Training for Nothing - and Everything

While some of my friends and family enjoy the same kind of “Type 2 fun” that I do, the rest of them find the thought of willingly dragging yourself outside to get sweaty absolutely baffling.

“You’re lucky that you actually like exercise,” they say, all preferring more sedentary pastimes: sewing, music, watching TV, going to restaurants.

I guess they imagine somebody who ‘likes exercise’ leaping out of bed every morning when their alarm goes off at some ungodly hour, thrilled by the thought of leaving the warm, cosy bed and going out into the rain that’s pounding on the windows. They presume there’s no part of you that would rather just go home and watch Love is Blind (insert your favourite trashy TV show here) after work instead of going to the gym. They probably picture you enjoying every single step of every single run.

Here’s the truth: while those people might exist, I’m definitely not one of them.

Most of the time, day-to-day at least, there are a million things I’d rather do instead. Have a lie-in, read a few more pages of my book, go out for brunch, or for a beer, call a friend, doomscroll on Instagram. Sometimes, even objectively quite boring tasks start to seem more appealing. You’ll never see my kitchen cleaner than when I’m avoiding a run, for instance.

That’s because although I almost always feel better for having done it, training often isn’t all that fun in the moment. It can be tedious and repetitive. It’s running the same loops over and over again, just because they’re convenient from home or work. It’s doing the boring prehab exercises your physio told you to, again and again and again. It’s ticking off a session because it’s on the plan, not because you have any true desire to. It’s saying no to another round at the bar, because you know you’ll be annoyed if you bail on your early morning alarm. Sometimes, it’s just downright hard. 

So what motivates somebody to stick at it, even when it’s often boring and difficult, even when it’s the less fun choice?

Well, I can’t speak for you, but for me it’s one of three things.

The first is that the thought of it is generally worse than the reality. I’ll spend the build up imagining how awful the whole experience is going to be, then I get started and remember, oh, actually I do quite like running, even around this same old loop I’ve done a hundred times. The more that happens, the more it creates some kind of muscle memory.

The second is having a big goal coming up, something in the diary that I’m excited to prepare for. I love mountain ultramarathons, personally, and the prospect of an amazing day out, in a beautiful new place, that I’ve paid quite a lot of money to travel to - that’s often enough to see me ticking off my midweek miles and doing my squats.

The third is where the magic really lies though. And that’s the knowledge that what I’m training for isn’t just one day in the calendar with a medal at the end. More often than not, I’m training for nothing in particular, which means that, really, what I’m actually training for is everything - for life in general.

I don’t want to just be fit for one day. I want to be fit for every day. Those unglamorous hours of training, completed despite having no particular aim to them, are what allow you to say yes to the things that crop up unexpectedly, but which often end up being the best things.

Sometimes, that’s a spur of the moment adventure. Quite a few years ago, some friends and I had planned to meet up for a weekend of walking and camping. Nothing extreme, just a chance to hang out and catch up. Except a few days before, train strikes were announced, derailing (literally) our plan to meet in a National Park in the middle of where we lived. We lived around 100 miles apart - not a crazy distance, but quite a long way without any means of transport.

We’d almost made our peace with just calling the whole thing off until somebody suggested:

“How about we cycle there?”

I did own a bike and cycled the five miles to work most days, but I was by no means a cyclist. It felt like quite a full-on way to travel to a weekend away - but better than cancelling, surely?

So off we all set from our respective homes, eventually arriving at the designated meeting point quite a bit later than planned, soaked to the skin, with bike helmets to carry along with our camping gear, but pleased to have made it. The fact that I still remember that weekend so clearly, all these years later, is almost entirely down to how we got there. Had the trains been running, I doubt I’d think about it nearly so often.

Hiking & Cycling Trip during Train Strike - Ivinghoe Beacon, Chiltern Hills

Other times, it’s a work opportunity. As a writer in the outdoors/adventure space, sometimes an offer comes up to cover an event or activity, with very little warning. A few summers ago that was an invitation to take part in a women’s hiking relay the length of Britain - 700+ women walking for 74 days. I was given the chance to walk 20 miles for two consecutive days and create some content. It was one of the best weeks at work I can remember, hiking through the bleak North Pennines with a group of inspiring women, and I would have been gutted to miss out because I didn’t have the fitness to cover those 40 miles.

Love Her Wild women's hiking relay

Perhaps it’s being on holiday somewhere, hearing about a trail or a hill or a viewpoint nearby, and not having to think twice about going to explore it. I’m thinking about the time I went on a city break to Bratislava with some friends, and we ended up ditching sightseeing, and instead walking over the Little Carpathian mountains to the Austrian border for a slice of strudel in the snow.

Little Carpathian Mountains hike

These examples still probably all fall into the realm of the big and the shiny and the exciting though. Often the benefits of this idea of training for nothing, and therefore for everything, are much less glamorous.

I recently moved house and we saved thousands by hiring a van and doing the bulk of the heavy lifting ourselves. While I can’t say I loved wrestling a king size mattress down the street in a thunderstorm, there’s definitely something satisfying about doing it yourself. Similarly, sometimes it’s simply being able to help friends out. Yes, I can come and help you collect the ridiculous solid wood antique wardrobe you’ve bought on Facebook Marketplace…

Another scenario I’m thinking about a lot right now is the often used example of being able to run around with your kids in the park. My partner and I are expecting our first baby in the fall, which means that the big challenges and adventures are likely going to take a backseat for a while. But from what I gather, looking after a kid is a pretty physical experience in itself. I want to be running around with them, taking them camping, teaching them to ride a bike, helping them to climb trees. I know that will require a certain amount of stamina.

There are so many times when our physical fitness impacts our ability to conduct our everyday lives. It’s being able to approach these times with relative ease that motivates me. It’s all about freedom and choice - more “yes I can”s than “no I can’t”s.

A big part of that does tie back into those more extreme challenges though. Although I hate the “fix your mental health by going for a run” argument (running isn’t therapy, and sometimes you do need to actually deal with your problems rather than running away from them), a little self-inflicted hardship can go a long way to instill some mental resilience and confidence. There have been times in races where I’ve genuinely contemplated giving up and living on the hillside forever, because I didn’t think I could take another step. Yet somehow you always do find another step, from somewhere, and the memory of that helps in other situations. It’s knowing that you’ve always got a little bit more to give than you think you have.

Of course, this all comes from a certain amount of privilege. My mum has a chronic illness. She has lots of days and weeks where her body simply doesn’t play ball, forcing her to say no rather than yes more often than she’d like. I realise I’m writing this as an able-bodied person with the luxury of relatively good health on my side. Being aware of that makes me think it’s more important to make the most of that good fortune though. When I could be saying yes, I don’t want to be saying no for reasons of my own doing.

So it’s not that I like exercise, at least not all of the time. It’s that I like what it allows me to do. I like the opportunities it gives me. I like how it makes me feel more equipped to deal with the challenges of everyday life - mentally and physically.

When my alarm goes off and I’m listening to the rain outside, I’m not consciously thinking “one day going for this run might help me move a wardrobe”. But when I sit down and think about it, it’s that ability to fully participate in my own life and my community that motivates me so much more than a finish line or a medal ever could.