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Faster, stronger, longer. For a longer health span. It’s well-established that exercise can significantly reduce the risk of major diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia. Also, being fitter and more physically healthy leads to improved mental health. I’m 67 years old, and while I was an average athlete at best as a young man, I’m now at the high end of performance and key health metrics for my age group. The message is clear to me. Working hard, being faster and stronger, and training for longer durations works. Especially when attention is paid to nutrition and other lifestyle factors. See here a summary of the benefits of exercise and, conversely, the risks of frailty, disease and mental illnesses when more sedentary lifestyles are enacted.

Follow my blog and social feeds, where you will see the type of exercise and nutritional strategies I use. I’ve been fortunate to have been involved in sports, sports nutrition, and functional foods for thirty years. As a result, I have a good idea of what works and what is BS. I will support the former with scientific evidence and call out the latter.

Please remember that the challenges I set myself are truly challenging for me. I only complete some of them. If I were to hit every target, then I would not be setting the bar high enough. Injury can stop me, or life can get in the way. But I will give them my best shot and document the good, the bad, and the ugly.

FIND ME ON MEDIUM AT: medium.com/@thestephenmoon

Latest Posts
April 21, 2025A Marathon Not A Sprint April has seen me build up my running volume as I think about the startline in New York for the marathon, now six months away. I know many of you are thinking I have more than enough time, and it should be a matter of routine the to get there in shape. That’s the logic, but my body doesn’t subscribe to that thesis. As my sixty-eighth birthday creeps up on me, I find my body to be a complex matrix of slightly dysfunctional and mostly aching parts. So my mantra is slow down for the long run. And my recovery is not what it used to be; a hard running or lifting session can take anything up to three days to recover from. Clearly, if I have to recover for three days, I will never do the training volume needed to attain my desired fitness level. (The desired level being to simply get around the course, whether running or walking or crawling.) That being the case I find myself more often than not training while still hurting from the last session. I’m not doing it mindlessly. I monitor my heart rate variability regularly and that lets me know if I am recovered enough to train or not. It’s very rare that my HRV tells me not to train, and so I put up with the physical discomfort and crack on. I’m a fan of my Kubios HRV, as it converts all my data into a physiological age, and currently it tells me I’m 31 years old, or less than half my biological age. I have no idea if that’s close to being a meaningful reading, but I tell myself, “Not many men of my age are this fit” and I push on. Slow Down, Run Long I had a great exchange with my coach at Coach Parry, as I have for some time struggled to keep up with the training volume and pace. It’s hard for my ageing chassis to run three times and lift twice in a week. I used to be okay with this, but as the length of sessions has increased, I have struggled and this saw me missing more sessions than I would like. The photo on the left shows the struggle. My coaches told me to slow down and focus on the time spent on my feet. They told me to run in the 7:30 minute per kilometre to 8:00 minute per kilometre pace. The macho side of me was resistant to this at first, complaining it was no better than a fast walk. But then I did a few runs at this pace, and all of a sudden I was logging longer runs, with 10 kilometres being a breeze, and more recently me clocking 15 and 16 kilometres. I’m acutely conscious I need to run 42 milometres in November, and therefore I need to triple the distance. But I now feel that with time and consistency, I can build the training distances up. Slow down for the long run. Is Slow Realistic? The pace I am training at equates to a 5 hour 16 minute to 5 hour 38 minute marathon finish time. The Marathon Handbook states that 5 hours 44 minutes is a benchmark for a marathon beginner in the 65-69 age group, with 5 hours 6 minutes being the average finish time for all 65-69 year old marathon runners. So yes, slow is realistic. I would be more than happy to finish the marathon at all. But my real target is 5 hours and 44 minutes. Yes, I aspire to be an average marathon beginner. It’s misogi stuff for me. Can a 68-year-old, 6’5″ and 103 kilogram novice, who has recovered from two stays in intensive care with 27 fractures and head and lung injuries finish a marathon. There is nothing average about that. Yes, slow is realistic. I understand that increasing the distance will make even this slow pace a challenge, and I have to add in race day crowds, bathroom and nutrition breaks, and the like. But if I can build up my distances at this pace