London

London Marathon 2018 – the day after

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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.

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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.

London 2018 pace chart

London 2018 map

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.

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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

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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:

truth potato failure

 

 

London Marathon 2016

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Nothing can prepare you for it. There are no words to describe the crushing blows of sound coming from the crowds, the pressing mass of bodies moving around you, pushing you always forward, though the twenty six mile tunnel lined by impenetrable, unscalable walls. Even if you wanted to bail out you couldn’t. The only way out is at the end. So, get to the end.

I don’t have a great track record with crowds. I’m definitely better than I used to be, better than when I wrote about zombies, but given the choice between open trails and thronged city streets… well, the road shoes aren’t getting much wear. So why am I doing this? In the days after the race I’m amused by how many people – even those who know me and how many marathons or ultras I’ve done before – want to hear all about it, much more than my previous races, as if it’s a league apart from any other marathon in difficulty or involvement. It’s just another road marathon, in theory. Except it’s not; it’s a national event, a city-wide gala, the zenith of many running careers. Despite the ever-lengthening odds of your average Joe actually getting a place on the starting line London is often either their first or last marathon (or both). Especially to someone living in London, it’s a tangible, real thing, not just a thing that happens somewhere else and well done. On a year that will celebrate the millionth finisher, how many Londoners have either run it or know someone who has? Just for one day, they’re all a little bit of a celebrity.

And there I am, as far away from a natural celebrity as it’s possible to be.

About a week before clubmate Cat admitted she was planning to take it easy at London because she was targeting a podium finish at the Pembrokeshire CTS Marathon the following weekend (as you do), and luckily for me her easy pace is my balls out PB pace, so I had myself a companion. We ran to ExCel on the Friday to traipse around the expo and buy tat we didn’t need, and to talk tactics. Broadly speaking, ‘tactics’ involved me wavering between 3:45 for another good for age qualifier and trying to persuade myself maybe I could do 3:30 after all, followed by Cat firmly and sensibly insisting that a) she can’t afford to do that and b) I probably can’t either. So, I picked up a 3:40 pacing band, then a 3:35 one for good luck as well, then my body weight in Clif products. I’d been marauding around looking for a pair of pink running shorts (because it’s the only obscene colour I don’t own) and maintaining that I’d NEVER wear tights or capri pants for running; meanwhile, half an hour later, there I am carrying away one pair of grey patterned capri pants and zero shorts or pink things. Cat would have her work cut out for her.

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Despite there being another huge Chaser turnout I travelled to Maze Hill alone on Sunday morning intending to meet Cat and the others there. It wasn’t so much me being unsociable, although I do like a bit of alone time before a race; I just like to get to the race start two hours in advance, partly to be prepared but mostly to avoid the busy trains. By 8am I was mooching around the Green Start, trying not to bump into Kelly Holmes while glued to my phone looking for a message from Cat; fast forward an hour and a half, and as the announcer made increasingly hysterical pleas for the runners to drop off their bags there was still no sign of her or any of the Chasers. I had to hand my bag in, phone and all, and hope we’d spot each other at the starting pens. Literally minutes before we were due to line up the familiar blue and green stripes flashed by and I found Cat, Korkoi, Kate and Shermayne haggling with the marshals at the pens, hoping to be allowed to start together. Panic over. For now.

Which pen should I be in anyway – what was I realistically aiming for? Only the night before the expo I discovered that my result in Manchester 2015, the result that gave me the Good For Age entry to London in the first place, was now null and void thanks to a man with a dodgy measuring wheel. It was irritating enough to have put so much work in, got my qualifying time for two Londons and then have it taken away; I can’t imagine how infuriating it must be to those who got a significant result, a podium or a PB to retire on. Up to that point I had been realistic about how well a winter of no speed training and a stone gained in weight could actually prepare me; now of course I would have to try and requalify if I ever wanted to run London again. I can’t raise £2000 for a charity place and the ballot entry odds aren’t even as good as the lottery any more. So, do I accept this is probably my first and last opportunity to run London and just enjoy it, knowing that I’ve much bigger fish to fry between now and September? Or do I go for suicide pace and bugger the consequences?

In retrospect, I massively underestimated just how busy it was going to be; not helped by the fact that we were in the relatively quiet Green Start, and not actually catching up with the crowds until a few miles in. We crossed the line – Cat in her usual gentle forefoot trot, me skipping along with Andrew W.K. party moves – only a minute or so after 10am and filtered through the peaceful streets of Greenwich, jostling and being jostled as you do at the beginning of a race. It made me uneasy as it usually does, but I kept telling myself it’d be fine when we crowds thinned out. To Cat’s credit, every time I said so out loud she corrected me – “Jaz, this is London, it’s not going to get any less busy” – and yet somehow I managed to gloss over this crucial piece of advice every time… until, that is, we merged with the other two start pens. As we came down the slope to river’s edge around Charlton a tidal wave of runners met us from one side and the volume of people more than doubled in an instant. It looked like the scene in the Lion King where Simba sees his father crushed by a stampede of wildebeests. I’m not going to get too crude about it, but I’m pretty sure this was around the time my nausea kicked in.

Like the country mice visiting the town mice Cat and I lifted our chins as gracefully as we could, thinking about the trails and pretending we weren’t inches away from other people’s sweat. We chatted about the weather, about other people, about the finer points of existence – we might as well have been two old ladies taking afternoon tea at the Penrith Tea Rooms. The crowd was carrying us along at slightly above our target pace but if we didn’t want to cause a pile-up there wasn’t much we could do about it; there was no moving out to one side or slowing down and allowing others to pass. Every time someone brushed my arm it made me bristle a shudder a little more though, and it was getting pretty difficult to hide. Every half a mile or so we’d both look at our watches, cheerfully announce we were going too fast and should probably slow down, then carry on regardless. Some serious classic British stiff upper lip denial going on.

I had started the race with half a bottle of Lucozade in my hand intending to throw it somewhere convenient within a mile – at Bermondsey I’m still clinging to it like a Linus blanket when I hear my name called off to the left. We’d just settled into a comfortable stride in a relatively quiet stretch, and perfect timing it was too; fellow QPR fan Cez was waving frantically while Loft For Words’ Neil, positioned a little further along with his ubiquitous camera, was snapping away. I’ve spent a lot of Saturdays in the pub with Neil and his camera and I’m always impressed by how he manages to catch a perfect moment. It wasn’t so much that I hadn’t been enjoying myself before, but I felt such a rush of relief to see them both it was impossible to hide and his lens picked up the very instant a grin blossomed across my already sweaty, salty face. There was the boost to get me to Tower Bridge.

Me at London

(C) Neil Dejyothin 2016 – http://www.neildejyothin.com

Cat warned me that Tower Bridge can be a particularly emotional moment; I wasn’t that convinced to be honest, especially as I run across it quite a lot in my usual Friday lunchtime loop around work. As lovely a sight as it is it’s also normally a nasty congestion point, trying to weave through the narrow walkways past people with no haste and no idea where they are, and I can’t really settle down until I’m past it. Today it was a whole different place altogether. Today we were running along the road, the two narrow walkways crammed with spectators screaming and raising a right ruckus around us. The sound swelled and burst through those iconic tower supports, washing over us and pouring into the tide of the Thames below, and for the first (although not last) time I burst into tears. Ah. So this is what everyone was trying to tell me about.

