petra runs

and writes about it.

On racing a race you’re not going to win and still not sandbagging.

I’m in London to run the London marathon.  I’ve trained differently for this race than I have trained for my other 11 marathons, and as a result I’m going into it quite unsure of the pace I will hold and the time I will end up with.  I know I haven’t trained at the paces I have held for a marathon in previous training cycles, so I’m unlikely to get a PB tomorrow.

However, I’m not sandbagging.  Make no mistakes people.  I am racing tomorrow.

It’s so very tempting, when you are unsure of yourself, to deliver all the excuses in advance.  Dampen down the expectations: in that way, if you don’t get your goal time, you don’t feel embarrassed in front of your friends and all those who follow you online.  And if you do end up achieving your goal, you can feel super victorious that you have done better than everyone expected.

I’ve been at a few panel discussions and talked to women runners at the expo and everywhere I hear the same, self minimising talk “well, I’m  not sure, maybe I can do this time, but I’m tired and I’m not sure I’ve done all the training”.  Enough ladies.  And enough Petra.

Because I’m as guilty as everyone else.  I know, going into this, that tomorrow is unlikely to be a PB.  And without really being conscious of it, I was all set to just phone the race in.  Tell everyone I was going to be slow and then treat it like a long run with water stops.  It’s safer that way, you see.  Raise money for a good cause, who’d notice?

But I had an illuminating talk with my coach last week. Much stuff to chew on. (Including “sometimes you’re a goddamn afterthought in your own life” which I’m working with at the moment). But then she started talking about race prep.  About staying off my feet, about hydration the day before, about getting my own room the night before the race.  And I suddenly realised that she was telling me to take my race seriously even if I’m not that fast.  And dammit.  I realised that she was absolutely correct.  And moreover, that tomorrow is NOT a long run with water stops.  It’s a race.

Just because I’m not going to win the thing, or even beat times I’ve run in the past, doesn’t mean I am not going to work my butt off and race as hard as I can.  And I can’t sit here, minimising my training and myself, and also race.  I’ve got to sit here, own the work I have done, own the months I’ve trained for, the hard runs I got done and get my head round racing tomorrow.

Racing is different from training.  When I train and run long, I amble.  I stop for a pee and a view and a selfie (and recently even a flapjack and a latte).   It’s time on my feet, and I’m good with that.  But racing means starting off with a full tank and expending that fuel gradually.  Use it all up too soon, and my tank will be empty before the race is over.  But be too cautious and I’ll find myself crossing a finish line feeling there is still something left in me.  It’s a fine balance and so much affects it, much of it not within my control.  But the bits I do control, I will.  I will be rested.  I will be fuelled well.  I will be hydrated.  Have my tried and tested kit on.  And I’m going to see how hard I can run, on this training and on this day.  If the wheels come off, so be it.  Then I will know I need to do something different next time.

There are many good times for strolling round London, but tomorrow is not that day.

(And for good measure, here’s some shots with ballsy women I’ve had the privilege of encountering in the past few days.  Just in case I ever forget, these photos serve to remind me of how strong and powerful we all are, in all the iterations and phases of our life. Not because of the outcome of our races, but because of the passion and intensity and honesty and grit we put into them.).

Lauren Fleshman – athlete, entrepreneur, writer, mom, wife and all-round lovely person

Devon Yanko – 3rd fastest American 100 miler (YIKES!) and all round amazing kindness and inspiration.

 

 

When the pupil is ready, the master appears. (It may take the pupil some time to realise this, however).

Over a year ago, I wrote a post called Begin Again.  I knew that what I had been doing for the year before that wasn’t working.  I knew that I needed to approach running with a different perspective and some fresh goals.  But I didn’t know how to. I finished the post by asking for advice.

I love asking for advice.  Crowdsourcing was made for me.  But, ultimately, last year taught me that the holes we dig ourselves into, we can only dig ourselves out of by ourselves.  Last year was a really difficult year for me and my most beloved people.  I was running myself ragged trying to “help”, and figuring out things to “do”.  And while some of the things I helped my beloveds with, and some of the things I did for my beloveds, did help – ultimately they needed to get to the point where they decided to help themselves, and do stuff themselves.  They found that point – thankfully – and things are, overall, much better than they were for them.  But I had to learn – the hard way, is there any other way? – that I had to wait and be patient and let them do it by and for themselves, and that the only one I could really help was myself.

And while all this was happening running was little relief.  I know, disappointing, right?  It would be so wonderful to think that life’s difficulties can always be overcome by a good run, but sadly I did not find that.  Instead, I found myself hanging onto a challenging training program for dear life, getting injured, taking 2 weeks off, and then getting back into hard training and getting injured.  And again.  The running equivalent, really, of hurling oneself at a brick wall, repeatedly.

