What I Talk about When I Talk About Running

What am I doing? I talk about running a lot but it’s always just in one-on-one conversations or with a group of friends. Usually my victim(s) will show a split second of interest and off I go, endlessly going on about pretty much anything to do with the sport. Most of my friends know every single detail about the marathon I ran last year. Tonight is different though, there’s a stage, a crowd and a microphone. As usual I'm talking about running but it’s a little bit more organised than my usual ramblings.

Midway through the talk. Thanks to Jason Aspinall for the pic. Pics from all the Ignite talks can be found here https://www.flickr.com/groups/2813093@N20/

I try and listen to the speaker before me but the words seem miles away, I just can't concentrate. I know in a few minutes time it'll be me in that spotlight, up on stage in front of all those people. What the hell have I got myself into?

This is something just a little bit beyond my comfort zone. It’s called Ignite Cardiff. Speakers have five minutes to talk the audience through twenty slides on the subject of their choice. The room in front of me is filled with people, many of whom may well have no interest in running. They are expecting something at least half entertaining over the next few minutes, rather than just an incoherent ramble.

The first slide of my talk

For some reason the paper I’m holding with my talk on it won’t stay still. I’m trying to stop my hands from shaking but I just can’t. Oh god I'm nervous.

I've felt this feeling before but I just can't place where and when. Then it dawns on me, this slightly nauseous, nervous, feeling of dread, the mixture of fear and excitement is exactly what I feel at the beginning of a race. It's what I felt before the start of the marathon, it's what I have felt stood on so many start lines over the last few years.

So what if I treat this talk like a race? Maybe I can use a few of the same tactics I use in a run to help me get through it.

In a way the marathon and the talk were always linked. Even before I had run the marathon I knew I wanted to talk about my experiences and about my M.E, it's the reason I set up this blog. I had been to Ignite a couple of times and thought that the marathon may make a good talk. So once I had finished the I just needed to figure out how to talk about it. The trouble was I didn't know if I could, speaking in front of that many people scared me.

Both the marathon and the talk had been aspirations that seemed almost out of reach but the idea that I might just be able to achieve them kept on niggling away at me. I had completed one of my goals so why could't I now accomplish the other.

Signing up to both had felt very similar. To start with it didn't feel real, I would tell people that I was doing these things but often it felt like I was talking about someone else. Early on I’m pretty sure I was in denial about what I was actually trying to do. It was only when I started training or writing that the reality of what I had signed up for hit home.

I tried to pretend like I was calm and I had a plan I knew would work. If I made it seem like I was confident and that I could achieve what I had set out to do, then hopefully I may actually believe it myself.  Inside though, I was bricking it, unsure if I could achieve my goals and at some points unsure if I still wanted to go through with them. 

At first I think I was in denial this would actually happen!

There was one crucial difference between the marathon and the talk. The marathon date was inflexible, it was written in stone. If I wasn’t ready for it the race would run without me. For the talk I could choose the date, if I missed one event there would be another along in a month or two. It gave the opportunity for doubt to win, it offered me the chance to bail if I wanted. And how I used that chance.

Originally I was going to do the talk soon after the marathon but I decided it was too soon, so bailed once. Two months later I tried again but work suddenly became busy and I was just too shattered to give the talk the time it needed. The truth is I was scared. I could have easily used those two months to start writing.

So third time lucky, this time I was determined not to bail. I had to think of it like the marathon, this time the date had to be set in stone, it was now or never. Either that or I would keep on putting it off, kidding myself that I was going to do it at some point in my life.

So now I had the date I had to put in the training. Night after night I would return home from work, first of all writing what I wanted to say, then constantly editing my initial ramble so I had something that would just about fit the required five minutes and twenty slides. I would constantly read it through, making changes, learning and re-learning the words. Any spare time would be consumed by the talk. Whilst walking or driving I would recite paragraphs, desperately trying to memorise as much as I could. I had a long suffering test audience made up of my wife Bernie and the Cat. In the end I'm sure they knew the talk almost better than me. If I messed up I made sure it wasn’t through lack of preparation.

The cat loved it....honest!

So it's almost time, I just have to repeat the same mind tricks I would on the race start line. I know I've done all I can to hopefully enable me to pull this off, I just now need to believe that I can actually do it. It's only five minutes, just imagine the feeling when I've finished, the relief and that adrenaline rush, I do love a bit of adrenaline. I can't wait to get to the other side, to that finish line.

It's now my turn. Deep breath. Steve the compère says something, I'm not quite sure what but it has my name in it, here we go then. I walk up onto the stage, Christ those lights are bright, bloody hell there’s a lot of people. I guess I had better get started then.

So many people, there was about 450 in total

For those first few seconds I’m so nervous, that bit of paper is still shaking. A few slides in though I have a slight Stars in Their Eyes moment, and start to relax. For those of you who claim never to have watched the Saturday night televisual entertainment extravaganza I had better explain. After making their way through the smoke filled doors, every singer would always start off looking like they were about to face a firing squad. After a few lines though, when for instance, it turned out that Janice from Croydon wasn't completely tone deaf the audience would burst into applause. All those nights spent hogging the karaoke down the pub had paid off and she could do a passable impression of Cher. The relief all round would be obvious.

Ok, so I don't get a huge round of applause but people laugh at a couple of jokes and I manage to time the first couple of slides right, without tripping up over the words too much. I relax and the nerves disappear. Actually I'm quite enjoying this, why does it only have to be five minutes? I'm sure everyone won't mind if I go on a bit longer!

To people’s relief I stick to the five minutes. It has been a bit of a blur but before I know it I’m off the stage, sitting down in the safety of the crowd, I’m done. Bring on the adrenaline rush, and that familiar high that I get from finishing a run. It takes a few minutes to sink in but finally I realise I’ve actually done it.

Relief after I was done, for both me and my wife Bernie.

I will be the first to admit I'm not the most outgoing of people. I haven't got that natural confidence that a lot of others seem to possess. Only a short while ago, I would have given into the doubt, I would have listened to the voices in my head saying there was no way I could talk to that many people. Often just speaking to a few people in a group would make me nervous, I would doubt myself, unsure if what I was saying had any value. Running has changed me, it has given me belief in my own abilities, the confidence to try new things and to challenge myself. The inferiority complex that the M.E gave me is now starting to disappear.

Running has brought me so much more than just the activity itself. It has helped me deal with life in a completely different way. I can use what I have learnt whilst running to help me with new tasks. By treating new challenges like a run and using the tactics I am so familiar with in a race, I can do things I previously didn't think possible.

I've gone on enough, have a watch of my talk below

For those of you who have thought, even for a split second you might like to do a talk like this I would say, just go for it.

Yes it was nerve wracking, stressful and scary but Ed, Steve and the rest of the Ignite Cardiff team were just awesome. At every stage they put me at ease, making me believe that speaking in front of a big audience would be not just something I (and anyone else) could do, but something I would actually love to do. I can’t thank them enough. It's been an amazing experience. If you want to sign up or just fancy going along to watch others talk about their passions then have a look at the website.

http://ignite.wales

Also thanks to Murakami for the blog title!