OK, so yeah. That redefines special. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I’ve certainly never felt anything like it.  And it set a tone for much of the next four or five miles – the route flanked by two walls of noise, surging and rushing over us. Cat ran slightly ahead of me through the Isle of Dogs and Poplar, which suited me absolutely fine. I couldn’t concentrate on where I was putting my feet or the path ahead of me – I just had to follow her ankles and not look up at all the people. Every half a mile or so the overwhelming noise would hit me again and knock me literally breathless; I would clamp my hands over my ears and catch my breath in sobs until it passed. At least twice I actually blacked out briefly, and when the cloud cleared from my eyes I found myself back in a relatively quiet stretch with no recollection of how we got there. And absolutely no way out except forward.

I had arranged for Andy and his family to be stationed along this stretch just after Tower Bridge as it meant that I would see them twice when the route doubled back. It was a great idea in theory, even though I knew it would be a popular spot for exactly this reason, but as usual I had underestimated just how busy it was and therefore how hard it would be to spot them. I ran for a good three miles, scanning the crowd for a glimpse of him or the QPR flag he said he’d be waving, and being horribly antisocial to Cat all the while. Every step I took without seeing him thumped me in the chest. Maybe he’s a bit further down… maybe he couldn’t find a spot there.. maybe they misunderstood… maybe not. It’s silly really, since he’s never at my races, but this one was the one he’d always said he’d be there for, and the one time I knew I’d really need to see him. Eventually, I had to concede defeat and hope we’d catch each other on the return journey. Cat reassured me that he must have been there, he would have seen me – it’s just that I couldn’t see him in the crowd. I knew it was true, but it didn’t make me feel much better. If I had been monitoring my heartrate I’m sure it would have registered such dramatic peaks and troughs as to make an ECG look like a seismograph.

As industrial East London unfolded and everything started looking like the road to the ExCel centre, another familiar sight appeared. Katherine French, stalwart of the road marathon and secret trail fanatic was just a few yards ahead accompanied by her pacer Chris. Aiming for a safe Boston Qualifier time of around 3:30, Katherine and Chris had passed us a long way back as the three groups merged way back in Woolwich and Katherine had the look of a determined lady; by now though she was struggling, stopping to walk and looking downcast. It broke my heart to see her in trouble – I wanted to stop and run with her for a bit, but she had one of the best pacers money (or rather, love and wine) could buy with her already and the last thing she would have wanted was more fuss. Seeing someone else that I admire so much having a crap time just added to the feeling that this just wasn’t fun. I missed the mud and the jelly babies and even though they were right there with me, I missed my friends.

By this point we’re deep in DLR territory and approaching three quarters of the way through. I kept telling myself that next time we passed a fuel station I would pick up a gel or a Lucozade, but by mile 20 I hadn’t managed to do either, whether because I simply couldn’t get to the edge of the pack to reach or because I was afraid of getting tripped up. My stomach was starting to cramp, looking for calories to process which I hadn’t been able to take on, and although I wasn’t feeling tired or sluggish at all I could feel my body crying at me to slow down until the nausea passed. I persisted with the logic that the quicker I went the sooner I’d get to a quiet fuel station, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We were a good couple of miles past the last gel station before I realised I had missed my last chance. Time had to go out of the window now.

As we approached Shadwell on the return journey I kept my eyes peeled for Andy – surely I couldn’t miss him twice? I was starting to panic now, although I don’t know why I’d suddenly decided that seeing Andy for a brief moment was more likely to get me to the end than having the patient, tireless and graceful Cat by my side the entire time had been. Cat who never once complained about my being distant and unsociable, about the burden of my reliance on her, about the fact that our pace had started to slow and our muscles in danger of cooling. She was a rock all the way through, but she had her own race to think about a week later. She let me drift off to the side of the pack while I scanned every face in the crowd looking for Andy, and when I finally found him there was a brief shriek, a little jump, and then we were past and they long behind us, on the way to the finish. That little boost I had been looking for came and went almost without a chance to register, and the nausea that had been held at bay by the distraction of searching for him came back with a vengeance. After another mile I told her to go on without me. There was no chance of me making my time now, and no point in her risking injury.

The pressure relieved somewhat I trotted along under the underpass, by Blackfriars bridge and along the Embankment where I had run hundreds of times before. Every time I do this route with work I imagine being on the road, running the last few miles to the finish at the Mall; now I was on the other side, wishing I was back on the pavement. I was doing the classic juggling act: walking as much as I could to avoid being sick until the encouragement from onlookers embarrassed me enough to try and trot again, then slowing back down to a walk when I was safely past. I didn’t care about time any more, and I knew I’d still be able to take away the fact that I’d finally finished my first London. I had the support of my club and my family and I had my health, and that was that. It’s not meant to be easy, but as everyone had tried to tell me it does remind you of the goodwill of strangers – never mind my fear of crowds it’s not as if they were malicious or threatening mobs, just a lot of people who had all given up their day to tell total strangers that they believed in them. That’s why it’s different from other marathons, I suppose. Maybe, twitchy little misanthrope that I am, it’s just not for me.

No longer worrying about time I tried to help a couple of other runners who had slowed down, but who looked like they still had a final push left within them – it didn’t seem fair to be overtaking anyone at this stage when I had given up so long ago. The final mile leading to the Mall was a reflective one, but an awesome spectacle nonetheless. This bit I wouldn’t give up for the world – with one last burst of energy I leapt hurdle style over the finish line, stumbled into the marshals holding out medals, and burst into tears. While I waited for my chest to loosen up and my breathing to settle I turned around to watch the finishers behind me coming through, hoping to see Katherine and Chris among them. Those waves of triumph and pain coming through the final arch are what defines any marathon, and it was worth scanning all those faces to pick Katherine out. Seeing her finish represented to me a symbol of strength, of someone who regularly sets themselves standards so high that most people would baulk at attempting let alone be disappointed not to reach them. They came through a few minutes later, both looking calm and composed in comparison to my snot and sobs, and we exchanged sweaty hugs. I was done. We were done.

My mum had been hoping to catch me at the end after her volunteering shift but couldn’t get through the crowds in time, so I met Andy and his family at the meeting point and we went straight back to Earlsfield. Running for nearly four hours on no calories had taken its toll on my complexion and apparently I was looking grey and slurring, a real poster girl for the virtues of exercise, so we hobbled off to a local pub for a full Sunday lunch which I barely touched, although a couple of virgin coladas went down a treat. If that had been the only evidence of the effect of a marathon on the human body I wouldn’t have blamed them for never wanting to try it for themselves but just a couple of weeks later Andy’s sister Emma was asking my advice on shoes and how to train for the Brighton half and parkrun and all sorts. That’s exactly what I’d hope someone would take away from my grey pallor and limp and hypoglycaemia and shivers. It’s fun, but it’s not what you think I mean by fun. And everybody should try it.

It’s not the sort of fun that’s fun while you’re having it, transient fun that exists while it’s happening and disappears into the ether as soon as it’s finished, an unsatisfying and impermanent sort of fun. Cat calls it fun type 2: the afterburn of fun; fun that is had not at the time necessarily but after the hard work and stress has been experienced, and which lasts for weeks afterwards, in the form of memories and a sense of achievement and a change in your outlook. I’ve still never quite managed to articulate the answer to the question “why do you do this” but that’s fairly close. And, you know, the goody bags and the bling make up for it all.

I can tell you probably don’t believe me. I wouldn’t either. All I can say is, try it for yourself and see.

Funky graphs and stats below (I couldn’t resist):

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PS: If you like reading, or running, or reading about running, then you should follow Katherine’s blog girlrunningcrazy.com – winner of Best Running Blog at the Trespass Blog Awards 2015. Hell yes.

