Fast forward

I scrolled through my phone to find the entry labelled “Centurion RD”. I knew it would be there because I checked before the race start; I also knew because it had been there since 2015, when I first lined up for one of James Elson’s races. That day started quite a bit like today. Nervy. Optimistic. Blisteringly hot. (Early). It ended much the same as this one would too – with a DNF. But a very different outlook.

Describing where I guessed I was, I even apologized for bothering him. “I’m fine, don’t worry, I know I’ve timed out. Please tell the sweeper to wait for me.” But I didn’t feel especially emotional. The truth was, I’d known for a few miles that I wasn’t going to make it, and I knew why. It wasn’t that I didn’t care; after all, this was more than a race to me, it was my qualifier for the Autumn 100. I needed this finish to be allowed to run in October, and I needed it to reassure myself that I’m up to the task. I should have been crying, or angry, or disappointed. Remembering back to that first Centurion race when I sulked for the 2 hour drive home, chin on my knuckles staring out of the window. I’m eight years older now though. That brings its own demons, but it also means I’m eight years more experienced. So instead of sulking, I started running through the race step by step, in a bid to work out what went wrong.

The Start

The month leading up to the South Downs 50 was… suboptimal. Oh, is she getting her excuses in early? What a surprise. In all seriousness, after the disaster that was Kingston Breakfast Run I hit one of my worst patches of period pain so far and it showed in my mileage. For those of you who can’t relate – and I’m genuinely glad you can’t – I don’t just mean grab a hot water bottle and an ibuprofen. Pain, relentless chronic pain, is exhausting. A key feature of these bad patches is having to sleep 10+ hours plus naps during the day, and surviving on codeine while awake. Chronic pain even makes a hazard out of holding a cup of tea. It was deeply frustrating to be back in this cycle when there was so much at stake, so I tried to make the most of the enforced rest and hope the pain would subside by the race. A very unnerving taper.

If I was nervous, there were plenty of little touches on race day to make me feel optimistic. A lift to the start from Andy made all the difference to my lacklustre logistics. The Centurion shop, where (if you’re me) you inevitably stop to buy missing snacks and pretty hats. The ladies-only loos with a shorter queue, chintzy curtains and a toilet roll dolly (I guess you’ll just have to sign up next year to know if I’m joking). The reassuring presences of James and Nici and an army of volunteers. Optimism. That’ll start things off well.

So obviously I went out for the first couple of miles at a pace I had no business trying to run, chatting away to another lone runner who heaven help him probably wanted to focus on the uphill start and conserving breath. That should have been a clue. Never mind; I actually love the rolling ups and downs on this course, for whatever goes up is about to come back down. Dropping a sub 9 minute mile on the first descent, I carried on with my no-business pace.

The Middle

My plan had been to run to a pace around an hour inside the cut offs, and thanks to my hot start I was well within that. For someone with as much experience as I have, there were red flags and in my haste, I missed them. They said things like “if you go faster now you’ll bank time for later”, “hammer this downhill, it’s fun” and “save time at the aid station, your bottles don’t need refilling yet”. Saying that, recapturing the fun of trail running is pretty fundamental to recapturing my old self – so it’s seemed perfectly intuitive at the time to lean into that. This last year has been a process of accepting the fact that I’m functionally a newbie again, and that’s both a blessing and a curse. Being new to the sport you get the thrill of discovery (or to put it another way, the bliss of ignorance) but the price is the pitfalls that a new ultra runner can so easily fall into, and are usually on the lookout for. My experience should have made me less wary of those pitfalls but more wise to them – and it didn’t. So off I went, throwing my undrunk Tailwind and untrained quads all over the Downs like a demented pixie.

Rampaging into the first aid station at Botolphs, I was in a disgustingly good mood and comfortably ahead of schedule. It was warm but not blistering, although in retrospect I underestimated how dehydrated I really was. The next station at Saddlescombe Farm is only 5 miles on, and immediately followed by some more punchy climbs, so calories were the order of the day. I got a good little picnic spread going, topped up my water and got moving.

The rolling Downs are just one of the best places to be on a warm spring day. Trotting on ahead of my target pace, enjoying the views and appreciating my ability to move. It was liberating not to be in pain for once – sore, sure, but it’s a blessed relief from the alternative – even though I felt the heaviness in my legs weigh further and further down. As I reached the marathon mark on my watch, that weight landed hard. I realised at that point that, where there was usually pain, there was now the creeping threat of nausea. In all likelihood my rule of thumb estimates for calories were wildly off, from the days when I could cover 10 miles in two hours and not three, and my “hydration” was no more than a good score in Scrabble. And it was too late to do much about it. I tried bringing food up to my mouth – no dice. My pace slowed; still well within my target, but obviously coming to a halt. Thankfully, I was moments away from Housedean Farm.

And better still, the sunny smile of Laure from Fulham RC – a stalwart of Centurion races and a bloody lovely human. She had been looking out for me, gave me a massive hug and boost of joy, and helped me fill up on Tailwind and snacks. I didn’t want to admit that I was already on the struggle bus, so I took what I could and got right back on the trail. The next section is high and exposed – enough for me to need my jacket despite the heat – and although stunning, a real slog for my underfuelled body. I cheered myself up with video messages to my football friends and a bootstraps call to Andy while I pushed food against my unwilling mouth, trying to get my mindset and calories back on track. And watching my pace slip further and further away.

A miserable theme for the next seven miles. I wanted so badly to be doing better; but by this point, I also wanted not to feel sick any more. It’s a horrible Catch-22 situation: you can’t fix the hunger pangs without food; you can’t get food anywhere near you without vomming; you can’t vom because there’s nothing there. I want to say that determination dragged me through – seasoned ultra runners are no stranger to battling on for hours without calories. In reality, I’d left determination somewhere around Ditchling Beacon with my pace and my common sense. By the time I trotted across the bridge towards Southease Aid Station I was mathematically, physicaly, mentally DONE.

(Here is a cautionary tale for you all – I got into the sweeper bus at peace with my DNF and ready to be reunited with my kit bag and my journey home. By the time we actually made it to the track, having waited to sweep the handful of non-finishers from the next two aid stations, I was wearing all my kit including the spare layers, two foil blankets and a borrowed DryRobe, and even as I was curled up in a heated van I was shivering hard enough not to be able to speak. That’s how dehydrated and calorie deficient I’d got. Do not skimp on your mandatory kit, people. It may save your life.)

The End, and then some

So what went wrong?

To truly understand that, I’d have to go a bit further back than the start of the race.

Increasing speed work had been the right call – I ran a faster, hillier 35 miles that day than the 33 on Pilgrim’s day 1 in February. And to bring a little light into the story, seeing my fitness progress was a plus even if it ended in disaster. On the other hand, there still wasn’t enough structure or discipline in my self made plan, let alone enough mileage. Reflecting on my HR data, I spent a quarter of the race in Zone 5 and nearly 40% above Zone 3, which speaks to how hard I was working relative to pace – in other words, I just wasn’t fit enough. It’s all very well pointing to the inability to eat, the nausea, the dehydration; but not having enough fitness likely meant that I had no buffer to deal with the other setbacks.

In short, I didn’t respect the distance and it disrespected me back.

But there was something deeper to look into as well. I’d been struggling with lethargy alongside pain for months, and in the periods when it lifted I avoided training too hard in fear of wearing myself out. Not that that was the wrong thing to do, but it was addressing the symptoms more than the cause. And it’s not like lack of motivation was the problem – I wanted this SO badly. So. Think. Examine. Solve.

That’s when I decided to look up coaching; something I’ve toyed with for a while but considered to be too expensive. I figured that the monthly cost wasn’t much more than a day in the pub with QPR and investing in myself is a bit more responsible than investing in pale ale and pad thai. So I got in touch with a few ultra specialist coaches, explaining that I had a 100 miler to finish and no real idea how to do it, explaining that I needed someone who would understand and be flexible, but make me accountable to my goals. One of those phonecalls was with Eddie Sutton, and I came away feeling like I was talking to someone I’d known for years. It was a no brainer.

Taking charge not just of my training but a holistic understanding of my health, Eddie pointed out something she noticed in my Strava feed that I hadn’t: just how often I complain of fatigue. And she did this before we even had our first official call – an example of how the price you pay for isn’t just the hour’s consultation but the years of experience that back it up. Some small but significant steps, including changing my contraceptive, taking iron supplements and adding more walking (I’m completely serious) got me on the right track. And that was before I even had a training plan.

I won’t go into all the boring details here, but I will point out something I think was key to improving my fitness: we didn’t start with a plan. We started with giving me the best chance of following one.

I’m not a fucking idiot: I can Google; I have Hal Koerner and Krissy Moehl and Sarah Lavender Hall and P&D in my library; I know about the 80/20 split and time on feet and cross training and all that. My problem was, how do you jump into a 6 mile tempo when you can barely lift your feet? The answer was to break the problem down, step by step, and restart with the basics. You don’t grow a tree by sticking a twig in the ground and hoping for the best. You start with a seed.

