Along with everyone else at the start of a new year, I’ve recently invested in a bit of advice from a personal trainer. Due to the well known fact that a tailored plan for exercise and nutrition is all that’s required to make the overnight transition to supermodel. The (slightly abridged) version of our initial conversation goes like this: 

PT: ‘Put your yoghurt in your porridge’. Me (having done as instructed): ‘I could probably run a marathon now’.

The premise being that the order you eat your food makes a difference. Specifically, in this case, eating protein with your carbs. A dollop of yoghurt is the antidote to the mid morning slump, it turns out. Surprisingly, I didn’t actually need to change anything I was eating in order to pretty much double my  energy levels, I just needed to eat it in a slightly different order. I basically had all the tools in my kit, I just wasn’t quite sure how to use them.

As well as the standard desire for transformation to supermodel status, my motivation for consulting a professional was a growing sense of frustration with my inability to regain my previous levels of fitness, which had allowed me to run easily for an hour pretty much every day. I’d started to feel as if I wasn’t quite myself any more. I’d spent a long time gaining the confidence and ability to run, and even longer learning to enjoy it. And now, having finally developed a real sense of identity as a runner, it was as if me, the runner, no longer existed. And not only was I not quite myself, I had also lost my main coping mechanism for just this sort of difficult situation. Previously, when I wasn’t feeling quite right, putting on my trainers and going for a run was guaranteed to give me the headspace to sort out my thoughts. Or, failing that, at least an hour or so during which I was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other, and managing to get enough oxygen into my lungs, that I got at least a bit of a break from any other thoughts that were bothering me. Now the things that were bothering me included not being able to run, and not being able to run meant that things were bothering me more. Cue the need for some sort of intervention.
Without boring anyone with the intricate details of my training plan, it’s along the same lines as the yoghurt related epiphany. In that it’s about slightly shaking up the things I was already doing. All the key components are in place (a pair of legs, for example). It’s just about using them a bit differently. 

Which I guess is how I need to start thinking about that coping mechanism. In my head, I might have been the next Paula Radcliffe, but I can’t honestly say I would ever have been described first and foremost as a runner. At best, people might have commented on my impressive array of trainers. So however it may feel, I haven’t really lost my identity. And a part of who I am is the ability to deal with difficult situations. I haven’t lost that, even if I can’t currently do it in exactly the way I used to. Just because running was the mechanism I previously used, I’m pretty sure I’ve still retained the part of myself that makes me ‘someone who can deal with stuff’. I’ve still got the tools, I just need to find a different way of using them. At least until the yoghurt kicks in, at which point obviously I’ll be running a marathon every morning before work.