patiently over coming months, then I am being realistic. Holding It All Together Slow down for the long run requires my body being able to complete the work. Virtually all runners I speak to accept that injury is inevitable. Remember that running places 2.5 to 3 times bodyweight of stress on feet and knees and hips. During a marathon I will take around 55,000 steps, therefore I create between 14,000 to 16,000 tonnes during a marathon. Before you kindly note that I am not running this distance, I can offer that I am now running the equivalent of a marathon a week. Therefore my joints are absorbing this tonnage. I am feeling it in my moderately arthiritic knees, and my osteopath tells me that oseteoarthiritis may be slowly creeping into my left hip. My knees and hips feel it acutely, and when distance goes above a dozen kilometres, I start to feel a touch of lower back pain as well. I am being treated by the outstanding osteopath Guy Gold, and he has improved matters immensely for me. I can see myself being in Guy’s treatment room a lot between now and November. As well as reducing pain and increasing mobility for me, he is also directing various mobility and foam rolling techniques to be done before and after runs. Again, this is proving to be helpful. 55,000 Steps 55,000 impacts with the pavement per week is a lot, and therefore the quality of my running shoes is important. I tried a number of brands, and eventually settled on my old favourite, the ASICS Kayano. I have worn these for many years, but I thought it wise to try some of the newer brands on the market. None give me the stability and shock absorption of the ASICS. For example, I found the HOKA shoes to great on shock absorption, but they were almost over the top with the thick layers of sole, and this led to my foot rolling slightly. I alternate two pairs of ASICS, and track the kilometres logged on each. I hear this myth that running is a cheap sport, but I know that the recommended maximum distance on a pair of running shoes and the £180 cost of a pair of Kayano 31 shoes means it costs me 60p per mile in shoe wear. Slow down for the long run, and be prepared to invest a tidy sum on the shoes that will take tens of thousands of impacts on the road. Interestingly, as my volume has increased, my feet have spread and become a full size bigger. I now take a UK 15 in ASICS! I’m hoping my feet don’t continue their growth spurt, as size 15 in the outer limit of the size range for virtually all running shoes. Hit The Gym I know that strength training is a critical part of my regime. As an old guy, muscle loss is a daily issue that need addressing. If I don’t hold off the muscle loss, then my joints become more prone to injury, without the support of key muscle tissue around the injury-prone joints. There is no doubt that when thinking, “Slow down for the long run” that it isn’t about the mental image of a skinny runner, it’s about a more rounded athlete with the resilience to get the work done. Two decent sessions in the gym a week do the trick for me. I have to confess that I don’t experience the fabled ‘runner’s high’ – sacrilege to confess to, but I just don’t get it. I am more from the Haruki Murakami school of, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” Running is painful. But I could sit in the gym all day, every day and beat my body up. I get a lifter’s high, but hope to one day experience the running version of it. As well as lifting the weight, I pay attention to getting enough protein in my diet. On a good day I will get 150 grams or even more of protein into my diet. At the very least, I consume 100 grams. I also supplement with 5-6 grams of creatine, to aid with muscle synthesis. Slow Down For The Long Run That’s where I am today. On one hand I am under no illusion that this is true misogi stuff for me, with months of uncomfortable training to come. But on the other, I am driven by the scale of the challenge, the prize of achieving the highly improbable. And, in my customary style, no stone is left unturned when in comes to the breadth of my preparation. I have always gone deep into nerd territory with anything I have wanted to explore in my life, and running is no exception. Hence the coach, the osteopath, the shoes, the nutrition, the lifting, and finally the running. This is truly a marathon and not a sprint. So I will focus on it a week at a time, a day at a time, and a training session at a time. Slow down for the long run. Be thorough, be well informed, and most of all, work hard. [...]
