The Runner’s PTSD

I wonder if runners suffer from PTSD. Do we carry the trauma and fear of our last run with us? Do the events of our past races remain with us like a scar we can no longer get rid of?

Well if PTSD is a thing that you think you have  then I must confess that I think I am going through one.

All the muscle pulls, tightness, the inability to run cause you went too fast to begin with, all the dehydration and the low blood sugar level cause you decided to eat and try to sleep way to early. 

Then not forgetting the time when you literally fell a sleep on your feet, like only you can do, while running an ultra, all because it started way too early and you didn’t get your prerequisite amount of sleep. 

Well you didn’t really sleep on your feet but you did spend a good part of an hour dozing  on your feet trying hard not to sleep.

So now, as you stand on the cusp of yet another marathon, you still have these doubts and questions playing with your mind, tinkering with your head. And even though you’ve prepared well for it, you still have your doubts, your fears of going too fast, getting muscle pulls and catches, of hobbling and having to walk for most of the way, or worst still having to DNF.

You question your sanity of putting yourself through it all again, but still here you are almost embarking in yet another full. You know it that PTSD or no you’ve got  this and you can do this, cause no matter what happened in the past, all your fears need to be conquered, all the past needs to put behind cause that’s how you will be able to to move forward and be better than yourbest. That way you’ll be able to over come your running PTSD.