What I got wrong after the Great North Run

I ran the Great North Run last year.

I didn’t do a single training run beforehand, and I haven’t done one since.

I got a ballot place, turned up, got round and collected the medal. Then I went straight back to exactly what I was doing before, making me the problem.

63,000 people ran from Newcastle to South Shields on Sunday, the biggest field in the race’s 45 runnings. Zouhair Talbi won the men’s race in 59:47 and Brigid Kosgei took the women’s in 1:06:15.

But most of those 63,000 weren’t racing anybody. They were keeping a promise to someone, or raising money for a cause that matters to them.

Three days on, the legs will have mostly settled down and the medal’s on the kitchen side. And there’s still nothing in the diary.

A team at Loughborough reviewed the evidence on what these events really do for people. They screened over 2,000 papers and included 39 of them.

Somewhere between one in ten and one in five people entering a mass participation event were barely active before they signed up. The event pulled them in, and that’s the good news.

The less good news is what the cohort studies show afterwards. The fitness people build while training tends to fall away over the months that follow.

What held it up over a year wasn’t willpower and it wasn’t another big event. It was something regular and small. parkrun got named specifically.

Most of those studies are short follow-ups and self-reported, and the authors say plainly that we don’t yet know the best way to keep people going afterwards.

But the direction isn’t really in dispute. A finish line is a brilliant start and a terrible plan.

So if you ran on Sunday, don’t book another half marathon. Book something for today.

A quote worth sitting with

“If physical activity were a drug, we would refer to it as a miracle cure.”

— Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, 2015.

Nobody takes a miracle cure once and then leaves the box in a drawer for a year.

The Saturday Standard

Nothing in the Diary

Whatever’s left of the 3 minutes is your rest.

It’s hard because the rest is the only reward and it shrinks as you go.

Four classes a week, starting this week

CommFit is now four times a week rather than two. Monday and Wednesday at 7pm stay as they are, outdoors in Whickham on the field opposite Fellside Primary School.

The two new ones are for people the 7pm doesn’t quite suit. Wednesday 10.30am is CommFit Legends, the same hour outdoors but at a steadier pace, with a longer warm-up and more coaching on each movement. Friday 6am is indoors at Rectory Hall, NE16 4LP, which should make the winter a lot less bleak.

£5 a class, first one free, capped at 16 so I can actually coach you. Everybody scales it to wherever they are.

So if you ran on Sunday, or if you’ve been meaning to start something for months, come to one of them. Booking takes less than two minutes.

And if you or your team ever want a hand with fitness, nutrition or sleep, just email me at hello@stuart-white.co.uk.