injury

Born again runner

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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.

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Con-what-now

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Every now and again I look back over my old posts and see if, with the benefit of hindsight, I spot any patterns or consequences that I hadn’t noticed at the time. Probably I account for half of my own hits doing this, but there you go.

In 2015 I ran every day of the year and also covered 16 marathons, finishing at least one every calendar month. It was my best running year in almost every respect. I got PBs in pretty much every distance which stand to this day, ran the highest number of miles with the least amount of injury or illness – seriously, I didn’t get a single cold that year – enjoyed the fastest recovery times I’ve ever had, and above all had the most fun. I didn’t think there was any discipline involved, really. And the only “plan” I had was to keep up the streak and keep enjoying myself.

A change in professional circumstances meant that I reluctantly quit the daily run streak, especially as it was getting harder and harder to fit it in. Within a couple of months a daily run streak had dwindled to barely three times a week to injury knocking me out for weeks at a time. My running career got 2016’d, in short. I’ve reflected on this many times to work out what went wrong, exactly. Was it quitting the run streak? Do I need to run a little bit every day just to keep up my fitness, not to mention my motivation? Was it coincidence; did I just happen to get injured after I quit the streak? Was it the delayed effects of a streak catching up with me six weeks later? I definitely didn’t want to believe that last one but I eventually devoted some time to finding precedents for this situation, and happily found none. In fact I found plenty of reports of run streakers out-running injury and illness for years. But could that simply have been confirmation bias?

So I tried to analyse each elements that changed for me at the turn of the year and work out which one was the culprit.

Work-life balance: New job, more erratic hours, more stressful and less time to run and alleviate that stress. Yes, definitely sounds like a prime suspect. There’s just something that niggles about this hypothesis though; increased stress can absolutely be to blame for illness and there’s no doubt that the injury started a downward spiral of “I’m injured so I can’t run, I can’t run so I’m miserable, I’m miserable so I overeat, now I’m too heavy to run…” But can being more stressed at work really have a direct link to the injury? I mean it was only a wee one; bog standard runner’s knee, sorted within a month and even then only because I was too stubborn to rest it. I can believe that there’s a chain reaction, but I think there’s a chain link missing.

Lack of fitness: Definitely another possibility. But you don’t lose fitness just like that; not in the timescale we’re talking. I didn’t lose a damn leg. And although it felt at the time like I was never going to run again, I was still managing a couple of easy runs a week and spent no more than a fortnight without running at all. Proportionally to my expectations of myself I wasn’t doing well, but I imagine that’s what most runners call their off-season. It should have been possible for me to regain it.

Lack of motivation: Honestly? Nope. I mean there were days I felt like being lazy or avoided a session and felt guilty about it afterwards, but I still missed running, I just couldn’t do as much as I wanted. I was miserable, but not unmotivated.

Overtraining: Yes, that was a thing. That was definitely a thing – in 2017. I’m talking about a year before. It could well be the root of the issues I had later, in that I pushed myself too hard to make up for missed runs, but when I quit the run streak I didn’t feel the slightest hint of what I now know to be classic OTS symptoms. I didn’t quit because I was exhausted, I quit because I thought I should while I was ahead.

And finally, the fringiest and most superstitious of reasons, 2016: Because everything that was cool died in 2016. I’m not seriously considering this as a genuine cause, but I’m leaving it there anyway because fuck 2016.

I’ve written about all these hypotheses at one point or another, but none of them have ticked all the boxes for me, none of them present as a wholly satisfactory explanation for my loss of form. And then I read a reply to a Facebook post on the Ultrarunning Community asking how long the longest run should be in preparation for a 100 mile race. The reply was written by Tracey Watson, as far as I know the only person to have done the Centurion Double Grand Slam in two consecutive years – or at all – which means officially finishing four 100 mile races and four 50 mile races in a single year, between April and November. Now if she’s not qualified to answer this question, who is?

Her answer? She never does longer than 30 miles on a training run, not even for the 100s; the 50 milers pretty much act as training for those anyway. The key to training, she said, was consistency.

That very obvious and often-cited piece of advice made something suddenly click for me. Not that I hadn’t heard it before, but I hadn’t really made the connection. The missing link in the chain, the one thing that could explain the difference between 2015 and 2016, that even contributed to the later onset of OTS, was consistency.