By this stage I had been listening to the Another Mother Runner podcasts for months (yes, I know, I was late to the party.  But I got caught up!).  And in early 2016 I listened to an episode in which a running coach on their program, Mary Katherine Brooks Fleming, advocated a different kind of training, a training where the focus was on truly easy running on the easy runs.  By this stage I had read plenty of different books and articles supporting her training methods, which can be broadly described as based on those by Maffetone.  I knew there was plenty of evidence to back up her claim that way too many amateur athletes train too hard, too much of the time, to really benefit themselves.  And so, in late May, I signed up with this coach, and a wonderful TLAM program, and started running again.  Every run, in the beginning, had to be run at sub 140bpm.  Except for the ones which had to be run at sub 120bpm.  The coach warned us, in her podcasts, that this would mess with our egos and it really, really did.  I saw 12 minute miles.  When I hit an incline, I had to walk to keep my heartrate down.

But my life changed. Ha!  No – nothing is ever that simple.  I trained with Coach MK, as she is affectionately known, in body, but my mind was still desperately clinging on to old goals.  I was running slowly, but in the meantime I told myself that only if I could BQ again, then I could go back to Boston where I’d had such a magical experience years ago and it would all be okay again.  (Yeah, I know).  MK kept trying to gently tell me to relax, to see running as something for me, as a way to carve out time and attention and self care, and not as something to use to prove something to others… But I didn’t hear her, because I wasn’t ready to listen.  Eventually, though, and thankfully, even my batteries ran out.  And so, in mid August, I stopped running altogether.  Abandoned the goals, abandoned running.  Stopped.  I finally realised that I had to let go of the stuff I had clung to, and was still clinging to, from the past, and move forward in a new way.

4 weeks later, I started with the TLAM beginner program – HR101.  Super easy, super gentle.  All I was interested in was seeing whether I still liked running.  And I did.  By mid November, I realised that I still had a place in the London marathon in the spring of 2017.  The last time I had run London, I had had a miserable experience (despite a PR and a BQ), and I wondered whether running it with a new perspective might be a good thing.  And so, in early January, I started back on marathon training program. Tentatively, nervously.  Wondering whether it was the right thing to do, whether I would be able to stick to the program, and whether I would be able to cope with running slowly.

Well, here I am.  Less than 2 weeks out from London, and I’m nearly there.  It’s been a somewhat messy training cycle.  I’ve done most of the runs, but not all.  I have been less than assidious with strength training.  But, on the other hand, I’ve absolutely loved my training.  Relieved of the pressure of having to hit paces I have just enjoyed being outside and letting the miles roll past.  For the first time ever, I am running most of my runs without media, just focusing on my breath going in and out, 4 steps on the in breath, 4 steps on the out breath.  And for the first time in years, I have decided to use my race as a fundraiser for a goal that is not personal, but something that will better life for other people.

My ego is alive and well.  But whenever I feel horror at my 10:30 min/miles, I remind myself of how happy this 10:30 min/mile is.  There were times last year when I couldn’t find that joy, either on the run or in my life.  It’s back.  And I am very grateful for that.

San Jose, Costa Rica, January 2017. Hot, humid and slow. And I loved it.

 

 

Begin again.

Sometimes past achievements are wonderful and inspiring.  Unbelievable even – I look at my race photos and medals and think: I did an Ironman?  Really?  And other times these achievements hang over you like a burden – when I struggle to maintain a 9:30 min/mile I can feel crushed by the fact that I ran 8:20s for an entire marathon not too long ago.

Comparing yourself to others is another sweet way to make yourself feel crappy about your performance.  Scroll through social media, look at your fit and slim and fast friends and it can feel like it’s not even worth trying.

When you’re in the slogs – coming out of injury, or a training break, the only way is up and the way back feels mighty steep at times.  While you’re injured, you think that all you want is to run pain-free, and yet as soon as you’re there, you become greedy and think you also might want to run fast.

As always, running is how I understand myself in life.  All the above can be read as a metaphor for the comparing I do all day in my head if I’m not careful.  I compare myself with what I have been, what I could be, and then I zing it all up by comparing myself to others.  But again, as always, running also offers the way out.  Because all this crappy thinking (and this comparing thinking IS crappy thinking, take it from me) eventually peters out on a run.  I start of with all this stuff running round my head, but 15 minutes into a run I’m usually loosened up, I’ve inhaled a good deal of fresh air, my legs are free and I forget to focus on what has been and what could be and my butterfly mind completely forgets to torture itself and is thinking of something entirely different.

In running, as in life, the only way ahead here is to begin again.  To accept you are where you are and to go with that.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I have, for now, given up on yoga.  Lots of people came up to me or commented and said “I loved your anti-yoga post!”.  It wasn’t anti-yoga, honestly.  I was anti-yoga for me.  And possibly, more accurately, it was anti-being-in-a-classroom-in-a-led-exercise-format.  That format has rarely worked for me (here’s where I don’t add up what I spent on classes and courses I ended up dropping out of because of the above). I realise now, however, that I have taken some stuff from yoga and particularly from the meditation sections (which had me squirming, I’m not going to lie, but I think that’s not unusual). The idea of the comparing mind, and how it undermines you, for one.  And also the idea that every day is a new beginning; that you are where you are and out of this an awareness that we do not need to be so burdened by the past.