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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Thames Riverside 20 – Race or Pace

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For months I’ve been waxing lyrical about volunteer, marshals, pacers and race directors, all those good sorts who give up their day (and often a lot more besides) to make it possible for us selfish runners to do our thing, and making grand pronouncements about doing my stint one day. So when the call went out to the Clapham Chasers Facebook forum for people to help run our annual race, the Thames Riverside 20, I’d sort of run out of reasons not to. 

Since my role at the Monday social runs has gone from struggling backmarker to regular pacer and novice group leader, it seemed like a natural progression to offering my services as a pacer for the 9:30 group. I’ve got to admit, this was another one of those things that I merrily signed up for with my worry-about-the-details later head, and felt fine about, until my details-and-doubt head started to ask questions. Like: Jaz, are you sure you can maintain a steady pace for twenty miles? Your Garmin readouts look like Pinocchio’s lie detector test, and other people are relying on you now. Can you even run twenty miles at 9:30mm? The last time you did that you couldn’t walk for a week. You’ve got a race every single weekend for five weeks. Are you sure you won’t crash at mile 16 like you usually do? It’s an 8am start, the day after QPR v Spurs. Since when have you been a morning person, let alone after a home game? 

Thanks, doubt brain. The very definition of a self fulfilling prophecy, I got about four hours’ sleep on the Saturday night, and what little sleep I did get was punctuated with anxiety dreams about waking up late and missing the start or losing all my kit or fucking it all up. The one saving grace was that I would be paired with Cat, stalwart of the trail club and Monday night social run, a lady well used to picking up after me when I fell to pieces. 

Mildly surprised to discover that there was more than one six o’clock on a Sunday, I got to Fulham Palace Park just as the birds were waking up and spent some of my nervous energy helping the HQ set-up team, until Sham told me off for getting underfoot and I had to find another way to amuse myself. Eventually we got our briefing – “Run at your pace. Run at exactly your pace. Don’t stop for anything.” – and lined up for the off. The pace groups were set at half minute intervals from sub 7:00mm to 10:00mm and would set off in ascending order with two minutes between each start, so Cat and I had a good twelve minutes to piss around dancing jigs and taking silly photos. Ok, not Cat. Just me. 

  

I never get bored of the riverside, or how lucky I am to live so near the Thames path. When we finally got our starters orders the first half mile took us over Putney Bridge to the south bank, and we all marvelled at the sight of the tranquil river in the hazy spring morning. The first sign of the tireless support we would receive was just on the other side of the bridge, fellow Chasers Alex and Frankie cheering like loons as Sunday morning strollers and Saturday night walk-of-shamers looked wryly on. I’m sure everyone who passed us thought they and they alone were the sane ones. 

Our group was only about twenty people to begin with, a mixture of experienced runners and first time marathoners on their last long run before London or Paris. For most people, today’s run was the long run in their training schedule and for some it would be the longest they’d ever run before. For all the pressure that piled on us as pacers, it was actually a huge privilege to be helping someone towards such a significant milestone. To me, the Thames path means spring and summer long runs and marathon prep with my mum, so it’s seen a lot of milestones passed in my running career already; I love that it now has a whole new layer of meaning to me. I loved hearing that mixture of trepidation and resolve in the first timers with us; they all joked that they didn’t know if they’d make the finish, but their eyes said quite the opposite. 

Joking about the first timers making it to the end was something of a front for my own worries about being able to finish. I normally run to effort; I’ve never run at such a consistent pace before, not even on flat ground. Only eight days after another attempt at the Moonlight Challenge, my thighs were sore and hamstrings nowhere near loosening up as we saw the front runners pass us going the other way around mile 7 (or mile 13 to them). They looked so strong, and I still didn’t have a rhythm or another gear to move up to if I’d needed it. I mean, the whole point was I wasn’t meant to need it, but I’m not used to running with basically no margin for error. I concentrated on making sure the Garmin stayed happy and tried to pretend I didn’t want to stop and stick my face in a bowl of ice cream.

Then I saw something that was both heartbreaking and which spurred me on. At the third water station in Richmond, just before the 10 mile turnaround point, there was Diana – trail club regular, tough as nails diminutive Latvian lightning streak who has gone from strength to strength this last year – folded up in a sorry looking little bundle on the ground. Having been cruising along in the 8mm pacing group and feeling fresh as a daisy, apparently she had felt her hamstring go twang (luckily not too far from the aid station) and that was that. It was gutting to see her like that, grimacing not so much with pain but with frustration. I had to resist the temptation to dart out and give her a hug, check she was ok, but of course she was already in the safest hands possible. Besides, this was not my race – the most useful thing we could do at this point was keep our group at a steady pace and make sure there weren’t any other blowouts. 

Thankfully the next sign of life we saw was the turnaround point, with an exuberant Naomi dancing and singing at the hairpin bend. Seeing her meant that we were past halfway, that there was always less left than we’d already done, and that we were technically on the home straight. Being the second to last group it occurred to me that she must have been keeping up her energetic little jig for AGES. I’d definitely rather run for three hours than dance and be cheerful for three hours. What a ledge. 

One thing I always forget about the towpath is just how stony it is in places, even though I think of it as a relatively low impact surface compared with road running or flat compared with trails. It’s hardly time for the Hokas, but around Kew Gardens on the return journey I was starting to feel real soreness in my toe joints and became aware of just how hard I was having to work not to turn an ankle. It’s brilliant for training on, but not as fast a racing course as you might think. I realised that for the first time since Istanbul I was seriously pushing myself just to maintain the pace. I have so much fun when I’m out on trails – no weight of expectation, no sense of chore or effort, beautiful scenery to drift off into – there’s a distinct possibility that I’ve become a lazy bastard.

We had started to lose a couple of our group by now, some because they were gently ramping up the pace and leaving us behind, others unable to keep up. The closer we got to the rowing clubs at Putney, the fewer in number we became. It’s hard to resist the temptation to drop back and keep the stragglers company – as hard as it is not to open up the throttle as Putney Bridge loomed into view – but the reward for consistency soon became obvious as two of the group, first timers who had only ever done eighteen miles before, celebrated their furthest distance at mile 19, high fived us, then asked permission to go on ahead. I’ve never heard anything so charming in a race; someone asking permission to go faster. And as Cat and I reached the bridge, we found ourselves totally alone. 

I couldn’t resist challenging her to a sprint finish at the entrance of the park, since it didn’t matter any more, just so I could do my Mo Farah impression. I hit my Garmin as I crossed the line, but I already knew what my time was and straightaway went to find Diana for the hug I’d been saving for her. It felt weird not to have to check for my chip time or placing. It felt weirder still not to have my hear bursting from my ribcage at the end of a race. Is this what consistent pacing feels like? 

I learned new metrics for judging success that day: it came in the form of pride in a stranger’s achievements; in joy at seeing our average pace over the twenty miles was 9:29 minutes per mile, bang on target, not too fast; in finishing twenty miles without succumbing once to the temptation to walk, and still feeling like I had a strong final 10k in me; and in knowing I did my best without letting anyone down. It wasn’t a PB, or a podium finish – I didn’t even get a bloody medal. It was just a job well done. 

 

Run-life balance

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Christmas is not traditionally a fun time for me. It’s not just blistering misanthropy on my part – it is that a bit, but not wholly – and I’m not miserly or lonely. Even a perfectly normal happy-go-lucky sort of soul will one day hear that Wizzard song crackling over the tannoy in Marks and Spencer as a middle aged woman vaults them to get to the last pair of suede gloves and will go all Michael Douglas Falling Down, but it’s not the forced cheeriness or the Bacchanalian orgy of consumerism either. It just so happens to be the time of year most of my family members have died and so has become an advent of anniversaries.