I looked again at 2015. Instead of seeing my daily run as a benefit in and of itself, perhaps I was actually reaping the benefit of consistent training. The other major feature of that year was that I had relatively standard working hours and trained in pretty much the same pattern across each week, with a marathon every fourth week on average. Apart from a notable exception, each month’s running total was only around 10% more or less than the average, which includes the numbers skewed by Druids and a failed attempt at the NDW100. For the first time it occurred to me that the routine, rather than the volume, could have been the key.

Then I looked at the start of 2016. That’s not just when I quit the streak and therefore the training pattern I had been used to. Work-wise, that’s also when my hours went completely topsy turvy and when I started having to miss or rearrange races. Then I started missing sessions, and trying to make up for them by going harder and longer when the opportunity arose, not knowing when I’d get the next chance. Unsurprisingly, by February I was nursing a classic runner’s knee, and in April I was forcing myself around the London Marathon course at an effort that oscillated between suicide and sloth. After that, I didn’t finish another race until the end of August. I didn’t just lose consistency, I forgot what it meant altogether.

Between then and Wendover Woods this past November my fitness slipped gradually away and I couldn’t work out why. It felt like I was trying to hold onto sand as it passed between my fingers; I’d grasp and stretch my hands out to catch as much as possible and simply lose it all the faster. Understanding the importance of consistency felt like remembering I needed to cup my hands together. So I turned to something that hasn’t really worked for me before, but might just be able to re-establish a routine. I picked up a training plan.

I’ve never got on with them in the past either because I’d not found a plan that suited my preferred effort-based philosophy, or because I’m simply not disciplined enough to follow a plan. I much prefer the “see how you feel” approach and it doesn’t tend to let me down because I never see running as a chore, as something I have to do because the plan says so. However, the P&D plan I’d tried once before, only to discover that I had started it way too late, seemed worth a try even if I had to adjust it a bit. Each day’s session is much the same as the previous week’s, with either the addition of effort or a mile or so in distance.

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Six weeks in and already my body has got used to resting on a Monday – usually the day after a long run and a day which fits my work schedule – then doing 9 or 10 miles aerobic pace on a Tuesday (i.e. run home from work), recovery or rest on Wednesday and Friday, tempo on Thursday, hard effort parkrun on Saturday (OK I do bend the rules there) and a long run on Sunday. The fact that I can remember this without looking at the plan tells me that the consistency is working. Or to put it another way, the routine. I’m in the next phase now which means upping the effort levels and the distances a bit, but I’m building on solid foundations. At least, that’s the theory.

The thing is I’m still much much slower (and heavier) than I was three years ago, but I’m feeling more in control than I have for a long time, which means I’m enjoying myself more. All because of the comfort of knowing what my week looks like. And I won’t hit all the targets of the plan itself bang on, but you know what? That’s fine. I’m still moving in the right direction, at a steady pace, nice and consistent. If that’s the best I can hope for, it’s enough.

The last couple of years have been tough, but I don’t think I’d have made this connection and started to fix my approach if I hadn’t hit rock bottom. For my signoff today, I’m going to hand over to Truth Potato:

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Going to that London

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I remember planning for my first marathon – Edinburgh, 2013, with my mum, after missing out on the London ballot (of which more here). Lots of weight still to lose, lots of lists and logistics, lots still to learn about how to finish a marathon. Eventually you learn that nothing and nobody can teach you how to finish a marathon. You learn that what you really need to learn is how to listen to your own body.

When I crossed the line at Manchester last year in a little over 3:41 the first thing I thought was that I really hoped they didn’t change the Good For Age qualifying time for London, having just about squeezed in. I still didn’t quite believe I’d done it when I applied, still thought that something would change at the last minute or that I’d read my time wrong or they’d lose my application or something. I almost didn’t believe it even as I clutched the cheerful “Congratulations, you’re in!” magazine in my quivering hands. It didn’t really sink in until after my last marathon of 2015, when every time someone asked me what I was training for I had to amend my answer from “Oh nothing really, I’m always doing something or other,” to “London.” London with a full stop.

