Interview With Fiona Bugler

Fiona is director of her own company, The Running Ed – Content & Communications which provides journalism for brands; on line and off line content, and integrated communication via digital platforms.

Fiona’s work has always reflected her passions for running, writing and creating…

I asked Fiona to reveal herself, her motivations, her beliefs, how she sees herself and how she perceives others see her; and how all of this; Fiona in motion, is communicated through her running….

And so here she shares with us her personal insights into herself and her running and the steps she is taking to deepen and improve her running experiences.

She also gives us the benefit of lessons learned on her running journey and shares with us her life philosophies and how they are reflected through her running. She invites us to learn with her, through her triumphs, her disappointments and her on going commitment to her running path…

“I’ve always been sporty, even when I as a twenty-something, smoking London girl. I ran my first marathon in 2002 in 4.09 in the London Marathon, and ten years later I ran 3.09 in the Berlin Marathon – and have run 18 marathons to date, including five in under three hours and 15 minutes – as well as ultra marathons, such as the Himalayan 100.

“I’m energetic, curious, brave and occasionally stupid – and humour plays a big part in my life. I have a no limits mind-set and am open to new ideas and challenges. I think my friends and other people would describe me as funny, creative, interesting, generous, fun loving, full of life, energetic – oh and a good runner and writer. They might also say I am unpredictable or predictably unpredictable. And my kids – to them I’m a mum who loves them a lot. As for fellow competitors they may say I am competitive, determined and never satisfied…

“I believe in living with passion and I value tolerance, justice, honesty and open mindedness. A philosophy I don’t always live out, but one I do believe, is that I should be conscious at all times… And, as you (Julia!) often say… ‘Be what you want the world to be’… Be the thing you desire now… Life is short.

“I’ve run a few good races when I have felt in the zone. Most recent was at Paddock Wood in March 2014. I felt like I was being pulled rather than pushing. I felt relaxed and confident I had inner resources and an abundance of endurance – it was as if there was a pot of it and I had lots in reserve. And in Berlin, which was my best achievement to date, I had a perfect race, even 5k splits, in the zone and no feeling of stress or pressure.

“Brought up a Catholic, prayer has always been a part of my life and I’ll find myself saying the Our Father and Hail Mary on the run. I try to tap into a greater source. I repeat mantras on the move. Stillness and meditation often happen by accident, usually in a race – it’s rare that my mind stops, but I’m working on this with yoga.

“When things aren’t going to plan in the race, I quickly adapt my thoughts and strategy. I try to keep emotions at bay but have often got angry and used this to help me push on, fuel for the fire! After the race, I think about what I have achieved, what I’ve learnt, and I work on lifting my mood and focussing on the positive. I sometimes cry if I’ve been very angry or frustrated! After that, my tendency is to busy myself with action: write a schedule, enter another race – to do something to prove I’m still someone who can do something. But I’m working on this…

“I know that to really make progress in running, and in my life, I actually need to stop and be still. I need to breathe. I need to be patient. I need to let the anger out. The action that follows might be the same – i.e. I’ll do a plan, but it will be coming from a better place. It’s much better to feel calm and confident that I can do something to change the result rather than panic into action because of a fear of failure, success, or a need to prove myself.

“In the past when I succeed; it is similar to how I respond to failure. Rather than angry I feel ‘fired up’, raring to go, invincible even. I’m driven to take on the next challenge and the next and prove I’m invincible!

“The negative is that it’s driven by fear, a belief that I need to hold on to success or it will go – and this can lead to burn out. I’m working on calmly trusting that success has come from inside me and it will remain there!”

“I believe that my strength is my stamina, my endurance and my bounce-back-ability, not just in running, but life in general and I think my friends/family would say the same. I’m a natural hard worker.

“As for my beliefs. I believe in a higher good/God/other people, and I believe in the goodness of people and in ‘love’ (not romantic, but that’s nice). And I’m sustained by a belief that all I/we need to do to be happy is follow our spiritual/soul path – i.e. a passion – the thing we were put on the planet to do.

“If anything limits me it’s my own lack of belief; a fear that I’m ‘off course’ – and not following the path I was meant to, and a fear I might never do that. And this can lead to me being indecisive. The good side of this is that I’m non-judgemental and tolerant (two things I value). I also like to watch from the outside – again a good thing for a journalist – but this can be limiting too as I might not fully commit to a goal, or life!

“So to work with this… I’m being conscious. It is important for me to remind myself that I’m the one who writes the script and directs the play that is my run, my life etc.

“At this moment in time I’m injured and am about to launch another part of my business, which if I go ahead will involve me taking personal risk. But… none of this has just happened. I know that I set this slightly precarious scene up. I pitched to take the risk, and I ran on a body I knew was ‘compromised’ with neural and biomechanical imbalances.

“To move through this, I need to understand and then release the emotions that result in me not getting what I want, i.e. release any fear.

“Fear can lead to panic, and then to destructive reactions, like running on an injury, or giving too much away, or pushing too hard on the work side of things, so that I go against the flow rather than with it.

“My back is the root of my physical symptoms and I think that the unlocking of this through yoga, stretching and swimming will help to unlock the ‘fear’ inside me too.

The techniques I use to still my mind are for example…

“Yoga breathing, check in to see I’m on course. I like to do a checklist of how I’m feeling and where I’m feeling it (both emotional and physical) and be realistic without having any particular expectation for the outcome.

My immediate goals now are:

“First and foremost to release myself from negative training patterns so that I can run totally freely and fast, and repair my slightly broken body. I’m also keen to compete in triathlon and use the training as cross training. But my main goal for 2015 is to run a PB at the New York Marathon, and in the run up to run a 5K, 10K and half marathon PB.

A typical weeks training for me at the moment…

“I like the routine of regular running and like to train in six-week blocks.

“In the run up to the Malta Half marathon I had run a consistent six weeks with an average of 50 miles per week (which I know is not enough for good running, but okay for ‘maintenance’). But I was hurting a lot, and I was tired a lot. I was too tired to do intervals for instance. And not surprisingly I got injured.

“I’m now reappraising my training. Greg Funnell suggested I heal my body. So for the last 10 days I’ve just done yoga. Next week I’ll introduce swimming and off road running. I think in other month I’ll be ready to start building mileage.

“And so over a running career that has spanned ten years I’ve learnt…

I can achieve what I set out to do, and it’s simply a case of doing it.
There may be more losses than victories.
Discipline works and hard work pays off.
Negative patterns such as pushing too hard, racing too much, and making running stressful won’t get me the results I want.
I love getting prizes!”