March 30, 2025Rucking – Effective Training I decided to add rucking to the mix a couple of years ago. While recuperating from an accident in mid-2023, I bought a TRX weighted vest and used it to good effect. It’s not perfect; I find the way it sits can slightly constrain my chest. But a few hill reps with it can deliver a quick and effective workout. I used a Built for Athletes rucksack to transport my daily kit to the gym, and it’s robust enough to handle a few weight plates. That’s a nice change up for a workout. The weight sits differently, and while my chest is more open for effective breathing, it tends to cause me to lean forward a little. The big advantage of the rucksack is that I can carry hydration, fuel, and other handy items such as a spare top and the keys to get back into the house on my triumphant return. I’m building up running miles before I get into a hardcore marathon training schedule. But yesterday was a good day to add rucking to the mix. My sisters and brothers from Chaingang Cyclists were looking to cycle up the notorious Swain’s Lane climb in North London. Only 0.9 km long, it stings, given it pitches up to a 20% gradient in parts. My two-wheeled colleagues planned to ascend it 24 times, which is apparently the equivalent of cycling to the top of Everest or some blatant BS. Get The Rucking Reps In Given its proximity to my house, I thought I would join them, adding rucking to the mix in my training week, and do a few ascents. I did the first one, a 0.9 km climb from the base. Then, I focused on the steepest part from the Highgate Cemetery gates to the top for the successive efforts. This smaller section is around 0.4 km but is brutally steep from the start. Karl Marx is buried in the cemetery, and I thought maybe I would join him if my efforts were too much. Before leaving home, I loaded small weight plates from my TRX vest into the backpack. Sometimes prone to being overly analytical, I placed the bag on my Garmin scale and added plates until it was precisely 20 kg. Getting ready to add rucking to the mix, I threw a couple of Science in Sport Beta Fuel gels into the pack and added a bottle with Puresport electrolytes to the side pouch. On with the ASICS Gel Kayanos, add a Garmin HR Pro and Forerunner 965 watch, and out the door. Ruck The Road, Jack It was a beautiful spring morning and a great atmosphere for me to tackle my rucking effort. Around 25 cycling colleagues were climbing Swain’s Lane. As they spread out, I had company on the way up and down. A lot of much-needed encouragement came my way. I reciprocated, given that some of them were having to dig in hard. 18-20% on a bike is no joke. I quickly made my first full-length ascent and then settled into a steady groove of descending to the Highgate Cemetery gates, tapping the gate post, turning, and heading back. I found that leaning slightly forward and touching my hands as though getting ready to pray was a good technique. Coming back down, I was aware that knees can take a lot of stress on inclines, so I struck with my heel first and my bodyweight slightly backwards. All good. Rucking in the mix, and my heart rate is firmly in zone two. I hydrated at the top of each ascent, and halfway in, I hoovered down a whole stick of Beta Fuel chews. They come in handily grooved cubes, but not being one to stand on ceremony, I found that the whole stick easily fit into my big gob with a slight push. Properly fuelled. I wasn’t sure how long I would go for, and at some stage, I decided 10 km was a good target. I’ve recently started to run that distance, so why not ruck that far? Up a steep hill. Perfect logic. At times, my heart rate touched the top of zone two. My quads were starting to burn from around climb six, and I was conscious I was starting to lean into the climb more. I was less vocally encouraging my cycling mates, too. Focus was needed. Around 8 km, another Beta Fuel stick was shoved into my mouth and was needed. On my ninth ascent, I was getting close to my 10 km target, so I turned left at the top and headed back down Highgate West Hill to the start point, with 10 km coming up on my Garmin as I hit the informal finishing point. Rucking In The Mix – Good Workout! Looking at the TrainingPeaks data was a pleasant surprise. My Training Stress Score was 213, the equivalent of a decent bike ride. I scrolled back through my training calendar to find a bike ride where my TSS was at this level. The answer was a 5 hour 16 minute, 127 km loop from home to Windsor and back. I had titled it “Broken. Officially.”, so it wasn’t an easy ride. Two hours up and down Swain’s Lane with a rucking pack delivered the same training effect. The average and maximum heart rates for each activity were virtually identical. Rucking in the mix also gave me a better overall workout, as I could feel my shoulders and abdominals had done some extra work. Summary? I enjoyed the novelty of the workout. Having rucking in the mix gives me new dimensions for my training. It’s a solid combination of cardiovascular and muscular workout—like Hyrox, but without the near-death sensation. Think about putting this somewhere in your training regime. You don’t need an expensive kit—an old backpack and a pair of trainers will do the job. As you can see with my comparison of two workouts, you can get much work done in a fraction of the time of a long bike ride. I enjoyed a social with my cycling and running family after. As a footnote, my Sunday DOMS has revealed parts of my arse and hips I didn’t know existed. That’s always a plus in my book, as it means I’ve tapped into muscle regions that don’t normally get a run out. Give rucking a go. Trust me, it offers many benefits as part of any effective exercise regime. [...]
