On Defence Mechanisms, A Woodpecker, Good Omens and My Marathon

Image Source: Bill Pennell on Unsplash

It was Saturday, the 25^th of April 2026, The Day Before My Marathon. The London marathon, obviously.

I thought I was chill about running it, but in reality, I was just in denial. It is easier to pretend that something is not true or is not happening; it gives us the time to adapt to the distressing/upsetting/anxious thoughts or events, either in anticipation (like me) or after they have happened.

Denial is one of the defence mechanisms, so-called by psychoanalysts because they help us cope with the weight of unpleasant reality. Ok, you can argue that actively choosing to register for a Marathon should not qualify as “unpleasant reality”. Yet, how many times are unpleasant realities of our own making? Choice does not make difficult things easier; it just makes it easier to feel ashamed when they occur.

So, I was saying, it was the Day Before My Marathon, and I was unconsciously trying to limit the impact of this proximate event on my mind. Little did I know that the ripples were coming backwards, from the future to me, underwater, then breaking up closer to the surface and creating turbulence in my mind.

The first ripple came when I woke up at 6 AM.

It is not unusual for me to wake up at 6 AM; as I am getting older, it happens once or twice a week. What was unusual was my dreamy state of mind after awakening. I wanted to get up – I thought, since I am awake, I might as well do some work (or some writing) – but as soon as I had firmed this resolution in mind, I would fall asleep again and dream (cannot remember them). Then, after a few minutes, I would wake up again, focus my mental energy on the plan for getting up, and then I would fall asleep again, with more dreaming. And this happened repeatedly. Putting it into words may not convey the weirdness of the situation, but it felt unnatural to me, as if I was under the influence of drugs (I swear I wasn’t).

Feeling sleepy and falling asleep are also defence mechanisms: an attempt to give us some respite from whatever stresses us. Dreams are small holes in this defence mechanism, pushing through our preoccupations but masked to appear (most of the time) less frightful than reality. This is why dreams are one of the tools that psychoanalysts use to understand people’s thoughts and emotions. So, now I am thinking that I was trying to sleep to avoid the anxiety of the approaching marathon, and my dreams kept reminding me that the marathon was looming around the corner, even if I cannot remember the content of the dreams.

The second ripple was the drumming of a woodpecker I heard in the morning.

I am lucky that my London flat is high on the top floor of a house on a hill surrounded by big and majestic trees (all in other people’s gardens), and occasionally I can hear a woodpecker drumming. I read once that this sound is very powerful and can be heard from half a mile away, so distance calculation by its sound is very inaccurate. Yet, this time it sounded really close, like, really close. My immediate thought when I heard it? This must be a good omen for the marathon.

And so, an apparently unrelated event – what has a woodpecker got to do with running? – immediately allowed the unconscious anticipation of the marathon to bubble up to my conscious mind. This was magical thinking at its best: this is what we do when we give special power to events, people or places. It is another defence mechanism, operating at both individual and societal levels, as it allows us to feel in control and make sense of unpredictable events.

Astrology, horoscopes, superstition, evil eye, ghosts: all cultures and all of us have some expression of magical thinking. I am kind of superstitious, being from Naples. For example, I never pass the salt hand-to-hand to another person (if you do not understand this, Google it). Also, I kind of believe in the Zodiac: otherwise, how come my personality fits exactly the description of the Pisces sign? And of course, as a Fujian White Crane Kung Fu martial artist, I am also a spot-on fire horse.

Talking about magical thinking, something else surprising happened on the Day Before My Marathon: Rebecca Kuang published a Substack post.

Cover of The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager).

For those of you who don’t know her, then, first, where have you been for the last few years? And second, don’t miss this young Chinese American writer with an exceptional fantasy and a really engaging style. I have read all six novels she has written so far.

The surprising thing here was that she has only ever written three Substack posts: one in August and November last year, and one the Day Before the Marathon. Was this a third ripple from the future? If so, what did it mean? Was this another good omen for me as a marathon runner? Or as a writer? Rebecca Kuang runs, by the way. So does another of my favourite authors, Haruki Murakami.

So, back to the Substack post. Was it telling me that perhaps being a writer is like running a marathon: continuous pain and rare joy? Or was it telling me that I could be a writer? That, as I have the energy, commitment and grit to train for, and to run, two marathons in two years, perhaps I have what it takes at least to train to be a writer?

My Marathon went well. A personal best and no unbearable pain, all in all, it was a good result.

So, my defence mechanisms did work. They kept me reasonably relaxed while a healthy tension was building in the background, ready for the 4-hour-43-minute sprint.

And my magical thinking also worked. I am sure all the good omens did help my running. Let’s hope they also help my writing.

Image Source: Provided by Author (Carmine Pariante)