Big words, perhaps, when applied to the running paces of a middle-aged, middle-of-the-pack runner. But that middle-aged, middle-of-the-pack runner happens to be me, and I’m the only experiment of one I can go with.

So I’m experimenting with setting myself free every day, and being aware of the comparing mind, and wishing it a fond farewell when I become aware of it.  It doesn’t serve me, it doesn’t help me.  It doesn’t spur me on – it slows me down.

I’m beginning again with my running.  The direction is still unclear – I’m not sure what I’m training for right now but that will come to me.  I’m running a marathon in early June with my brother but I’m approaching that as a training run and a family event – coach and I will set some paces for different sections and meeting them will be the challenge rather than setting any kind of PR.

Beyond that, things are unsure. I’m open to suggestions.  I would like to run somewhere new and try a new race.  I would love to tie it in with visiting some friends and having a holiday.  I haven’t done that for years, and I miss it. So send me some ideas, give me a suggestion.  And know that, in the meantime, I’m back on the roads, beginning again.

On Being Petra (and every dog has its day)

New year came too soon for me this year, or so it felt.  We did so much traveling around before, during and after Christmas and New Year that much of that time was a blur to me – I don’t feel I ever sat down during those days without thinking of when I needed to get up again and what I needed to do next.  It was wonderful – but there was no time for reflection.  Top that up with the fact that I was no allowed to run for 10 days due to my *&^%$£@! injury and my mind went a little bit loopy – I don’t function well when I don’t have processing time.

January has been a lot calmer – I’m mostly in one place and everyone else is returning to their routine, so I can return to mine.

Over the past months, and in-between life’s inevitable highs and lows, I have had a chance to calm myself down a bit and find some mental space to make some resolutions for me.  In fact, it’s just one resolution.  It’s to be Petra.

Now let me back up and explain. I’ve spoken before about how much I love Gretchen Rubin.  I loved her Happiness Project, I loved Happier at Home and I really love Better than Before.  Cue gratuitous fan photo:

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One of the things she talks about in all of her books, but particularly her first, is the idea of “Be Gretchen”.  With that she means – figure out what works for you and not to be afraid to realise that things that might be fun for others might not be for you, and the other way round.  This might sound entirely obvious to you – and that’s wonderful.  But I’ve come to realise that I rely a great deal on the input and approval of others. I ask others for advice before I’ve taken time to sit down and figure out what I need to do.  And I act on other people’s suggestions before thinking whether they are actually right for me.  So it’s a huge thing for me to realise that sometimes what might work for others won’t, in fact, work for me.

And so I too had a “Be Petra” insight yesterday.  For well over a year now, I have been trying to do yoga.  Everywhere you go (on social media anyway) you see wonderful bodies doing yoga, wonderful outfits for yoga and people who generally espouse how wonderful yoga is for you.  I am a highly suggestible person so it doesn’t take much social pressure for me to drink that koolaid.  I was on board.  So much so, that I signed up for a yoga teacher training course this year.  Despite the small matter that I do very little yoga.  Very little yoga.  That I regularly start classes, online or real classes, and then it peters out after a few weeks.  Like a bird hurling itself against plate glass, however, I keep trying again and again, banging my head hard each time.  Yesterday I signed up for a 2 hour session.  And for the entire 2 hour session I was thinking of ways to get out of it.  And when I finally did get out I had this staggering insight.  That Being Petra meant, for now, not trying to love yoga.  Because I just don’t.

Before you go nuts on me – don’t.  I have NOTHING against yoga per se.  I can see that lots of people love it.  I have really, really, really tried to love it.  But I don’t.  I know the most amazing instructors – I really do.  If these people can’t make me love yoga, nobody can.  I respect them, their knowledge, their skills, their dedication enormously.  But yoga – right now – is not Petra.

In fact, I was so antsy when I got home that I decided to go out and run on my injured foot.  It’s slowly healing but I need to keep my mileage low.  5 miles later after a cold windy run I was a different person.  My head had been swirling with worries about the future, my racing calendar, my ability to run any of the races I’d signed up for. 5 miles later I realised that this – being able to run 5 miles when I wanted to – pretty much sums up my wishlist.  Running is definitely still part of being Petra.

Which is a good insight to come to because I have no idea about how much more running I will be able to do in the near future.  5 weeks or so after getting injured I am slowly coming back but progress is 3 steps forward, 2 steps back.  In honesty – and this is the first time I’ve faced this – an off-road marathon in 2 weeks is probably not going to happen.  At best, I will struggle to get round.  At worst I will be in pain on a course where it’s hard to cut it short.  And I’m really not sure where it leaves my ultra at the end of April – I am simply not able to run very far at the moment.  30M a week is pretty much my limit and even then I’m not pain-free.

I’m contemplating having a very low mileage february – 25M a week – and adding in two days of biking.  I’ve resisted the latter as I haven’t been out on my bike in over a year (painful truth!) and getting back on requires finding the gear, making sure it’s working etc.  But it’s time to face facts – right now there are no long runs for me.

