Don't let running take over your life

An article by a self-confessed marathon widow leads to some thoughts on restoring the balance

Me, on a long run across Dartmoor. Photo: Joe Kelly

I was going to write about Grand Slam Track again this week, but I couldn’t quite summon the willpower. Some runners raced each other in Miami at the weekend, it all came down to a sprint finish, a few of them won a $100,000 and then danced around the track celebrating their newfound wealth.

My own running, wasn’t much to write about this week either. Some medium-paced, medium-length runs. I’m trying a challenge to post a picture a day on Instagram throughout May, so I’ve started taking my phone on my runs (something I almost never do normally) and stopping along the way to take pictures. I’ll post a few at the end of this piece, or you can follow along here if you’re on Instagram.

Earlier this week, Marietta sent me a link to an article she had read online that she said had resonated with her, and she thought I might be interested. I opened it up to find the headline: Confessions of the Marathon Widows.

Gulp. That was a good start. The article was by a woman whose husband had taken up long-distance running, and while she applauded and supported him, and appreciated what he got from it, and even admired him for persevering with it, she also resented him for it, since she felt herself excluded from his new passion.

It’s something I’ve long heard about, particularly the “ultra-running widow” - it’s usually expressed like that, though I have also met a least one ultra-running widower. People who feel they have lost their partners to running, who feel that running is a third person in their relationship. As an ultra runner, it’s not a subject I like to look at too closely. But the article was eloquent and measured, and the fact it was sent to me by my own partner, Marietta, was significant, of course.