Nature Over Numbers: The Wild Heart of Training

This past week was an exercise in mundane, but essential logistics.  A marriage is a team like no other and with my wife traveling to Strasbourg for work, I stepped into the role of solo fatherhood, navigating the daily machinery of managing two teenagers.  School drops, endless rounds of laundry, dinners and the evening shuttle runs to Taekwondo and basketball clubs quickly consume the open spaces in a calendar.   All of this, mind you, balanced against a full-time demanding role at McLaren.

Then came the heatwave that had the UK wilting.  It brought with it the silent, exhausting burden of just moving, but for me, also the chore of keeping the allotment alive.  Three hundred litres of water a day, hauled twenty litres at a time from the communal tank down the path to my vegetable beds, to save the plants that were seeds planted so long ago in hope.  It was a sweltering, heavy, repetitive, unglamorous labour.

By the time my wife returned in the early hours of Saturday - her journey delayed by a European rail network buckling under the suffocating heat - my tank and hers had emptied.

The Sacrifice

Saturday was supposed to be spent at Thruxton Racetrack for a supercar event.  A reward, of sorts and I had the planned picnic all in hand, but looking at the exhaustion in our house (both adults and kids) and the heavy air outside, we made the quiet choice to sacrifice the cost of the tickets.  We chose instead to focus on getting back to business as usual: more laundry, grocery shopping, meal prepping and steadying the ship for the week ahead.

Sadly, not every weekend can be a glamourous adventure.  If I am honest, I find the contrast of this essentially mundane weekend gives those true adventure weekends the shine.  But amidst this relentless routine, there is also a shadow looming in September that demands a little respect.  I have signed up for the SBR event - a combination of a 6km stand-up paddleboard across Ullswater, transitioning to a 30km mountain bike ride traversing Askham Fell and skirting the limestone ridges beneath Heughscar Hill, finishing with a 10km trail run over Arthur’s Pike.  I know the Lake District well enough to know that survival requires training.  No excuses.

However, I am also conflicted with the primary obligation of family.  Having allowed Saturday to be consumed by basic tasks, I did not want to steal Sunday away from my family for the sake if a training day.  It had been a fragmented week.  We needed some time together to reset for the repeat of another week, so I set my alarm for 6:00am to capture the dead time.  By 7:30am I was slipping my board into the quiet waters of the Basingstoke canal and for the next hour and a half, I had my head down.  

Time to find Flow

The first two miles were grueling.  I battled directly into a stubborn headwind from Basingstoke Canal Centre in Mytchett to the stretch of water beyond the Swan public house.  This being about capturing time rather than distance, I turned back at 45 mins.  I was home by 9:30am, ready to join the day’s family requirements.

But my thoughts had started rolling during that 4 mile out and back and a truth began to shine. 

Numbers of Numbness

When preparing for an event like the SBR, the modern world commands us to look at the mechanics.  We lean heavily on apps like Strava.  We obsess over personal records, tracking our progression in rigid columns of time, pace, and distance.  But when I strip away the digital noise, there is a distinct hollowness to pure data.  If training were solely about statistics, I doubt it would hold its grip on me.  Perhaps that is precisely why so many who focus entirely on the numbers eventually burn out and abandon their programs.

The upcoming race and the desire to perform well were the triggers that forced me out of bed, yes.  But as I paddled, I realized statistics were not what lures me to the water's edge, nor what calls me out onto the trails on a bike or by foot.

As I moved along the canal, I looked down.  Deep within the crystal-clear depths, I saw the fat, torpedo silhouettes of common carp.  I spotted the bold green and black tiger stripes of perch, the sudden flash of a roach’s red belly and the leopard-patterned black-on-green of a sleek jack pike.  From a small recess in the canal wall, the tips of a crayfish's claws jutted out into the current.  On the banks, wagtails bobbed and an electric blue flash betrayed a kingfisher cutting through the morning air.  I navigated through steady patrols of coot, mallard, and the intimidating, regal presence of a resident pair of swans with signet in tow.

I understood then that numbers don't summon me; it is nature.  And the greater our knowledge of the arena we play in, the more deeply connected and eager we are to enter it.

I have been a fisherman from the age of five, so to me, the world beneath the surface is not just water; it is rich, varied, and alive.  Having the specific names of creatures’ spring to mind as I pass them immerses me entirely into a quiet citadel of early morning life and balance.

This isn't a new phenomenon, though I often forget it.  Memory has a way of branding "Type 2 fun" into our consciousness.  During a gruelling Skyrace, after accepting the bitter reality that I had to run the race entirely alone, I was climbing the steep trail up Sour Milk Gill.  Suddenly, a tiny red weasel stepped out of the brush and stared directly at me.  It was the first and only weasel I have ever seen in the wild, but I recognized him instantly because, as a boy, my nose was constantly buried in books about wildlife.

I remember training runs on the heath behind my house, preparing for an off-road half ironman in the Lake District, where the morning mist lifted to reveal deer in the shrubs.  For a fleeting, breathless moment, I ran with them as they fled, feeling as though I were part of the herd.  I remember another morning in the Forest of Dean, running toward what I thought were deer in the fog gain, only to get close enough to realize I was staring down a family of wild boar and their piglets.  I turned left as soon as reality dawned on me, barreling down a tangled bank deeper into the mist and woods for safety.  That moment was followed by an hour of being blissfully lost as I wandered and chuckled like a loon.

None of those moments can be logged on a spreadsheet, but they will never be forgotten.  Likewise, do I remember the statistics of either of those runs that were logged in my fitness charts?  No, not a scrap.

Speak the Names and be Known

So, I offer this insight into my own fuel for perseverance and challenge you this week is to look beyond the distance and the elevation maps of your goals.  Start building a localized wisdom of the terrain you move through.  Do not just study the inclines; learn the habitat and its inhabitants.

Do look at your watch now and then to keep yourself honest but look more frequently for the eyes watching you from the brush.  Learn the names of the trees through which you glide and the name of the birds that sing to your passing.

Build this vocabulary of the wild and I promise you that no run, ride, swim, or paddle will ever vanish into the forgotten pool of sterile digital statistics.  Do this and you may find yourself returning to the wild more often, lighter in heart, and infinitely healthier for it.

And if you care to, let me know what you find when you try.

Bones