And before you tell me to buck up – I am fine!  As I said – getting in those mind-clearing, fog-busting 5 milers really is fine with me.  I’ve been on this roller coaster long enough to know that every dog has its day.  Mine will come – 2016 or 2017 – I will be back!

 

 

 

Happy new 2016

It’s January 1st, 2016, and I ran 4 miles today.  Probably at around 10:30 min/mile, if not slower.  If you’re thinking “Dayum!  Girl’s got to run 53 hilly miles in 4 months! 4 miles is not very far!” I’d say yes – that’s true.

2 weeks ago I ran my biggest training week ever.  I covered 57 miles in a week.  I felt good, if tired, but motivated.  I had finally overhauled my priorities and diary enough to take my training seriously and was absolutely thrilled with my achievement.  A day after I had run my last 6 miles of the 57 mile week, I started on a 7 mile run and had to stop short with sharp, acute achilles pain.  I limped home, begged an emergency appointment with my osteo.  Thankfully, nothing tore but it seems I have bursitis in my heel and I was told by my osteo (who rarely tells me to stop training) to stop training.  So I took a whole week off.  Granted – it was the week around Christmas and New Year so I did not have much time to reflect on the consequences of it all, but of course it was not easy.  It’s a time of year I love to run, a time of year when that time alone is more precious than any other time, really.  Yesterday I went out for my first little run. 3 miles, very easy.  Foot hurts a bit, but it’s not bad and I don’t feel it when I am running.  I am stretching the plantar fascia (which is definitely tight), stretching the achilles and calf.  Today I went out for 4M as I said.  Slow.  Pain is no worse in the day, a little better.  So tentatively, cautiously, I am slowly trying to build back into it.  Assuming that I will continue to improve, slowly, I will continue to run little runs for the next couple of days until I can see my osteo again and I will take it from there.

But you didn’t come here to read an update on my injury, did you?

What does 2016 bring me as a runner?  Answer is, right now, I have no idea.  Plantar fasciitis is a notoriously recurring and tedious injury, hard to fix.  Having said that, I had it in the spring of 2014 and got past it.  Will I be able to train for and run my ultra?  I hope so and am reasonably optimistic – I have 4 months to go.  Uncharacteristically for me, I have entered lots of races this year and that’s sort of working out for me – while I may not be able to race all of them, I am hoping I will be able to race at least one of them.  I currently have the following races on the calendar:

  • Grizedale Trail 26, February 7th (hilly, partly off-road, could be snowy and utterly grizzly)
  • Hoka Highland Fling, April 30th (hilly, on trails, 53 miles!!!!!!)
  • Kent Roadrunner Marathon, May 28th (17 laps round a cyclocross.  Surprisingly hilly.  And there is obviously an obsessive compulsive element in me which loves running in loops.)
  • Kent Coyote Marathon, September 18th (another marathon on the same course and principle as Kent Roadrunner.  Because maybe, just maybe, I will be fast by then?)
  • Snowdonia Marathon, October 29th (scenic, off road, often rough weather.  Lots of friends running it, all faster but they can cheer me in!).

But all these races will keep me going.  I’ve been at this running thing long enough to know things come around.  I was struggling to get into my training last year but I got there in the end.  This injury is slowing me down but hopefully not taking me out of the game.  And if it does, well – I will have to get back in the pool and back on my bike.

Point is, I guess, after years of worrying whether I was a “real” runner, or whether I was “fast enough” or any of those things, I finally have arrived at the point where I know I am a runner.  Sometimes fast, sometimes slow.  Capable of running 57 miles in a week and capable of running 0 miles in a week. And while running slow when you want to run fast can be frustrating, I am happy to just be out there.  2015 has been a tough year for me personally and running helped.  The concrete, achievable goal of getting out there and getting my run in has often felt like my only concrete achievement in a day.  I am hopeful for 2016, hopeful about things improving, but it’s a long way ahead even if things do go in the right direction, and I will need to get my runs in to keep feeling I am getting somewhere.

So hello 2016.  I am looking forward to seeing what you bring, what I learn, how I move forward this next year.  And I really hope that some of this forward movement will be out on the roads and the trails, in my running shoes..  Happy new year, all of you!

Out on a run in the peak district with some local running friends

Out on a run in the peak district with some local running friends

(In it for) the long run

A good 6 weeks on from my last post and the longer runs have begun.  15, 16, even 19 – I’m trying to rack up a succession of 40+ mile weeks here, trying to build back the endurance I lost this past year.  I’m doing a bit of speedwork, but mostly just trying to increase the volume and become more comfortable with running more.  Overall it’s going okay.  There are some missed runs because life is busy and I can’t always put my run first.  There are some shortened runs because I run out of time.  There are some really tough runs and occasionally there are some really great runs.

Because I’m becoming an old hand at this (who would’ve thought that would ever happen?) I can see the pattern I follow on a training program.

