A Good Plodder On-er

The immortal words of Kermit (one of my role models) and it is very true. Like the vast majority of people I am aware of the climate crisis but also like many people often feel pretty insignificant in what I can do. Real change needs to be made by government/ big business and people with much more influence in the world than me. I have often felt inadequate in my efforts and have let wanting to be perfect get in the way of progress but just over a year ago in one of my many Centurion timed out events I met a group called the Green Runners.

I know through my job as a vet and in parenting that punishment and criticism are not effective training methods but I think many of us feel that although we would not use such methods on our animals or children we use it on ourselves and expect change. Compassion focussed therapy has helped me with my mental health struggles to try to use positive reinforcement and not shame and punishment to change my behaviours. OK this does not seem very relevant yet but it will make sense. The message I got from the Green Runners wasn’t about blame, doom and gloom it was about moving from where you are to somewhere better.

Now I’m lucky in that being fashionable etc does not bother me. I wouldn’t know how even if I tried but reducing how I kit up has still been a challenge. I learned how to fix my shoes so they last longer. In this way autism for me is helpful. Neither I or my daughter like getting rid of old clothes shoes etc and although I can fix clothes I had no idea about shoes. I had a pair fixed at the Centurion event and bought a little kit to do it myself which I have done. Generally I have enough running T shirts so not getting a new T shirt at an event is something I was already doing through the Trees not Tees option most races have now. If I ever finish a Centurion event I will have a T Shirt but by not having all the others it is still progress. Unfortunately the impulsivity of ADHD has not been my friend and I saw new fun shorts online and bought 2 pairs in my excitement. In my defence one had pawprints and another had neon drawings and writing all over them and they were 20% off. Not ideal I know but it’s done so I will just treasure them and make them last and not just give up in my attempt to do better.

How we fuel is another cornerstone of the Green Runner philosophy encouraging plant based diets. This is something I have to be careful as having lived with disordered eating most of my life just cutting things out can end up being problematic. My autistic brain likes hard and fast rules and part of me is tempted to rule out all animal products but I know this might cause me difficulties. During my veterinary training I also have empathy for farmers who have more and more pressure to produce more for less money. Again coming at this from a no blame for not being perfect I use vegan products when I can and have meat/fish and dairy occasionally rather than every day. I am lucky that I can afford higher welfare animal based food and would rather eat less of it but support farmers to farm in an ethical way (which in my experience is what farmers want to do) than eat more animal products and go for the cheapest. If I have something that does not meet my aims I try to again let it go and see if there is a way I could do it better next time.

Travelling is probably what I have changed the most. I love the South Downs Way and most Sundays I used to drive to Queen Elizabeth Country Park for my long run. It has been hard to give this up but now for any runs over about 15miles I take the train to Winchester and run on a different part of the South Downs Way. I am getting used to my new routine and am starting to feel at home there. Shorter runs I mainly run from home. I usually try to chose events that I can take the train to that have shuttle services. My last disaster of a run this may not have been the best decision as I ended up in the medical tent at the end as the last 3k took me 90mins. I phoned my long suffering husband at 7am on the Sunday 23hrs after starting and he talked me through the last 3k. My longest ever time for a 100k but the combination of starting new medication 18hrs before the event (would not recommend) and running through torrential rain causing my feet to get soaked. Had I bought clean dry socks? Yes. Did I remember to pack them in my hydration pack in a waterproof bag, Yes. Did I actually think to change them at any point ? No. I got out of the medical tent where they had checked my pulse, blood glucose, blood pressure, temperature and treated me with coke, biscuits and a hot water bottles. Next before changing I went to ask when the next shuttle was. I was told they could take me straight away. It just seemed too overwhelming to try to ask if I could get on the next one so I could change and have some of the breakfast that was provided so I just got in and went to the station. At the station, I must emphasise I did this outside and not next to anyone, I took off my socks to see the damage and put some clean socks on (finally). I feel I should apologise to the other passengers waiting at the station as I had not anticipated the horror of my bleeding blistered feet with my toenails of varying colours and stages of dropping off. I may have put off other people from ever using public transport but I did manage sustainable travel.

The last theme of the Green Runners is How we Speak Out. This I find difficult because I don’t want to preach to anyone. What I thought though is that no-one wants the impacts of climate change so having ways we can change to make doing the things we love have less impact is surely worth feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Finally (because I read an email at 1030pm) I decided last night on the spot to set up a crowdfunding page for the Green Runners. If anyone is able to spare a quid or two towards this it will help them reach more people like me and inspire us to do better.

www.crowdfunder.co.uk/green-runners–run-for-the-planet