I wrote about types of fun on Instagram a few weeks back, and I thought it seemed worth expanding on. One of my athletes had experienced some very definite Type 3 moments on a long run and we had been reflecting on these, what she had learned from them and whether/when/why she might want to repeat an experience like that. It got me thinking about how much we actively consider what kind of fun we are setting out to have, and whether we should try to quantify types of fun in our training in the same way as we try to manage how much of different types of effort we have.
Let’s start at the beginning with Type 1 fun. This is best described as ‘if you’re happy and you know it…’! Type 1 fun is what happens when you are enjoying yourself in the moment – maybe you are cruising on an easy run in the sunshine, listening to your favourite podcast or soundtrack, or maybe you are loving some downhill running that’s well within your technical comfort zone and feels playful and joyful. Outside of your running life, maybe you’re immersed in a fun film, book or TV show, having catch-up drinks with a best friend, or playing fetch with your dog.
Type 1 fun is really important; it’s great to do things that simply make us feel good, uncomplicatedly. I think it is also possible to have Type 1 fun that we regret afterwards – junky miles run on a niggle when maybe we should have rested, or one drink too many for a hangover-free next day. Overall though, I think pursuing Type 1 fun is a good idea, albeit all things in moderation, so that our inner kids can come out to play, and make our souls feel good.
Type 2 fun is a bit different. Type 2 fun is essentially when you don’t enjoy the experience in an uncomplicated way in the moment – it feels hard, difficult or unpleasant. When you look back afterwards though (usually pretty soon, either when you stop, or in the hours or days after) you feel amazing – you suffered through a tough experience, and were able to manage yourself to come through it. Type 2 fun helps us to push our boundaries and expand comfort zones, build resilience to challenging life experiences, and gives us extra confidence. I’ve also noticed that experiencing Type 2 fun alongside other people or as a team with other people deepens my relationships with those people, and helps me to remember that it’s ok to be vulnerable, and to lean on friends sometimes.
The thing about Type 2 fun, though, is that it’s possible to have too much of it – much the same as a training diet composed entirely of hard sessions wouldn’t be very effective. If we keep on pushing ourselves through these challenging experiences, we may actually end up being less resilient. Reading Hannah Rickman’s blog after her Spine Race DNF this year, I related strongly to the idea of both the ‘misery muscle’ and Adversity Fatigue that she described. The misery muscle definitely needs to be built up through tough sessions in hard conditions, but Hannah described feeling like she had overused her misery muscle, and ended up with Adversity Fatigue. Too much Type 2 fun is like too many track sessions or too many hill reps; what began as beneficial becomes harmful.
And finally, Type 3. Type 3 fun comes when the experience is not fun in the moment, and it does not feel like fun afterwards either. You don’t feel the satisfaction of having made it through a tough challenge, and an increased sense of resilience. You might instead feel that you ‘got lucky’ not to have sustained an injury, an accident or worse. You probably feel that you were well out of your comfort zone, and not in control of the situation or your outcomes in it. You may not initially feel like you have learned anything from your Type 3 experience, other than not wanting to repeat it – you were too outside your comfort zone for growth.
I experienced Type 3 fun quite a lot when I was very early in my mountain walking and running journey. As a less-than-skilled navigator, I often got badly lost, and I scared myself many times, leading to a constant feeling of anxiety when setting off on a big mountain day. It took two or three years for those anxious feelings to go away, and I think I’d have learned and progressed more quickly if I’d chosen days that were more Type 2 fun relative to my skill level at that time.
After a Type 3 experience (and we have all had them!) I think it’s important to try to stay away from feeling like you messed up. It’s easy to think that the situation happened because you made a mistake, but sometimes all the planning and preparation in the world won’t help when something unexpected happens. It’s really important to give yourself time to process the experience, before diving back into the conditions, the environment or the intensity that caused it. Look for the learnings you can take from it, without apportioning blame to yourself. Even though I wouldn’t put myself back into the Type 3 situations I’ve experienced, I learned about myself that I operate best from a place where I feel relaxed, calm and in control, rather than stressed, under pressure or anxious.
While I am loath to add another metric to the mountain of training variables and measurables available to us (and ask any of my athletes about my evangelism for running to feel rather than over-using data from technology!), I think that keeping track of ‘Fun Type’ could be beneficial – a balanced diet of mainly Type 1 with some regular seasonings of Type 2 will surely make for a happy, resilient, strong and confident runner, and (more importantly) person.
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