  1.  Enthousiasm!  (There is barely any running involved at this stage).  I’ve found a race I want to run!  I’m going to do this thing I’ve never done before!  Eeek eeek eek I’m so excited, this is going to be fabulous!  Oh, I’m so excited to be me!  (Usually at this stage I spend waste a lot of time money buying kit on websites that looks like it’s going to be essential for the new me.  Ultrarunner Petra needs an outfit, after all, and accessories…
  2. Young puppy running! This is where I start running!  Skipping!  The world is wonderful!  I am running!  Running Petra is going to take this thing to a whole new level!  Watch me hit all my workouts in week 1!  Ker-pow!  Done!
  3. Fake serious running!  This is where I tone down the enthusiasm and, if you were filming me for a documentary now, you’d see me grimace on a rainy run, maybe the occasional tear, but the pluckiness would come through and I would hit yet another tough workout.  I am pretending that I am beginning to understand what I’ve taken on now.  But I haven’t.  Week 2 of training!  Complete!
  4. Ah.  The fall that all this pride was leading up to.  In stage 3 I thought it would be a good idea to spend some time running on the type of trail the race will be taking place on and joined our local running group on a run to the Yorkshire Dales.  Fantastic idea.  Beautiful scenery.  Unfortunately, my running proved to be crap.  Bear in mind, this was a group run and not a race at all.  But I was dead last, and struggled to hang on.  I more or less limped round, up the hill, down the hill, over the scree.  One runner kindly stayed with me and and we ended up having a really good, slow run together.  But it does prove that I only learn things the hard way, and this was a hard lesson.  I was / am not remotely trained to run well or fast on anything other than tarmac. So I put that in my pocket.

    The hard run in Yorkshire

    The hard run in Yorkshire

  5. The long, long, inbetween bit.  That’s where I am now.  The bit where I remember that most of training is long and slow and hard.  And coming into this time of year, dark and wet and possibly cold.  But also where I remember that, perverse as it is, I like this.  I like the long slogs.  I like being out there on windy days where I can’t hit a consistent pace.  I like how – now matter the battle that goes on in my head (can I cut it short?  I shouldn’t.  Is that a twinge?  No I’m fine) I always, always, always come back from running feeling better than I did when I started.  And I particularly like how this part reminds of why I do this.  Not for the races, not for the kit.  But just because, fundamentally, I like being out there on my own running.  It makes my life better and happier, and it makes me better and happier.

I don’t do things by committing to them and then just doing what needs to be done.  The path is much messier.  There’s a lot of falling off the training and motivation wagon.  But over the past 12 years I have also come to realise that I just need to get back on that training and motivation wagon, time after time after time, and eventually I will stay on it.  So that’s what I’m doing it.  I’m in it for the long run, people!

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Looking ahead; or my Next Big Thing.

Finally got my mojo back..

Finally got my mojo back..

It’s been over 6 months since I posted to this blog and I thought that it had finally died – so many of my blogging friends have stopped blogging and it seems that with social media taking over in a way we could not have imagined when we started blogging (this is insane btw – I started blogging in 2006 which doesn’t feel like that long ago!).

But after a year of futzing around without a goal, I am back in the game.  For someone who likes to take action, not having a goal is really hard.  Which is why I tried on lots of different ones for size last year.  Spring marathon?  I found I just have no desire to run a big city marathon again.  Setting a marathon PB and qualifying for Boston again?  For now, I can’t find it within me to want to run any faster than I already have.  Or even to run (anywhere near) as fast as I already have. Ironman?  Same, really.  I am thrilled and amazed and pleased that I’ve done one – I really don’t have any desire to do another.  I even tried to get very excited about running half marathons – the logic being that it wasn’t so hard to train for and would keep me in shape.  And I did, in fact, run a trail half marathon at the end of June which I really enjoyed.  But, once again,  I have NO desire to run these for any other reason than training runs.  They are not goals for me.

One of the books that has had a massive influence on me this year, rather surprisingly, is Gretchen Rubin’s Better than Before.  Surprising because she is quite cut and dry, quite practical and overall I am finding myself heading far more towards spiritual exploration at the moment.  But her book has really resonated with me this year.  It’s all about building habits, and how we do that successfully.  All good stuff for coaches and trainers to read.  The thing that really got me, though, is the thought that in order to figure out how you can create, change and maintain habits, you need to know yourself.  And I guess you can smell where this is going – at no point in the last year, when I was grasping for a new goal, was I actually brutally honest with myself about why I wanted that goal. The faster marathon, the faster Ironman, the half marathon all were perfectly acceptable goals – but not for me.  It’s my own fault – I crowdsource to the extreme – but I needed to sit down and figure out what I really wanted to do when I wasn’t thinking about what other people thought I should do (or what I thought other people thought I should do, if that makes any sense).

