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Alex Staniforth

Alex Staniforth

Adversity Adventurer, Motivational Resilience Speaker, Author and Mental Health Activist

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Losing My Religion: How to Re-define Yourself

You are here: Home / Motivation / Losing My Religion: How to Re-define Yourself

July 15, 2022 by AdversityAdventurer 3 Comments

Most of us define ourselves by something. Whether that’s our job, family, hometown, or sport. Being in a box feels significant. It’s a human need to belong and fit in.

For at least 14 years and more than half of my life, I’ve been defined by the outdoors and endurance challenges. Running in particular is much more than a hobby – it’s a way of life. It gives a sense of purpose, achievement and expression by setting goals that challenge my limitations. It’s the vehicle to my work and charity fundraising. These challenges are what make life meaningful.

But what happens when these things are suddenly taken away?

I had quite literally been running away from Covid for 2 years until it finally caught me in April, two days after running the Lakes, Meres and Waters – a 106-mile route around the Lake District. Unsurprisingly, this double whammy gave my immune system more than it bargained for, but I’m lucky it came afterwards at least.

Finishing the Lakes, Meres & Waters. Little did I know this would be my last long run for a while… (Photo Andy Milton)

After 12 days of testing positive, + an extra week of rest, I followed Doctor’s orders and carefully eased myself back in to running. Sadly it was never going to be that straightforward. Since then I’ve been grappling with under-recovery and post-viral fatigue, and what I can only describe as a rollercoaster, both physically and mentally. Every attempt to start running or cycling again, even a gentle 15-minute jog, would trigger a relapse of symptoms usually a day or two later. In no particular order or pattern, these included a runny nose, headaches, chest pains, brain fog, sore throat, congestion, muscle/joint pain, palpitations and dizziness. At least now I had a genuine excuse for forgetting things…

Clearly the process needed more time, and this uncertainty was the hard part. I had always listened to my body and was intimately tuned in to its capabilities, knowing when I could call a favour, like running 50 miles on a strained tendon; and when to pull back. But this time I had no control over the process, and could only watch on in frustration as week by week, my race calendar fell apart faster than a Tory cabinet. This summer I had devised probably my daftest running challenge and fundraiser to date, which is now on hold and more likely to be replaced by Couch to 5k instead.

Of course, I know it could be much worse. I’m grateful it hasn’t severely impacted my daily life yet, like many others have. As a motivational speaker I’m obligated to keep positive (whilst still being human). Keeping perspective is important, but we only know our own baseline. If you’ve never had to live in a shanty town without access to clean water and healthcare, then you could consider yourself fortunate, and it’s tragic that we still live in such a world, but that doesn’t make our own challenges irrelevant.

After considering myself recovered from depression and bulimia for over 2 years, I found myself tip-toeing on the edge of a total relapse and crisis point. Relying on just one tool for maintaining my health and well-being had put all my eggs in the proverbial basket. Clearly, I had been running away from a lot of other things too. Staying resilient requires more than one tool in the bag otherwise it leaves us vulnerable when we inevitably drop one from time to time.

Removing the outdoors from my life, even for a short while, was like lifting up a bag of crisps and shaking out the crumbs of an existential crisis.

Is our self-worth and identity really defined by our marathon PB or weekly mileage?

Are we little more than numbers and medals?

Are we defined only by what others think of us?

Finding a new raison d’etre doesn’t happen overnight. It’s an uncomfortable and painful process of self-discovery, but perhaps the challenge is learning to sit with the void, rather than trying to drown the cries in the noise of our busy modern lives.

Here’s a few things I’ve learnt so far:

1) Accepting change.

The more we resist and fight something, the bigger it becomes. For weeks and months I denied that I might become a Covid long-hauler, as a triple-jabbed 27 year old. The more we worry about things outside of our circle of control, the more powerless we become. I’m not religious – unless you count worshipping the mountain gods – but I do believe that our schedules and race calendars have no meaning other than that we attach to them. Something bigger has the final say. Only when we learn to accept our situation and the lesson buried within, can we start to move forwards.

2) We’re only as good as the team around us.

I wrote down in my diary early on that I can’t necessarily speed up my recovery process, but I can definitely make it longer. I can’t afford to second-guess anything. From the outset I’m lucky to have professional support from sports & exercise consultant Dr Rebecca Robinson, and my coach Sophie Mullins. The difficult part is that post-viral fatigue/long Covid/whatever-yer-call-it: is still an emerging and unknown condition and there are no definite answers or timescales. But having the best available advice and emotional venting ground has been priceless.

3) Look for the opportunities.

Experience tells me there’s always a silver lining, even if we can’t find it at the time. I have normally come back from injuries as a smarter and more cautious athlete. I’ve recently learnt to recover as hard as I would train, and hadn’t realised how unsustainable my life routine was, regardless of what I’d always done. Stress is stress, and the body doesn’t know the difference between travel, training or work. I’ve had to confront my fear of blood tests (almost) and inevitably, any athlete with serious ambition is going to get injuries and setbacks from time to time. Maybe I’ve just been lucky so far, but at least next time round I’ll have the reassurance and extra tools to get through it (hopefully).

Every setback also brings an opportunity to do new things and think differently. So, on that note…

I’ve set myself probably my easiest challenge so far – going for an open water swim every day for the next 30 days.