Growth – in this context – looked like moving from despair, from feeling a total lack of control over my body, to actually listening to it and letting it take the lead. Growth looked like multiple mornings looking forward to the day instead of dreading it. Growth looked like starting off with one push up and eventually making it to six. And honestly, at times I was so overwhelmed with relief I cried. What a twat.

Fast forward

Next up – attempt number two at my Autumn 100 qualifier. I had a deferred entry to Race to the Stones in my pocket, something you have to enter a lottery for these days, and I was determined to make it count. A familiar trail, a generous cutoff, a well-organised race. This would be the best chance I’d have for a long time.

But that’s a story for another day.

Time travel

Why are you nervous? You’ve done this before!

My mind is a swaying tower built from the bricks of habit. Little rituals that start, proceed and end exactly the same way every time; sometimes we call them ‘pings’. We’ll be sitting in the pub before a QPR home game and I’ll turn to Andy and ask if Tess (our cat) is OK, and he says, in a very matter of fact way, yes she is. And I say what’s she’s doing and he’ll answer without missing a beat, she’s curled up on the sofa, or she’s watching pigeons from the study windowsill. We are miles away, and have been for a whole morning. He doesn’t have a security camera, or a telepathic link; I know he doesn’t know for sure. But he answers me as if it’s the most natural question in the world and then we get on with our pints and complaining about Keith Stroud’s godawful refereeing.

This is one type of brick; there are many others like it, stacked and restacked daily. The foundation that my 2022 London Marathon training was built on is a bit different though. The preparation for a weekend long run starts 30 to 60 minutes in advance, packing and repacking my vest, insisting I’m not hungry and then eating a piece of Nutella toast at the last minute, checking weather, feeling nauseous, tying shoelaces two or three times, staring at the front door.

Andy, I’m nervous. I don’t know if I can do this.

You have to understand what an infinitely patient man Andy is. This is not my first rodeo. At this point I have run 53 official marathons and ultras, and probably 20 more marathon plus distances on top of that. I have run London twice before. He would have every right to dismiss my fears, or at least show some frustration; after all, he answered this EXACT comment seven days ago, and seven days before that; not so much travelling through time as trapped in a small pocket of it. But he doesn’t. It is a test of his kindness, and it’s a test that he passes every single time.

And for some reason, hearing his confident response is enough to make me believe I can do it, and off I go.

As you’ve probably heard before, the hard work of a marathon is done getting to the start line. Whatever happens out there on the course, it’s those training miles that often decide whether or not you’re going to finish, or hit your goal time, or (frankly) enjoy yourself. So it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that having Andy boot my arse out of the door every week was the single biggest factor to me getting to the end of this race. But why WAS it such a tall order, when I’ve done more than fifty of them before? Well, that story starts at the end of 2019.

So what happened was: I used to run a lot – then I worked a lot – then a pandemic landed – then –

*white noise*

And here we are now.

I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this, but my sense of time is completely screwed since 23rd March 2020. Like, I still think 2019 was last year. So was 2022. So was 2012. 1998 was maybe a decade ago. I spent a whole year – look at me, a WHOLE YEAR – thinking I was a year older than I was; even wrote job applications and race entries with the wrong damn age. And then I spent a year at that age thinking, nah, I’ve done 38 once already haven’t I? All because lockdown landed the day before my birthday and stopped time.

As a result, it’s taken me quite a while to really understand that I’m not in the shape I think I’m in. The mental gymnastics involved in believing I’m still a 35 year old who last ran a marathon a month ago contorted me into signing THAT Jaz up for races, writing cheques that 38 year old Jaz has to cash… but without the fitness to match it. Beating myself up because I can’t understand why my pace is so slow, why my fitness is suddenly on the floor. Not realising that I’m living with a sort of conscious amnesia, clouding the memories of two years of bad news and grief and stress and surviving on crisps and not much running.

Then I quit my dream job with no prospects to look forward to and barely enough savings to last me half a month. I gave myself the human equivalent of holding the button down on a PC to force a reboot and hoping it switches back on. Sure, all the unsaved work in the last two years was lost, but it worked. I did a bit of sleeping. I saw my dad for the first time in three years. I relearned the days of the week. I woke up.

And then I found myself with a handful of deferred race entries to use. Well, why not?

Which brings us back to the start of this story.

London Marathon 2022

It was October 2022. I had finally recieved one of the unicorns that is a ballot place (yes, they exist) just before the pandemic – having told anyone who’d listen and many who did not that I’d never run London again – and deferred it for the autumn, reasoning that I’d either be fit enough to go for it or I’d be stubbornly dragging my heels around, but I would never again take it for granted. And training started off pretty optimistically. Well it would do, wouldn’t it? Training through the summer, running in daylight, not having to carry two kilos worth of warm kit – lovely stuff. I even kept a run streak going from January to June, recapturing the time I felt most like me; like a runner who had a job instead of the other way around.

Of course fate isn’t that kind – a forced break from running for two months intervened just as I was getting into my stride. Pre-pandemic Jaz probably wouldn’t have given a second thought to rawdogging a marathon but I have to admit, I was back to beginner status at this point and I had no idea how long a marathon would take me to finish. And like a beginner, one of the first things I had to do was work on my ‘why’ – which is weird for me, because in any other context marathon and ultramarathon running IS my why. I figured it was as simple as getting back on track for the 100 Marathon Club (I was up to 53 at this point) and indulging in something I enjoy.

Which in a lot of ways was true, and in many more ways didn’t begin to tell the story of why. I’ve run a lot of marathons for the very simple reason that I enjoy doing them and they’re my favourite thing ever and I want to get to 100 of them as soon as humanly possible and then ideally 1000. But as it turned out, I rediscovered a completely different ‘why’; the cruellest one the pandemic took from us, a community.

Community like Sutton Striders, a new club close to my home that I had started training with. I missed my Clapham Chasers clubmates but life logistics just didn’t allow for me to be part of the everyday goings on any more; and although I figured I could train by myself no problem, I forgot what an impact the encouragement of fellow runners could have. That was until chairman Bryn put up a series of social media posts featuring the Striders running London, with a photo and a Q&A and a club logo. And there I was, among those posts. Part of a team. It was a small gesture on his part but it made me feel validated as a runner, in a way that solo loops around the block can’t. (That gesture meant so much, so unexpectedly, I later decided to join the committee even though I know the square root of fuck all about being on a committee).

Community like my gaggle of football hooligans, who nod warily over their pints every time they hear I’m doing another marathon, but who nonetheless turned up at the north end of Tower Bridge with a QPR scarf. Like one hooligan in particular who found time between being a barrister and a bestselling author to train for her first marathon. Enter low-key hero and glutton for punishment, Harriet. We bumbled around the race village together, we queued for loos together, we did a lot of Instagram twattery together, so when we worked out that she was only two start pens ahead of me I thought it would be a piece of cake to simply sprint the first mile, maybe two, and catch her up. The first two WERE pieces of cake; miles three and four at something close to my current parkrun pace were not, but I got there eventually and we ran, hobbled and grumbled the other twenty two miles together. And honestly it made my day to share those miles with her.

Community like Diana, who was thrust into our path at mile 18 by one of the volunteers. She’d been running with her husband but forced to stop for medical attention for agonising cramps – cramps which by rights should have taken her out of the race altogether. It took about six seconds to work out this isn’t a lady who understands the word “can’t”. Raising money in memory of her late daughter while undergoing chemotherapy herself, our grumblefest turned into a keep-Diana-going-fest, turned into a Diana-taking-care-of-us-fest, turned into a parade of her dozens of supporters who seems to be at every corner. At some point in that last eight miles we all took turns having a bit of a sob while the other two did the comforting, until we got to the last 400 metres where we met Diana’s husband who had waited, unwilling to cross the line without her – then the floodgates opened for us all. Crossing the line as a group of four ranks as one of my favourite running memories ever. (This one’s for Daisy.)

Community like my mum who was manning the water station at mile 5, who abandoned her duties long enough to give me a massive hug and then spent the rest of the day tirelessly singing and handing out drinks and probably hugging everyone who looked like they needed it. Community like the Anthony Nolan charity volunteers who cheered Harriet every time her black and green shirt approached. Community like my husband and his sister who, fifteen years on, still treat London like more than a marathon; who always remind me that it is.

And that’s just the start.

Autumn Ranscombe Challenge 2022

It’s November 2022, barely a month later.

Rachel and Tills haven’t see me in over two years but there is no hesitation whatsoever when they greet me at the start/finish pen of the Ranscombe Challenge, remembering my predilection for skull skirts and giant Galaxy chocolate bars. It’s one of the SVN trademark lap challenges and I’m here to see how far I can get, only a month after London. Of course I want another marathon finish; but I need to be able to drive myself home afterwards and I have no idea what my little legs have in them. So I take it a lap at a time.

