Why Runners can benefit from HEALTH COACHING
Every year in the UK almost one million people run marathons or half marathons. Most are busy working people with careers, families and hectic lifestyles meaning they choose running for the convenience and much documented stress relief that running gives. And this is not just anecdotal, research has proven that running is an excellent way to help manage stress and mental health because it gets us outside, often with friends, promotes the release of hormones that elevate mood and changes the way our brains respond to stress.
BUT there’s a problem.
Most people are running above and beyond the recommended dose of 30 minutes moderate intensity which is proven to be a sufficient amount to lower stress and help people recover from burnout. In fact, social media and the culture of running is generally guilty of encouraging people to take on crazy challenges which require high volume TRAINING with high mileage recorded on platforms such as Strava for the world to see.
This means that people who love running (and I include myself in this) enter more and more races and start to TRAIN a lot more than they have time, energy or expertise for. Don’t get me wrong…I am all for a challenge (I once ran from 100km from Portsmouth to London with my friend purely for the fun of it) however, what’s missing from training plans is exactly how people need to eat, move, sleep and manage stress outside of training. Elite athletes don’t have a 9-5 job. They eat, sleep, train…Repeat. They have A LOT of down time. They also only race a select number of races per year and train in such a way that allows them to peak exactly at the right time for these races. Rest, recovery and a hefty serving of self-care and fun outside of running is an important part of any training programme…but when you’re squeezing in a long run at 5am (after being awake twice in the night for the baby) or as you commute home from a stressful job (where you grabbed a sandwich at your desk) rest, recovery and self-care just don’t feature much.
But I get it. I’m not completely innocent here.
As a RECREATIONAL RUNNER I love endurance running and I sort of like the sacrifices I have to make to get fit for these challenges. However, I personally experienced the impact of life stress on top of lots of training. And I know I’m not alone. You only have to look at social media to read posts about how runners are ‘pushing through the pain’, ‘running despite a terrible night’s sleep’, ‘doing a double run to make up for missing a run the day before’. This culture of running is leading people to OVERTRAIN. Not necessarily because of their training programme (although this is often an issue too) but more because they’re not adapting their training programme according to the stress of life. Life stress has the same physical impact on your body as training stress.
As a health coach with a degree in sport science and Phd in sport psychology I specialise in helping RECREATIONAL RUNNERS avoid overtraining, burnout, and make sure that their training is suitable for their goals within the constraints of their lifestyle.
Health coaching focuses on your lifestyle and helps you adjust your training according to the stress your body is experiencing.
Health coaching gives you a holistic approach to your health. If you run to lose weight, but aren’t seeing the results, it’s most probably a nutrition and stress issue.
Health coaching will help you STOP ADDING TRAINING STRESS TO LIFE STRESS