Running Through Grief: How to Keep Moving (And When to Stop)

Running through grief, loss, depression, whatever you want to call it, is a tricky thing. It’s one of the most intense cross over points between our physical and mental feelings, and it requires some smart choices.

Over the last few years, a number of you have asked me about this and I decided it was time to dig in a little deeper. First if you’re here I want to say I’m sorry. I don’t know your specific situation, but can keenly feel the days where you both want to run away and feel like you don’t have the ability to move.

Dr Chloe Bedford a HCPC Registered Counselling Psychologist for athletes also provided some tips and feedback to help athletes through these times.

As always before we dive in there is the reminder that while running is therapeutic, it’s not therapy. Please talk to someone to help you navigate this time instead of just trying to escape into the miles.

What Grief Does to the Body

A 2020 study published in Frontiers really helps to highlight that your emotions play a big role in how the body feels.

I’ve talked about the mind body connection with injuries or that weird little niggle during race taper for decades, but what happens during grief is taking all of that to the next level.

What’s extra important is that this isn’t just in the first week or two after a significant loss, this can easily be up to 2 years. It’s the waves of grief, so know what it’s ok if you’re feeling fine one week and struggling the next. Liken it to your running journey which has never been a perfectly linear path, but you keep taking the next step.

Bereavement can trigger:

• chronic low-grade inflammation (leading to fatigue, illness)
• altered immune function
• increased sensitivity to pain
• sleep issues
• elevated risk for depression (general loss of pleasure)

The good news is that physical activity, time with friends (hello your running partners) and fueling can help ease these things. Sometimes being able to focus on your run gives you a reason to take care of yourself.

And yet at the same time all of these things might be why the miles you’re craving feel so hard.

What the Research Shows about Grief and Exercise

A systematic review of 25 studies found that physical activity may benefit several grief outcomes, with depression being the most commonly improved, along with anxiety, stress, guilt, and negative affect.

Of course, the hard part about getting active while you’re sad…you don’t feel like it.

Your legs feel heavy, you don’t have the motivation you did before, so now may not be the time to focus on a big goal, but rather a small goal like keeping a mini habit of moving for 10 minutes.

Activities ranged from yoga, running, walking, to martial arts were noted as beneficial, with physical activity providing a sense of freedom, a way to express emotions, distraction, and escape from grief, while also enhancing social support.

That’s a wide range of movement and I think that’s really important to consider.

Maybe running isn’t what you need right now. Maybe you need the slow, gentle movement of a yin yoga class. This doesn’t make you not a runner or less of a runner, it makes you a human going through a hard time. Running will be there when you feel ready and while you can lose some fitness over the course of months, you won’t lose a ton from a few weeks.

Letting Go of the Guilt for Running

One issue I’ve often heard is we feel guilty for enjoying that moment or others seem to be judging us for “just forgetting” and moving on. But we all know that’s not what’s happening.

Dr Bedford says it so well, “it’s ok to feel joy. That it’s normal to feel guilt, but that the person they lost would almost certainly be happy that they have managed to find some joy from running. Just because you don’t feel sad all the time, doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten them, or everything is ok now. It just means that you are trying to live your life.”

Why We Run Through Grief

Not everyone will understand why you suddenly feel a deep NEED to run. You don’t have to explain it. You have to take care of yourself and if intuitively you know that moving, fresh air and blasting a favorite song is what you need, go.

I wanted the freedom.
I wanted the time to think and not think.
I wanted to sink into the repetitive rhythm of the movement.
I wanted a moment to myself away from the checking in the chaos of other people.

And it felt awful. No surprise, I wasn’t hydrating or fueling or other times I’d needed to travel all day to be with someone. The run wasn’t going to be a euphoric moment, but it was a routine thing that gave me a bit of normalcy.

Everyone handles grief differently and honestly it’s different every time we experience it, so let go of any judgement about what you should or should not be doing. And know that if you choose to move it’s a tool that can help.

How to Do it Smart?

The biggest question you kept asking me was if there’s a right way to do it. And boy is that a runner question.

Type A folks wanting a plan for their grief.

As a coach for 14 years and a human who’s gone through a lot of life since I started running in 2002, I’ll say there is no plan. However, here’s how I often work with athletes:

• Go for a walk instead of a run the first time you feel like moving
• Give your body a chance to tell you how much energy it actually has available
• Give yourself a chance to get outside in the fresh air with no pressure
• Try some run/walk intervals, even if you don’t normally train that way. Your body is highly stressed and you don’t want to make yourself ill by piling on to that stress.
• If you are running, then set reminders to eat and drink throughout the day. Continue caring for your body.
• Know that even if you don’t run at all for weeks, you have not lost all your fitness.

When Does Running Becoming a Bad Coping Mechanism?

According to Dr Bedford, “Exercise can become a maladaptive coping mechanism for anything. If you only have one tool in your tool kit, you end up over using it, and it’s no longer helpful.

Running can easily slip in to something more sinister and obsessive. A feeling that if you don’t run something bad will happen/you’ll lose all your training/you’ll put on weight etc.”

It’s important we touch on this side of things as well. If family is bothering you for needing to run, it could simply be that they don’t understand or it could be that you need to explore if you’ve let it become something more.

All right runners, I hope this helped. I wasn’t entirely sure how to tackle this topic, but you’ve asked on a number of occasions so please leave a comment if you have more questions or need more help.

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