It clearly will not have escaped your notice that the World Health Organisation has designated that we are in a Pandemic due to the Covid-19 virus. This is having implications worldwide, particularly on those who have the virus but also on financial markets, travel and sporting events. Rugby matches are being postponed, football matches are being played behind closed doors and to my knowledge the World Half marathon championships, the Vienna, and NYC Halfs, the Vienna, Hamburg, Paris, Barcelona and Rome marathons are all posponed/cancelled. Here in Scotland they are about to ban all gatherings of more than 500 people and the ongoing COBRA meeting may bring further measures.
So clearly you will all be concerned about your own upcoming races so I thought I’d offer some advice.
1. Until your race has been officially cancelled you need to train like it is still on. Do not allow your training to become lack lustre with an attitude of “why bother it’s only going to be cancelled”. Training is NEVER wasted, it is money in a savings account so keep training. This is not the end of races, the current race we are targeting might fall foul but not future races and for those you’ll be extra hungry and extra prepared - if you keep training.
2. If your race does get cancelled then have a good strop! Strop for the rest of the day, maybe even throw your toys out the pram for 24 hours - then set a time when you are going to stop and get on with life. So if you found out this morning your A Race was cancelled then sulk until 12:00 tomorrow then stop, grow a pair and get on with life - and training!
3. You are in a good place fitness wise so how are you going to use that. Look for other events that are on, look for different events perhaps not what you have been training specifically for and look for self challenges. Triathletes perhaps there are open water swim events that are on, or plan a big bike ride so cycle 100 miles a day for 5 days or 3 days, get a train away somewhere and cycle home or runners can run home (perhaps not 100 miles a day). Plan a trip to visit me and cycle here for example. Runners why not plan a route you’ve never run or run up a mountain that you’ve never been up. There is a whole myriad of things you can do with your fitness; it truly isn’t wasted.
4. With these self challenges you will identify whether you truly are process driven (which is what I want you to be) or outcome driven. I run every single day because I love the process, I really am not training specifically for any event. I have drawers full of medals no one sees . Ask yourself, if there was no social media, no crowds, no medals and you could not tell a soul about the event you just did would you still do it? I know I would but you need to ask yourself that question. So this may be a time to understand yourself a little better and if necessary work on yourself.
5. Look for the positives. Maybe you were secretly a little stressed out by this big event and actually this now gives you a bit of headspace. I remember my first Para jump, it was cancelled due to the wind conditions and secretly I was quite pleased and it gave us another couple of days of training to get prepared and run through the drills. Another positive is that you’ll actually be better prepared for your next event or perhaps you have a few niggles and can now get treatment on that niggle you’ve been nursing. Whatever the circumstance there IS a positive you can take.
So hang tight and we will see what tomorrow brings.