If you risk nothing, you gain nothing

“If you risk nothing, you gain nothing”; or “If you risk nothing, you risk everything”; or “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”. 

I’ve heard all 3 versions over the years, I wrote the first one “If you risk nothing, you gain nothing” on post it notes for my 63 marathons in 63 days and put them everywhere where I would see them everyday – on the van dashboard, on the walls at home, in my backpack. The phrase has stuck with me since.

I think I’m quite a risk taker, my family would argue that I might take excessive amounts of risk – in comparison to them. I’m not always sure I can say my tactics have worked well, I’m currently financially strapped from my latest risk taking. But I also can’t say it hasn’t worked out well, I’ve accomplished an extreme endurance adventure that only a handful of people have done. It’s just at this point in time, the risk has not quite paid off yet in that I’ve finished with a huge amount of debt and the post-run plan to deal with the debt risk that we took hasn’t quite gone to plan.

So, is taking risks worth the risk?

When I chose an adventure, I do somewhat jokingly say, my number one rule is “don’t die on an adventure”, but in reality, it is the starting point of the risk assessments that we do.

When I say we, I’m referring to me and Sharif. Here’s how we work together - I’m the big dreamer and Sharif is the nitty gritty.  It’s a planning strategy that works for us. I come up with the adventure idea, I put the rough scope of what I want together, I start the risk assessment, then I crack on with the training and handball most of the tedious i-dotting and t-crossing to Sharif, because I just want to run and get on with the fun stuff.

I am extremely grateful that Sharif is around. I know planning is essential*1, I follow a training plan (mostly), but when it comes to planning all the other stuff that surrounds my running I have the attention span of a goldfish.

So back to the risk issue. I do start with the question “what can kill me?” Usually starting with wildlife that can either kill me or bite my bum. In Peru it was caiman, jaguar, deadly poisonous spiders and snakes. In Namibia it was rhino, lions, jackals and scorpions. Netherlands, UK and Ireland it was dogs and cows which don’t sound quite as scary as the other wildlife, but I came across a lot more dogs and cows, than rhinos and lions (although the race-rangers said they were in the vicinity and they kept a close eye on the wildlife’s locations in comparison to ours – which is fine when runners stick to the route, which I somehow managed not to do and scared myself silly in Namibia, but that’s a story for another blog). In Australia it felt like it was every bloody living thing had the potential to kill me or chase me down and bite my bum.

We work out what risk mitigations we can take – mostly it’s try and stay clear of the things that can kill you – and then it’s move on to the next risk.

The terrain and location - What am I running on, trail or road. What’s the level of remoteness or traffic, or level of known cultural risks. I tend to run mostly on my own for long periods of time.

We consider all the logistics such as what am I going to carry, how am I going to keep fed and watered, how do I keep in contact with Sharif (if he’s with me), race organisers if I’m in a race, safety people if I’m all alone. Where am I (we) going to sleep.

There is the physical risk. With most of my adventures, I aim to take myself beyond my previous experiences and previous capabilities. I want to see how far I can push myself.  In doing that, there is a risk is that my body might not cope – this is a reality of aging, and I know the term “age is just a number” and I’ll write about that in another blog, but age does impact physiology, and as a woman I’ve had the added impact of getting to the age of perimenopause and that has most definitely impacted me.

As I’ve got older, the risk of injury has taken up more brain space than I would like, but I have learned (the hard way), that I can’t just ignore the fact that I’m getting older and my body is changing and that the hormonal flux and change I’m experiencing in perimenopause needs to be considered. I’ve had to learn more about my body’s needs and work on the aspects that I can control. What I put into my body in terms of medication, supplements, calorific energy, rest, rehab, breath and love. 

There’s a lot of risks I need to think about other than can I get the lefts and rights moving.

Then there’s the risk that is not often talked about, I know I don’t share a whole lot about it, but it’s possibly the thing that is having a longer-term impact on me/us.

Financial risk.

Whilst we have mostly operated and conducted all of my running adventures on a shoestring budget, there is still a cost to them, and we’ve taken a lot of risk to “make it happen”.

Run Australia took everything that we’ve done before and brought it up to another level – in terms of distance, in terms of time, in terms of financial risk.

When we first started planning for this, Sharif was working for a company that was fully aware of our RunAustralia project, and how long he would be out of the UK. As he works mostly remotely we had factored in that he would take annual leave for certain parts of the trip, but he would also be able to work remotely, even with the time difference.

We had practiced this during the 63 marathons and around Ireland.  Sharif took vacation time off, but he also worked on the road. It worked. We struggled. We tried to keep expenses to the absolute minimum, we worked out when was the best time to buy food at supermarkets – it’s between 6:30-7:30pm when supermarkets start reducing prices of their fresh and cooked goods. While we were constantly on the road, this was the stuff that we would eat in the evenings, or that we could keep for the next day (it’s also our current shopping strategy ☹).