March 16, 2025Misogi Prep – Digging In It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I’m digging in to the training and preparation for my New York Marathon misogi, 33 weeks from today. It was a slightly dispiriting January, as winter flu dragged on for a month. The diagram on the left illustrates my Chronic Training Load on TrainingPeaks – a proxy for fitness. It has only just crept ahead of where I was 90 days ago. The dip in fitness due to my flu-related downtime stung me. But the good news is my fitness is where it was a year ago, and I was in fine form then, as I got ready for my cycling trip in Girona. Spring is here, and my form is returning, which is motivating. This year, I’m running, rather than cycling, and it brings a new set of challenges. Risk Management When my first marathon comes around, I will be 68. I realise that digging in and getting this done differs from when I was younger. The challenges are threefold. Ageing naturally results in the loss of muscle mass, which creates the potential for injury; therefore, regular strength training is key. Recovery takes longer, and my training plan must allow for enough rest. Indeed, for the first time, I’m starting to plan a deload week once every four weeks. I have osteoarthritis and missing pieces in both knees, which need to be accounted for; there’s no evidence that I will make this worse by running, but it needs some thought. The most significant addition to my preparation is to start seeing an osteopath. Anything I can do to improve my mobility and posture must be a benefit. I’m fortunate to have an award-winning practitioner, Guy Gold, close to where I live and have an hour of treatment weekly. It’s delivering benefits already. I won’t try to BS my way through his expert opinion of my raddled body. But I do hear him talking about very tight quads and hips, and my pelvis being tilted. Given my propensity to fall off bikes this last couple of years, it’s no surprise that he highlights left hip and right knee problems almost undoubtedly related to hard contact with the tarmac. At the time, my medical help dealt with the more acute injuries, and these two problems have surfaced later. At least they are being addressed. Pumping Iron, Shifting Timber I’m hitting a hard session in the gym once a week, focusing on quads, hamstrings, and calves. A second session is less intense but has the same focus. I also do some top-half work and am pleased to be benching more than I have in at least ten years. Overall, this strength work helps, but I know it can add to my training load, and I must be sure not to overtrain. Digging in when in the gym is helping my running, there is no doubt. And it’s fun to get the ego lifts on the bench too. Minor improvements all help in the big picture. While putting on some muscle mass—according to the mirror and the more fact-based opinion of my Garmin scale—I’m also conscious that losing some weight must help me. At 110 kgs, a force between 275 and 330 kgs goes through my raddled hips and knees while running. Therefore, losing some weight has to help ease the strain. My doctor told me to lose 5 kgs last August, and I was 105 kgs at the time, so you can see that advice wasn’t fully embraced. But I’ve been conscious of diet for a few months and am back down to 105 kgs. Who knows, maybe I swagger sylph-like into my medical this year? Schedule Planning I’ve worked with my coach at Coach Parry to cut the work back somewhat. I am currently hitting the road twice a week, and I have substituted the third run (already cut down from four) with a WattBike session. This gives me some good cardiovascular base while saving the pounding of running. Two runs, one Wattbike, one heavy gym session, and one lighter gym session. As important as all of those, two full rest days. The plan has three weeks of increasing load, and then one deload week. I’m monitoring total TSS for the week, and can see my load progressing. But it’s also a safety valve. For example, two of my sessions this week have delivered higher than planned total TSS, and my total for the week is very high for me. Therefore, I’m looking at tomorrow’s strength session and wondering if I skip it. It must me a sign of my developing maturity that I can miss a session and think it the right thing to do. Not only listening to my body, but using real metrics. Digging in when I know I can go. I’m Only 29! I continue to measure my heart rate variability to give myself a more accurate measure of my fitness and recovery. Elite coaches regard it as the best measure of conditioning and recovery. I use the KubiosHRV app and my Garmin Pro chest strap; the whole routine takes only three minutes. The screenshot on the right is my measurement from yesterday, and you can see my readiness was very high. With a big run planned for today, I restrained myself and took my rest day. Then today I ran 14 km at a steady marathon pace. My HRV said I was good to go, which proved itself, as today’s run was the longest I have done for around 25 years. Yes, 25 years. Using data to let me know when digging in is the right thing to do. As a meaningless brag, check out my physiological age on the left of the diagram. 29! I guess I stack up well against the sample set of men my age. I will stack any motivational win, trust me. My setup is working well. My electrolytes are loaded in two flexi bottles in my Salomon vest. For today’s extended run, I slammed a Science in Sport Beta Fuel gel halfway, providing enough carbs to get the job done. The ASICS Kayano shoes are giving me great support. And I was sporting some hugely overpriced but achingly of the moment running shorts and vest. Getting nutrition across the spectrum is crucial, so my first job when getting home was a full-on serving of SiS Vanilla Whey Protein and 6 mg of creatine powder in the mix. The sooner my recovery starts, the better. My protein consumption is high throughout the day, as I’m trying to consume between 150 and 200 grams daily. With lean muscle mass being crucial, and ageing affecting protein synthesis, I ensure I consume more than an average citizen. I find it challenging to get that amount from food, so one or sometimes two protein shakes enable me to hit the target. Don’t Forget To Enjoy It 33 weeks to misogi time, and I’m digging in. This is unfinished business for me. And I know it’s a big challenge, one that I may not succeed in. The average time for a 65+ male marathon novice to finish in is 5 hours 44 minutes. So that’s my target. I am most certainly a novice, and I’m definitely not built like Eliud Kipchoge. In this case, average will be more than welcome. To be honest, if I have to walk the course, I will walk it. 5:44 equates to 8 minutes per kilometre, and I can do that. I will do the training, my mental strength will make that happen. My biggest risk is injury. And I’m doing everything I can to offset that risk. Today was a beautiful spring morning. 2C when I left home, but blue sky and sunshine. I headed south from home, around Regent’s Park, down to Marble Arch, through Hyde Park and then along King’s Road to Putney. It being early, the pavements were clear, and I felt I had large parts of the city to myself. I’ve noticed the city looks very different when running. New perspectives; things I didn’t spot while cycling or when bustling along day to day on transport. I feel a sense of mindfulness and start to take in the sky, and the magnificent architecture, and notice small details that pass me on other days. A real connection with the city. I am not one of those people who claims to get a ‘runner’s high’, but I have found this new immersion in my surroundings a good place for me. For my spirit. There will be a lot of bad days out on the road in the next months. A lot of pain, and I imagine some frustration to come. But days like today bring home how fortunate I am to have my health and to be able to enjoy my chosen sport. [...]
