long runs under my belt and not nearly enough hills for the gruelling course. More significantly, I had been dealing with stress all fall and it had given my body a beating. Sleepless nights made for lousy morning runs. My physio suggested that a weekend of back spasms was stress induced. The week of the marathon, I had stabbing chest pain. It wasn’t on my left side, so I assumed I wasn’t having a heart attack. But I was having a something. (It felt like a cracked rib. Later, when I told this to my doctor, he said, “Please, don’t run a marathon with chest pain without medical clearance!” I record his remark here as a PSA.)
November 3rd dawned bright, sunny, and cool. It was a perfect day for a marathon. The pain in my chest was there, but isolated to one spot. And so, I set out to race that course. What was I thinking? I was thinking, “The marathon is my happy place!” I was thinking, “My spring training will compensate for my crappy build!” I was thinking, “That half marathon six weeks ago felt great!” The marathon answered, “I take no prisoners.”
And so, I suffered. All the voices in my head formed a chorus of negative self-talk to make the final hour of that marathon perhaps the most hellish sixty minutes I’ve experienced as a runner. Somehow, I got myself to the finish line. When I finally found my people, I burst into tears of rage, pain, and disappointment.
And now? Now, I’ve had a chance to get over myself and remember that plenty of folks find themselves having a crap marathon for any number of reasons. I have also learned that when the body tells me it’s struggling, as I train, I had better listen closely and adjust my expectations.
Most immediately, it’s time to turn and face those demons.
Alison Conway lives and works in Kelowna, British Columbia, on the traditional and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan people.