On the odd year when things aren’t quite so morbid Andy and I are doing the annual merry-go-round of Christmastime visits. At the moment that’s Bromley, Sydenham, Basingstoke, Salisbury, Newport, and Wakefield. Without a car. Last year we juggled this around a surprise visit from my Turkish family, insisting that they didn’t want to ruin our plans while dancing around them like Dumbo in a Royal Doulton outlet store. My heart nearly gave out.

And as regular readers of my rants/articles will know (hi, both) my diary is fundamentally based around the QPR fixture list and the whim of Sky executives tearing merrily through the schedule, moving games for TV slots just before it’s too late to get decently priced train tickets. So, finding time to squeeze in a run is a logistical minefield.

During 2014, something clicked for me. Running went from being a means to an end to an end in itself. First I ran to lose weight, then I ran to get fitter, then I ran to train for races, and now I run to be free. So as my relationship with running changed, my motivation for going out for a run changed too. When I was persuading myself to go for a run using rewards – or punishments – it was easier to justify missing one, because the purpose of the activity was the receipt of the reward and not the activity itself. And with irregular working hours, football fixtures, social events and a lawless set of relatives there were always plenty of reasons to miss a run.

Now though it’s become a sort of sanctuary for me; my corner of the library, my allotment, my toolshed. It’s an hour – or two, or three – where I can ignore my phone, dodge zombies, switch on my audiobook and escape. I get downtime at home of course, but it’s usually when I do laundry, reply to emails, make phonecalls, finish off project work. Only when I run does my time belong entirely to me.

I’ve found ways of making time work for me: running home from work, running at lunchtimes, getting up at the crack of dawn for parkrun and trail club, two regular weekly social runs. The key has been to set myself a routine – this way the unusual thing and the usual thing have switched places, so I’m making a decision not to go for a run rather than finding the impetus to get out. It turns out that breaking a streak is much harder than dragging myself out into the cold ever used to be. Funnily enough, the trickiest thing has been finding time to actually race. And Christmas has certainly not helped with that.

So with this reasoning in mind (and inspired by the amazing Marathon Man Rob Young) I’ve set myself a new challenge for 2015: to run at least 1 mile every day of the year. Andy is dubious; not about my commitment or stubbornness, but about the logistics. What happens when something comes up that we can’t avoid? What about away days at the football, when we usually leave London at the crack of dawn and get back home again long after dark? What about when I’m not feeling well? He’s not wrong, and it will be difficult, but then that’s the point of a challenge.

My own questions aren’t logistical ones; I’ll wear running shoes all day every day if I have to, and I’ll get up at 6am for away days rather than 6.30am, and unless I’m at death’s door ten minutes of jogging won’t kill me. My questions are harder to respond to: will I risk injury; will I totally screw up my work-life balance and become a selfish runner; and most of all, will this kill my love for running? I set the challenge because it’s something I’ve never even come close to doing before, and it means I guarantee myself 10 minutes of me time a day. Plus, I’ve always found the concept of sustaining a streak to be hugely satisfying, good for keeping my mind from unravelling and for practising discipline and focus. But if my motivation becomes sustaining a running streak rather than running itself, I could end up jeopardising my run-life balance altogether. I think we both knew that’s what Andy was really alluding to when he asked about logistics.

So the real challenge will be, can I keep up my streak without losing out on something more important?

I’m going to try it anyway, and I’m also racking up the marathons wherever they fit in. I’m not afraid of failing the challenge as long as I’ve given it my best effort, and as long as I don’t cross the line between commitment and obsession. I just want to see how far I can go.

Watch this space.

Royal Parks Ultra 2014

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I hate Facebook. I stick with it because it’s the only way to keep in touch with some of my family and friends, and because my running club, Clapham Chasers, use it in lieu of a forum so it’s the only way to get hold of news and plan trail runs. But wherever possible I steer well clear of the bloody thing. Photos of babies, posts about guardian angels “and if you don’t share in five minutes your angel will die”, those bastard water bucket challenges. BAH.

But then, one day recently it came useful.

I knew about the Royal Parks Half Marathon from colleagues who had done it in previous years, and I knew you usually needed to raise money for a charity to get in, but I had no idea there was a 50k course until the Runners Need page threw up a post saying they had a number of places to give away. All you had to do to be in with a chance of winning one was click on a link and enter some details. I’d sell my own mother for a shiny doubloon, so I gave them everything – address, phone number, daily schedule and list of fears – and forgot all about it.

Then, one day about three weeks out, my mobile phone rang. Being the charming, antisocial sort that I am (and working in a concrete bunker with no signal) I let the call go to voicemail, but when I listened back it was someone from Runners Need called Kirsty saying that a place had become available and did I still want it? Within a minute I was jigging around in the fire exit, trying to get enough signal and yelling “YES PLEASE ME PLEASE I’LL TAKE IT”.

It’s a London race so it should be easy enough to get to, I thought, and from the finish in Bushy Park it’s a single train home. Lovely stuff. Yeah, not so much – thank you TfL. Two hours and three buses later I finally reached the Runners Need stall to get a group photo and pick up my race vest, and it would be a twenty minute hobble to the nearest station at the end followed by a replacement bus service. If I had known quite how bad the transport situation would be I’d have genuinely considered running to and from the race.

Both the half marathon and ultra courses are designed to take in the greenest areas of London, starting in Hyde Park, skirting Green Park and St James’ Park and picking up the river at Westminster. There a nice sweeping stretch going east as far as Blackfriars, where the half marathoners turn back and the ultra runners cross the bridge, turning west on the other side to follow the Thames Path pretty much the whole way home. The three parks and Blackfriars section happens to be the route I run with my work running club, the Thames path from Waterloo to Wandsworth part of my run home and everything west of Wandsworth my favourite easy Sunday run route, so I pretty much knew the whole course already. This is my territory, I thought.

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Maybe because I hate being anything less than 2 hours early to a race start, maybe because buses freak me out, maybe I’m just a spanner – but I found the race village in Hyde Park confusing and difficult to navigate and got myself into a right flap. I walked the length and breadth twice following conflicting instructions for the bag drop, until it became clear that the ultra runners were operating out of a separate tent for pretty much everything. With all the banners advertising the half marathon and its innumerable sponsors, and only the odd arrow pointing on the general direction of the 50k start, I began to worry that I’d come to the wrong park. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Eventually though I lined up among the other 500 or so runners, with two empty water bottles I’d forgotten to fill in my flap, and took off towards the river. The course is relatively flat apart from a couple of bridge crossings and an incline in Richmond Park, so I let myself settle into a comfortable pace slightly faster than I would normally risk, and immediately felt calmer.

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The first 5k went in no time whatsoever, so I took advantage of the first checkpoint to stop and fill up my water bottles. By this point we had crossed Westminster Bridge, turned a hairpin and come back across it again, and I could see the National Theatre across the water waiting for me to pass by. Being my workplace, I see that huge angular behemoth almost every day; its washed out grey concrete usually looks stern and humourless under the crisp LEDs that usually illuminate it. Under the soft warm Sunday morning haze though, it looked beautiful.

