The Moray Marathon
The Backstory Strava Data Doesn’t Tell
The London and Boston Marathons are just days away. If you are signed up to run one of these iconic races, then this week’s post is for you, while you enjoy the madness of your taper.
But even if you aren’t lacing up for a marathon, the sudden challenges I faced in the lead-up to my recent race might help you navigate the crises that inevitably emerge in life. This is about how to make it both to the start line and the finish line of whatever you are facing right now.
If you look at my Strava feed from Easter Sunday, you will see a clean set of data telling a very objective story.
You will see a neat line tracing a 26.2-mile loop along the beautiful Moray coast, winding through Lossiemouth, Hopeman, and Burghead. You will see an average pace of 11:02 per mile, a steady heart rate of 160 bpm, and an elevation profile that looks like a manageable saw-tooth.
To the outside world, the Strava algorithm tells the story of a standard, solid marathon effort, complete with a predictable drop in pace as I hit both the wall and the wind from mile 19 onwards. It looks like a straightforward physical achievement. Clean, measured, and rather predictable.
But Strava only starts recording when you cross the start line. It doesn’t track the invisible backpack of stress you are wearing before you even take your first stride.
The Messy Reality
Here is the backstory the data doesn’t tell.
Strava doesn’t record the days and final hours leading up to the starting gun. It doesn’t track the sudden hospital visit away from home, the six hours in Caithness General, or the sheer anxiety of my wife breaking her leg just two days before the race. It doesn’t measure the sudden shift into becoming a carer for both her and my mum, all while keeping the plates spinning with two teenagers in the house and juggling my four jobs.
By the time I laced up my running shoes on Easter Sunday morning, my physical and emotional battery was already flashing red. The thought of running a marathon felt entirely overwhelming. In the last week, I had also experienced ‘phantom running pains’ with a strain in my thigh and hip, which I had convinced myself was a game-stopper.
And then, as if the universe decided to test me just a little more, Storm Dave rolled in.
Battling the Elements (and the Mind)
The Strava data notes the temperature was a mild 12°C, but it doesn’t capture the howling winds and the horizontal hail of a named storm battering the route, making the final 8 miles feel like sub-zero temperatures. This is the first Spring marathon I have finished in three tops, hat, gloves and arm warmers.
When you are out there in the elements, running into the wind and lashing rain with heavy legs and a heavier mind, physical training isn’t enough to keep you moving. The physical grit gets you to the halfway mark (which, by the way, in a marathon is at mile 20, not 13.1 miles); the mental grit has to carry you the rest of the way.
As I pushed through the final miles, battered by strong westerly winds from Storm Dave and exhausted from the chaos of the preceding days, I realised that the true test wasn’t the marathon itself. The marathon was just the physical manifestation of the mental endurance required to navigate that entire week.
The True Metric: The “Why”
If there is one thing recent weeks have taught me, it is that you can never predict the challenges life will throw at you, or when they will arrive. Just two days after completing the Moray Marathon, my mum was admitted to hospital, and another 10-hour hospital day began, this time in Inverness. Mum is better and back home, by the way, for folks wondering.
Whether you are a founder facing a crisis in your business, or simply someone needing to navigate an unexpected family emergency, your first thought when the chaos hits is almost always: “I can’t cope with this right now.” The weight feels entirely too heavy. The circumstances seem impossible.
But here is the truth: when the time comes, you can, and will, find the grit, resilience, and sheer determination to get through. You are capable of carrying far more than you think. I lived through this on the Moray Marathon, but I have also seen it repeatedly throughout my career in older adults’ mental health care. When the pressure is on, people find an extra gear they didn’t know they had.
The caveat? You have to be absolutely clear on why you are doing it.
Stepping Up to Your Own Start Line
If you are navigating a storm of your own this week, I encourage you to pause and find your anchor with these three steps.
Acknowledge your invisible backpack: Stop comparing your messy reality to everyone else’s clean “Strava data.” Give yourself grace for the hidden weight that many folks don’t know you are carrying.
Accept where the halfway mark is: The physical work is only the beginning; prepare your mind for the mental grit required when the wind hits.
Start with your ‘Why’: Every great story, and every monumental effort, has to start with why.
What was my ‘why?’ I planned that marathon because I wanted to be happier, fitter, and healthier. In running it, I also wanted to prove to myself that I could still be the anchor for my family, even when the winds were howling, and hospital visits landed on my doorstep. When your ‘why’ is strong enough, you can weather almost any storm.
Strava will tell you my average pace. But it will never show you the “why.”
What invisible load are you carrying this week, and more importantly, what is the why that keeps you moving forward? Let me know in the comments below.
Until next week, keep putting one foot in front of the other, whatever the weather.
Run on friends.
Neil
Dig Deeper into Why: If this week’s dispatch resonated with you, you might also enjoy these earlier essays:
Find Your Finish Line: Read more of my life lessons from the marathon.
Over 30 Reasons to Run: If you are struggling to pinpoint your own “why” for lacing up your shoes, here is a little inspiration to get you out the door.
Always appreciate your advice. I think my takeaway from last week was to do squats while brushing my teeth and this week it will be to always consider my why. Thanks for another good post and congrats on completing your marathon!