Now based mostly in Edinburgh – the place she has spent the final two years present process dental vocational coaching – Dickson beforehand attended Banchory Academy in Aberdeenshire, and frequently returns to her household residence in Bridge of Canny, Royal Deeside.
There, she is going to usually discover herself drawn to the huge expanses of the Cairngorms, or, on a better day, a gentler run up Banchory’s Scolty Hill.
Hill runner Kirsty Dickson will make her worldwide debut subsequent month when she competes for Nice Britain on the inaugural European Athletics Off-Highway Working Championships in El Paso, Spain.
However Dickson’s philosophy is sort of not like that of many athletes competing at an elite degree.
The truth is, Dickson herself wouldn’t even class herself as significantly aggressive. Her method to hill working – Dickson specialises within the uphill solely class – is one which revolves round working’s social aspect. The instances, the mileage, the worldwide call-ups, are all secondary.
That’s not what it was once, although, and Dickson explains her earlier mindset which, at one stage, was fairly damaging.
Finding out dentistry at Glasgow College, Dickson labored and skilled to an unsustainable depth. It took an invite from a pal to go for a run up Kilpatrick Hills, simply outdoors Glasgow, for Dickson to reimagine her method to a sport she had began to lose contact with.
She defined: “From a younger age, it’s all about grades, it’s about reaching, it’s about successful.
“Even at sport, it’s about reaching and what you are able to do to win. It was simply that (similar) mindset at college.
“I discovered it very onerous going from reaching very extremely academically, and going right into a pool of excessive achievers the place you’re simply somebody. For me, that was one thing I positioned self-worth on, and working was the identical.
“You’re a sufferer of your atmosphere, and so I discovered myself drawn into splits, how briskly I used to be working, and every thing that goes round it – the disordered angle in direction of consuming, stress, and sleep.
“At a younger age, I used to be so impressionable and so weak, and actually, I wasn’t capable of arise for what made me comfortable, as a result of I believed the atmosphere I used to be in would know higher. It was a dysfunctional relationship.”
So, what modified? Typically, it takes one thing spontaneous to wake one as much as actuality, and so it was for Dickson.
Though it could have appeared counterintuitive at first, it was the elimination of the objective, the taking out measuring runs by velocity, time, and distance, which introduced Dickson again to the basis of why she ran. Profitable, reaching, and performing all light into the background.
“It simply made me do not forget that it was nothing to do with a time, it wasn’t aggressive – it was extra about being in nature that was some of the vital issues. As infantile because it sounds, it was nearly happening journey. I simply fell in love with it.