I fell in step with a chap called Tanbir aiming for around 5 hours in his first ultra distance, and still feeling comfortable I ended up spending a good 25k with him, chatting all the way. We trotted through Battersea Park, hugged the south bank of the river around Wandsworth, fired up the old glutes with two bridge climbs in quick succession through Putney, and gossiped our way past Hammersmith, separating only temporarily while he stopped for a comfort break. We were looking at Barnes Bridge just after mile 15 before either of us even noticed that familiar tightness in our hamstrings, and like that the easy chat turned to awkward small talk, skirting around the sharp realisation that we had hit halfway.

I hate halfway. Up to halfway I’m not thinking about what’s left to do, I’m just enjoying myself and letting the miles fall away. After halfway, however tired you are, you know you’ve got less left to do than you’ve already done. But at halfway, neither thought consoles you. As though I’d had been gently stretching an elastic band and suddenly let it TWANG and fly from my grasp, my muscles suddenly seized up like quick drying cement and I felt heavy.

At this point, we started to take the run in small chunks. Keep going until we hit the 30k checkpoint. Then we can stretch. Then push on until the marathon. Then another stretch. Then one final push and we’d be done. Little chunks. Easy as that. Every time I allowed myself to throttle back and slow down the cement began to harden around my muscles. As long as I kept moving they couldn’t set. With the ground becoming more gravel and less pavement, we ploughed unsteadily on.

The 30k checkpoint – generously stocked with crisps, Percy Pigs and Lucozade jelly beans – came just in time, but after a quick pause to inhale some junk food we realised we needed to push on. Tanbir was suffering much more than me though, and eventually he let me go on ahead while I still could, assuming that we’d catch each other eventually. I should have been appreciating the stunning surroundings, particularly as I approached Richmond Park, but I missed the company so switched on my audiobook.

Every day’s a schoolday, they say. I learned something just before 40k. I learned that audiobooks are brilliant for long runs, but never underestimate the fragility of your disposition when exhausted, and never listen to graphic or upsetting stories when you’re 40k into a run through woodland. To be fair, I thought that Haruki Murakami would be a relatively safe bet, but after three minutes of a graphic and detailed account of a man being skinned alive, I nearly threw up into the Thames. I don’t know why, but it immediately made me think of my boyfriend Andy, and oh god what would I do if that had happened to him, as if something like that ever would, and how much I wished he was with me, and then I nearly threw up again. And then I switched to music.

For me, a good litmus test of how I’m holding up mentally is by testing my mental arithmetic skills – converting my pace in minutes per mile to minutes per kilometre for instance – and quite often, even when I think I’m ok I find myself unable to remember what number comes after 12 or how to multiply by 20. I stuck to Tanbir’s plan – to keep going until the marathon mark and then allow myself a walk break – but I forgot that I was meant to be looking for a marker saying 42, not one saying 26, so I’d convinced myself I still had a while to go. When the marathon marker did eventually sneak out from behind some bushes, I was stunned. I checked my watch – 4 hours 11 minutes. A full hour faster than my time at Brighton Marathon back in April.

Relieved to finish the first 26 miles I slowed down to walk and ring my equally surprised boyfriend – who hadn’t been expecting a call from me for another hour – but it wasn’t until after the race was done and dusted that I realised what I’d achieved. At that point I just wanted to hear his voice and be reassured that a Mongolian warrior hadn’t skinned him alive in my absence. I did however have the presence of mind to work out that a sub 5 hour finish was on the cards. Love and kisses, phone back into my belt pack, game face on.

Despite much of the first half being run on pavement and footpath, the towpath that replaced it was getting gradually more and more gravelly and the stones underfoot bigger and sharper. My light soled road shoes had been the right call to begin with but my toe joints were now bruised and painful, and every time I landed I had to hope it wasn’t on another pebble. I listened to a playlist of ska punk tunes to keep up my spirits and sped up in the hope that it would mean less time on my feet.

The final section through Bushy Park is somewhat easier underfoot, but without the Thames as a guide it’s difficult to judge just how far you are from the end. Every time I pushed on, I turned a corner and found another stretch. Every time I slackened the pace, I saw a marshal urging me on. And I had no idea how close I was to a 5 hour finish.

And then, there it was – the home stretch. The marshal directing us in was shouting that we were nearly there, but I’d heard that said so much in the previous half hour I nearly didn’t believe her until I saw the arch. Uneven ground, soft mud and stones be damned, I lifted my knees for a sprint finish and threw myself across the timing mat, shaking and sobbing. My watch told me I was within a minute of the 5 hour mark, but I didn’t believe it until a moment later a text message popped up on my phone to confirm it – impressively quick result reporting, given that I was still gasping for breath. 4 hours, 59 minutes and 18 seconds. I had beaten my marathon PB with my 50k time.

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I got my grubby little magpie fingers on my medal: a wooden one shaped like a leaf, which I thought Andy would like since it wouldn’t be as noisy at the metal ones. The goody bag was deeply impressive too – a little canvas bag full to bursting with a packet of spicy chickpea snacks, a sachet of porridge and a box of single serving cereal, a peaked Buff style headband from Crewroom, a set of short stories commissioned by and written about the Parks, deodorant, a bag of sweeties, a water bottle and a partridge in a pear tree. In fact the bag was so full of stuff I somehow lost my voucher for a free hot meal to its Mary Poppins carpet bag interior, but after being shaken and run ragged for five hours my stomach wasn’t up to much anyway.

Apart from the kerfuffle at the start – and despite the best efforts of TfL – it was a well organised and logistically sound race. The checkpoints were generously stocked with treats and snacks, sponsored as they were by Marks and Spencer (hence the amazing goody bag at the end) and the field was of a manageable size so it never felt like a scramble. Even better, the support was fantastic considering it was a long point to point course; although it wasn’t exactly a throbbing party atmosphere and quite often race participants were outnumbered five to one by Sunday joggers, everyone we passed from Putney to Bushy Park seemed to know what we were doing and cheered us on.

For a race I wasn’t even expecting to do, it was something of a triumph. I’m right at home with the 50k distance, and for the first time during a long run I barely walked at all. The Thames is often my running guide, and if I’d been asked to design a 50k course this would basically be it – no further East than Blackfriars and plenty of the South bank.

When I finally made it home I just sat on the sofa staring at my Garmin readouts. If someone had challenged me to beat my marathon time at the marathon point I couldn’t have done it. If someone had challenged me to beat my marathon time with my 50k time I’d have laughed. But now, there’s a whole new set of possibilities.

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Sweet charity

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It’s that time of year, if you were one of the people who applied for a London Marathon ballot place back in April, when you find out if your 12 to 1 shot was successful. Which means odds are you got home this week to find a copy of Marathon News with “Sorry!” splashed cheerfully across the front cover.

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You might have had a particularly stressful couple of weeks: an overwhelming workload or bad news from your family or disquiet in your social group or another abject loss for your football team. You might have run home from work that day, hoping to shake out your worries, been just about approaching normality again, then seen the parcel on your doormat and your heart might have sunk once again. Maybe that’s just me.

Alright; I am overdramatising the situation somewhat. Not getting into London for the third time in a row is a bit disappointing, but if I’m going to hang my chances of happiness on something, a 12 to 1 shot is a poor choice. In any case I have my health, and plenty more going for me besides.

Compare that with the thousands of families affected by cancer or heart disease; or the children born deaf or blind or both; or those afflicted both by mental illness and the stigma attached to it; and my disappointment at not getting through a marathon ballot is pretty pitiful. That said, I could do something about my disappointment AND help the less fortunate by taking up a charity place. Or could I?