So I’m running an ultra marathon in April.  I’ve been toying with it for a while and I was very much on the fence, looking at races all around the world.  Nothing rany my bell.  However, ultimately I have decided I want to run a UK based race because:

  • it’s a stressful exam year for both of my kids and I don’t want all the extra hassle / time out and expense that traveling abroad for a race entails.
  • I am getting more and more enamoured with the beautiful countryside I can find within the United Kingdom and this seems like a perfect excuse to go and explore more of it;
  • A lovely runner I met a few years ago at a running camp has this particular race  and made me consider it.  The race I’m hoping to enter is the Hoka Highland Fling which is run in Scotland along 53 miles of the West Highland way. It looks stunning, is signposted (mostly) and looks like it has an incredibly friendly vibe.

Plus, of course, it’s a new great big hairy-assed goal.  I love taking on these challenges that scare me – it’s doing the hard stuff, the stuff that makes me doubt my abilities, that keeps me engaged.  Because going through the hard stuff is the only way to get to the other side – to find that, yes, there is more than I thought there was and yes, I am stronger than I thought I could be.

So in April 2016, I hope to be lining up for the longest run of my life.  So far…

 

Running finds you out.

I was running with a client a few weeks ago.  This client is fairly new to running and certainly new to enjoying it.  She’s at the stage where every long run is further than she’s ever run before and, now that she’s getting more used to it, she’s loving how strong this new habit is making her feel.  I love running with people in this phase.  It makes me realise that while I often consider myself a rookie, I have been at this thing for nearly 12 years now and I’m at a different stage in my running development.

One things she said really stuck in my brain though.  About how running was helping her work so much through in her life and how it was, in so many ways, a metaphor for her life.  I have often thought this myself.  Doing something physically – pushing yourself further, harder, faster than you’ve done before, for example – can be a way of practising doing things mentally.  It seems trite, but it really works that way.  Finding the courage to try something you’ve never done before – run far, run a sub 7 minute mile interval – can help you find the courage to try something else – write, sing, go up to someone and talk to them – that you are lacking the courage for.

But a flipside to this, for me, is that running finds you out.  I can’t lie when I’m running.  Sometimes running shows me that I am afraid, that I am struggling.  Or that I’m not being honest with myself.  I wrote a month ago about how I was finding my mojo again, and how I had, indeed, found it again.  Well – it slipped away from me again.  I found myself putting off tempo runs, and putting myself through interval workouts (note how I phrased that) which felt like absolute torture.  I couldn’t hit the paces, I stopped in the middle of intervals, and when I finished them I felt broken.  One Saturday morning, nearly 3 weeks ago, I was out on what was meant to be an 18 mile run.  I was 8 miles into it and all was going fine.  No injury, no issues.  Except – I did not want to be there.  I felt it so strongly.  I had felt for weeks that I did not want to be training for the marathon but I had persisted.  After all, I had no other goals.  And I did not want to appear a quitter.  Plenty of other people desperately wanted a place in the marathon and didn’t get it.  Plus – my coach had put time and effort into coaching me for this race and believed I could do well.  But as I ran that day I realised I was running for all the wrong reasons.  I was running – mainly – out of guilt.  Towards other people (my coach, my friends who I’d told I would be running it).  Because I could, I felt I should.  And that’s just not a good reason to be out there.  I jogged back to my car, got in and went home and spent the weekend hanging out with my kids.  I wrote my coach an email, thanking him for his efforts and telling him my heart was not in it.

And for the past few weeks, I’ve been telling friends and clients.  And the most interesting thing about this is that almost everyone has said to me “I understand.  You have nothing to prove anymore”.  Which makes me wonder about my motivation for the past decade or so.  Did I ever have something to prove?  And I think I did.  My running life started in my 30s – I had spent my childhood, teens and early adult years doing everything except committing to sport.  And in the way that all of us have fears about ourselves which nag away at us and drive us, I have always been afraid of being a quitter.  And so – I haven’t quit.  I have run through my 30s.  I have run marathons, half marathons, done triathlons and even (had you forgotten?) an Ironman.  And no – I did not do all that to prove I was not a quitter.  I’ve loved all those races and all those events and training for them has brought me so much insight, pleasure and friendship.  Blogging about it has brought even more friends into my life, many of whom I now treasure dearly and feel very close to.  But as someone who was not athletic, I can’t deny that the medals proved something to me.  They proved I was not a quitter.  That I could achieve something worthwhile.  There was an element of proving something to myself in doing it all – and I did prove it.

But now I have proved it.  For the longest time, I was worried that without a goal, I’d stop running.  That without setting myself ever-increasing challenges, I would go back to being the person I was before I started running.  And, with letting go of my London marathon this year, I have come to realise that is not true.  What running has actually proved to me is that change is possible.  That I could set my mind to something new and do it, and do it well and in such a way that it became an enrichment to my life many times over.

For me, at least, training for the marathon this year was almost taking a step backwards.  It’s something I can do, it’s something I could possibly do well.  But this training season I was not opening myself up for change – I was actually doing the same thing again.  So instead I’m going to face the fear of who I will be without a marathon goal, or medal.  Instead, I will try to focus more on gaining strength from my own cues and approval, rather than external cues. What is I want to do?

The first thing I did was run a race.  Not because it was fast, or flat, or part of training.  But because it was near a friend I wanted to see and catch up with, because it’s in a beautiful part of the country and because I could travel there and back with my husband and get to spend some time with him.

