Finding The Balance...

People often say to me they don’t know how I do it. By ‘it’ they mean find the time to run all these miles, keep up my weekly gym routine, plus maintain the rest of my life. My response is always - I’m selfish. Now, no one would ever normally describe me as this; I like to think I am a very caring person who looks out for their friends and family, gives a lot back through volunteering in my local community, and generally tends to think of others before myself. But in terms of fitting running and life together I am guess I am quite lucky I can actually be selfish for once. At the moment in my daily life, there is generally only me to think of; if I want to get in from work and spend all evening running and at the gym I don’t feel guilty. If I want to spend all day Sunday running 20 miles and then totally collapsing in an almost useless heap for the afternoon, then that’s fine, because I only really answer to myself. It’s a running luxury, and I often find myself asking my running friends who have much more demanding lives than I do – how do you actually do it?!

With this selfish ability can however come a downside though - running can easily rule my life. It is very obvious that running is the biggest diver for me, which is a good thing in the vast majority as it’s something I can always rely on to keep me happy, sane and motivated. It balances me, but in a strange way can also lead to other things getting lost. I admit I am often guilty of letting my running and training bother me at social occasions; I can really look forward to an event, until it arrives and then I feel a bit panicking about how a few glasses of wine or some different food may influence my ability to run. Deep down I know it’s over the top, but it does happen. 

​This weekend however, for the first time in a very long time, I went out and partied until 3am and consumed many alcoholic beverages for a friend’s birthday - probably how most non running obsessed 20 something year olds spend their weekends on a frequent basis! The best thing was I felt no concern or worry about my training. I had managed to shift my planned runs around to still get my miles in for the weekend, but even doing this I would usually still feel a bit uneasy about how a social gathering may affect my future running.

I am not sure what changed in my mind this weekend, but it felt good. I could not go out every single weekend and do that I know, I wouldn’t even want to, but it made me realise that balance is good, and that I want to be able to relax and enjoy more 'social stuff' when it happens.

I think it is important to find the balance, and maybe by being in the position where I can be selfish about my running this has prevented me from fully discovering this more holistic running and life balance. Its swings and roundabouts really – but I know that I need to open my mind more in the future to allow the ‘fun’ element of life to sometimes come from other things, and not solely just running.