My reasons for wanting to run the London Marathon – and I only really want to run it once – are entirely personal: because it’s my hometown event and because it’s an experience like no other. I want to tick off another classic race on my list, not to test myself or to break a new boundary. But if my only chance of doing it is by asking my friends for sponsorship again then I’m effectively asking them to subsidise my hobby. I don’t feel right about doing that.

Many of the charities offering places for 2015 require a minimum donation target of £1800-£2000 per person. This is for very good reason – the event represents a huge opportunity for income (not to mention publicity) for these charities, and the London Marathon has a strong tradition of fundraising, fundamental to the ethos of the event ever since its inception in 1981. Not everyone can finish a marathon, and let’s be honest, sponsorship isn’t just for the 26.2 miles at the end but the 6 months of training leading up to it. It’s a no brainer really.

But – and I’m going to sound awfully arrogant here – what if finishing a marathon isn’t that much of a challenge to you? Obviously it’s a challenge to any human being, but surely more so to a first timer or someone not obviously athletic than to a regular long distance runner. It can of course be a challenge for other reasons; more and more now we see people running dressed in outrageous and bulky outfits, or while knitting at the same time, or carrying an actual fridge on their backs. But if I just want to run a marathon, is London the event for me?

My first marathon, as I’ve mentioned here before, was Edinburgh in 2013. I had set myself a challenge to raise money for a charity – specifically, Macmillan – to repay the wonderful work they did caring for a friend of mine who had died of cancer a few years before. Mum and I had applied to the ballot for London and failed, were afraid of not being able to reach £4000 in sponsorship between us, and so decided to do Edinburgh instead. Even though our minimum target was a much more achievable £750 each, we got pretty close to the £4k between us anyway. It was easy because I was passionate about the cause, and because I was passionate about the cause I could drag myself out of bed and onto dark streets to train even when I wanted to be curled up in bed with a packet of ginger nuts.

The next year we failed to get into London again, so we signed up for Brighton which runs the week before. This time I was raising money for the other charity who had nursed my friend through his final months, CLIC Sargent. I felt as strongly about this cause as I had Macmillan and I had always intended to do two marathons so both charities would benefit, but this time I struggled even to make my £400 minimum. Was it because it was so close to London, and everyone who was going to sponsor someone had given all their money to the higher profile challenge? Was it because I was running alone this time with mum pulling out injured, and missing out on support from her friends and family? Or was it simply harder to persuade people to sponsor me to do something they already knew I could do?

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The thing is, despite the reasons for doing Edinburgh the first time round I now run long distances for me. I run them because I love them, because they give me freedom, because they give me the headspace that is so rare in this 24-hour constantly-connected age. That’s what they mean to me. That’s what I mean when I say it’s not that much of a challenge; not that it’s not difficult, but that there’s no hardship involved for me. By the same token, there are some for whom the challenge of finishing a 5k is the equivalent of climbing Everest. My finishing a marathon today doesn’t deserve anywhere near as much recognition as that.

Of course charities don’t see it that way, and likely as not neither do my friends – they’re a pretty generous bunch – so I realise this is basically my capacity for overanalysis exceeding itself once again. I could suck it up and do it for a charity anyway, put that extra bit of hard work into the fundraising effort and make a crucial few hundred quid for someone who needs it, because at the end of the day it’s not about me. Following that logic, I probably don’t deserve a ballot place anyway. London is all about community and inclusivity and bringing the sport to more and more people each year, which is precisely why the applications outweigh the available places by larger and larger margins each year. Soon enough, even the charity route will become a lottery in itself, so oversubscribed the event has become. This is a brilliant thing. There SHOULD be thousands of people clamouring to raise £2k each for charities who rely on the spare change in our pockets. There are plenty of other marathons out there that don’t require runners to fundraise. And anyway, aren’t I always going on about big city marathons not really being my thing?

I just can’t let London go though. However selfish or facile my reasons for wanting to do it, the only person I need to justify them to is me.

So, I’ve decided not to enter via a charity again this year; I can’t run with a fridge on my back and I’m not sociable enough to organise coffee mornings or raffles. Those places really should go to those who will make the best use of them. I will however do the one thing I can do, which is offer my services as a marshal or bag handler. If one day I am lucky enough to get through the ballot, well, I’ll run my bloody heart out. But for now I’ve got five other marathons lined up to prepare for. I’m pretty lucky even to be able to say that.

Ealing Half Marathon 2014

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September is something of a spike in birthdays in our social group – presumably all my friends’ parents had more than their fair share of fun on New Years Eve – and 1984 seems to have been a particularly popular year. Obviously, all the coolest people were born in 1984. Ahem.

So how do we celebrate three 30th birthdays within the space of 8 days? Why, by watching QPR play away of course! Duh.

Which is how I found myself, the day before the Ealing Half Marathon, smuggling four bottles of vodka onto a rattler train from Southampton Central to London Victoria via most of the south of Britain (including a stop on the Isle of Wight, I’m sure of it), accompanied by eight miserable QPR fans all lamenting a poor display by the team and an even poorer one by the fans. St Mary’s is a ground QPR had never lost at before the game and Southampton are often excellent value; not for no reason did they start the day nudging the Champions League spots. Last time we visited St Mary’s we got a stopping service there which took us on a grand tour of the Home Counties, costing less than a tenner for the return fare. We ended up with a win for QPR (one of only four that season), our photo in the local paper with a man in a bath full of baked beans, a disco in the first class compartment, and one of our number spent the night in Paddington hospital. Yeah, we’re that sort of football fans. Sorry.

That was great fun last time, we thought. Southampton are terribly good hosts, QPR have half a chance of getting points, and the two and half hour journey back on a basically empty train will doubtlessly turn into something even the Romans would find OTT. Not so.

Bad enough as it was that QPR lost – despite a swoon-worthy second half volley from Charlie Austin – the day was pretty much ruined when a coked-up meathead two rows away rounded on a guy and his 8 year old kid in the row in front of us – ostensibly for the crime of complaining about a poorly executed short corner but odds are anything would have set him off – and started laying into them. I mean he properly went for them, screaming and throwing arms and everything. And after he’d been removed by the authorities his son took over, shouting abuse at a terrified (now crying) kid and his dad, for no reason. Scum of the earth.

A little shaken by the episode, and having missed about ten minutes of actual football by now, we turned back to the game when an unfamiliar chant came drifting down from the back row of the visitors stand. It had been going for parts of the first half too, but we couldn’t hear then what they were saying over the rest of the cheering. We heard them now. Suffice to say, it succinctly covered every angle of bigotry and violence imaginable, aimed at a black ex player who recently left for a rival club. Never have I been more embarrassed by a QPR fan. Although it has to be said I never saw that cokehead family or the racist idiots make it to Yeovil away or Sheffield Wednesday away (midweek) or Middlesbrough away; there’s maybe a handful among the thousands of decent people, they only really come out of the woodwork for the brief spells QPR spend in the Premier League, and they represent only themselves.

So, Saturday night was not a well slept night. Obviously I didn’t get drunk, I’m not completely stupid – the four bottles of vodka were an ambitious gambit on Andy’s part – and I made sure I was in bed by half ten at the latest. But I still couldn’t sleep for hearing that poor kid’s terrified cries and the racist chants ringing in my ears. Some things cannot be unheard.

I got up at 6.15 on Sunday morning, bleary eyed and heart already racing, and stumbled to the station. At risk of a real first-world-problems moment when I got to Wimbledon and found all the coffee stalls still closed, I rounded the corner for the District line trains and found a bunch of similarly bleary eyed runners and a girl manning the till alone at Costa, somewhat surprised to see so many people before 7.30 on a Sunday, and still trying to find the scissors to open the milk. Insufficient baristas in a coffee shop on race day is like insufficient bar staff on match day: playing with fire.