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I loved it – can’t you tell?  It was hard and fun and cold and beautiful.  I even stopped at some point close to where this photo was taken to just take a minute to let the gorgeous view sink in.  Needless to say, I didn’t come close to a PB.  But that was absolutely fine.  That IS absolutely fine.  For now – this is how I want to run.  To experience what’s around me, to see what’s next.  Running has changed me and has saved me, over and over again.  I am open to whatever is next.

Runapy? Or what to do when your mojo is down the drain and all feels hopeless

That drew you in didn’t it?  Yah I know.  I’m probably not the only one out there who is looking at the 2015 racing season and thinking “hmmmmm”.  Or even “bleurrrgggh”.  Or just “I don’t want to do this.  Any of this.  I am so over this.  This is just dumb.  I am wasting my time.  Why did I even want to do this?  Whose fault is it that I am doing this?”.  Ok – maybe some of you are not as immature as I am and you might not be blaming others for the situation you find yourself in. Congratulations – you have evolved.  I, clearly, have not.

After a decent fortnight of running and training the blahs hit me.  A day or two of not feeling quite myself physically, some work that took up my time and energy, some late nights and mediocre nutrition – it all added up to some missed training.  And at the beginning of this week I was looking at a week with 2 longer runs (to make up what I’d missed at the weekend) and a tough tempo workout (I like to agonise over these the entire week before I do them) and just wondering why I was doing this.

Before you all jump down my throat and say I am being too down on myself – trust me, I am not being negative if I say that I will not get a sub 3:30 in London this spring.  I am simply not in that shape, and won’t be.  Training has been too patchy and I’m not focused.  The rest of my life is going great guns – work is great, I’ve just taken on another class for Sweaty Betty which has pushed me to do stuff I haven’t done before (and I LOVE it!) so it’s not like I’m down in the dumps generally.  It’s just that my focus is not on my running goal, it hasn’t been on my goal in the past few months despite some concerted efforts and well – without focus BHAGS just don’t happen.  My running goal of a few months ago has – let’s face it – been abandoned for now.

So out in the wind and rain this morning, running a very slow 13 miles, I was contemplating giving up.  Giving up running London this spring, giving up marathons altogether.  I felt like I did after running Kent Roadrunner back in 2013 – I could not motivate myself to want to run faster than I ran there.  And here I was, running along, thinking “I can’t really motivate myself.  I’m NOT going to break 3:30, or even 3:35.  Maybe not even 3:40.  What’s the point?”.  I was chugging along, mentally working through pulling out of London and wondering what else I could do.  I was hoping for an excuse – any excuse – to abandon the run.  Pain?  Nope.  Hunger?  No.  Terrible weather – yessish – but not until I was nearly home.  And so I resigned myself to running and listening to my podcast and hoping for some kind of sign telling me what I should do next.  I was listening to the brilliant MarathonTalk and catching up on some older episodes when I caught an interview with Like the Wind founder Simon Freeman.  He was talking about the famous “Duel in the sun” between Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar and suddenly I felt that twinge – that twinge of interest.  Boston! I thought.  Yes.  I loved, loved, loved running Boston last spring.  THAT was the marathon of my life.  Not my fastest – but the best one.  I ran well, pretty hard for me, stuck to my plan – rigidly – and LOVED every minute of it.  And – while I had a goal for that race – it was not my ultimate goal.  Completing Ironman later that summer was – Boston was just a step on the way.

I was thinking about that – about how to recapture that Boston feeling – and I started to think that the reason I was not enthused about my training was not that my training was going so badly – because, given life, it’s not actually going that badly – but more that my goal is wrong.  I need a new goal.  A different goal.  And I don’t think it should be London.  London should be a step on the way to a goal that really interests me. Right now running 3:30 doesn’t – ultimately – motivate me.  But running hard in London – running my hardest – on the way to something else?  I can do that.

And what, you will ask, will that goal be?  Ah – I’m not there yet.  I think it will be an ultra.  Again – like the Ironman – something I have not done before.  Much like teaching my new class at Sweaty Betty – maybe I need to do stuff that scares me to stay interested.  I’m not sure which one I will race – I told my family I wouldn’t be racing over the summer after taking over the summer holidays last summer so I have to think about it. It may not be till 2016.  But trust me, I will find a race.  And that will be my new great big hairy assed goal. And in the meantime, I have some marathons to run as hard training runs…

Beginning to cheer up a bit!

Things started to look up once I got my mojo back!

 

 

A race, interrupted training and the new year.

