Showing up
It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post and it’s not for lack of having ideas to put on paper. It’s been a combination of having; a wedding, a busy summer in the mountains, a new full time job, a part time job, a long drawn out injury, and only a few stolen moments to catch up with the lives of either Don and Betty Draper or the goings on in Gilead. However, I’m taking a few minutes to sit down, show up, and get the words out as we start a new decade and what will be a new era for women in sport in general and trail running specifically.
It’s all about showing up.
It’s terrifying and frightening to put yourself out there on the start line and say ‘hey this is me, I’ll give it all I’ve got but I’m aware I may not live up to your version of success’. It's enough to give us a full on panic attack just thinking about it! Women are so much harder on themselves and afraid of that fear than men. I see it everyday in my classroom... Boys who are much less capable than girls are the first to volunteer to give their answers or demonstrate a method. Quite simply because the boys are a lot more laissez faire and don’t think too much about; ‘looking stupid’, ‘getting it wrong’, or ‘being laughed at’. The same is true in trail running and it is definitely one of the reasons that as race distances get longer, female participation quite literally drops off the side of the proverbial mountain and we often do not show up.
Women are so incredibly conscious of ‘not making cut-off times’, ‘being last’, ‘being slow’, ‘embarrassing themselves’. Where as men often take the approach of; ‘Sure, 64km with a double ascent of Snowdon, why wouldn’t I be able do that…’. Female athletes / runners show much larger amounts of fear of shame and embarrassment, as well as extraordinarily low self belief and self confidence compared to male athletes. The fear of what others think of us and the inability to think beyond our own imposed glass ceilings are quite literally holding us back from achieving what they are capable of.
I decided to show up to the Maverick Snowdon marathon just 3 months after my first ever marathon and 6 months after my first ever trail run. I decided to do that because I forced myself to challenge some of my own beliefs surrounding sport… I learnt to ask myself questions like the ones below and then answer them as if I was answering to a friend…
If I don’t make cut off, will I die on the mountain from either cold or embarrassment?
I’ll get in the van and get a ride back to the finish.
Or I’ll hand my number in and trot back to the start in my own sweet time.
Won’t that be super embarrassing turning up at the finish in the van?
Seriously, no-one will be looking at you, or caring. Your race is not their concern.
What if I’m slow?
So what if you are slow. We’ve already gone through the cut-off scenario, otherwise just chug along at your own pace.
What if someone laughs at me for being last?
Then that person is a DICK!... I mean Really?!
Before and after that race so many people saying ‘I wish I could run that far’, ‘ I wish I could finish a race like that’... and my answer was always ‘you can, but you have to be at the start line to do so’. That wasn’t me being pedantic or blunt, but just trying to say, there is absolutely nothing special going on here apart from me showing up.
Entering a long distance race and getting to the start line IS the hard part. The race itself is a breeze. You’ll be whisked away in the race atmosphere and utter delight that you ARE actually doing it. The further you run the less you care about what others think and the further you run, the more belief you have that actually you can do it, because you ARE doing it.
Long distance trails are not something to be fearful of, because unless you have a silly five minutes (or are super unlucky with a freak accident which are VERY RARE) , then the worst that can happen is you the miss cut off and get a warm / dry lift back to the start.
Whilst I haven’t DNF’d YET I fully expect to do so one day and that’s fine because at least I showed up and asked the question. I would 100% rather DNF at a race that I was scared shitless of than never enter it in the first place.
So advice; show up, give zero fucks and anyone who even so much as raises their eyebrow at you in a judgemental manner is not our people.
