Flashback... 6 or 7 weeks ago. In the middle of the woods above Malonno. I'm supposed to be doing a hilly run but instead I've stopped and I'm crying my eyes out. Here's a few reasons why..
1) FlettaTrail is only 2 weeks away and I'm nothing like race fit, I can barely even walk at a reasonable pace up the trail I seemed to skip so lightly up last year. I feel like an elephant and my lungs and legs are on fire. A hilly run has turned into a crawl and yes a crying session. People are going to expect me to produce something like last year in the race and there's no way on earth that is going to happen. I feel like I'm letting down not just myself but the whole of Malonno, my new sponsors adidas TERREX and everyone who has put their faith in me over the past year.
2) The one thing that I used to love so much is so hard and I don't know how I'm ever going to find my race fitness again. I hate my body. Everyone keeps stopping me in the street to remark that I'm fat or I've put weight on and that just keeps making me feel even worse.
3) I've done this to myself. The only person to blame for the sh*t show that is the 'athlete' Heidi Davies right now... is Heidi Davies herself.
And so why am I writing this? To be honest I'm not really sure. But hang in there with me, I feel like this blog post might make some kind of sense by the end.
But let's just get real. Maybe this is my chance to finally get honest, open and real with myself and it's what I need to do to help me move forward. And if anyone takes the time to read it then it'll maybe help some of you too.
So 2020... fair to say it's been kind of a crappy year. Covid has put a hold on pretty much everything. Quarantine, lock down, face masks, social distancing etc etc. I don't need to go into details. We've all lived, and are living this nightmare and trying to do the best we can given the circumstances.
If this blog post is all about being real, then I'm just going to admit it here. I've been struggling. Struggling to make sense of the world, of society, of the lives we live. Lock down made me question everything... what it means to be an athlete, what it means to be living this life, why we place so much value on competing when there are so many other important things going on in the world. Lock down made me question my choices, and it made me take some wrong ones too.
Maybe some people came out of quarantine the best version of themselves, having taken the time to focus on working out at home, cooking and eating healthy hearty meals, spending more time with loved ones and finding their inner balance again. For me, the exact opposite of this happened. Not being able to go outside and enjoy mother nature made me really lose my spark and made me lose sight of what I wanted. I initially started with good intentions of carrying out my training at home to the best of my ability but I quickly lost motivation and soon I was slipping down a slippery slope into a dark hole I built myself.
I've made it a well known fact that for a few years I was struggling with body image and eating issues, trying to be the lightest skinniest version of myself because I believed that would make me a faster runner. But during the lock down, I completely destroyed this idea. I started to live life completely the other way. Eating way too much, sometimes even to the point of feeling sick. I'm still not sure why. Maybe it was because there weren't any races to prepare for or I felt like I was making up for the past two years when I'd been restricting everyday. But it was like someone had flicked a switch in my brain and I just couldn't resist opening the cupboard or the fridge and putting something else into my mouth. These kind of habits combined with little or no exercise... is it surprising that I put on weight and then found myself crying in the woods a few weeks before flettatrail?
Now it's easy to look back with hindsight and regret your decisions that have brought you to where you are now. But 2020 is a strange year. We're living strange times. I guess we all had our ways of dealing with being stuck inside the same four walls for weeks on end. I'm ashamed to say that eating was my way of dealing with it. Looking back now, I wish I had spent that time investing in myself and my health, rather than destroying it and everything I was or am as an athlete. But those are the actions that I took and now I'm having to live with the consequences.
On my journey back to becoming an athlete I least now I'm able to find a way for it to be sustainable. I'm not stupidly stick skinny like last year, I've got my period back, and now I'm able to eat food without any guilt and feelings of shame because I understand that food is fuel and fueling my body is a fundamental part of being a healthy and sustainable athlete.
There's just one thing I've been struggling with. And that's self love. Maybe my actions during the lock down highlight this. I was (again) in self destruction mode. Yes okay, I wasn't in the place I was last year. But the coin had flipped. Instead of starving myself, I was eating way too much. I still wasn't looking after myself, mind or body.
And now, on the other side of lock down and quarantine and with flettatrail 2020 behind us, I'm learning day by day how to take care of myself. And yes, it starts with self love. You really cannot hate yourself into being healthy. A healthy body and a healthy mind, can't come from a place of hate but only from a place of love and compassion for who you are and all that you've been through to get you here to where you are today.
I hope that maybe somewhere along the way, I can find the class athlete I know I can be again. But to be honest, right now the thought of competing doesn't really inspire me that much. I feel like the life of an athlete especially this year is kind of unimportant. To travel around, to compete against the same athletes over a series of races. I don't know why but now it feels kind of superficial. I don't know where these thoughts are coming from but to pin on a number and run as fast as you can just because someone expects you to... I'm struggling with the reasoning behind that. I feel like... you've gotta feel it in your heart. I run, because I love to run... not because I'm an athlete and it's just what people expect me to do. I love to move my body through the mountains, through diverse landscapes. I love adventure and seeing new exciting places with my eyes wide open full of wonder and a massive smile on my face full of gratitude for how lucky I am to be experiencing the earths wonders in that way. That's when I feel like I'm me. That's when I feel like I'm doing what I was born to do. But then on the other hand, I want to make an impact on things, I want to change things for the better. I'm searching for the balance of trying to be an athlete, but also trying to do something good in the world through this.
Yeah okay, my dream of being a full time professional athlete is the reason why I decided to make the move and transfer my whole life to Malonno, Italy. Being an athlete, training to be the best, fittest, healthiest version of myself is something I believe I still want to do... despite the huge pile of mistakes I've made in the past. Now my fitness is returning slowly but surely, one day at a time and I'm still learning so much... It's just now I've realised it's not all I want to do - just train for racing. I'm craving a life of adventure. I want to make stories, tell stories, make an impact on the world around me. Lining up on the start line isn't the only way to do that. A race is just one race, it's one day. There are 364 other days in the year. I know I want to fill them with adventures and moments that count. That's when I feel the most alive.
Watch this space.
Hugs,
Heidi
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