As I’m out on the course, taking in the scenery while tiptoeing around the mud, my mind is already a dozen races ahead. At nine o- clock today the Centurion Autumn 100 2023 entries go on sale, and given how popular that race is I don’t want to miss the opportunity to bag a place for attempt number three at the distance. Trouble is, I’m not going to be back at my laptop until sundown, and I have no idea if that’s too later or not. So, as the hour ticks over at the start of my second lap, I trot along a rutted road with my face in my smartphone, trying not to stumble as I go through the sign up process and hoping the signal holds out. Totally normal behaviour.

It is stunning, and as the name suggests, challenging. The loop takes in part of the North Downs and involves a lot of crunchy climbs. My legs are absolutely not in skipping-like-an-ibex shape; I’m mostly hiking by the fourth lap, but I’m happy. I call Andy to get his advice on whether or not it’s worth grinding out two more for the marathon distance.

“Well, you didn’t drive all the way to bumfuck nowhere in Kent not to get a marathon finish.”

Yup.

And I do. And it’s very firmly type 1 fun, not type 2 fun. That’s what’s different for me at the moment – being so far off the pace, still suffering with chronic lethargy and general heaviness of self, it’s not so much that I can’t run fast as I can’t try to run fast. My body simply won’t answer the call to push beyond its limits because it’s already there. Every bit of rest I take feels like cheating; until I remember, this is as much as you’ve got right now. Remember that. This is 2022 Jaz, not 2019 Jaz or 2015 Jaz. The tradeoff is… it’s all fun. I’m having a lovely old day pottering about in some woods, catching up with old friends and being at peace.

Fast forward to a few months’ time: this will be the groundwork for the Jaz I want to be.

What I feel, picking up the medal, is less euphoria and more quiet satisfaction. I have a bit of a chat, queue up for a coffee, run my thumb pleasingly over the ridges of the medal. Examine the puzzle shape, which I love but which makes me a bit sad to think I’m missing the other three pieces. I should do the whole four race series next year, I think. A nice fuzzy feeling.

That feeling accompanies me on the drive home like a warm blanket, but is eventually jostled out by a nagging thought. Remember, Jaz. Did I leave some kit behind? Forget to pay the Dartford Bridge toll?

Ah, I remember. I officially have a 100 miler to train for.

SHIT.

Pilgrims Challenge 2023

It’s February 2023.

I’ve done the most natural thing I could think of – signed up for the XNRG Pilgrims Challenge. It’s 66 miles over two days along the North Downs; basically, run from Farnham to Redhill, stay overnight in a school hall, run back the next day. If you want a proper run down of the race look up my previous blogs from 2015 and 2018. There’s a reason I choose this race: because it’s familiar ground, safe ground. With their policy of no cut offs, I figure that it would be the perfect way to start this crash course in 100 mile race fitness: prove your endurance, then work on your speed.

There is one other factor I still need to work on: my mental strength. I’ve got enough experience behind me now to know I can slog out a finish if I want to; it’s the wanting to that I worry will let me down. I’m going to be away from home for a whole weekend, which means being away from Andy and our (now) two cats – one of which is a recently adopted elderly curmudgeon named Bay. He’s come down with a stomach bug a couple of days before the race, and although he’s got all the meds and fuss he could possibly need, I still feel immense guilt at taking the car for a whole weekend. What if he needs another emergency trip to the vets. What if Tess runs away. What if Andy trips over a cat and falls down the stairs. The line between being completely present for this race weekend and wanting to rush home to safety is wisp thin.

And that, more than almost anything else, brings home the sharp reality that the person running this race is present day Jaz. The bricks of habit that make up my tower apparently have less mortar holding them together than I realise.

But then; standing under the starting arch, marvelling at the lack of snow (I’ve never seen Pilgrims without it), I feel my shoulders climb down from around my ears. This is what I’m here for.

The next day and a half passes in bliss, for the most part. My progress is slow but determined. It’s not all bad news, being this new Jaz: I half run half hike the first day and it takes me almost ten hours, compared with my first ever finish at around six and a half – and I don’t mind. I’m not beating myself up for being slow like I did last time. In fact, the gentle pace means that I can post Instagram stories of my progress whenever signal allows, diarising the race in real time, not just recording in retrospect. I ring Andy at regular intervals, just to hear his reassuring voice. Partway through the second day I am blindsided by excruciating period cramps – which often make me black out with pain, or simply root me to bed – and I tramp on, wearing a grimace for a smile but knowing that all I have to do is move. In videos I describe the nostalgia I feel running this trail after so many years, a trail I used to train on once a month or more, but it feels more like going back in time. For a few joyful miles Cat is running along the North Downs with me, and it’s not deja vu, she’s really there.

Not that that stops me taking a wrong turn just as dusk starts to creep over the treetops. I’m so engrossed in a call to Andy (the cats are fine, the house is fine, he’s fine) that I gain myself some bonus mileage taking an adjacent trail into the lower woods outside Guildford and having to turn back. No big deal, not even this late in the day. I laugh it off with him, tell him I’ll call once I’m through the final checkpoint. And when I get there, cramming cookies into my race vest that I’m long past being able to eat, a wintry gloom is decidedly settled over Surrey.

That’s when I learn how close to meltdown I really am. Up to that last checkpoint I still believe that no matter how long it takes I’ll get to the end, that there’s nothing to worry about. I’m so proud of myself for getting through the weekend just trusting that everything would be fine, and my regular check ins with Andy contribute to that little echo chamber of optimism. So with a paltry 5 miles to go (maybe an hour and a half?) I call him for what I intended to be the last time. No answer, so I try once more just in case he’s in the middle of Apex Legends. Still, nope.

That’s ok. Give it ten and try again. Watch nervously as the trail ahead plunges into a thicker canopy, crowding out the light and the phone signal. Consider waiting in the open until he calls back, decide that’s daft, carry on. Feel the panic bubbling up. Try again and again for 30 minutes or more. Keep moving.

By this point my train of thought had taken me into a dark place. Bay could be hurt, but I’ve got the car so Andy can’t do anything about it. Andy could be hurt and nobody can get to him. Do I call our next door neighbour to get her to check? No, wait – she’s out for the weekend. What about my mum? She’s an hour’s drive away and she’s probably at work. Try again, try again, swallow down the panic. The last inhabited building before the trail disappeared into the darkness again almost tempted me to pull out of the race so at least I wouldn’t be exposed while I waited for him to call.

I carry on, dry sobbing and yelping to myself. The trail eventually opens out into a path between two of the Puttenham golf course greens – which means the clubhouse would be nearby too. I think, I’ll get shelter there while I figure out how to get home, tell the race director to come and pick me up – I’m pulling out of the race with three miles to go because my husband is potentially dead. Just try one more time.

And then he picks up.

Sounding very much not dead, but perhaps a little sleepy, Andy asks how I was getting on. And I, overwhelmed with relief, go into full on middle eastern woman of grief mode. Wailing, sobbing, hiccuping grotesquely, as a pair of gentleman golfers chasing the last rays of dusk looks on with confusion. From Andy’s perspective he was woken up from a thirty minute nap – something he’d been unable to do all day – to hear me crying unintelligibly down the phone at him from some woods in Surrey. He is alive, so are the cats and fish. Panic over.

No, there’s no Instagram story of that bit.

Therein lies one of the many lessons I later take away from that day: deal with your catastrophising anxiety, because nothing will bring it out faster than an overnight stretch of trail with no end in sight. Easier said than done; I’ve spent years triple checking the oven to make sure the cats aren’t hiding in there (they never are) and going home to lock a front door that is already locked (I almost made my friend miss parkrun doing that) and tapping Andy’s arm three times to make sure everything will be alright (it usually is). Making sure those bricks are neatly stacked. And waiting for earthquakes.

Outside the pub

It’s April 2023.

The day before the South Downs 50 2023, my qualifier for the Autumn 100. I have made it to the pub for QPR’s home game against Preston. Well, nearly; I’ve made it to the front door of the pub. People are milling about in the sunshine, gesticulating with pint glasses and probably complaining about Keith Stroud’s godawful referring. Andy comes out to meet me.

My tower has toppled.

As usual he soothes my rises anxiety, ruefully suggests I go back home. A football stadium is not a great place to be right now, and I need sleep before tomorrow’s early start. As I retrace my steps to the tube, I play time forwards 24 hours to imagine the race, how I’m going to manage my pace and fuelling strategy, begin to restack those bricks. One foot in front of the other.

Why am I nervous? I’ve done this before!

The next day is a story for another day.

To all those lucky enough/brave enough/daft enough to be toeing the line at London Marathon this Sunday: run well, run happy and be really fucking proud xxx

Community service

Monday 18th May marked the start of Mental Health Awareness Week 2020, and what a flipping time to be raising awareness of the importance of good mental health.

Being a locked-down runner who lives vicariously through Instagram, I’ve seen a ton of posts about the links between physical health (usually exercise and good diet) and mental health. One is often credited with influencing the other, whether that’s low mood or lack of motivation making it hard to get up and move around, or the head-clearing effects of a good workout. You’ll find 3.5 million Insta posts under the hashtag #runningmotivation alone.