Perhaps it’s time to start training seriously for this marathon lark then – you know, training plans, strength and conditioning workouts, speedwork and pacing, eating real food and cutting back on pints of Honeydew. All those articles in Runner’s World I usually skip over to get to the stories of iconic races and Tonks’ column might actually come in useful. My goal is to get under 3:30, taking around twelve minutes off last year’s time – a tall order, but an achievable one. After trying one off the shelf plan and finding that it isn’t pushing me anywhere near enough, I ask my clubmates at Clapham Chasers and discover – almost too late – that many recommend the high-mileage Pfitzinger and Douglas (or P&D) training plan. I like running a lot, so this seems like a no-brainer. I do a few sums and work out that I can just about fit in the 12-week version between now and 24th April, since I already average 40 miles a week. So I draw up my calendar for the next 12 weeks and get stuck in.

Then I compare it with my work calendar. Ah. Three broadcast events in six weeks. Yes, that will be tricky. I’m used to squeezing runs in around work, but with this new job the broadcast days will rarely be less than 18 hours on my feet, and I’ll be learning my job as I go. It’s stressful both on my body and my brain – not to mention my digestive system, eating rancid Pret sandwiches for breakfast lunch and dinner – but I know if I’m going to do this it’s going to hurt occasionally so I suck it up. I stubbornly persist with the speedwork and tempo sessions whenever I can fit them in; then one Thursday, after a particularly stressful day at work I get halfway round before suffering a panic attack and need help from Cat to get my breathing back under control. Cutting one session short is not the end of the world, but the planned hours of speedwork I’m failing to make are slowly stacking up. Perhaps the panic attack is brought on by more than just work.

I get the first half of the project out of the way and hit the ground as soon as I get back. This is mid February now, a couple of weeks away from the small matter of my third attempt at the Moonlight Challenge. I’m in with half a chance of getting first lady if only I can finish all 33 miles and remember my bloody torch this time. I’m going around Battersea Park one freezing evening, not quite hitting tempo pace but not exactly struggling, when I feel a sharp pain develop behind my right kneecap, then it seizes up completely. I try to lollop along in the hope that it will loosen up but the camber and anti-clockwise loop isn’t helping, and I miss the last lap of the session again. This feels bad. This feels worse than the normal run-weariness I can shake off by, well, running. This feels like An Injury. And An Injury means Rest. I am not good at Rest. My metabolism is not good at Rest. I have gained almost a stone in weight since Christmas, and it feels like an actual stone tethered to my feet.

I’m superhuman, so these little setbacks don’t affect me, obviously. No, wait. The other one. Just a bog standard dickhead human who’s too stubborn to recognise something going wrong. I give the knee a few token gestures towards helping it heal – which is to say, continue to run into work once a week at the same intensity, hitting the pavements only slightly less hard than normal, occasionally give it a bit of a rub – but I never get more than 5 miles before it blows up again. I barely run at all in the week prior to the Moonlight Challenge, and unsurprisingly it starts to get better. But a week is not enough. 20 miles into the race, boom.

If I had a coach they would probably ask me which of the 8 marathons or ultras I’m already signed up to this year is actually my A race, then do something sensible like advise which of the others to drop; almost certainly that drop-list would have included Moonlight. The problem is that all my races are A races to me, for one reason or another. I just really love running marathons and ultras. And in a completely unscientific spirit that really only serves to enable this obsession, I am convinced that I run best when I’ve run lots, in as varied and exciting a range of ways as I can. Moonlight is important because of the people who run it; London because it’s the road marathon I always wanted to do; NDW100 is obvious; Giants Head is a party; Jurassic Quarter is Cat’s birthday and a big club weekend; the list goes on. I’m reminded of when I was 9, and we were planning to move to Cyprus: my mum asked me which of my toys were my favourites because we couldn’t take everything. I came up with infallible reasoning for every single thing. I don’t buy shit I don’t like. EVERYTHING IS MY FAVOURITE.

