Verity Ockenden reflects on her experiences of competing at the inaugural European Running Championships, an event that helped to clarify just some of the reasons why athletes choose to put themselves to such stern tests

To start on a bit of a morbid note, one of the darker facts of life that drives me to live and to compete the way that I do is that none of us can ever know when it’s going to be our last day. I was reminded of this when I stumbled across a quote from Toni Morrison’s Trauma, Survival and Finding Meaning interview.

In it, she says: “We are already born, we are going to die, so you have to do something interesting that you respect in-between […] Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about that solution, it is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can under completely impossible circumstances.”

And as I listened to her speak with such time-worn wisdom of experience, I realised that in the emotional aftermath of racing at the European Running Championships, this is what I love about chasing such lofty goals, even if I fall short of my ambitions as I did.

One of the most common things that I hear even the very best athletes in the world say in scenarios like these, is a rhetorical “why do I do this to myself?”. Deep down all of us know the answer to the question that our pre-race nausea brings to the surface, and so we never back down in the face of it. The weird beauty of preparing for an international championship like this is simply that you have one chance from gun to tape to find out what your best is on that day, against the best in Europe, in front of everybody.

You get to compete in a race that represents a scaled down version of life itself, full of unpredictable ups and downs, twists and turns, responding to the unpredictable elements of your environment and the actions of your fellows. You get to apply Toni’s philosophy on life to a smaller mirror of itself, and see how you fare.

Often you go into the race so blinkered that your life does seem to boil down to one day, one moment, a culmination, and it is this repeated process over the course of our careers that I think does bring out the best in us. It often also brings out the worst, and she’s right, some of it might make us feel broken, but… at least now we know what we are made of.

For me, Leuven’s rain-soaked cobbles and series of dramatic climbs that re-appeared relentlessly on the horizon with every corner turned were a challenge that I knew upon sight would make heroes of some, and fools of others. We watched and learned as the likes of Jimmy Gressier so boldly nailed his colours to the mast in Saturday’s half marathon, and did our best to let the lessons of those who raced before us impart some tactical sagacity. Having the courage to throw yourself at this kind of course knowing it might come back to bite you was all part of the game.

On paper the results of the race are so black and white. I finished one place outside of the top ten and it wasn’t a fast course, which realistically means I probably won’t receive much recognition for what I achieved or how good the effort may actually have been. That grey area is only for me and my coach to know. However, when I put numbers aside, the whole weekend was a riot of colour.

There’s a trend going around currently on social media that pairs filmed expressions of true friendship, care and connection with our families and communities with the phrase “almost forgot that this is the whole point” attached.

And while the singular goal of winning that we do all of this training for is “the whole point” of what we are doing as athletes and what drives us like nothing else, I think the crux of what it means to win and the reasons why we want to win are the real heavyweights of that conversation. Take away the people you want to win for, take away the people you want to prove wrong, the times you were beaten and the euphoria of hearing people shouting your name, and the result means little to nothing.

That’s why, as an expatriate for whom it will always remain an honour to represent Great Britain, I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have also made so many friends and “team-mates” within the Italian athletics community.

This is something that always gets amplified further when I compete for Great Britain at an international championship such as these inaugural European Running Championships. In fact, as I made my way through the hotel lobby to be united with my own team pre-race, it struck me that I knew more people personally on the Italian team than I did my own.

Some of my friends, for example Badr Jaafari, had made their first ever national squad and had been welcomed into the fold with the traditional rite of singing the national anthem hand on heart alongside his team captain, as well as being subjected to the somewhat less decorous hazing of having a patch of his head shaved.

As I was greeted by friend after friend at the buffet, in the lift and on shakeout runs, their energy and warmth was infectious. It’s no wonder they went on to win not only both the women’s 10km and the men’s marathon individually, but also a number of team medals as so many of their athletes outshone themselves.

After the race, as I stood among the crowd with my mother in the centre of the “finisher’s circle”, and watched Iliass Aouani make his decisive move with all to play for and less than 800m to go in the men’s marathon, I shocked even myself at the outpouring of emotion that feeling part of such a moment provoked.

I’ll admit that I’m usually quite a quiet onlooker who will often refrain from cheering too raucously for fear of saying the wrong thing or distracting an athlete but, glued to the big screen as my friend so triumphantly broke the tape and sunk to his knees, I found myself jumping up and down, fist pumping and yelling with gleeful abandon.
I felt the people around me turn their heads at my exuberant celebration but, for once, I didn’t care what people thought of me.

I think moments like that in which you experience something first-hand that is meaningful to you, that you care about, that provokes such a purity of emotion is an ever rarer gift in this day and age and I’m grateful that this particular celebration of the very best of European road running provided that in such quantities to so many.