EP67: The Mind Gives Up Before the Body | 6 Weeks to Yorkshire & the Fear That's Keeping You Stuck

The kids are back at school, the summer's officially over, and Rich and Andy are back in a room together - figuratively speaking - for the first time in weeks. Yorkshire Marathon is six weeks away. Autumn race season is here. And this week's episode is one of those ones where a conversation about running quietly becomes a conversation about everything else.Rich is six weeks out from Yorkshire with no data, no watch, no Strava, and no idea what time he's going to run. He's also having more fun than he's had in any marathon training block he can remember. There's something in that.Andy is running Yorkshire with his son Johnny - his first marathon - and there's a glass ceiling conversation happening in this episode that's worth the listen alone. Andy's been consistently running 3:33. He wants to go sub-3:30. Five minutes a kilometre, dead on, for 42.2K. He knows he's capable of it. So does Rich. The only thing standing in the way is the bit between his ears.Which leads to the riff. Rich connects the fear of committing to a marathon goal - fear of failure, fear of what people will think, fear of who you'll become - to the fear that stops people committing to an alcohol-free journey. It's the same fear. Different thing, same mechanism. And the people who get through it aren't the ones who feel less afraid. They're the ones who lean into all of it anyway.Also in this episode: comparison as the thief of joy, the member of the group who ran their first marathon in their late 60s and is wondering if the running days are ending, and Andy heading off mid-episode for his 3-year post-cancer treatment all-clear. Which arrived. All clear.