Calming my half marathon chimp

I walked most of the Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon course yesterday, as I ended up escorting a walker for at least five sixths of the race. We crossed the finish line together with 3 hours 47 minutes on the clock.

So definitely a record for my longest half marathon by far.

But the depressing bit is that my old left knee injury reared its ugly head again, even though I was walking. It was painful for the last third of the race and I suffered for the rest of the day.

So this morning, still feeling rather flat, I decided to try a technique from a book I'm currently reading called The Chimp Paradox.

In the book Dr Steve Peters, the author, and resident psychiatrist with the British Cycling and Sky ProCycling teams, explains that we all have several distinct parts of our brain, the two main ones being what he calls the chimp brain and the human brain.

The chimp brain is an emotional machine that uses feelings and impressions to drive emotional thinking to work out what is happening and form a plan of action.

The human brain uses logical thinking based on facts and truth to create its plan.

Steve Peters recommends looking at both brains when examining an issue.

So here's what my chimp brain thought about my disappointment from yesterday.

My chimp thinks that I might as well not bother with running, when it appears that it's all doomed. If I can't even walk 13.1 miles without injuring myself what is the point? It will only get worse. I persist with this daft mile each day to no avail.

Thanks for that chimp.

So what does my human brain think about it all?

My human brain thinks that these things happen. It thinks that in any problem or challenge there is an opportunity, and that we are surrounded by opportunities and possibilities all the time, it’s just that they come wearing disguises so that we don’t recognise the potential they contain.

My human brain thinks that this could be an opportunity to write something that could help people. It is an opportunity for me to work on my knees in terms of exploring exercises to strengthen the supporting muscles and do more with stretching than I'm already doing.

It also sees an opportunity to look at what is most important to me about my running. Is it being able to run a mile each day until I’m 80, or is it being able to run half marathons and marathons when I’m 80? Ideally it would be both, but the most important one is the first one.

So, how am I feeling now?

Well it’s really quite incredible because my human brain has managed to calm and comfort my chimp brain, who is now quite happily having a snooze, feeling warm and happy.

Check out The Chimp Paradox. There's some other good stuff in there about goblins, gremlins, autopilots and the stone of life that are all really interesting and thought provoking.