Why I love running: personal achievement, shared effort

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be running the Oxford Half Marathon.

I’ve run this route several years in a row, and one of the things that keeps bringing me back is a feeling I find difficult to recreate elsewhere: doing something entirely personal, while being part of something much bigger.

Everyone is heading towards the same finish line. What getting there means will be different for each of us.

That combination is what I love about running events.

The same route, a different experience.

There is something satisfying about returning to a familiar course. You know the route, but you don’t know exactly how the morning will unfold.

You bring a different version of yourself each year: different expectations, a different level of preparation, whatever else is happening in your life.

The distance stays the same. Your experience of it changes.

Order in the chaos

Running gives me a clear task in a world where so much feels unfinished. In work, there is usually another email to answer, another decision to make, another thing that could be improved. A run has a beginning and an end. You set out, put in the effort and arrive somewhere.

There is a particular pleasure in that simplicity. Although, admittedly, somewhere along the way, simplicity can become quite hard work.

Individual achievement in a shared space

A half marathon makes room for thousands of private ambitions.

For one person, achievement might mean a particular time. For another, it might mean completing the distance. Someone else may be returning after a difficult year, or taking on something they once thought beyond them. Many are raising much needed funds for a chosen charity. You cannot explore the details by looking.

I like being reminded of that. We spend so much of our lives seeing the outside of other people’s efforts and knowing very little about what’s underneath.

In a race, you can recognise the effort without knowing the full story. You can want a stranger to do well. Their achievement takes nothing away from yours.

And although nobody can run your miles for you, the people around you can help you keep going. The runners, the supporters, the volunteers: individual effort becomes part of a collective experience.

I find that deeply moving.

What running reminds me about confidence

There is a connection here with my work as a communication coach.

People often feel they need more confidence before they can attempt something difficult: speak up in a meeting, give a presentation, have a conversation they have been avoiding. I understand that impulse. Being certain you can do something beforehand would make starting considerably easier.

Running reminds us how much confidence can come from experience. You prepare, you begin, you deal with the uncomfortable moments. Afterwards, you have something concrete to draw on: I have done something tough before.

It also reminds me that support and personal responsibility belong together. Encouragement matters. So does doing the work yourself.

In coaching, as in running, another person can help you find your way through a challenging moment, even though the next step remains yours.

Why I keep coming back

When I think about Sunday, it is that mixture I look forward to: a familiar route, my own effort, and the company of people working towards something that matters to them.

There will be individual achievements all around me, most of whose stories I will never know.

For a few hours, we will share the road.

I’ll be running my own race…

and, at the same time, I’ll be so glad we’re doing it together.

Some of my favourite books about running include:

Born to run (Christopher McDougall 2010)

What I talk about when I talk about running (Haruki Murakami 2009)

The London Marathon (John Bryant, 2006)