This is not to say that mental ill health like depression or anxiety can be instantly cured by a run: for starters, although they’re often quoted together they are two very different things, can be experienced for very different reasons and in very different ways depending on who you’re talking to, and they are medical conditions not to be treated like a mardy half hour. But we also know that both are more widely reported now than, say, 40 years ago, in which time we’ve also seen an overall increase in sedentary behaviour, the introduction of smartphones, and a shift in the patterns of social interaction. (I’m not going to talk too much about this here but I strongly recommend Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism for a study of the effects of social media on social interaction, including a correlation between the introduction of the smartphone and a rise in anxiety in young people.) In any case, unless we can control for all the variables that define life in 1980 and life now, we can’t know for certain how much technology or lifestyle contribute to this increase, if at all. But we’ve worked out that we can use that technology to retake control of our lifestyle.

So it’s understandable that our sedentary, screen-addicted society increasingly pursues the idea of mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body) by following popular diet programs, taking up a new sport or activity (parkrun and CrossFit being pretty notable among these), and using apps and social media to create virtual communities with no physical base, such as the Lonely Goat Running Club and Runspire. My gateway drug to running was a pledge to raise money for the cancer charities that cared for one of my childhood friends; I stayed with it when my self-esteem rocketed; now I run because it gives me a whole new community of people that I’m proud to call friends, as well as a sense of self-worth and, most importantly, of control, of autonomy. If the growth of parkrun is any indicator, it seems there are thousands of others that feel similarly to me.

And now, here comes 2020 to hit us in the face with a massive brick. A massive coronavirus shaped brick. Bye bye mental health.

If you’re putting your life at risk every day just so the country can still rely on healthcare, groceries, education and utilities, there’s a whole new level of fear to face every day, compounded by the possibility of PTSD or moral injury among healthcare workers. If you run a small business or are self-employed, the risk of economic collapse could well be hanging like the sword of Damocles, bringing the anxiety of not knowing (or even having control over) when and how to safely restart operations. If you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, you’re likely doing it with little to no support, unable even to give them a send-off that they deserve and left without closure. Lockdown has presented the UK with a sharp uptick in reports of domestic abuse, and if you’re one such victim you’re faced with even less opportunity to escape. And if you’re one of the furloughed, working from home, homeschoolers and caregivers, isolation is probably forcing you to re-evaluate everything you thought you knew. Including what it’s like to talk to another grown-up.

So why am I talking about this on a running blog?

Something at the core of Cal Newports’ plea to digitally minimise our lives; something the LSE blog linked above calls key to the resilience that is “essential for key workers’ mental health”; something at the heart of both parkrun and CrossFit’s values; something that, frankly, pays my bills. Community, assembly, shared experience.

I create theatre for a living, I have done all my professional life and before that I traipsed around on my mum’s coat-tails as she did the same. An occupational hazard of working in theatre is being regularly asked why, especially when it pays so poorly and isn’t exactly key work, and the short answer is those three phrases: Community, assembly, shared experience. Coming together to share an emotional response, positive or negative, to see one thing from multiple perspectives, is the bedrock of empathy. Theatre, literature and the arts all allow us to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, and this is crucial for our sociological development as a sort of low-risk exposure to the unknown. As humans we naturally commune, for safety and for fun. Assembling with others is how we tread the path to civilisation, whatever we believe that to be.

So for me there are obvious parallels between theatre and running, and it wasn’t until I had both in my life that I realised how the experience of one helped me articulate the other, and vice versa.

This article, which first appeared barely a fortnight into the UK and US lockdown hit the nail on the head for me. To quote: “The coronavirus is so insidious because it attacks one of the central yearnings of human nature, which just so happens to be the bedrock theatre is built on: our desire to assemble.” I think you can replace the word “theatre” with “running”, “football”, “gaming”, “a vegetable growing club” and it’s still true. My clubmates at Clapham Chasers don’t just give me motivation when I can’t be arsed to run, they help me see my own value when I’m feeling worthless and encourage me to help others through my experiences, to pass on the torch. It’s no coincidence that I don’t blog as much when I haven’t seen them for a while. However we choose to do it, assembly and social interaction provides us with an invisible armour, physically and emotionally; you only know it’s there when you need to use it.

Quoting from the LSE blog again: “Resilience is personal, organisational, family and community… that’s why our ‘clap for carers’ on a Thursday evening may have such significance for frontline workers beyond the immediacy of expressed appreciation.” We look to our community, whatever form it may take, for validation and for growth, for support and for constructive feedback. That doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally want to tell that community to sod off, but by and large humans are designed to be pack animals, not lone wolves. To me, it seems obvious that community is how we will survive the lasting impact of coronavirus, mental and physical, the same way it has done for countless threats before.

In much the same way that the war effort was credited with bringing Britain together, lockdown has highlighted the true heroes of the community, both among our selfless key workers and those who volunteer to support them. We’ve also seen more than enough examples of self-preservation, people behaving somewhere on a spectrum between blind panic and outright selfishness. Stress encourages us to classify information quickly as either good or bad so that we can respond appropriately to a perceived threat: during the chaos of the pandemic we have become accustomed to categorising people as “heroes” (Captain Tom, NHS staff) and “villains” (beachgoers, Hyde Park protesters). Presumably these binary definitions make for good headlines when there’s bugger all else to report on apart from death tolls, but the consequence is that you’re defined as either a good person or a bad person and you have to pick a side. To someone familiar with the curse of anxiety, this can lead to the logical conclusion that if you’re not a good person doing good things – fundraising, delivering sandwiches to NHS staff, staying alert and saving lives – then you must be a bad person. Even if the government instruction was, for starters, actual instruction as opposed to polite requests and secondly, completely unambiguous, I think the fear of somehow becoming a villain and being ostracised by the greater part of society will manifest as yet another risk to mental health.

How can we combat this? Well, a good first step is to be careful about the news you read and employ critical thinking. Evaluate and analyse the information you receive: its provenance, the source and its motivations, the details available, the age of the information (i.e. breaking news is not as trustworthy as an editorial summary a week later, for fairly obvious reasons). If you’re not sure what critical thinking means this might help.

And if we continue to be presented with heroes and villians, I think it’s important to use critical thinking to humanise “the villains” rather than demonise them. Did the loo roll shortage leave you wiping your arse with pages from the Tambury Gazette? How annoying. Still, ask yourself why people reacted to a global pandemic by panic buying. Better still, find an article that does it for you. Perhaps you’re a runner who suddenly found their usual route full of dog walkers, or someone on their government-approved stroll on a country lane having to veer out of the path of cyclists. Who’s in the right in each circumstance? You have to believe it’s you, because if you’re not the hero, you must be the villain.

It’s easy to mistake a kneejerk response for a rational perspective, but this is where community in all its forms can help. Perhaps we can’t physically assemble right now, but we can be together, we can try to exercise the empathy we developed once upon a time, and it might take an extra effort but we can do that. For instance, do you need to post that tweet about your neighbour’s annoying VE Day party? It was stupid of them, have a word if you have to but maybe leave the rest of the Twitterverse out of it. Social media, which has been a breeding ground for mental health risks for years, could be one of our only ways to assemble, but platform by platform it’s fast turning into a swamp of bile and fury. Zoom, Skype and Portal will soon be the only safe spaces left.

We must recognise that anger is a consequence of fear. Everyone has a right to be afraid but civilisation means resisting the temptation to turn every fear to anger. Our key workers go to work not knowing whether or not doing so will kill them, but knowing society depends on them. There are people trapped at home with their abusers, or their own torturous thoughts; despite the best efforts of the furlough scheme there are people scraping at the bottom of their overdraft to pay bills and buy food, not knowing when they’ll get income again; there are people overwhelmed by a double workload and half the resources to do it; there are people experiencing how isolating it is to be a stay at home parent, even though you’re never alone; there are people asking themselves what there is left to live for, if not the life they knew up until now; all of them are experiencing fear. If any of these sound like you, remember you’re not alone. You’re in that massive grey area between heroism and villainry just like the rest of us.

What I’m trying to say is: be kind. Be empathetic. If you can afford to stay home then stay home, because as far as we know isolation is the best possible defence against the spread of the virus (and because the sight of a beach crammed with sunbathers must be pretty frightening to a COVID ward nurse right now). But if you can’t – and there are many reasons why that might be – let’s not walk straight into a mental health pandemic by villainising each other. Community spirit isn’t about everyone doing the same thing, but doing what we can for each other. Assembly cultivates empathy. Empathy is what will keep us together when we can’t assemble.

I’m going to leave you with this BBC article which summarises the more practical ways to take care of your mental health right now, and some useful links below for those in crisis.

And then I’m going to pour myself a drink.

Love and cake xxx

For the UK:

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/crisis-services/helplines-listening-services/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/mental-health-helplines/

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/coronavirus

For the UK, Ireland, US and Canada:

https://www.crisistextline.org/

Perfect is the enemy of great

This is a post written in two parts: before Coronavirus and after Coronavirus. Settle in with a drink, if you’ve got any left.

BC

Perfect is the enemy of great.