In a heatwave, you say? Well, sometimes the challenge is finding something that meets us where we are. Despite being a PADI Open Water diver, being in open water totally freaks me out, and I absolutely HATE the cold. It only takes a leaf/Unidentified Floating Object to send me into a flapping panic. And let’s not mention Swans…

Open water seems to be one of few things that doesn’t aggravate my symptoms (as I write this with shooting pains down my arms and forehead) and has kept my mental health afloat when everything has felt like a sinking ship. It’s also a great opportunity to catch up with friends, meet new ones, and explore new places that I wouldn’t have time for when pursuing running goals.

And if we can raise £40 per swim for Mind Over Mountains in the process, that would fund 30 bursary places on day walks for people to access time in nature alongside professional mental health support. We can turn a negative situation into something positive.

Afterwards I’ll write another blog about what I’ve learnt from the process of 30 daily dips and how many Swans I’ve fought off in one hand. For now, what I’ve learnt is that we cannot be defined by one sport, race position or number alone. Our identity is only a story we tell ourselves. We are always evolving and can write a new chapter at any point.

We aren’t defined by what happens to us; but we are defined by how we respond.

—

Want to support the daily dips? Please donate what you can here: www.justgiving.com/30dipsin30days

Devoke Water. Day 1/30

Category iconMental Health,  Motivation,  Ultra Running Tag iconidentity crisis,  redefining myself,  rediscovering yourself,  self discovery

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Joy says

    July 15, 2022 at 8:41 pm

    Good luck Alex! ?

    Reply
  2. David Mangnall says

    July 23, 2022 at 1:24 pm

    I have recently(ish) lost/losing both my faith and religion. This is, for me, a fundamental, core to me, my family and friendship group. What do you suggest?

    Reply
    • Alex says

      July 28, 2022 at 11:25 am

      Really sorry to hear this David, it can be a very unsettling process. Not sure I have all the answers but please feel free to email me alex@alexstaniforth.com if a chat might be helpful. Best wishes.

      Reply

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Climbing mountains and the mind.
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🌎 The Lake District #GetOutside
Athlete @inov_8 @ordnancesurvey @ellisbrigham

Alex Staniforth - Adventurer
Back where it all began. Running with my old man! Back where it all began. Running with my old man!

Last March I got my Parkrun PB at Keswick and this weekend got my slowest at Fell Foot.

The plan was to keep my heart rate under 145bpm to avoid another crash of fatigue, which meant walking most of the hills. It took the discipline of Yoda not to set off chasing people like the good old days, especially when my dad overtook me in the first km. 

I hated exercise as a kid. On holiday in France my stepmum bribed me with €2 to run a mile with him. That was a lot of money back then... I hated every minute but dad inspired me to enter a 10km race for charity, and the rest is history. Dad came to watch every race since, as I happily claimed the family record at every distance from 5km to marathon, whilst he retired to become a Parkrun tourist. 

Never thought he'd beat me again, but never forget where you started.
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Much-needed adventure inspiration from @mrmarkbeau Much-needed adventure inspiration from @mrmarkbeaumont on his Faster tour at Rheged last weekend. 

Mark is the fastest person to cycle around the world in 80 days (that's 240 miles a day... for perspective) amongst many other records. He's been a huge personal inspiration and kindly endorsed my 2nd book.

So much resonated, but a few favourite takeaways: 

- Trust the process, the bigger picture will always take care of itself. 

- Remove the faff. His team had to ensure he was on the bike by 4am, not 4:05am. That would have added an entire day to his record.

- Mark had 40 people working on his world record. He knew that if he failed, the whole team failed. 

- Good times won't last forever, but that means the bad ones won't either... 

Thanks Mark. Grab his books, talks and films if you're needing some adventure inspiration! 

#faster #worldcycle #ultracycling #markbeaumont #inspiration #80days #mindset #cyclingheroes #rheged #ultracyclist 
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Somehow it's taken 12 years, 8 months and 25 days since my first summit, Souther Fell, aged 14 (swipe for evidence). For those who don't know, the Wainwrights are a list of 214 summits created by legendary writer Alfred Wainwright. There was no better hill to finish than the aptly named 'Great Cockup', with a great crowd of friends.

The record is 5 days 12 hrs 14 mins... If only we hadn't stopped for a sandwich 😂 

Meanwhile @thehodfather666 is currently climbing all 214 with a 4 stone hod of house bricks, to raise money for @mindomountains.

However fast you go, there's something strangely addictive about this collection of fells. It's been a fun project to explore the Lakes and maybe one day I'll start again to see how fast I can get around... 

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A big welcome to the first CEO of @mindomountains, A big welcome to the first CEO of @mindomountains, Ian Sansbury! 

When Chris and I founded the charity in 2020 we never imagined how big it would become. From the flagship event with @adventureuncovered to delivering 27 events last year, supporting 300+ people with their mental health, including the NHS, Police and Ambulance Service.

Leadership is about creating a vision, and building a great team to achieve it - like our wonderful trustees, team and 50+ freelance staff who continually go above and beyond. 

It’s also knowing your strengths and weaknesses, when ironically it's compromised my own mental health sometimes too. As the charity grows I'm not the right person to take it where it needs to be, so it can reach everyone who needs our help.

Feeling like a proud parent sending their kids off to start school, with less crying, but I'm super excited to see the charity grow and support even more people with Ian’s expertise. 

I’ll remain heavily involved as a trustee (and Chief Interference Officer) to support the team, tell the story and raise money through daft adventures… 

Thanks to everyone who's been part of the first chapter. Onwards!

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