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I’d been looking forward to this race for months – this fixture is always a highlight for me, it would be the first race I’d run for six weeks and it was my first time running a half marathon since Ealing last year – but I was far more nervous than I’d like to admit. Since last year, I’ve lost a fair bit of weight and my form, pace and stamina has improved in leaps and bounds. Question is, how many leaps and how high the bounds? I knew in theory I should be aiming for sub 2:00, which would mean shaving over 8 minutes from my previous time, but was that really realistic? Would I be knackered from the night before (attendance at which, needless to say, was a three line whip), and was I overestimating how long I could hold up a decent pace? I’m not fast, I’ve never been fast, I kept telling myself. Just keep around the 9 minute mile mark for as long as you can.

So I squeezed into the starting pen behind the 2:00 pacers, switched on my iPod, and shuffled towards the timing mat. Ealing is very well organised, but like any large race it takes a while to let the pack thin out through the opening straight. Hovering too near the pacers was a dangerous game, and a game that plenty of others were playing too, so I pulled in front of them into clear air where I could follow them from the front, so to speak, and if I dropped my pace too much later in the race they could scoop me up.

It was a gorgeous day; slightly too hot and dry to be classed a perfect day for running, but just sunny enough to come away with some dodgy tan lines. Feeling strong but not taxed around an 8:30 minute mile pace, I basked in the sun for a bit and enjoyed stretching my legs. Before I knew it, the 2:00 pacers were nowhere to be seen.

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Race tactics is a thing you only really learn through experience. How do you strike the balance between going out too hard and leaving it too late to make up time? While there’s anything more than a mile to go, the only strategy I know of is to run easy. By that I don’t mean within my capacity or slower, I just mean listening to my body, allowing my limbs to move the way they want to rather than forcing them into an uncomfortable rhythm or straining to keep pace. Sometimes, that means speeding up when a slow plod is making me feel heavy, or lifting my knees when my feet hit the ground too hard, or pulling my shoulders back when I find myself reaching forward for the next step. You’d be surprised how much faster you can run with good posture.

Another good reason to keep your back straight and head high is the local support. Despite being only three years old it’s clearly already very popular, and although it doesn’t exactly have the party atmosphere of London or Brighton there’s rarely a ten yard stretch without someone clapping and cheering everyone on. In fact I quite like the civilised, genteel applause that follows you round and the dozens of kids eagerly waiting for high fives – although you know me, I’m not exactly a party person. Unless I’m on a rattler train to Southampton.

And then I realised what had been making me smile all the way round. It wasn’t the sun, although that was lovely. It wasn’t the high fiving kids – well, it was, but it wasn’t just them. It wasn’t the exuberant and tireless marshals, or the local residents cheerfully helping out at the water stations so no one would have to wait for a bottle. Everywhere I looked, among runners and supporters alike, I saw QPR shirts. A community of fans wearing their colours with pride; dads and their children in matching strips, a gang of girls with hand painted hooped vests, middle aged men running in their replica shirts, all reminded me of the motley gang of Rangers fans that kept an eye out for me when I first moved to South Africa Road. These are the people I call my fellow fans, not the cokehead clan or the bigoted Neanderthals with their nasty songs. This is West London – not glamorous or perfect, but home to me and home to my team.

Unsurprisingly, given that it’s a London race, there are quite a few switchbacks along the course which means plenty of opportunities to see the elites and faster runners glide by. It also means, on a course with a few short sharp inclines, that what goes up must come down, so it’s rare that you’ll have to climb a hill and not get to freewheel down it later on. In actual fact, the course isn’t quite as hilly as it seems but there’s definitely enough twisting and climbing to keep you on your toes.

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I’d been keeping half an eye on my pacing band, but I was way ahead of it by the time I turned the hairpin on Cuckoo Avenue at seven and a half miles and even spotted the 1:50 pacer about 300 yards ahead. Of course, I’ve done this before – ooh look, I’m on track for a good time I KNOW I’LL SPRINT THE REST OF THE WAY oh no crash – so I kept my cool and held my pace steady, reasoning that I could gradually catch him up over 5 miles without too much extra effort. Having run it twice already I knew where the sneaky inclines were hiding and when I could really open the throttle, and when I finally saw the 12 mile marker I switched to my playlist of upbeat music to carry me home.

The last mile wraps around Lammas Park – site of both the start and finish lines – before turning in towards the centre so it’s quite easy to think you’re closer to the end than you actually are. For most of this stretch the route is lined with supporters cheering you on to the end, giving everyone a hero’s welcome. The last two times I ran this race I peaked too soon and found myself tiring before even reaching the final 400 mark, unable to appreciate the crowds, but this time I shifted up a gear and kept an even pace all the way home. I crashed into the finisher ahead of me at 1:50:39, nearly 18 minutes faster than before.

I’m always saying I’m a long runner not a fast one – and I’m under no illusion here, after three years of busting my balls to reach a pace many others start off at – but my improvement didn’t come through a program of intense speedwork, or high-altitude training, or eating only minted peas for a month. It came from a gentle increase in miles every week, drinking a little less alcohol and eating slightly less junk food. The weight loss made running easier, and the running helped the weight shift quicker, simple as that. But most importantly I ran only for enjoyment, not as a chore, and without denying myself the little pleasures that get me through a week.

Last time I made a concerted effort to improve my speed I did too much too soon, became disillusioned with the lack of improvement and almost gave up running altogether. It became an exercise in self-flagellation. I had to convince myself to leave the house, I felt guilty about every pint or packet of crisps and started to compare each lost second to potential culprits – was it that Snickers bar that made me go slower? Did missing that run to go to the football ruin my chances of a PB? I was miserable.

Since Ealing last year, the only sub-marathon distances races I’d run were the Petts Wood 10k and Bromley 10k, and they were both pretty taxing. I knew then it wasn’t the race’s fault, it was mine. I knew I had to change my mindset, incentivise myself with something that wasn’t finite or unsustainable. And I had to stop punishing myself. The 50 Mile Challenge back in July – and the inspirational Gil: “miles mean smiles” – switched on a lightbulb for me.

So, I’ll continue to follow QPR around the country with my obnoxious little band of train yobs, and I’ll enjoy that as much as I always have. And at the same time I’ll continue to run whenever and wherever seems like fun. I’m 30 years old this year. I’m too old not to have fun.

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Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire

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This time last year, my mother and I had been rejected for the London Marathon, and fearful that we wouldn’t be able to raise the minimum amount required for a charity place, decided instead to enter Edinburgh. Although mum had run London in 2000 (13 years younger and 5 stone lighter, as she reminded me regularly) it would be my first marathon and the longest distance I had run beyond a half.

We arranged regular weekly runs together, we calculated the miles we would need to cover, we looked up training plans and exercises and advice on form. We tried carb gels and energy drinks and protein bars and identified which ones made a difference and which ones inflicted us with Montezuma’s revenge. As we upped our running distances each week we tried all sorts of weird and wonderful kit until we found what we were most comfortable in (as it turns out two bras, two bumbags and a brand loyalty to Asics). And finally, having planned a run/walk strategy that we could both deal with, we plotted a 24 mile walk up and down the Thames path one sunny Sunday in May so we knew what it felt like just to cover the distance.

We forgot one thing. Any guesses?