So if I’m not willing to choose my favourite toy, I have to look after them all equally well. Moonlight was a wake up call, not least because my bum knee was pretty much the only thing that stood between me and the first female finisher. I can’t go for sub-3:30 but at least I can do myself proud, and it’s one of only two races Andy will attend so I’m buggered if I’m going to be a tourist – when he sees me pass I want him to see me running like I’m about to win it. I finally knuckle down to a program of gradually building up long slow miles again, supported by cross training on the bike (subtitled: if I don’t have to pay TfL to travel to work I’m winning twice), yoga and strength exercises, a serious effort to lose the winter weight. If I can’t be faster I may as well be stronger, lither, tougher. Is it lither, or more lithe? Whatever. I channelled Caballo Blanco – easy, light, smooth, fast.

On a whim, I signed up to the Wimbledon Half Marathon (not to be confused with the Wimbledon Common Half Marathon) at the beginning of April to test my roadworthiness. I had no idea what sort of time I was capable of (and as usual did absolutely no research on the course profile beforehand) but I figured I would start off at 8 minute miles and see how far I could go before I naturally slowed down. Despite the hills it was further than I thought; I ended up finishing in 1:47.53, not exactly a PB or the equivalent pace for a 3:30 marathon, but not a stretch either. The figures by themselves aren’t much of an indication of anything, but coming away from that feeling like I could run again with no pain was a boost.

Since Lucozade Sport is supplied on the course at London I thought I’d try running Wimbledon on that alone rather than carrying a fistful of gels (which didn’t entirely agree with me at Manchester last year anyway) and road tested my shoes and kit, all with success. The only failure, it turned out, was my ability to stay on my feet. At the end of the first lap I’m crossing the road via a traffic island, over one of the flattest bits of the course when suddenly I’m doing a Superman impression and gliding along the road on my front, and I have no idea why. Pride might come before a fall but a huge rush of adrenalin usually comes directly after it, so I picked myself and my bottle up almost in one movement and carried on before the pain kicked in. The runner behind me reassured me that if I’d stayed on the floor he’d have stopped my watch for me, which is basically the most charitable thing anyone’s ever said to me during a race. Next time round I looked for the trip wire, huge tree root or bear trap that must have been responsible for me going flying. Nothing there. Just the road markings. And as I went over them for the second time my toe brushed the edge and it clicked: I, a person who runs in hills and trails for fun, had tripped over paint.

 

As I’m sitting on the grass afterwards waiting for my massage, I inspect the wounds on my elbows, hips and knees. Pissing blood and covered in dirt; luckily the only thing that hurts is my pride. I’m a little concerned about the delayed effect of the impact on my poor patellas, although only time will tell for those poor buggers. But what struck me most of all was how quickly and thoroughly I shook off the fear of falling over. The fact is, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the tension gripping my whole body each time I’d been out for a run when I knew, deep down, that I wasn’t properly healed yet, that I was falling into a classic overtraining trap. And just like that, I felt as though I had begun to regain control of my body again.

OK, three weekends to go. Three weekends of balancing the desire to go straight back out and run ALL THE MILES with the memory of what it feels like not to be able to run even for a couple of days. It’s a pretty classic situation. As I read about other runners’ experiences with overuse injury a trend appears; those that listen to their body, give it a proper chance to recover, actually come back stronger. Whether that’s down to an increase in strength or some other physical improvement, heightened responses to the body’s signals that reduce the temptation to overtrain, a higher likelihood of practising effective conditioning work and “pre-hab”, or a consciousness of what happens if you don’t, is impossible to tell – you’d have to know their full medical background and training history. On top of which, there aren’t many people lining up to tell Runner’s World how running ruined their life. Still though, you get the idea.

Of course you can’t always tell someone how to avoid disaster; you have to let them experience it for themselves to be sure that the lesson really sticks, and hope they have a chance to recover. Have you ever tried to tell a kid not to jump off a wall because they’ll get hurt, only to find them them biting back tears a few minutes later because they found out the hard way that you were right? Sam Murphy‘s column on coming back from injury in May’s Runner’s World – worth a read if you’re in a similar position – references a quote by ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov: “The more injuries you get, the smarter you get”. Now that I know what it feels like not to be able to run I’m more attuned to the signals telling me I’m about to push it too far, that I’m playing chicken too close to the cliff edge.

Lesson learned – hopefully, just in time. I’ve finished the course, I’ve fudged the homework, I’ve scraped through the mocks and there’s no amount of cramming that will help now. The big test will come on the 24th April 2016.

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