February 2, 2025Father Time Has Presented The Bill Misogi reality is kicking in, as my challenge appears to be in deep conversation with Father Time. I’m due to run the New York Marathon 39 weeks from today. It’s a true misogi, as I haven’t completed a marathon before. I’m 67 and not exactly Eliud Kipchoge in stature or athleticism. I can complain that I have missed a month of training with the heavier-than-usual UK bout of winter flu hitting me hard. My knees hurt around the clock. I can add up many small obstacles and say my misogi reality looks bleak. The harsh reality is that Father Time is undefeated. Looking in the mirror, I know that thought is affecting me. The old saying goes, ‘Two certainties in life are death and taxes.’ Being an avid reader of the financial press and observing what’s happening in US politics, I’m not sure about the taxes part of the saying. But death? Without doubt. My thoughts can drift: How do I navigate the road from here to death? Commonsense Advice Without realising it, two people have gotten under the skin of my misogi reality in the last month. The challenge is me saying that I won’t accept the inevitable that quickly, despite my body protesting. As long as I can keep challenging myself hard, I can have at least some pretence that I have a say in my fate. I can maximise my healthy years if I stay active and keep pushing. As I’ve said many times, I don’t fear death. But I would find it hard to be incapacitated due to poor health. The science is clear: regular exercise does wonders for healthspan. I have been told by entirely rational people that I should think about exercise in a long-term sense. Do I want to be running and going to the gym in my seventies and potentially eighties? And if that’s the case, is my misogi reality that I should drop the brutal challenges? Thirty-nine weeks of hard training and a major marathon may leave a permanent mark physically, one that may affect the next years. The mental high and physical buzz of exercise are core to me. I worry about my world shrinking, about having fewer choices as Father Time strips them away from me. I immensely enjoy this phase of my working life, where I can support, mentor, and advise smaller businesses. The variety and intellectual stimulation fulfil me without the grind that decades of long working weeks served up. I like exploring new areas, such as music and writing. It’s all good so far. But I live in fear of my physical choices being taken from me. Misogi Reality – Pain The truth is my body hurts a lot of the time. During exercise, I largely feel great. I need an extended warm-up in my runs before my knees feel okay. But exercise is a buzz. The downside is that often, I’m kept awake by knee pain. In the morning, I move like an ironing board, my body painfully unfolding from bed. Post-exercise aches and pains can last two or three days. I can often start a training session while still hurting from the last session. My misogi reality looks like a long road of high discomfort. People reading this think, “You are supposed to recover fully before training again.” I know. Using today as an example, my body hurts from a treadmill session two days ago, but my HRV data tells me my readiness is high. The engine is well-tuned, but the chassis is falling apart. That’s my reality. If I waited for pain-free days, then my fitness would sharply decline. I know this from my last month of flu-forced layoff. The aches and pains left me, but my TrainingPeaks fitness score plummeted. Age makes “no pain, no gain” a harsh reality. This is my misogi reality, too. The whole misogi idea is to attempt a challenge that’s tough to complete. If you think you can do it, then you are cheating, in effect. A marathon is undoubtedly a misogi for me; the odds of finishing are well under 50%. Sometimes, I wonder about the odds of getting to the start line. It recently occurred to me that I trained for a marathon when I was around forty and pulled out on the advice of a knee specialist when an MRI scan showed bone bruising around my right knee. So why go again 28 years later? Make A Choice? Now, I have had this bucket of commonsense tipped over my head by two people I listen to carefully. Do I want to be training when I’m 80? Damn right, I do. Yet I balance that rationality against my fear of having my exercise options taken away before I’m ready. I get it; none of us get to choose. Father Time serves the subpoena when he wants, not when we want. I can make a very rational case to myself that a weekly 5k run and a few sessions at the gym are a great way to keep myself healthy for as long as possible. So why torture myself with almost impossible challenges? Many chapters can be written on that one, a minefield of psychological complexity that has made me who I am. For some reason, the simple road has not been one I’ve chosen that often in life. I will push on for now. My misogi reality is that I will likely fail in my attempt to run a marathon at the age of 68. The questions are: What long-term physical damage might I incur in the effort, and what will the psychological damage be if I take the more conservative approach to lifelong exercise? At some stage, I need to make a choice. But not today; I’m off to the gym. [...]