The Thames path is my favourite running route for many reasons. It’s like a cross section of London, carrying you alternatively through both affluent and poor areas, historical sites and new developments, industrial concrete grey, warm fiery brick and fifty shades of vibrant green. Hugging the river’s edge is like having a Sherpa with you every step of the way; not one of those fishwife GPS trackers you get in cars that shout at you to U-turn, more like a St Bernards gently nudging you in the right direction when you’re too tired to care. Depending on where you pick it up from you can follow it as far as your feet will carry you, and yet never be far from public transport if that turns out not to be anywhere near home.

Our hike that day was due to start at Embankment, where we would track the Thames going west along the north bank all the way to Kew bridge, and then over the bridge to the south bank which we would follow back to Wandsworth and eventually home. Literally bouncing out of the station like a pair of joeys (to the surprise of some hipsters doing the walk of shame), we cheerfully zigzagged around the Houses of Parliament and the evergreen gardens of Chelsea and in no time found ourselves alongside the peaceful Fulham Palace Park. We were still pretty fresh, not to mention feeling smug about our healthy breakfasts and our energy bars, when my mum look wistfully across the water at an ice cream van parked outside the Star and Garter on the Putney side.

“I want a proper 99. Haven’t had one in years.”
Like the sort of white lie you tell a child to avoid a tantrum, I said something I didn’t really intend to honour. “If he’s still there on the way back we can get one.” I stopped short of raising the fact that would be in something like 18 miles time.

Next up was Hammersmith, a prime example of schizophrenic London. Only a few hundred yards inland you can find your standard rough looking estates, chicken shops and graffiti. The strip along the water’s edge however is like something out of a costume drama – all picturesque pubs and impeccably groomed bankside gardens. We planned which of the gingerbread houses we would buy when we won the lottery and where we would moor our modestly furnished longboat. And then we smelled food. Delicious, gastropubby, hot, nourishing food. And then we looked at our Powerbars, and realised they weren’t going to cut it.

Not yet being even halfway we didn’t exactly panic, but it was a bit of a dampener on our otherwise bright mood. Either the psychosomatic effect of the smell or the fact that we were actually getting hungry started to hit us, as the needle on our fuel gages brushed the red line. By the time we passed Chiswick Eyot and lost sight of a bridge in either direction, mum was flagging hard. The energy bars rationed for the whole journey were almost through, and I could tell her temper was shortening. To make matters worse, I had optimistically spotted Kew Bridge two bridges too early, meaning that after three times declaring us nearly there she was inclined not to believe me when we did reach it.

And as the path leading up to the main road and the bridge crept into view, so did something else. Probably the world’s most expensive sandwich shop.

I can’t say it was worth nearly ten quid for two sandwiches (handmade in a mere HALF HOUR and lovingly packaged in chic little origami parcels, which we immediately and unceremoniously tore off) but if you’d given me a scabby donkey wrapped in a poncho right then I wouldn’t even have stopped to ask for salsa. How did we forget food? After all the planning we had done – lists of accessories, hours agonising over whether to wear shorts or tights, hiding bottles of water all over our persons – how did we forget the only thing a person can’t run without: fuel?

I can take a stab at a couple of reasons for this – for starters both mum and I were still a little preoccupied with losing weight and somewhat foolishly were concerned with taking on too many calories, rather than concentrating on taking on enough. In worrying about overeating we had massively underestimated how many calories it takes just to walk that far. It’s not that we didn’t know that you need a lot of fuel to run, we just assumed that walking used a lot less. Lesson very much learned. The whole point of the walk was, after all, to find out what we would need to cover that distance; what we learned is that staying on your feet for that long requires fuel, even if you are only walking. I don’t know why even I assumed walking would take a small fraction of the calories required for running – just existing means a minimum of around 1300 calories each day for me. Fundamentally though, I don’t think either of us are at the stage of thinking of food as fuel. We started with what we liked and then chose the items most likely to help, not the other way round. Hence forgetting to take on some slow-burning carbs and mincing around with fashionable pods of glucose instead. What a pair of wallies.

And we still had 10 miles to go. As soon as the last bite of her tuna sandwich was gone my mum’s mood picked right back up and even the prospect of another 3 hours of walking didn’t immediately dispirit her. We were going back the way we came on the south side of the river now now though, even less populated than the north, and being overtaken by the same dog running rings around us put her a bit on edge. I had the Runkeeper app going on my iPhone, tracking our route and pace, and I could see our mile timings were getting slower and slower. I know from experience that when your feet start to weigh heavy is when you need to get a bloody move on to avoid the psychological wall, and that the longer spent on one’s feet is less time spent relaxing them, but in seeing how far we’d come on the other side of the river mum was struggling with the constant reminder of the distance left and we slowed. To make matters worse, what should have been a wonderful inspiring view became endless miles of GREEN GREEN AND MORE GREEN. Almost every day I marvel how lucky I am to live in a city and still be surrounded by nature. NOT TODAY.

When that bloody dog finally scampered off ahead – not sure if I was more pleased it was gone or annoyed that it had overtaken us – we were almost as far as the first of the rowing clubs that populate the south side, and finding a dry concrete bank used by the rowers to drag their vessels to the water, we decided to rest for ten minutes. By this time every little niggle was a nightmare, and mum had to switch to my spare pair of socks to alleviate the pain of a blistered heel while I basically bathed in Tiger Balm and stretched. The break seemed like a failure to keep up the pace at the time, but in retrospect we should have planned one much earlier and restored our energy instead of plodding on at a soul destroying speed.

Only a couple more miles to Putney, I thought, if that. If we push on we’ll be back in Wandsworth and turning into Garrett Lane in time for dinner. My optimism did not help mum. I was told to shut up.

So, we hadn’t planned our fuel properly, or our rests. Rookie errors. We’ve learned a lot about intake of carbs and effort levels since then, and if there’s a running magazine or training plan we haven’t read between us in the last year, I wanna know about it. But what we stumbled upon next was something I can’t ever imagine Runners World recommending.

Approaching Putney Bridge the pubs became more frequent and the ducks less so. The path widened to a pavement which became a road, and on that road was parked… the ice cream van. I’m telling you now – however much fuel your body needs your soul wants its fair share too. Like a pair of Enid Blyton characters we skipped up to the window and ordered two 99s covered in red syrup with two Flakes in each. I can’t speak for the nutritional value of a double Flake 99 but I can confidently speak for the morale boost (not to mention rediscovered sense of humour) it gave us on our final three miles home. Of course we had deserved it, but I don’t subscribe to the carrot and stick approach to exercise because it’s a system too easily duped, so I didn’t see it as a reward. Fairly obviously, it was no longer a fuel issue either, unless the E numbers in the optimistically named “raspberry syrup” are some kind of superfood. I saw it as a symbol of pure childish joy, the thing that makes me enjoy a sport I am so totally uncompetitive at. I run so I feel like I’m 4 again. I run so I can still tear about with boundless energy, like I did when I didn’t care about grownup things and wasn’t afraid of zombies. I run just because I can.

All I remember of the rest of the trip was openly and hysterically giggling at a man in tight stonewashed jeans pulled up so high he had a full-on camel toe. 29 and 55 years old respectively, and that amused us for a good forty-five minutes. For all our diligence and earnest, the camel toe and the ice cream are what we always talk about when we talk about that walk. I checked the estimated calories spent when we got home – 2,316 according to my Runkeeper, set to my height and weight. 150% of the calories I usually use in a whole day spent in one walk. No wonder we were so crotchety until we got that sandwich and ice-cream. I introduce you, dear readers, to the definition of the word hangry.

So what did we learn? What we knew all along – that in life, a person needs food, water, and a little bit of joy.