So I ran the race.  And I loved it.  I never really understand that I don’t race much, have to be coaxed into racing and then when I do it I love it.  Why do I resist doing something I enjoy? Most times (London 2013 was an exception) I am beaming from ear to ear, just soaking it all up and enjoying the sensation of running with others and pushing myself.  The Bedford Half marathon was no exception. It was cold, windy and wet (some wet snow blew at us sideways as we were shivering at the start) but, of course, fine once we started running.  Given that my training had been sub-optimal, I ran without my Garmin and instead focused on just pushing myself.  It was weird – I haven’t raced without a watch since I’ve owned my Garmin which is going back some 7 or so years now I think – but it was good.  The course was hilly and I just kept on focusing on pushing – slightly. I ran a few miles with a runner who tried to talk me into doing the Marathon Des Sables one day (he planted a seed, it’s slowly fermenting at the back of my brain) but when I noticed I was talking too easily I picked up the pace and went off.  After that I just kept – slightly – pushing myself, mindful that I was not in amazing shape and hadn’t run the distance in a while either.  It was one of those days where the miles just ticked off and I was just out enjoying myself, so glad to be out there.  The final mile even brought me a duel with a much younger runner in shorts and club vest (snap judgment = keen and cocky) and I enjoyed beating him across the finish line by a few seconds.  Showers and a new fleecy hat (better than a medal?  Discuss) and Sal and I were on our way home.

A day later I was out with a client on an evening run when I misjudged the location of the pavement and twisted my ankle.  I was able to finish the run (and was amazed by that) but by the middle of the night the pain woke me up and was excruciating.  Amazingly, I was able to hobble around for the next few days (no running) and deal with an exceptionally busy week in my personal life which involved driving to London and back, spending a day driving around London in a rental van picking up and moving furniture around and a morning training at Sweaty Betty HQ to learn the moves on a new class I will be teaching late January / early February . Look ahead a few days, my ankle felt better and I demonstrate an exercise to clients with weights that were far too heavy to be appropriate (because I was too lazy to jog to my car to get the lighter weights.  Yes.  I am a personal trainer) and boom – I can barely walk for days because my back is so painful.  Off and on with these various self-inflicted shenanigans, it was not till after Christmas that I managed to get back into a schedule again.  It felt hard.  It was hard! Getting back to it seems to mean, inevitably, that you have to trudge for a while.  That it feels hard and does not look pretty.  But I know that.

New Year came a bit slowly to me – the logistics of planning and organising a fun party, the aftermath of having a fun party – it all meant I felt a little bit left behind by the good intentions on social media and in the newspapers – it wasn’t till about January 6th that I started to think about resolutions and the new year.  Thankfully – unlike Christmas – I never think of the new year as a being a one day thing.  I think you have all of January to wish someone a happy new year, and to think about the new year and what it’s going to be for you.  And given the overflow of diets / exercise plans / resolution systems that you can find in the papers and the internet made me think of the typical “get fit and lose weight” resolution that so many have.  And to reflect that I’ve done it.  11 1/2 years ago I made up my mind, for the umpteenth time, to lose weight and get fit.  And unlike the umpteen times that preceded that day in July 2003 – this time it worked.  In the course of 3/4 months I lost about 18 kgs of weight and started a running habit that was brand new to me and that has carried on to this day.  Out on a long slow run – where you have time to think about anything – I was wondering what the secret was – what it was that made my intentions stick that time.  And you know?  The only answer I can find to that is that I just refused to give up.  Every time I fell of the diet wagon I refused to do what I’d done before, which was give up.  Every time I made myself start again.  And every time I didn’t run for a day, I refused to think that that was the end of me running.  I made myself go out again the next day.  And ultimately that – that is what changes a habit I think.  The getting back at it.  The getting back on the wagon.  The refusal to let self-defeating thoughts (“see?  I’m not the kind of person who’s meant to lose weight”, “see?  I’m not a runner”) stop me from getting back out there.  Eventually it sticks.  I don’t believe there is one diet, one way of eating, one way of exercising.  But when you find a way of eating more healthily that works for you, that you can keep coming back to even when you slip up, a form of exercise that you can get back into even when you stop doing it for a while – then you are on the way.  Not necessarily to a slimmer, faster you.  That might not be what you’re looking for.  But you’re on the way to living a part of your life in a way you want to live it.  A hugely powerful and self-defining feeling, that.

And it never ends, this getting back into the saddle thing.  I feel that, despite all good intentions, I have not been focused on my marathon goal.  Various issues beyond my control (ankle / back) have meant that I’ve missed training sessions and my attention has been on many things other than training for London.  At this point, I think that achieving a sub 3:30 in less than 4 months is looking quite unlikely.  Not impossible – sometimes stars align! – but unlikely.  And I am absolutely okay with that.  I need that goal to set a direction.  Now I am yanking my head and body back from the distractions, down the road to marathon training again.  The goal remains in place and will continue to help me focus on my training.  And will pull me back on the path when I drift off in a different direction…

So 2015 is a year I’m looking forward to.  I’m loving my work and the people I’m meeting through it.  I’m back at my training and I have 2 marathons to look forward to this spring.  I’m still looking for and brewing up suggestions for another BHAG for this year or next year.  For the first time since July, I’ve thought about doing another IM in a few years.  Who knows?  There are so many exciting challenges out there – I can’t wait to get started.  Happy new year!

Some windy running on a grey day

Some windy running on a grey day