Sub 38 at last!

Who'd have thought, after such a crap year, that I would end 2013 on a high and bag a long awaited sub-38 minute 10k time? Certainly not me! I mentioned in my last post that I had a few ideas up my sleeve to try and get a 10k PB but that I wasn't going to publicise them as each time I have done that in the past, I have missed it, and feel all the more rubbish for having openly advertised my failed attempts. I knew I couldn't rely on the usual First Chance 10k to target a PB this year as I am representing Devon in the South-West inter-counties cross-country championships on the same day, so the only other remotely fast course in the area was the Stoke Stampede on Sunday 29th December.

A couple of months back, Matt and I went to rekkie the course after doing the Taunton parkrun that morning. It's by no means flat - there is a short, sharp hill just after the 1 mile mark and then miles 2 through to 4 are a very long, slow drag upwards. The overall climb is only about 150ft, but the constant undulations can mess up your rhythm and, when you are already at your limits, even the smallest of hills can cause a dramatic drop off in your mile splits. Nevertheless, the course appeared much more sheltered than the exposed First Chance river bank route and it was much more varied; I hoped this would keep my focus and avoid the usual drop in pace that occurs at the mile 3 point on the First Chance course. This point is precisely at the turn at the end of lap one and I suspect that the drop in pace that almost always befalls me here is more the result of a psychological barrier than a physiological one. I was dubious that the Stoke Stampede would be the ideal course for a PB attempt, but I figured that I had nothing to lose by giving it a go anyway.

However, this was all before I got struck down by what has amounted to almost 2 months of coughs, colds, bouts of food poisoning and just feeling generally run down and tired. I was desperate for the end of term to finally arrive so that I could indulge my body in some much needed rest and then came the devastating news that my Grandma, who lives in Harrogate, was very ill with pneumonia. I took the last two days off work and my Mum and I headed up to Yorkshire the next day. She had held on for 48 hours after they stopped her treatment, having been told that we were on our way, and within 3 hours of us arriving at her bedside, she peacefully passed away with my Mum and me holding her hand. At 97 years old, she'd had a good, long and fulfilled life, but I have always been very close to my Gran and so finally losing her knocked the stuffing out of me somewhat. She looked after me when my parents were house-hunting in Cornwall when I was 18 months old and this created a bond that has only gotten stronger since. I get many of my character traits from her; the good and the bad! The doggedly determined stubborn streak, the strong-willed bloody-mindedness, the occasional touches of selfishness, but also the thoughtfulness, the zest and vigor for life and for keeping fit, and an appreciation for the great outdoors: I have my Gran to thank for all of these. When I was little and was asked to write stories at primary school about who my "heroes" were and who I'd like to be when I grew up, I could only ever think of my Gran and wrote about her every time. It is such a shame that I found my way to running after she had lost some of her faculties (she suffered from Alzheimers in her latter years) and her ability to appreciate and share in my achievements; she would have been my most avid supporter and, I hope, she would have been just a bit proud of me too.

How befitting, then, that after one of the most awful build-ups to a target race ever, when I had even written off the possibility of a PB in my own head way before the start line, that I get my PB now, in honour of my Gran. When I was struggling in the latter stages of the race, I thought of my Gran struggling to breathe with severe pneumonia filling her lungs, yet holding on long enough, through the discomfort, for me and my Mum to arrive. If she could do that, I could bloody-well find some last dregs of air in my lungs to push the hell on and not give up. At the usual point when my mile splits start to drop off in a race, I dug in deeper and ran the final 2 miles in under 6 mins, bringing me home in a time of 37:43 for a new PB by 21 seconds.

Matt, my boyfriend, had been down to run but had been struck down by my virusy-lurgy thing, but he still came to watch and support me and he reports that he'd never seen me look happier than when I rushed up to him at the finish to tell him my time. I guess I was just a little bit thrilled to finally have this one in the bag! This sub 38 minute 10k has dogged me for a couple of years and now I have finally accomplished it. I was beginning to doubt that it was ever going to happen, even though I knew that I was capable of it, given the right course and the right conditions. Was Stoke the right course? No! I don't believe it was. It was hillier than I'd have liked and muddy in places too. So this, coupled with the fact that I've had a rubbish build-up with hardly any structured training sessions, leads me to think that there may well be more to come.... We'll just have to wait and see what 2014 brings I guess, but it's nice to be ending what has otherwise been a bit of a naff year on an unexpected high!

Push to the line: approaching the finish of the Stoke Stampede 10k in a new PB of 37:43.

For my beloved Gran: 30/08/16 - 18/12/13. R.I.P.

Coughs, colds and food poisoning...

The last month has felt like a case of 1 step forward, 2 steps back on the training front. The only plus side is that, for once, my progress has not been hampered by injury, but by illness. A refreshing change, though not much of a "plus" really, as obviously I'd prefer not to be held back at all!