January 29, 2025Managing The Whole Human I’ve just returned from the gym. My membership app told me that I’ve been there 187 times in a year. ‘Wow,’ I thought to myself. Then, in my head, I added another one hundred workouts to this number: outdoor running, cycling, and rucking. “Not bad for an old guy”, I reflected as I gathered my breath between bench press sets. I’m walking the talk when it comes to using exercise to live my best life. To not succumb to the health issues that many people of my age can suffer with. Now, how about my mental health management? As I moved from the bench press to the warm-down area, I considered my mental health. I’m a strong proponent of a healthy body being a cornerstone of a healthy mind. In addition to the positive feeling of having good cardiovascular fitness and muscle mass, there’s the serotonin buzz from a good thrash on the road or in the gym. It helps my mood. I suffered from the various winter viruses for a whole month from mid-December and noted the lack of a decent workout added to the downbeat mood that a virus can bring. Doing The Work I reflected that in recent years, I have become as proactive in working on mental health management as my physical health. At stages in my life, having treatment for my mental health has been remedial when I’ve had periods of severe anxiety or depression. I’ve unconsciously shifted to mental health treatment as a positive element in my life. For the last four years, I have seen a psychiatrist regularly. She helped me when I had an acute period of poor mental health. Over those years, she has worked diligently with me in many aspects, from medication to the introduction of other talking therapists into my mental health team. Initially, private healthcare picked up her cost, but I continued to pay from my pocket when that lapsed. And will continue to do so. I’m now on a low level of medication, which gives me no conscious side effects, and it’s always reassuring for me to know there’s an appointment in the diary every three months, and she is at hand if I were to drift into choppier waters. Throughout the years, I have had several spells of talking therapy. Indeed, in the last five years, this has been central to my health. Straight psychotherapeutic psychotherapy has been supplemented by practices and techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing). I took a break for a while in the last months. But more recently, I felt the need for a little more support and discussed it with my psychiatrist, resulting in me meeting a new therapist earlier this month. Adjusting And Improving The new therapist is an early-forties Belgian guy who is very well-qualified and has a superbly empathetic listening style. He’s threatening me with some EMDR, too – most practitioners I work with believe I’m recovering from some early life trauma, and therefore, this method is appropriate. I took some convincing with EMDR; it sounds almost silly to a layperson like me that moving my eyes from side to side can improve mental health. But in fairness, my last stint of this method was hugely beneficial. We also had a good discussion about what underlies my episodes of feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or hypervigilant, how I respond in the moment to these feelings, and how I see myself. I’ve had too many well-qualified professionals tell me it’s related to early-life trauma to mount much of an argument anymore, so I roll with the treatment and give it my best. As though I’m hammering out a set of deadlifts, I give my therapy the best shot, too. My mental health has been a big load to carry for as long as I can remember, and it has affected too many people around me when I have been at my lowest. I owe it to myself and important people in my life to crack on. The therapist has identified that I have a strong tendency to see only the ‘bad’ version of myself and that I need to show myself some compassion. Game on. Let’s see where I go—being proactive with mental health management. We discussed ruminating about the past and worrying about the future. He asked me to sit forward and mirrored me. He put both hands out and invited me to take his hands. We looked directly at each other, and he asked me, ‘Where are you now?’ My answer was, ‘Right here.’ It was unusual for a therapist to make physical contact, but what a powerful example to encourage thinking about the power of living in the now. Get Over It? I saw a newspaper story just this week suggesting that people are tending to label the ups and downs of life as a mental health issue. Here’s an excerpt: I can’t link to a paywall-protected article. Why are so many people being prescribed NHS antidepressants, with a record high of 8.7 million patients in England, about 15 per cent of the population? According to a report from NHS England in 2023, 20 per cent of children aged eight to sixteen have a probable mental health disorder, up from 12.5 per cent in 2017. And is it connected to a rise in people self-diagnosing depression or anxiety when they may just be experiencing the cyclical human emotional weather of sadness or worry? There is now an increasingly hard pushback, but it goes in different directions. These warring factions could be summarised as those who think we are “overdiagnosed”, “overmedicated” or — and this is more likely to be the budget-slashing politician — should “just get over ourselves”. I can see that. But I thought it was potentially a damaging article. I feel life’s natural ups and downs, and I would be concerned if I didn’t. But if you have suffered severe mental health issues, then this rhetoric is dangerous territory. It’s tantamount to ‘man up and don’t be a snowflake’ stuff. If this kind of press keeps even one person from seeking help, that’s a tragedy. I use ‘tragedy’ after some thought and because of the number of people who commit suicide each year. This is trending in the wrong direction, with over 6,000 people taking their lives in 