Sean Godwin will get in a coaching run within the fall of 2021 within the Utah foothills. Courtesy Sean Godwin
Earlier than Sean Godwin was deployed to the Al Dhafra Air Base within the United Arab Emirates in 2019, he discovered stress energizing.
He used chaos as motivation, challenges as gasoline.
However after the COVID-19 pandemic turned a three-month deployment with the Air Drive Reserves into eight months, all that modified.
“The deployment modified who I used to be and the way I react to stressors,” he mentioned. “I really feel like I get overwhelmed extra simply since deployment.”
However that COVID-19-extended deployment additionally gave him a not-so-secret weapon that not solely helped him higher handle life’s challenges, it additionally remodeled his well being. A self-described informal runner earlier than that lengthy, lonely deployment, Godwin’s working profession existed nearly completely to make sure he may maintain his job with the Air Drive.
“Lots of people needed to flee and simply sleep. I spotted how rather more efficient I may very well be at work. … It sounds type of cliche, however I used to be a greater individual in so many various methods.” — Sean Godwin
“I’d actually simply run sufficient to go my health check,” he mentioned with amusing. “Then I acquired deployed with the Air Drive Reserves in 2019.”
When the pandemic turned a three-month deployment into eight months, Godwin discovered himself lacing up his trainers extra typically and for longer distances.
“That’s when my working actually began to take off,” he mentioned. “It was sort of a approach to put the lengthy days behind me and clear my head.”
At first it was simply a few miles, then at some point he felt so good he ran 4 miles. As he ran longer distances, he discovered the runs reworking extra than simply his physique.
“I spotted how far I may go and the way a lot it did for me mentally and bodily,” he mentioned. “It was a pathway for clearer ideas.”
He doesn’t run with music, books or podcasts as a result of he doesn’t need to be distracted from the run.
“I need that point in my head,” he mentioned. “I wanted a approach to let some issues go. That’s the place working discovered me … or I discovered working.”
He mentioned it’s simple to let 12-hour days flip into 15-hour days when one is on task removed from house and the world is locked down.
“Lots of people needed to flee and simply sleep,” he mentioned. “I spotted how rather more efficient I may very well be at work. … It sounds type of cliche, however I used to be a greater individual in so many various methods.”
His resolution to deal with himself on his personal time meant he may deal with work when he was there, even by way of lengthy, grueling hours.
Godwin returned house to Utah in June 2020, and he instantly determined to proceed his day by day runs. He ran 13 miles on a path in beneath two hours and thought perhaps he ought to give racing a attempt.
“Issues had been opening up, and I used to be taking a look at making an attempt to race,” he mentioned.
However races didn’t get better as shortly as different companies did.
“I didn’t know if I ought to register for a race after which have it canceled or go digital,” he mentioned. “I didn’t actually need to threat it, and I didn’t actually need to pay to run a digital race.”
Godwin ran the Salt Lake Marathon in 2018.
“I simply signed up on a whim as a result of it was the day earlier than or after my birthday, and I needed to start out getting in form,” he mentioned. “My time was terrible, and I damage for days.”
He needed to run an area race and check himself within the spring of 2021. He appeared to the Salt Lake Marathon once more as a result of he had a deferred entry he may use.
“I’d registered for it the 12 months earlier than I used to be deployed, after which it acquired canceled fully (due to COVID-19), so I deferred my entry,” he mentioned. “So technically, I ran the Salt Lake Marathon final 12 months but it surely was digital.”
So he stored working and hoped races would finally come again of their pre-pandemic type. As he skilled, he continued to see the transformative energy of working in his life.
“The aggressive side is nice and enjoyable and provides me little targets every time I am going out,” he mentioned. “However you would take that each one away — Strava, the metrics, all of it, and I'll nonetheless go lace up and go half-hour minimal. I want that every single day.”
The game might not want him, however he wants the game.
“I’m a greater individual after I run,” he mentioned. “It’s remedy for me. I didn’t know I wanted it.”
That want grew to become crystal clear within the months after that prolonged deployment. Godwin joined the Air Drive in 2004 however left lively responsibility after a yearlong deployment in 2016. He joined the reserves solely to be deployed once more in November 2019.
As he discusses how he feels extra simply overwhelmed since his deployment, he additionally talks about how working helps him cope with the adjustments.
“I can’t change the issues that occurred,” he mentioned. “Although it modified me in ways in which I want it hadn’t, I simply discovered a approach to cope with it.”
Therapeutic, he mentioned, has been a combination of challenges and blessings.
“I suppose that’s a part of it, too,” he mentioned. “There are a variety of issues about this expertise that I want didn’t occur, however I’m additionally essentially the most match I’ve ever been in my life. A whole lot of good issues occurred due to COVID.
“After I got here again after that prolonged deployment, I discovered a brand new job. I used to be content material in my outdated job, however I didn’t know individuals may very well be glad at work. … Had I not gotten locked down throughout COVID, I don’t know that I might have landed on this job. … I’d be commuting an hour every means and getting increasingly out of practice and increasingly sad.”
As a substitute, he’s planning to have a good time his forty first birthday by trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon with a private finest at this Saturday’s College of Utah Well being Salt Lake Metropolis Marathon. He can be becoming a member of greater than 6,000 individuals in collaborating within the marathon, half marathon or different occasions. Whereas the numbers for races throughout the nation are trending down, this 12 months’s marathon numbers are the very best within the race’s 19-year historical past, in accordance with Jennifer Nelson, advertising director for the occasion.
Will probably be his first highway race since he began coaching persistently.
“The aggressive facet of me has come out,” he mentioned. “I need to qualify for Boston, and I need to be within the high 5 in my age group.”
He laughs at what he thought after ending the marathon in 2018.
“I bear in mind ending and considering, ‘I’m extra of a 5K man. Simply stick with 5Ks,” he mentioned. “Working has helped me in a variety of methods, being that it’s my outlet,” he mentioned. “It’s helped me put a constructive spin on each route my life has gone since (2019).”
Amy Donaldson is a contributor to the Deseret Information.
U. of U. Well being Salt Lake Metropolis Marathon occasions on Saturday, April 23, 2022
6 a.m. — Bike tour
6:20 a.m. — Wheelchair and handcycle begin
7 a.m. — Marathon and half marathon begin
7:05 a.m. — 10 skate begin
7:10 a.m. — 10K run begin
7:15 a.m. — 5K run begin
8 a.m. 5K — Awards ceremony
8 a.m. — Children actions
9 a.m. — Half marathon, 10K run and 10K skate awards ceremony
10:30 a.m. — Marathon awards ceremony