Resilience

Resilience

You might need to be resilient from time to time. Essentially this entails flexibility in your goals. You might pick up an illness in these virussy times, or one of the more customary athletes’ injuries. You need to be able to take these in your stride, deal with them as they come and then get back to your training.

Pretty woman lying in bed at home

Things become much more awful for you if you’re tired so try to get enough sleep. If you are having trouble sleeping there are some things you could try. Give yourself a bedtime routine that allows you to settle your mind. Sleep hygiene is important for some of us. Charge your phone away from your bedside. You can still buy alarm clocks so you don’t need to rely on your phone to wake you in the morning. Reading books or magazines works well if you need to distract yourself. Most people fall asleep more easily in cooler rooms so turn the heating down a notch or two in your bedroom. Close your curtains and turn off your lights to remove as many light sources as possible. Using breathing exercises, meditation or mindfulness techniques can help settle your mind if you’re still restless. Finally, if you really can’t sleep, it’s a good idea to get up and leave your bedroom altogether and return to it when you’re ready to make another attempt.

Eating healthily is another area which can help you build or maintain resilience even when you’re not able to train properly. Maybe avoid an all-doughnut diet. Little bundles of sugar and fat aren’t necessarily the best way to fuel a body in training or recovery. It’s best to eat regularly throughout the day and avoid if you can sudden spikes or drops in blood sugar. It’s these changes that make you feel grumpy. You need foods containing complex carbohydrates to do this such as wholegrain bread or pasta, cereals, nuts and seeds. If it looks like a crow would steal it from a squirrel, it’s probably the right thing for you to eat. Fruit instead of fruit juice is good because the fibre in the fruit slows the release of sugars and keeps you as regular as your gran wanted you to be. So have an orange instead of some orange juice with your breakfast. Add a bit of protein and lots of veg and you have the basis of a decent training diet.

Space out your meals across the day to avoid those blood sugar fluctuations. Having a little and often is a better way of doing things from this point of view rather than a full English first thing, a sarnie at lunch and meat and two veg with pud for afters at dinner time. You can still have wee treats from time to time, even a doughnut if that’s what makes you happy. You should still know that they should be the exception and not the foundation of your day.

Oh, and stay hydrated. Most of us will need a couple of litres of water a day. That’s between six and eight glasses depending on the size of your glass.

Be kind to yourself. Be your own best friend or favourite uncle or auntie. Training or recovery is hard work and you are going out sometimes when you really, really can’t be bothered and doing it anyway. If you’re feeling fed up with it all and nothing’s going right and that run was more of a walk and you just want to give up then stop for a minute or two and think back to how you were when you started. Consider how far you’ve come. Remember that time when you absolutely smashed it. You are amazing.

You can take a break. If the programme says intervals or whatever, just pull your shoes on and run for a bit instead. Or walk. Or go and work in your garden or allotment. Or sit in the park. Just be outside. Today can be a good day.