2023. Men are hardest hit, being three times more likely to end their life than women. Why Am I Telling You This? I want to tell you why I’m writing this deeply personal stuff. Why would I put myself out there with the reputational risk that might come with that? My mental health has been a serious challenge, and I’m at the manageable end of the spectrum. I know people with much more serious mental illnesses and with no realistic hope of recovery. Therefore, the first reason for telling you all this is to say that it is only in the recent handful of years that talking about mental health has been remotely acceptable. It still verges on taboo in some circles. We have to normalise talking about mental health. We have normalised talking about cancer and other serious illnesses, and we have to make it okay to talk about mental health. The second reason to say all of this is to highlight that we can be proactive about our mental health management. I look at my whole being when thinking about my health and well-being. An embarrassingly high gym membership fee is deducted from my bank each month. Deliveries of creatine, protein, hydration powders, vitamins, and minerals arrive at my door. I find any excuse to order the new Hoka running shoes on launch day. So why is me paying for a session with a psychiatrist every three months any different? I pay for a professional sounding board to unpack and help me make sense of my emotions and advise on improving my mental well-being.Is this any different than a personal trainer session at the gym? Let’s Seek To Improve I hope we continue to embrace the conversation about mental health as a society. If you are suffering from any mental health issues, I encourage you to talk to someone about it. Just giving a voice to your challenge can be a huge help. Spend a couple of minutes thinking about my approach. I invest in my physical health, as I don’t want to be a frail older man. However, I have realised that health is a much broader subject and have started to proactively invest in my mental health management as well as my physical health. I don’t believe people show up to a personal training or CrossFit session feeling somehow broken. But I do know—and I’ve been there in the past—that it’s all too easy to turn up at a therapist’s door feeling faulty, broken, and with low self-esteem. I flipped that in my head some time ago. I turn up for a session with a mental health professional, feeling positive and wondering how I can use it to deal with my anxieties, asking myself what I can learn today. There’s an old gym rat saying, ‘The only workout I’ve ever regretted is the one I didn’t do.’ That is me and my therapist sessions these days; I don’t remember walking out thinking it was a negative experience. I can walk out with high emotions and a headful of thoughts to process, but that’s good. That’s the work that needs doing. The gym leaves me with many muscle fibres to repair; the therapy session leaves me with many thoughts to process. Mindfulness Mindfulness meditation has been a major part of my mental health management over the years. I hit a streak of over 1,100 days up to May 2023, when I lapsed during a stay in hospital. It’s good to form positive habits, but without care, they can lapse quickly too. There is a lot of scientific proof showing the benefits of mindfulness meditation, and as little as ten minutes a day can have a profoundly positive effect. I have picked up the habit of using my Calm app at night; a great way to have the mind sort through the noise of the day. And I’ve gone further by exploring the work of Sam Harris and his Waking Up app. As well as guided meditation, there is a lot of fascinating material to explore, as Harris blends science and spirituality. Journaling is highly recommended and has scientific support, and my new therapist has nudged me to pick up the pen once more. My journal sits on a side table looking at me balefully most of the time. My introvert mind stores stuff up and then lets a flood of it go after an extended period. Especially in the medium of writing. I always feel better when I scrawl three to six pages of indecipherable spider trails on a page. I just need to develop a stronger habit. Men’s Groups Let me briefly tell you about my latest mental and emotional health workout. I joined a men’s group late last year. Six to eight of us meet monthly and talk for two and a half hours. At my first session, I was nervous as hell, but I found the group open, accepting, and enabling. An excellent facilitator, Kenny Mammarella-D’Cruz, keeps the conversation moving and encourages all to speak for as short or long as needed. I surprised myself by disclosing much more than I expected for someone who has trained himself to be socially closed and cautious. I stress that it’s not therapy. And it’s not some caricature of men whinging about all that isn’t good about life – the country, women, youth, the government, and all that. It’s a wide-ranging conversation that is grounded in collective life experiences. And it’s definitely not a petri dish of toxic masculinity. It’s another blade on the Swiss Army Knife of my general wellness. It quickly became an essential element of my mental health management strategy. I need to remain curious and open to new ways to improve my 5k run time, and the same goes for my mental health. I think my monthly discussion with a bunch of guys is both cathartic and grounding. Not A Victim I don’t write this so anyone can say, ‘Poor you’ or ‘That’s brave.’ I’m no victim. I’m not seeking sympathy. I write this because this is how we move on: discussing mental health and exchanging ideas, enacting empathy with each other, and embracing our human frailty. Perhaps there is a way to see mental health management in the same light as physical health, where we can proactively improve. If these few paragraphs make you want to say more or ask me a question, please don’t hesitate to contact me. You will be heard. [...]