Like almost everything I know about the modern world, I found that quote on Instagram.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you can’t think of the exact right word, or even the words to describe it, and you skirt hopelessly around it like a tipsy Christmas day game of Taboo… and the person next to you gets it straight away? That’s how I felt about this quote. I didn’t know how to articulate myself, but apparently the internet has a babelfish to my brain. As soon as I found this phrase, I realised just how much I have been trying to be perfect instead of great.

I have grasped at the edges of this philosophy so many times over the last two years, and for want of a way to articulate it I’ve given up and ploughed merrily on, somewhere between fear of failure and fear of doing nothing. Now I think, perhaps they’re the same thing? Perhaps, to mitigate the risk of failure, I’ve been trying to give myself more chances at success in something, anything. There must be something that I’m successful at, and success means perfection. And if I’m not going to be perfect at it, why bother trying it at all.

Because the difference between success and perfection isn’t always that easy to recognise, is it? If you were to ask me what I’ve done since June 2018, I’d probably say not much. I’d be thinking, “well I DNS’d that race, and we missed out on our big honeymoon, and I’ve not been keeping up with the blog, and my uni grades have been so-so…” I’d be thinking of all the targets my scattergun approach to achievement failed to hit, not remembering that I’ve been firing with ten fingers on ten different triggers. Achievement is much easier to remember if it has context. Failure is memorable regardless.

Here’s the thing – I’ve actually ticked off quite a few things from the bucket list since we last caught up.
I am now OFFICIALLY an Associate Member of the 100 Marathon Club, having completed 50 marathons and ultras. *smug dance*
I’ve done my 100th parkrun and my 25th volunteer stint 🙂
I’ve started my dream job as a production manager in a producing house. It’s literally the answer I’ve given every time an interviewer asked “where do you see yourself in x years”. NOW I HAVE TO THINK OF A NEW ONE.
I’ve passed my first half year of uni with a respectable result. Not bad considering I barely got GCSEs in the subjects I’m studying.
I got married, rescued one and three quarter cats, renovated the hallway, embraced my Turkish eyebrows, got my QPR season ticket back, started therapy, and finally won a ballot place for the London Marathon.

The problem is, I don’t immediately remember these moments. (That last paragraph took as long to write as the whole rest of the post). I remember the races I didn’t start or finish; I think about how much sooner I’d have hit my fiftieth if I’d done them all. Or how much my average time has come down, or how long it’s been since I went sub 4, or ran 50 miles, or how Western States doesn’t seem to be any closer. Focusing on perfect has made it impossible to recognise smaller successes, let alone enjoy or remember them. And in being so afraid of documenting failure, I have to admit I gave up on writing full stop… forgetting that the reason I started this blog in the first place was to share and to reflect.

And to challenge myself.

2020 target – 20 challenges:

Including…
London Marathon – and finishing with a GFA time. YES I SAID IT.
Sub-23 parkrun again
Race to the Tower in a day
Autumn 100. Adam M, I’m getting my name on that list if it kills me.
Ealing Half Marathon, sub 1:40

to be continued…

AC

To anyone who guessed that it would literally take a global pandemic for me to get off my arse and finish this bloody post: congratulations! You win a bonus bog roll. (Disclaimer: may be made of the unread pages of the London Marathon commiserations magazines…)

How many times have I sat down to finish this and not even opened WordPress? Behold an increasingly inventive list of diversionary tactics. Weekday evenings are so tiring. Maybe I should try another blog platform. I shouldn’t spend my weekends blogging. That old classic about not having time. Look, a moth.

Talk about taking your own advice…

I started my job last April with good enough intentions: take your lunch breaks, don’t get caught up in other people’s projects (subtitled: don’t be a busybody), don’t volunteer for all the exciting jobs, leave time for running and uni and life. Because that’s who you are.
But-
London training plan!
so many fun shows
learn calculus in three weeks kthnxbye
ooh new books to read
we need you we need you we need you
did you learn calculus yet
new book stack getting highhhhh
SHINY BAUBLES
So there I am, knee deep in work again, frustrated with myself for slipping into that well-worn groove: NOTenoughtimeNOTenoughtimeNOTenoughTIMEnotenoughTIMEnotenoughTIME

When suddenly, wrapped in a big velvety bow: time.
My job is to make things that bring hundreds of people into a room together. As I write, that doesn’t look likely to happen for months. I can’t pretend I’ve got my head around that yet.

Having been too busy to finish anything seems like a churlish thing to complain about with the context of the last two weeks, in this new reality. My dream job – which has been more like one of those exhilarating, exhausting, directed-by-Michael-Bay type vivid dreams – now consists of me replying to emails from home, with no shows to production manage and next to no human interaction. Two weeks ago a 50 hour week was me taking it easy. Soon I’ll barely be able to fill 5 and 4 of those will be on Zoom.

Wary as I am of productivity porn, I did a thing that makes me prouder, in a way, than all my challenges combined. I spent last week and a great many Post-It notes reconstructing and practicing my ideal daily timetable. Instead of waiting for routine to find me, I finally went out and tracked that wily bastard down, and in doing so I realised that it’s not time I’ve been short of so much as structure. I remember being able to multitask. In fact, I remember it being something I excelled in – once upon a time.

Which led to me rediscovering, not just the liberation of routine, but something of my old self. A problem solver, which is sort of key to my job. A person who could look at a tangle of wool and immediately see the end of it buried deep. Impervious to decision fatigue, able to tune out the noise. Someone who could dig into imperfection and find greatness. I miss being that person.

Rereading the last full-length post I published, I reflected on the theme of identity; or in that particular situation, a lack of one. There’s also an argument that too many identities is as bad as none. So now when I ask myself “what have I done since I last posted?”, I feel compelled to rephrase it: who have I been for the last eighteen months? Who do I want to be?

I’ve been a mid pack runner.
I’ve been a freelance production manager.
I’ve been a resident production manager.
I’ve been a mentor.
I’ve been a mentee.
I’ve been a wife.
I’ve been a friend (albeit a rubbish one).
I’ve been a sister (an EXCELLENT one).
I’ve been a university student.
I’ve been a therapy patient.
I’ve been anything but perfect.

What I want to be is a normal someone who does great things. And I think, perhaps, the key to becoming that is simply deciding to.

Cover image from Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. A film that embodies this philosophy and is also awesome in every conceivable way.

Is this thing on?

*taps microphone* Is this thing on? I mean, still on?

Well it’s nice of you to come back (thank you two people). To say I’ve been wallowing in a mudbath of self-pity is… a bit of an understatement. As I scoop the gloop from my eyes I notice that my last post was 9 whole months ago. Standard jokes about I could have had a kid in that time blah blah – fuck it, you’d have known all about it if I had.

No, nothing so productive as that I’m afraid.

I have at least changed jobs, started a degree, switched my Twitter handle to @medalmagpie (WHY have I not done that before?) and been to the bottom of a well and back. That’s a story for another day – for the meantime I’m still here and still alive and still very much looks for all that glitters.

Why I’m writing now is simply to overcome inertia; to rev the car a couple of times before releasing the handbrake. But I have been sitting in the driver’s seat for months. Plucking up the courage to go.

Key’s in the ignition now…

Born again runner

Sitting on the monument at the Trig point, legs dangling over the edge, I refresh the Centurion tracking page on my phone every couple of minutes. I can see the runners who have officially passed the Stepping Stones checkpoint, around 24 miles in to the North Downs Way 100 and a mile below us, and I’m counting them as they make it to the crest of Box Hill. I feel as though I am watching a procession of warriors, marching into battle, and I am in awe. When I grow up, this will be me.

Actually, it almost was, twice.

For the first time since Brighton Marathon in 2014 my running shoes gather dust on the shoe rack, seven bizarre weeks. For the first time since Brighton 2014, I actually feel no guilt for not running, although the effects of FOMO were far more crippling than a broken metatarsal. I go back in time, back to when I ran once, maybe twice a week, slightly laboured stride and happy to be under nine and a half minute miles. Back to when I looked forward to the day, far in the future, when I’d be able to cover more than a marathon. Back to when I believed it was possible because I didn’t know any better.

Now I’m armed with the double edged sword of knowing it IS possible… but knowing what you have to sacrifice to make it so. Knowing that I just have to put the hard yards in if I want to reach that goal – knowing that hard doesn’t begin to describe those yards – and knowing how impossibly far away that goal is right now.

In a weird, deja-vu way it’s kind of liberating.

Spool on a month and I’m pretty much over the broken foot (I read a New Scientist article about how pain is probably all in your head so that’s that sorted); I finally brace myself and step on the scales. Yes, definitely time to get back running, I think – it was time to get back running about ten pounds ago. But my body disagrees; first in the form of flu – actual influenza, not your sachet of Beechams and a good night’s sleep – chased down by a diagnosis of seasonal asthma. It’s like breathing through a snorkel. I make it into work a couple of times, gasping and sucking on my inhaler, and am unceremoniously sent back home again. I’ve missed more work in a month than I have ever missed in the eight years since I joined. And here I am now. Sulking.

