“Cricket was my main sport growing up and into adulthood, and running was just something I did away from that when I didn’t have that outlet of energy. I would just put my shoes on and run as fast as I can for… well, not very far. But that was my idea of running – to just go out and get this energy out of me, because otherwise, I just felt like my skin was crawling.
Eventually that running transitioned into doing parkrun, which was the next thing beyond just running like a nutter. And then my natural competitive nature meant that I was trying to get faster and faster and faster.
Looking back now, it’s all the signs of ADHD – like needing to get rid of this energy, this crawling skin. Sitting in the house and not being able to sit still, that feeling that you need to do something to feel content, that constant battle of trying to get to a place where you feel ‘right’. Like if I went to bed and I hadn’t done any exercise, more often than not, I’d feel like that was a shit day, that I hadn’t done what I should have done, and I’d probably end up ruminating over and over, again and again.
I took an indefinite break from cricket a few years ago because I wanted to explore more of New Zealand, and without really realising, I was trying all these new sports and new hobbies, probably trying to fill that gap… which again is a very ADHD thing. I’d move onto something new and it would be very exciting initially and I’d get a big kick of dopamine, go all in, buy everything, spend a shit load of money, and then one day I’d wake up and realise, I don’t actually like this anymore. Then I’ve got all this stuff I need to get rid of! But running, that was the one thing which was constant throughout this madness.
I still hadn’t been diagnosed as autistic at this point and a therapist mentioned autism to me in a session. It wasn’t even really a word in my vocabulary, let alone something I associated with myself. I was just like, that can’t be me! I socialise, I do all these things against the stigma, I just couldn’t believe it. I did this test anyway and I scored super, super high and everything snowballed from there, eventually being formally diagnosed as autistic by a psychologist. At first I was very ashamed – my view of autism then was that of the stereotype, which now we try and preach it goes so much beyond that, it’s not a look, but at the time… that was my perception too and it took a lot for me to even relearn that, and relearn myself in a sense.
When I first got diagnosed, I couldn’t see any positives in it. It’s like you’re not the person you thought you were. I thought I was neurotypical, and for a long time I’d been trying to fit into this mould of how I should act. So there’s a lot of things you question about yourself. You doubt everything and you even start to question what you like, what you don’t like. I questioned whether or not I liked running or if I’m just doing it because other people do it.
Later I was diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, and a big part of OCD is rumination and that repetitive thought process, but on the flip side there is also an element of determination that comes with it. I have a very black and white thought process, and when I get a thought or an idea in my head, it’s all in, like nothing’s going to stop you. Autism is very black and white and as much as it seems a downfall, it’s a big beauty in the sense that you don’t tiptoe around anything. So you go into it, or you don’t. And for many things in life, you either like it or you don’t. Outside cricket, not being able to stick to one sport or hobby but then staying with running… that shows me that running is probably more of a special interest of mine than these other sports I tried. And I tried a lot. Always an initial big boost of dopamine because it’s new, it’s exciting. But then the dopamine wears off and so does the interest. But running, it’s the one thing which really helped me get mental clarity. It was something to fall back on as an escape. And I didn’t need to run fast to get it. Running slower and not caring about pace – I still got the same feeling of calm in my head.
I went through depression and anxiety and really struggled with my mental health. Again, running was the only thing which was constant. It was that addictive feeling, of having an escape from those negative thoughts. It was like the protector. And it gave me a purpose. When you’re going through depression and anxiety, it’s very hard to see any positives, but running would give me that sort of fleeting moment of joy.
When I started running I was a road runner in Auckland and at first it was all about pace. We did a lot of hiking too and when we moved to the South Island we realised people were doing this thing where they were kind of hiking and also running at the same time. We didn’t know what it was called but we were like, oh boy, that looks fun! They’d run the likes of Routeburn in the day and then you would see their pace and they might have run 3/4 of it and walked the rest. I didn’t know what that was but we threw ourselves into it and all the Queenstown run clubs, which as you can imagine, here there are a lot of trail runners.
The community we have met down here have been amazing and a lot of the people we run with now are older than us, some of them are quite a lot older, like older than our parents, and seeing these people do what they do, what they achieve, is just mesmerising and inspiring… It gives you that confidence and feeling of what we can achieve. It makes you want to exercise because you see all the hard work these people have put in and what they’ve been able to achieve at an age which I didn’t think was possible. It’s inspiring and makes you want to do similar things. It’s fun as well, especially trail running, there’s so many different adventures to go on – you’re never bored.
When I started the half marathon was my limit. I just didn’t think that it was possible to go beyond that. Moving to Queenstown changed that and I’ll always be grateful to the people and the place for that. I did a backyard ultra and I went into that 100% set on doing 100k. I don’t know why, because I’ve never done anything beyond 40k. But that’s where that black and white thinking helped me. During the backyard ultra I went non verbal from about 30k in because I was just so completely wiped out, but my autistic brain, that black and white thinking, pulled me through, which I was very grateful for and I finished my 100k. I said for months afterwards that I didn’t see the value in going any further… but now I’m doing a 24 hour race this weekend. I don’t know what I’m going to do there, I don’t want to say a number because my black and white brain thought process will be disappointed if I don’t reach that goal, but I’m looking forward to it!”
Tom @neuroduo
(Queenstown)
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Portraits of Runners + their stories
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