January 2, 2025Before explaining my misogi challenge, I want to explain the core concept. Then I’ll tell you why I’m pursuing it, together with the big and small challenges I’m entertaining. I encountered misogi during a discussion in a chance meeting with a successful US entrepreneur who explained his annual challenge. He helpfully pointed me toward Michael Easter and his book, The Comfort Crisis. I intuitively recognised the concept, but Easter’s writing on his experience brought it to life for me. The Roots Of Misogi Misogi is an ancient Japanese practice rooted in Shinto traditions. It is used as a form of ritual purification. Historically, it involved cleansing the body and mind by immersing oneself in natural elements such as cold water or enduring other physically demanding activities. In modern interpretations, misogi has evolved into a broader philosophy that emphasizes pushing personal boundaries to cultivate resilience, self-awareness, and growth. This latter approach is what piqued my interest in the practice. At its core, misogi encourages physical or mental discomfort—something challenging enough to reveal one’s limits and help one grow beyond them. These challenges are not about achieving perfection or competition but intentional discomfort as a pathway to mental clarity, focus, and inner strength. I observe that the challenges must have a high probability of failure; if you know you can do it, it’s not a challenge. Misogi encourages stepping outside of lazy comfort zones to gain profound personal insight and a deeper worldview. That’s the attraction to me: What can I learn about myself and the world I live in by pushing myself out of my comfort zone? I have looked at the concept before in this blog, but life got in the way of my plans. Tiny & Big Misogi Challenge Before I tell you about the expected significant challenges, I spent some time thinking about more minor discomforts. I live a cosseted Western lifestyle, with an overabundance of food, warmth and shelter. I rarely leave this comfort zone as I go about my daily life. As a starter, I want to add one small misogi challenge to my daily life. To make me reflect on my lifestyle and understand not only my good fortune but also the fragility of our lives. I detest the cold and wet. When it’s cold, I wrap up in my cashmere coat. I don my Japanese designer rain jacket as soon as a cloud crosses the grey, winter London sky. I steer away from cold water at all costs. My small starter kit misogi is to encounter freezing water once a week. This tips my cap towards the Shinto cleansing in cold water. Once a week, I will stand under the very cold (designed for post-sauna) shower in my gym. I’ll start with a minute under the shower once a week and build up to three minutes. It’s a small challenge, but it’s outside my comfort zone for me. Indeed, it’s an area I will avoid at all costs. Of course, the more significant challenges are central to the misogi challenge concept. I have written about one in this blog: I will run my first marathon in my late sixties. It’s a true misogi, which will take me to the mental limit and probably beyond my physical limit. I have less than a fifty percent chance of succeeding. Therefore, it falls hard into the true spirit of misogi. I am looking to add another challenge to my 2025 list. An ultra-ruck session is one idea. To see how far I can carry a heavy rucksack containing a 20kg weight plate. Is that enough of a challenge? I’m unsure, so I will reflect on it and consider other misogi challenge options. For now, getting very cold once a week and grinding out preparation for November’s New York Marathon is challenging enough. It Hurts When I Do, It Hurts When I Don’t At the heart of any misogi challenge is learning from the discomfort. I’m not setting out to simply thrash myself as an end in itself. What I learn about myself while preparing for and engaging in the challenge is critical. My battered body hurts after exercise. After more brutal sessions, standing up from the sofa at home is difficult. As an aside, I know that if I don’t exercise, my body hurts after a few days. It’s a case of picking my poison – hurting through striving or laziness. As I train for my New York date with my inner self, I want to reflect for a few minutes after every training session. What did I feel, positive or negative, and did it contribute to my misogi challenge or detract from it? Taking this further, I want to get out there and train when it’s cold or wet or I don’t feel like it—challenging my comfort zone. If it’s worth doing, then it needs sacrifice. To get deep into the concept of cleansing body and mind, I need to push myself and practice mindfulness about what I learn about myself. I know from my last couple of years that pain from injury won’t stop me. But what about the absolute grind of getting ready for a big challenge? It’s been four years since I completed a physically demanding challenge, with everything from the pandemic to mental illness to accident-related injury standing in my path. It’s time to get back into the week-after-week, month-after-month grind to achieve something which, for me, will be major. I think that’s a challenge worth facing. [...]

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