Oh Nemi, you get me…

The hardest thing to get my head around was that I’m not used to feeling ill, so I refused to believe that I was ill to begin with – that was the extent of my empirical reasoning. Unsurprisingly, simply behaving as if I was perfectly healthy did not, in fact, make it so. I’m talking Theresa May levels of denial here. After three visits to my GP and another to a walk in centre, I was on the way home from work again, missing yet another big event, and as I phoned Andy to tell him I was on the way home again I broke down in tears – not because of my health, but because missing out on more of my life genuinely frightened me. And then I realised what I’ve really been fighting against: the loss of identity. I’m a runner who isn’t really running much. I’m a blogger who hasn’t got anything to blog about. I’m a production manager who’s not well enough to manage any productions. So without those identities, what the fuck am I?

The contents of my brain, as captured by the talented Clever Fish Illustration

I’m an idiot, that’s what.

The first step has to be rest, proper proper rest. Not sitting down for ten straight minutes then deciding to hoover the house. Not going to sleep only to have anxiety dreams about everything I thought I’d do that day and didn’t. Not dragging 60% of my capacity into work to do a half assed job and come out having jeopardised my health for no real value. I hate not being useful, but right now I am the very definition of useless.

Then and only then can I take the second step of rebuilding. Or rather, recapturing the four years ago version of me which had drive but also humility, self awareness, and a long way to go. Except this time I get to add experience into the mix. Isn’t that the perfect situation to be in? Potential plus direction? Ambition plus self-awareness? That’s how I’m choosing to see it.

I remind myself of pretty much the second ever thing I vowed after I decided, halfway through my first marathon, that nothing but ultras would do for me. As soon as I heard it existed I wanted to run Western States 100, and I wanted to run it well – which meant I would need to comfortably finish a bog standard one before even getting on a plane to the West Coast, and not just because the entry requirements stipulate it. And then I wanted to run the Grand Union Canal. And then I wanted to further, longer, harder. And despite the lack of training – or inadequate training – I’ve logged in the last couple of years, despite the two failed attempts at the North Downs 100 and the ever rising tally of DNFs, I remember how much I want this.

This is what I think, back there on the top of the monument. I think, I want to be you. All you people dying in the heat, barely a quarter of the way through, with sleep demons and blisters and aches and nausea to look forward to, I would swap places with you in a heartbeat. I want my identity back.

So, get used to this born-again devotee evangelising about the wonders of ultra-running, carrying on like I invented it.

Maybe… after a nap.

Best foot forward

It’s been a big year. And it’s not even half over.

I write this in a period of… forced rest, shall we say. I haven’t run in nearly three weeks. Possibly I’ve forgotten how to. Is that a thing?

Tuesday 5th June was a big day. We flew over to North Cyprus, the home of my father and my unpronounceable name, a well-preserved Mediterranean paradise, for the start of a holiday that would be anything but a holiday. The flight itself was the first ordeal: we were travelling with Andy’s mum who hadn’t flown in 25 years and my aunt who has no kneecaps and can’t walk further than the front door. We were due to change planes at Istanbul with just one hour to make the transfer and with the help of pre-booked “special assistance”, whatever form that would take. Special assistance basically amounted to Gatwick Airport staff telling us to walk to Departures to pick up the wheelchair we needed to reach Departures, and Turkish Airlines forcing my aunt to sit in the centre of the plane by a window because her disability would make her a danger to other passengers during emergency evacuation. It’s not a very optimistic policy, if I may say so.

Then our first flight was delayed, leaving only half an hour for the transfer. If Istanbul Airport staff hadn’t saved the day with a motorised buggy we might still be looking for Gate 307.

When we finally landed at Ercan Airport, North Cyprus, the island was already cloaked in a navy velvet darkness. Every time I visit I forget how different the darkness is from the darkness in London. I mean for starters it’s not a hazy sodium orange, it’s profoundly, thickly dark. Andy wrestled the cumbersome minivan we had hired around the twisting mountain roads to the soundtrack of our jokes and daft questions, relieved to be nearly there. I made a pithy quip about which of my family would uphold the tradition of falling over and needing hospital.

Within an hour we turned into an exclusive looking cul-de-sac high above the shoreline and pulled up in front of our villa. Or rather, underneath it. Turns out when you build a villa in the side of a mountain the fourth floor and the ground floor are sort of the same thing, and both entrances need a minimum of two knees per person. Ah.

Somehow we managed to squeeze the van into an alley at the back/top of the villa where we dropped off passengers and luggage, and with my expert banksmanship definitely didn’t scrape any water hydrants on the way back out. By this point I’d been awake and on edge for fifteen solid hours, and all I wanted was not to be wearing wedge heels and high waisted slacks, because what kind of vain moron dresses like that for travelling. On my way back down the cobbled pavement to guide Andy into the underground parking bay, I might have been a little bit stompy.

SHIT. Crack. Boom. Wedge caught cobble edge, foot turned inwards, I hit the deck. That crack resounded in my ears. It was like I’d heard it from inside my body, not through my ears.

The systems check kicked in. Am I bleeding? Not enough to matter. Can I put weight on that foot? Just about – enough for it not to be broken, not enough to convince Andy I was OK. Within half an hour it had ballooned, but I insisted it was just a sprain and I could tough it out with rest and elevation, otherwise known as bed. At 3am I was woken by excruciating pain, and realised I had no idea how hospitals worked in North Cyprus. So we didn’t go to any.

Lying awake with my right foot burning a hole through the mattress, all I could think about was the roasting I would get from my mum and sister the following day. No way I could admit to be the family klutz so early on in the week. I’ll admit that my overriding motive for avoiding treatment was not to be the person that caused a fuss, not to spend the whole holiday as the centre of attention.

Oh, did I mention why we were on holiday with half the family? We were there to get married.

The run up to the Saturday would be hectic; making sure all fifty of our guests landed OK and made it to their respective villas, buying last minute provisions, greeting and hosting welcome dinners and barely being off our feet. I didn’t get rest but I did at least stick my foot on the dashboard while Andy drove us everywhere – plans to split the work so we could relax more went out of the window. Each day the foot progressed through shades of purple and green, the swelling straining the straps of my flip flop. I still harboured hopes of a wedding morning run in the mountains. Andy growled at me a lot.

Saturday 9th June was a BIG day. And after a few false starts – probably the first wedding you’ll read about where the bride arrived early but the ceremony was delayed because the groom had to flag down a coach – it was a FUCKING AWESOME day. We had so much fun, or as much fun as you can have in a gown and a suit in 38 degrees of heat. I forced my feet into glittery Vivienne Westwood high heels for the ceremony and danced all night in bare feet, determined to enjoy my big day. All that hassle had been worth it. The stress dripped from my shoulders, the pain in my foot even let up. It felt perversely good.

The rest of the week was a poolside haze. My sister’s wedding present – a personalised hip flask full of gin – came everywhere with me. I could dangle my feet in the infinity pool, gin in hand, gaze out at the sea and pretend I was in an episode of the Night Manager but with fewer terrorists. Now that I wasn’t stubbornly dancing and dashing around on it my foot would heal in a jiffy, right?

Saturday 16th June was a big day. A World Cup barbecue at a friend’s house, the other end of the Northern Line. Apparently it was a ten minute walk away from the tube. Ten minutes after Andy said this, we were still at least fifteen minutes away at my hobbling pace. I’d never felt like such a burden to him before, and that’s saying something.

Monday 18th June was a big day. Two whole weeks away from work, the longest holiday I’ve ever taken without spending it moonlighting. Never mind remembering how to function as an adult, I’d forgotten how much walking I have to do. At the end of the day I was in so much pain I considered sleeping at the office and eating the goldfish for dinner.

Tuesday 19th June was the day I finally admitted defeat. The swelling had gone down but my foot still wasn’t bending where it was meant to bend, and the pain was getting worse. I made it through the day with the help of one of Andy’s old crutches and signed in at St Helier Urgent Care Centre at 5pm, mumbling vaguely about a two week old sprain that wouldn’t heal. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get rated as a priority. One woman came in shortly after me with a toe missing and a young guy in overalls was washing chemicals out of his eyes, and even they had to wait nearly two hours. Andy brought me a picnic of Capri Sun and crisps. We settled in.

When I was called in the nurse on duty asked if I smoked or drank as she prodded my foot. Confident that it would all turn out to be a waste of time I brazened it out for Andy’s benefit, then she hit a spot in the middle of my foot and I screamed. “I’m going to send you for an X-ray,” she smiled grimly. “That was your fifth metatarsal.” The first thing I thought was, “That’s what happened to David Beckham, at least it’s World Cup appropriate.” Then I realised what she was saying. You don’t X-ray sprains. Drat bugger balls bollocks arse.

Thankfully the fracture was so small I got away without using a cast, but I did get fitted with a snazzy support boot. When I asked how long I would need to wear it she said told me six weeks from the point of fracture, meaning another four weeks at least, giving a good deal of emphasis to that last bit. I avoided Andy’s glare.

This Thursday should have been a big day. I had a place in the SVN Teddy Bear’s Picnic Challenge, aiming to rack up another marathon for the 100 Club bid. It took me a few days to face up to the fact I wouldn’t be running it, and email Traviss. I gave away my ticket to the Salomon trail running festival at Box Hill. I did a load of laundry and it had no running clothes in it. None whatsoever.