We really have risked it all to make RunAustralia happen.

In the final 18 month lead up to Run Australia Sharif changed jobs. He stated that we would be going to Australia, and management agreed that remote working in Australia was a doable situation. Unfortunately, shortly after Sharif started with the company, it was taken over – management changed, and work policies changed.

Oh.

Financially this would put us in a pickle with our planned cash flow, it was time to reassess our financial risk assessment.

To do RunAustralia, Sharif would have to leave work, we would have no income and the risk was also backloaded. Sharif would have to get a job as soon as possible when we finished.

Our vision of what was the absolute minimal viable option for vehicles, kit, equipment, support all had to be re-jigged. If we were going to go ahead with this, we had to look at what we could risk not paying … mortgage payments, taxes, other monthly bills.

We made our choices.

If you risk nothing, you gain nothing.

Sure.

I get it.

We could have not gone and then RunAustralia would have never existed for us, for me.

We did go.

It has been a real experience. It was is life changing.

We’re dealing with the consequences.

They aren’t all the pretty, but we are working through them and in the process we are changing.

Sharif is currently a postman, earning less than half of what he would normally earn. He has no idea why finding a role in his field is so difficult, but that’s where he’s at – and we roll on.

Another risky step has been me taking the University offer to study Sports Psychology degree rather than finding a job to help alleviate our financial situation. Short term pain versus long term gain. I’ll write more about this in another blog.

This pain point we’re currently in is also being exacerbated by my fears – the intention, and part of the “get back home and pay off the debt” plan is for me to do the inspirational writing and speaking gigs about being an Adventure Runner, and an in-training, in-training Adventuring Sports Psychologist*2.

When our household income is not reliant on me earning our living wage, I can and I do build the courage to do these things. I’ve written 3 books, I’ve done talks to thousands of people, I’ve written magazine articles. However…

Nerves and fear raise their voices.

Hi Nic, we don’t think you should do this, people will judge you, people will ignore you, people will scoff/laugh/boo you. We’re not sure you are worthy of being paid to be an “adventurer”. (Oh shit, there it is Nic, probably the real reason for your fear, you fear your worthiness – we’ll unpack that in another blog).

I need to change. I am working on changing.

I’ve written several blog posts now about fear. I’ve got many more in my fingertips. I feel fear. I hear fear. I speak fear.

I’ve got very good at learning to hear fear’s voice and turn it down when it comes to taking on physical adventures.

Not so much in my business, and being an Adventure Runner as well as in-training, in-training Adventuring Sports Psychologist is my business.

This post is getting long, but I’m going to continue for just a little bit more.

When I first started doing these crazy-assed adventures, my first step was to admit that I was scared.

And so, I am hereby admitting that when I write, when I speak, when I share my adventures, I am scared. But I know that I can feel the fear and doing it anyway.

Second step is setting my intentions and sharing them.

Despite being “broke”, I’ve got more plans to progress being an Adventure Runner, and an in-training, in-training Adventure Sports Psychologist. It’s time to feel the fear and do it anyway and share all the steps – from conceive to believe to achieve, to cleaning up the debt mess from the previous adventures. The lot!

I think I may be over-sharing, however I talk a lot about going to the toilet when I’m smack bang in the middle of an adventure where there are no public toilets – which really is over-sharing, but its another risk factor I have to work through to make these adventures happen.

Back to the saying “if you risk nothing, you gain nothing” – well I have most definitely gained “something” from taking risks. And, as always, it’s up to me as to how that “something” impacts my life. I intend to learn, grow and change from the experience.

Which is life really 😊

Soooooo, onwards!

X Nikki

*1 The level of planning does differ as per the end goal. In 2018 we went to Malta with the plan of fly there with a backpack and running gear and then see where our feet would take us and left many of the decisions (such as should we have a pint or keep running) to public vote via my social media. It was a fun running adventure.

*2 in-training, in-training Adventuring Sports Psychologist. Nope, I didn’t make a typo by doubling up the “in-training” bit. Regarding the process of becoming a “Sports Psychologist”, I am on the bottom rung of the long ladder.  If I follow the steps through to the end of being a fully qualified “Sports Psychologist” I need to get my degree – 3 years, then a masters – 2 years, then I become an in-training Sports Psychologist – which is another 2-4 years. At best it’s a 7-9 year process, and that’s without taking any gap years. I’ll be almost 65 which is practically retirement age by the time I qualify – it’s a big thing to think about. For now my target is to complete my BSc degree, upon which I can say I’m a sports psychology consultant and then reassess. I’ll probably change the in-training, in-training Adventuring Sports Psychologist title to in-training adventuring sports psychology consultant from here on in, and I’ll write another blog about this topic. 

Rabbit hole this writing thing.

That’s me at Uni yesterday thinking that maybe I should be studying a different subject?