Panicking on the Trail

We’re away from home this week, taking a few days away from work and home at the end of the summer holiday season. We’re staying somewhere we found that isn’t ideal for running. We are way up a hillside and there are slopes everywhere.

While I got a nice slow hill session in on road yesterday, I have been eyeing a trail run on the map that is just out of the back of the apartment complex. It looks like tricky terrain, mostly at the start but then with a long smooth downhill on dirt tracks and a loop back to the start on the same road I did my hill session yesterday – 6.5km total.

And, Ok I admit it, yesterday’s hill session was me checking out the final section of this route to get a sense of what the back end of this longer run would be. Forward planning to beat the nerves! it checked out ok.

Setting out

I set out at about 8am, a little tired, no coffee but determined to do this, because if I don’t do this it will feel like chickening out, giving in to the fear and I want to keep pushing that fear as far out at possible.

So I started out walking, actually totally happy to walk all the difficult terrain in the first 2-3km. It was about 180m ascent in total, not much but around a rock ridge with steep drop offs, so a big change from my usual road routes. Talk about taking a jump up.

I am pretty fit now and recent hill training meant that the ascents were easy enough walking, my HR staying in Z1/Z2 easily and I set of pretty strong and confident.

The views were amazing, the air fresh and it felt great. I had music on, Moby to stay chilled out and was picking away at the route.

Turns for the worse

After taking a few wrong turns and losing the path a little, things started to change, before I go into detail and start to analyse this, let me jump to the end. I hit a rising panic about half way through this difficult ridge, elevated HR, jelly legs and about to lose it completely.

I turned back at that point and walked back to the start, did I regret that later? yes. Was it a failure? No. I’m happy with that conclusion although I wished I has stuck it out.

Walking back felt amazing. In fact as soon as I had decided to walk back, within 20 steps I felt fine again, knowing that I could easily retrace my route. Unbelievable huh? 100% panic disorder in action, just the act of accepting that I would not continue turned down the anxiety and physical symptoms just like that. If only I could capture that in the moment, deal with it and not have to turn back - that’s the goal maybe.

So what brought on the panic - analysis time

Hindsight time: there wasn’t one thing but a gradual build up of anxiety and the voice of doubt getting a stronger foothold as I went. this is pretty typical, some specific triggers though:

• The terrain was definitely harder going that I expected and there was no clear path. That mean 2 wrong turns and some back tracking, which made me a little more nervous.
• HR preoccupation. I was checking in on my HR a couple of times early on. It was great I was ascending walking and firmly in Zone 1 an low Zone 2. It was easy going but then the HR feedback turned into a crutch. I kept looking at it more and more frequently until I was obsessing about it. At that point if it was slightly raised I got more anxious.
• I don’t think I was 100% to begin with, I was tired and maybe should have skipped anyways.
• It took me about 25 mins to cover the initial ascent and 1.25km lateral distance. Way slower than I expected meaning the total outing would be longer than I had planned, I had things to do that morning and didn’t want a longer session. That started to stress me out and make me want to hurry.
• Once i started to get anxious the rolling thoughts kicked in - familiar ones, which got amplified as I went. Agoraphobia.
  • I’m out here all alone
  • I’m far from help
  • What if something happens
  • I could have a heart attack right here and no-one could help
• I didn’t grounding myself - I mean I didn’t check my map once, actually I definitely remember thinking that I would check the map when I got back, but why didn’t I check in on my actual progress? It’s like i was somehow frightened to. (If only I had at the point of turning back, I would have seen that finished the hardest stretch and less climb and better paths were just ahead!)

To try next time

So next time I need to try and deal with some of these things, some ideas:

• Turn the HR off, do it by feel this one might be challenging! but If I chose a watch screen with no HR and a program with no alerts this is doable.
• Check in on the map - definitely and Wikiloc is great for this, it has better maps
• Take it slower - Just think of it as a hike with some running rather than a trail run, at least until It’s a familiar route
• Make sure I’m, 100% and if not do something else

So these are all good ideas but two things that I think could be very challenging for me to do but I’m really interested in as they seem more like being in control of things, are:

• Meditation. Is it possible for me to stop, and actually just take a couple of minutes while out there to meditate, cold I actually calm my symptoms without turning up the panic? Sometimes when I stop it feels like I might panic more, movement sometimes helps especially backwards movement! but If I could practice stopping and calming myself then could I use that? I think to try this I need to find some wild(ish) hikes I can do where I’m just focussed on this fear of being out there.
• Mantra. Could repeating a mantra help? something like saying to myself just get to the next turn then see. A bit like fartlek for anxiety, the goal isn;t the whole 7 km loop, the goal is just the next corner and thats all that we think about? again tricky to do, but maybe worth a try

To next time

This post was a bit of a post mortem for me but useful to look at this experience with hindsight. I hope from understanding all this better that I can find new ways forward, if you’ve encountered anything like this I hope this helps you too.