Then a large brown envelope flopped onto my doormat. It was the long-awaited issue 9 of Ultra magazine, which is exciting enough in itself, but this issue would have one of my own articles in it. I did a little one foot jig as I re-read it. The article was about a race I did 18 months ago, wrote about a year ago, and I was finally seeing it in print! I remembered staying up to the wee hours to finish it, my plans to write it over a weekend scuppered. That felt like yesterday.

In an ideal world I’d spend all my time either running or writing about running – as it is I have to squeeze them in around gainful employment, seeing friends and family, every Saturday committed to QPR, the list goes on. There’s so much I want to do, too; I’m on promises to try kickboxing, bouldering, Crossfit and manicures but they somehow keep falling out of the diary. I never have time for anything. I’ve almost run out of time to bitch about not having time.

But here’s the thing, I do now. Instead of bemoaning the running I can’t do, I thought about what else I can do with that time, googled “exercise on a broken foot”. Swimming is high up there, stationery cycling, some yoga moves… presumably hang-gliding and parachuting are worth a punt too. I’ve already read four novels and I’m working through A-level maths. Now that I don’t have a wedding to plan, I’ve even managed a bit of rest.

Not that I’d wish an injury like this on myself or anyone else, I think this particular cloud might have a silver lining. Obviously I’d rather be running (as would my appetite) but now it’s not me making the decision not to run I feel oddly liberated. I feel less guilty about devoting more time to my blog, or to reading the backlog of twenty or so books on my iPad; I’m saying yes when my friends ask if I’m free to catch up after work. I’m spending quality time with my new husband. What a novelty.

That’s not to say I’ve given up on running – the sooner I get fit again the sooner I can stop gawping at people who run by (I only notice I’m doing it when the saliva hits my chin). But I am going to treat the next four weeks as a gift, not a burden. I’m going to appreciate the time I have, take advantage of new opportunities, do the things I “never have time for”. I’m going to appreciate my body more, pay closer attention to those niggles and make the most of my fitness. I’m going to have to work bloody hard to get it back.

And the minute the fracture clinic gives me the all clear, I’ll be back on those trails.

Salomon Trail Running Workshop

Usually when I line up at the start of a trail race, I look like something out of the Salomon bargain basement catalogue. Shoes, race vest, belt pack, shorts, sunglasses, running jacket, bottles, knickers, all plastered with Salomon branding. So when our club offered places on a Salomon sponsored trail running workshop with a Salomon athlete, I was quite careful to moderate my outfit and not look like a total fangirl.

Since I reserve my Fellraisers for the claggiest of clag mud and mostly wear Altras in the summer, the Timps were the obvious choice for a hot dry day with enough texture underfoot to need some grip. In fact the only Salomon thing I ended up taking was my race vest and that has lasted me four years and counting; it is basically irreplaceable (jinx). Although when we got to the Box Hill car park we did get the chance to try out some of the new season light trail and racing shoes and the latest version of the S-Lab vest, which takes the existing awesome design and adds the only feature it was missing, front pockets for easy access food and maps. It was useful to have a chance to test kit – as much as my little duck feet love their Altras, I had harboured hopes of picking up some Salomon Sense Rides for road to trail and mixed terrain running, but my size 5.5s could barely fit into the size 7s on offer. I love my feet, but they’re really not shoe shaped.

Who’s Who

The group was made up of runners from both Clapham Chasers and Advent Running, and it was great to mix with another club in a sociable setting – especially one that like ours is based in the city but has a small core of trail fanatics. Our coach for the day was Matt Buck, a personal trainer, trail runner and Salomon sponsored athlete, and the plan was to learn a bit about trail running techniques, have a leisurely trot around the Downs and get lots and lots of photos. Matt had already run one session that morning before ours was due to start at lunchtime, and I caught up with the first lot of Chasers at the cafe – a short run but a surprisingly tough one, they said. I’ll be honest, when I heard the word “short” I pre-empted a bit of a sulk.

Warmup

We started off by running half a mile through the more densely wooded areas where I got to chatting with one of Matt’s glamorous assistants for the day, a client of his and fellow trail runner called Neil, who was ostensibly there to help corral runners but mainly for the same reason we all were – because why not. Any excuse really, if I was in his position I’d volunteer for every damn opportunity to run up Box Hill. The shade of the trees was perfect, brushing the heat from our skin and lighting up the air with a warm green glow. Bliss.

Back to basics

We found a clearing where Matt talked a little about the importance of looking ahead, which is the first time I realised a) just how back to basics we were going to go today and b) just how much we needed to. The group being a fairly eclectic mix, I assumed that I would be one of the more experienced trail runners out there, and on paper I was – but apparently one with some awful bad habits and probably the most to learn. Looking ten paces in front and not straight down is not just harder than it sounds, it’s downright counter-intuitive to begin with. We were reminded many times to keep our heads up and that reminder rings in my ears to this day. Eventually though it became clear how valuable that was – not only for being able to see but being able to breathe too.

The other key bit of advice was about footwork – namely taking small steps and keeping high knees. Being as undisciplined a runner as it’s possible to be, I’ve only ever done knee drills as part of the team before cross country races and that’s because I’m terrified of defying the team captains. Retraining my knees to stay high became even more important once we got the hang of looking ahead, but it also had the pleasant side effect of making me feel lighter and faster as I ran. Which is sort of the point.

Down we go

We then moved on to my favourite subject – downhill running. Another thing I basically considered myself to be god of, until I learned just how wrong I do it. I mean, wrong isn’t exactly bad, but the older I get the more my kamikaze technique (or lack of one) is likely to stitch me up – at least knowing how to do it correctly I can choose to be kamikaze, instead of being one by default. The key was taking small lights steps, landing on our toes and balls of our feet, and if that sounds like a mad thing to do going downhill, well, it felt it too. But it was surprisingly easy to get used to once I loosened my shoulders, and definitely less shredding on the old quads. We did three reps going down towards the junction with the lower trail, where a family of four tried to enjoy their picnic and pretended not to notice the 12 or so screeching lunatics barrelling towards them with no apparent control. Happy weekend guys.

What goes down must come up

The final lesson was the one I was most looking forward to. We started by climbing partway up the smooth slope of Box Hill (no steps for us today) and the combination of the hill, the heat and my lack of fitness nearly knocked me out cold. Huddled in a rare spot of shade Matt reiterated the importance of high knees and good posture, even more crucial for uphill climbs than for level running, simply because being hunched over dramatically reduces lung capacity and can cause you to run out of breath sooner. Again it was common sense more than revelation, but to someone like me with ingrained bad habits it was easier said than done. Between photo ops we tried a couple of short burst runs up the rest of the hill, hopping from tree to tree to allow for rests in the shade.

The most valuable technique I learned that day was to bounce on the balls of my feet going uphill just the same way as we had done downhill, and use the springiness of my legs rather than allowing heavy landings to drain my energy. It was tiring to begin with of course, but it made such a huge and immediate difference to my climbs. And to my state of mind, actually. You’d be surprised how much less gruelling a hill can look when you’re staring at the sky and not the ground. This was why he’d been so strict about looking ten paces ahead before, because you really can’t keep your head up if you don’t know where your feet are about to land. As I gasped for breath at the top all those lessons started to fall into place.

Home sweet home

We wound our way back to the car park via the trails less travelled, routes around the North Downs I didn’t even know were there let alone tried running on. Tiptoeing through the tree cover was glorious but bloody hell was I ready for a break – I’ve rarely got to the end of a run so thoroughly exhausted. Whether it was the terrain, the heat or the fact that we’d been outside for so long, if you’d asked me to say how far we’d run without looking at my watch I’d have guessed at least 10k. When we reached the viewpoint for our last photo op however, we had barely scraped three miles. Three miles?! How could three slow moving miles possibly be so hard? And how did Matt manage to do three or four of these sessions in a day?

It was bloody worth it though. Worth it to learn real techniques from a real professional trail runner. Worth it to discover new ways to enjoy an old trail. Worth it to meet new friends, from a club with a lot in common with our own. Worth it to experience trail running as a new sport again. And just three days later I ran one of the easiest, most enjoyable and most satisfying marathons of my career, all thanks to the techniques we were taught that day.

The all-Salomon wardrobe will be back out soon…

Thanks to Neil Williams of Advent Running for all the photos, including the cover image – how he managed to get so many pictures while we ran is a miracle!

London Marathon 2018 – the day after

Cover photo courtesy of the supremely talented Neil Dejyothin

Resume the position. Feet up, laptop on, well, lap. I’ve even got the glass of wine (don’t judge me).

So, did I leave it all out on the course yesterday? It’s hard to tell; I certainly left about six pints of water out there in the form of sweat (and a handful of tears). Did I run hard? No, no I fucking didn’t. I ran smart; I wanted to get to the end on my own two feet and not in the back of an ambulance. It was 24 degrees out there but it felt closer to 34; the only marathon I’ve ever run that was hotter was the Hampshire Hoppit last year and I pretty much had to walk that guy from start to finish. Did I confront my fears?

