The Inner Game of Running

When I race, I enter a higher state of awareness. The caffeine, hormones and people around me cause a lot of anxiety in the warm-up but when the gun goes, I exhale hard and everything fades into the background. I often don't hear the people screaming my name from a couple of metres away. I noticed how hard I could focus when I started meditating. It was hard at first but with practice, I became skilled at letting all the distractions disappear.

I started doing parkruns with my dad when I was younger, but I struggle to express why I keep running now. Running is a huge part of my life and I could spend the time doing something else more productive. But that just wouldn't make any sense.

My focus on the inner game started after doing workshops in Paris. When I was younger, the goal was to get better to beat my rivals. I trained with a high-performing but competitive group - after lockdown, most of the group stopped training and I was the only one remaining without an England vest. Comparison with each other was the status quo and being both the oldest and slowest, it was easy to feel inadequate. I used to set targets for myself but even these were based on other people's results. They represented abilities I wished I had, rather than realistic improvements. I don't think I achieved a single one; I would always be disappointed by personal bests. Almost all of my races set off at an unrealistic pace that I could never stick to, which perpetuated the cycle of frustration.

My attitude is different now. I focus very little on my competition and try to perform the best that I am capable of on the day, ignoring past or future performances. I'm still learning how to ride the wave of social energy that comes from training or racing with others, but I see the people around me in a very different way. I have the confidence to let them go if I think the pace is too hot or work with them if I think it'll help me push myself further. The focus is on my inner game.

This has allowed me to enjoy running much more. Despite the luxury of good company on runs, I choose to solo almost all but the organised training sessions. I like spending time with myself. It's a release from everything else that's happening around me. I particularly love the harder and faster runs - it's a chance for me to push myself both physically and mentally, and it's so easy to focus on just my running.

I reflect after my runs. It's easy to make mistakes and sometimes I feel embarrassed but I try to keep my reflections as non-judgemental as possible. One of the major ones has been around pacing. Especially on the track, I like the first laps to be slightly slower as it takes time to get in the groove. But executing this is difficult - I feel fresh, there's lots of adrenaline, I haven't found a rhythm and I find it hard to know what pace to target. Two weeks before I ran my 5k PB, I did a session where each rep was slower than the previous one because I felt overconfident at the start. Then in the 5k, the first lap took 72 seconds (15-minute pace) but after the first kilometre, I was lapping closer to 70.5 seconds and a strong close brought my finishing time to around 14:30. This felt phenomenal and was one of the times where reflections delivered immediate results. Pacing is just one of the many components of running. By breaking it down and working on each of the separate skills, I've seen huge improvements in my performance.

It wasn't until after this PB that I read The Inner Game of Tennis. The book was recommended as a way for me to reflect on my image of self. Unsurprisingly, the book is about tennis, not running, but I felt I could relate a lot to the content. I had discovered the key principles independently, but the book gave me the language to share it with others.

The book is about yogi tennis - a non-mainstream way to coach people to play that's incredibly effective but unintuitive. It involves focusing on the process rather than the outcome and mastering the inner game by overcoming mental obstacles. It turns out that the same unintuitive practices are how you should teach maths. And if you think deeply, you can apply them to other aspects of life, including running.

I have been hugely successful with an inner-game approach. I have a much better relationship with running and have improved a lot since adopting it. However, I cannot ignore my good fortune; the effort I've put into consistent training; and support from the coaches, friends and family.

The prospect of creating an environment where everyone runs according to their inner game seems utopic. When one person doesn't buy in, it can be too difficult for everyone else to overcome their instinct to get sucked into the default dynamic. However, I encourage others to experiment and see how they feel when they focus on their inner game.

The why is always hard to express. I run to push myself, for myself. I train to improve my ability and race to test it. It is an exciting and fulfilling journey toward mastery over my mind and body. I love it.