How To Continue Your Training When You’ve Had A Setback

Recently my whole life turned on it’s head. I lost my Father. We were very close and it’s been incredibly difficult to deal with, especially as it came so suddenly and out of the blue. I thought I’d write about how it affected my life afterwards, particularly in relation to where it left my own personal goals and what I did to help me return towards achieving them.

Dealing with the grief, as well as the admin and trying to be comforting and strong to my family around me was beyond a difficult balance. Yet despite this, I actually still had an overwhelming feeling of wanting to train and continue to better myself as I reach for the goals that I’d set earlier in the year.

There is a no right or wrong way to mourn the loss of somebody close to you. No specific amount of time to cease your usual activities before it’s acceptable to re-commence them. My desire was to keep on running and not lose the progress I’d been making throughout the year. So I continued to do just that.

My Father definitely made me a competitive person. Growing up, it was all about Karate. Come rain or shine, cold or stiflingly hot weather, he’d ensure I turned up to classes, 4, 5 or sometimes even 6 times a week. Some would say he pushed me too hard and sometimes it felt that way, but it allowed me to achieve great things in the sport. In fact, I achieved my black belt at 10, my second dan at 12 and was called up to the British Karate Squad at 13. My Dad couldn’t have been prouder of me during this period.

For this I will always be grateful for his desire to want me to succeed. It’s for this reason I believe I carried on my running and hope to go into 2025 breaking some personal bests in his name.

There are other coping mechanisms that also helped during this indescribably difficult period of my life that I want to share with you.

Before I could even contemplate restarting my running journey I spoke to someone about how I was truly feeling. Not just one person in fact, but quite a few. Some were other family members, some were work colleagues and even a councillor. They all helped and listened to me, free from judgement. These were people that had shared in my grief, as well as those that didn’t really know me. Talking helped me to mentally come to terms with my current feelings and allowed me some mental space to move forwards.

I also had a lot of time on my hands. Time to reflect and decide on what my next move would be. Losing someone you love you so much really makes you think hard about what you want out of life and what your goals are and what they mean to you. I’d strongly encourage others to also revisit this and how knowing what your goals are allows you to not waste even a second of your time moving forwards.

Another practice I engaged with was Mindfulness, and specifically Meditation. I had many thoughts go through my head constantly (and still do) but allowing my mind to rest and relax whilst I thought of nothing and counted my breaths, seriously helped me to sleep better, and better sleep helps your physical health.

Even just wearing the right tracksuits and running trainers whilst out running made me feel comfortable and better about myself. I needed my runs to go smoothly and without any injury issues as I knew that even one minor set-back would have been enough for me to give up in the short-term. Instead it kept me going and I know this is what my Dad would have wanted.

I hope this blog post has helped anyone going through grief with some solutions.

Do not feel any guilt for wanting to continue to pursue your goals, dreams and ambitions. They are yours and you should be proud of them because they make you who you are. Do what you can and when you can, and apologise to nobody if it doesn’t suit their agenda of what you should be doing whilst in mourning.

I made my Dad proud. He’d tell me that all the time and for that I am forever grateful.
 

Adam Warren