You know what, I think I did.

I faced up to the danger of the heat, and embraced it. It’s just another factor you can’t control, and frankly it was nice to get a decent bit of sun. I faced up to the likelihood of a slow finish time. That is to say, I started off like the clappers, but in a pace that was comfortable and hardly troubling my heart rate. In fact the lead I gained over my 4hr20 pace band was over 8 minutes after halfway and I’d been on course for sub 4hrs for the first 10k. But when I realised it was becoming unsustainable, I did the sensible thing and dialled back. After seeing the countless bodies lying on the side of the road I’m bloody glad I did.

I’m not exaggerating about the perceived heat by the way – as someone with experience of near-equatorial temperatures, that was proper sunblasted bone dry heat. Not the muggy fug like a bad trip in a sauna that you usually get in what passes for an English summer. But gosh it was fun. Like a 26 mile long carnival with runners instead of floats. One of my clubmates even stopped for a cider on the way round. Let’s be honest, nobody’s counting times for yesterday.

I faced up to the reality of not being able to finish, right from the start. But I also decided that I would finish this race come hell or high water (not far off), and I knew exactly what I’d have to do to make it so. Drink, eat, drink. After mile 2 there were water stops pretty much every mile plus Lucozade drink and gel stops sprinkled in between, not to mention the good residents of East London and their many slices of orange and buckets of jelly babies. The trick turned out to be keeping my body temperature down from the outside as well as in: namely, drinking half of every bottle of water and dousing my thighs, head and neck with the other half. It worked a treat, but I was still bone dry before the next water station.

I faced up to the crowds. However overwhelming I found them last time round, I realised the only thing to do would be to embrace them. And my god did they put on a show. This is what makes London Marathon so great, and so different from any other – the indescribable atmosphere. Whenever I felt a bit wobbly all I had to do was wave back and smile and I was carried along with another surge of cheer. London Marathon IS the crowds and yesterday made me so blisteringly proud to be an adopted Londoner.

I faced the no mans land beyond my comfort zone. This would be my 41st official marathon finish, but the majority of those have been on trails, in ultras or on low key races, where the pressure doesn’t affect me. The runners there are a different breed altogether; a co-operative of like-minded people, a subculture even. A runner drops, and three people stop to help them up – a few seconds is unlikely to matter, and a race is just another race. On the other hand London is, for most people, their first or only experience of a marathon, and it is nervewracking as fuck. I was pushed and elbowed – not accidentally – on a number of occasions, including one where a guy shoved me out of the water queue to pick up the bottle I was reaching for. It pissed me off, but then I remembered how he must be feeling, imagined how he saw yet another body between him and the water on a hot day. These aren’t the SVN regulars, or the Centurion regulars, or the perennially friendly 100 Marathon Clubbers – there’s no place for etiquette here. These are people miles out of their own comfort zones while I’m barely dipping a toe out of mine. For me, the scariest thing about London will always be other people. But I faced them.

I faced the fear of failure, and in doing so took my own fate into my hands. Instead of handicaps, I found challenges. Instead of disappointment, I have resolve. Yesterday made me realise what I could do if I stopped finding excuses not to try. Four hours and thirty nine minutes on the road is nothing to write home about, for me, but it’s also a pretty respectable time for the second hottest race I’ve ever run – Hampshire, by comparison, took me almost an hour longer. I know I did well yesterday, and I know I can go faster.

Finally, I faced myself; or rather, I faced my definition of myself. I am not defined by my fears, my hates, my foibles. I am defined by what I want to define myself by. We all are.

#spiritoflondon

London Marathon 2018 – the night before

I’m stretched out on the sofa, my feet on Andy’s lap like they usually are, a glass of Sauvignon Blanc within reach of my left hand. We’ve had our thin crust pizza and salad for dinner, a pre-race routine of mine which Andy is happy to adopt for the night. Bedtime won’t be later than 8pm, but there’s no legislating for when I’ll actually get to sleep.

Having exchanged fitness for about a stone in weight, I’m not at my peak for a road marathon. Or any marathon. Or running at all. And the last week at work has included managing a broadcast rehearsal on top of a large scale office move, and consequently chronic pain that became so bad on Tuesday night I had to get a cab home from work because I couldn’t even walk to the station. So, there will be some management of expectations tomorrow.

Is that right though; is that the mindset to take in? Treat the race with respect, certainly, don’t take a finish for granted – but that’s not the same as preparing excuses. That paragraph up there, that’s a classic fear of failure. I take up to a month to write blogs because I’m afraid of putting something out that people will hate, or has mistakes, or is constructed poorly. I’m afraid of going into work some days because I still have no natural aptitude for my job, two and a half years in, and constantly fucking it up is kind of exhausting. I have to persuade myself to attend running sessions with my club because I don’t know if I can get to the end of a 6 mile run. I used to run the damn sessions.

I hadn’t been aware of how much this fear pervades my every decision until recently, but now every time I catch myself in a negative mindset I ask myself “Am I just afraid of failing?” and the answer is never “No, absolutely not.” I mean it’s not always a resounding yes either, but as long as it remains a possibility I’m not making the best of the opportunity I have.

That opportunity is a place in the London Marathon, one I almost didn’t get. I had wanted to run this race ever since I started running, and had applied for the ballot unsuccessfully year after year. I finally earned it with a Good for Age run in the 2015 Manchester Marathon, found out a week before London 2016 that the Manchester course had been incorrectly measured and believed I would lose my spot despite being basically on the start line. Happily, even the penalty applied to the qualifying threshold was within my now unofficial PB finish time and I had two years’ worth of entry to the race.

Running it in 2016, I was still relatively fit but very out of practice, and I was so nervous around the crowds that I didn’t pick up a single drink or gel on the whole course. It was miserable. I finished under 4 hrs, but I blew up at the end and nearly passed out at supper. Turns out, running a marathon on a warm day without calories or water is a fucking stupid idea. You’re welcome, anyone who thought they’d try that.

So my memory of London has so far been one of failure. I failed to get my target time, I failed to manage my fluids and energy levels, I failed to run hard and I failed to run for fun. Blah blah blah. Probably best not to bother again then eh? So when a freelance job opportunity with my favourite company came up and the build day was marathon day in 2017, I was almost relieved to be deferring my place for the following year.

That gave me enough time to recover, train properly, reassess. Wait, that’s the wrong order. Assessment: another GFA time might be on the cards – if you have jet packs on your heels. Recovery: ha ha. Train properly: time to pick up a book. And I did, and I stuck to it, right up until the last 4 weeks. I’ve learned what I’m capable of and it turns out that, in the cold light of day, I think I can comfortably do a 4hr20 run, and if I go out of my comfort zone I could even skirt around 4hrs. But I’ve also learned that being afraid to say those words out loud is only hampering my ability to try.

What I know I can do though, absolutely KNOW for certain, is that I can enjoy it if I want to, and that enjoyment doesn’t need to be linked to (or totally divorced from) my expectations. I mean that, I need to accept failure as a possibility, but not be so obsessed with avoiding it that I miss the chance to do something great. Excuses are just another mechanism for dealing with this fear; I have to stop handicapping myself. So before I reach the Blue Start tomorrow, lose my nerve and simultaneously decide I’ll barely finish but also go off at 6:30 minute miles, I’m going to record the things I am thankful for:

My place in the race. I worked really hard for it, and it wasn’t a fluke. And it doesn’t mean that I’m any less deserving of it now, even though I’m three years older and half an hour slower than I used to be. This is something I wanted to do for years and in honour of the many versions of me that couldn’t get in, not to mention the countless others still yet to get their ballot place, I’m going to bloody well have fun.
The sun and the heat. This winter seemed interminable and penetrating. I’m damned if I’m going to complain about nice dry heat now. Running in the heat was a bit of a monkey on my back but I’ve embraced it and now, frankly, I sort of love it. Running in any extreme is fun actually.
My Andrew W.K. playlist. It got me through Manchester. Pure, heart-busting joy.
My health. Dammit, I can run. There are days when I am in so much pain that I can barely see, and there are days when I feel like my limbs are made of stardust. For those days, for those handful of moments, it’s all worth it.
My job. There’s no getting around the fact that it is stressful and physically taxing, but it pays my bills and my entry fees to races, so to be ungrateful for it would be hypocritical. I have a wonderful boss and an exceptionally talented team, and no-one has ever failed to be impressed when I tell them what I do.
My friends and family. The people who we thought would never dream of coming all the way to Northern Cyprus to be at our wedding. The people who probably would have joined us at the drop of a hat, if only we hadn’t underestimated the table plan. The people who will instead (or as well as) celebrate sat at a rickety little table in Shepherds Bush with us, who will share a Thai food platter and a pint of Pride. The people who do every week. The people who will wait in the sun for hours tomorrow for the three second view of me passing.
Me.

Fellow marathoners – what are you thankful for? What will you take with you to tomorrow’s race?

Whatever it is, don’t let it be fear.

Medal Magpie

A blog about running and middle distance wind chimes