Since the end of half-term week in October, in which I had two superb races at the Tavy 7 and the Templer 10, I have had my training and racing disrupted by illness. Unfortunately, it’s one of the perils of working in the largest school in the country; if there are germs circulating, you can bet your life that at some stage, they will make their merry way to you. The first cough / cold caused me to miss 4 days of training and even take a day off work: not something I do lightly. The cough dragged on and never really shifted; I ran our own club’s Bicton Blister 10.5 mile tough, off-road race to the tune of my own coughing and spluttering! It was almost on its way out last week and didn’t hamper my performance too much at the Devon County Cross Country championships in Exeter, but then, the week after, I either relapsed or picked up a shiny new set of germs and began to feel worse again. To cap it all, I then got a particularly nasty bout of food poisoning, from what I can only assume was a bad mussel, at our Harriers’ Christmas party... the night before one of my favourite races of the year – the Cockington Caper. After a night spent back and forth to the bathroom, I awoke too tired and weak to even contemplate running it so I went along to Otterton to support Matt in his race there. The next day, we did at least manage to fit in a 13 mile training run at a very steady pace of 9:10m/m, which was my longest run since injuring my achillies at the Exeter Half Marathon in February, so that was something. But so far this week I have been forced to rest everyday as my cough has turned chesty and so this will be yet another week where my mileage fails to surpass 30.

Jostling for position in the early stages of the Devon County Cross-Country champs at Exeter.

My main goal for the Spring – the Grizzly – is still 12 weeks away, so there is plenty of time, but I have been stuck on 30 mile weeks all autumn and not really progressing as circumstances seem to keep conspiring against me. Whilst the Grizzly is about 5 miles short of the marathon distance, I am treating it with the same respect I would a marathon and trying to put in the same training miles for it, as the sheer volume of hills more than make up for those extra 5 miles. Also, they say that your Grizzly time is roughly the same as your marathon time, which I think gives an indication of how tough the terrain is on this one!

It’s just typical, the moment things are improving on the injury front, illness arrives to stop me in my tracks. In the past I would probably just have trained through it, but there have been so many press articles recently about people who have done this and who have later given themselves heart problems as a result. One article that really hit home was about a local runner, from Wells City Harriers, with whom I have raced in the past. He was a very good runner, having represented GB at ultra running and, only last year, he won the hilly Crewkerne 10k in a time of 33 minutes, whilst I won the women’s race a sorry 7 minutes later. He says he was not even aware of having trained through colds but he reasons he probably did carry on doing light running and this led him to develop cardiomyopathy – basically inflammation of the muscle surrounding the heart. He now cannot run again. It is a stark warning, and no training run is worth the risk, so I have to be sensible, even if it makes me feel like a caged animal desperate for release.

I do have some interim goals in the meantime, of which the South-West inter-counties cross-country – this year to be held at Killerton House – is the main one.  That is only 3 weeks away and I am nowhere near being in the sort of shape I would like to be in to mix it at the front end of this competitive race. I finished as the 3^rd Devon athlete in the Exeter cross-country (2^nd senior athlete, taking the silver medal which was one better than last year), so I have secured myself a Devon vest and the 3^rd spot on an 8 strong county team, so I want to be able to do the vest justice. The course is a hilly one and so I really need to be doing more hills in training than I am. I did my first hills session since May last week – not ideal preparation – but in order to protect my achillies, I have shelved hill running over the summer. Fortunately I think my body still remembers all the hill running I hit it with during the first few months of taking up the sport, whilst living in Llanberis in North Wales, as I still feel comfortable on hills and often manage to pick people off on climbs in races (usually to then be picked off myself on the way back down the other side: my descending skills definitely being an area I need to work on).

I had an interesting conversation on the phone with my coach, Gordan Seward, last week. He says he sees no reason why I cannot mix it with some of the best female athletes in the country and he feels there is still huge scope for improvement. He seems confident that I will get there if I just work hard enough, but I am not so sure. It's not that I am afraid of hard work or of pushing myself, it's just that I wonder whether my body will ever be physically strong enough to withstand the massive increase in training volume that will inevitably have to happen if I am to keep improving and reach that higher level of performance. It’s like the analogy of the science experiment that keeps delivering the same infuriatingly identical results because you don't change any of the variables: if you don't adjust the formula, how can you expect the outcome to be any different, no matter how many times you repeat it? I know I need to up both the intensity and the volume of my training, but I fear that my left leg and my immune system will just not cope. It is frustrating as I agree with him, to an extent, that there is so much more to come, and I can say that because I know how much I have already achieved after just 3 years of running and off the back of very little structured training. I've never really had a proper build up to a race as 3 months is the longest I have ever gone without injury; the rest of the time is either spent recovering from or managing that same injury, which constantly prevents me from taking things to the next level. It is hard sometimes not to be resentful of runners who are just bio-mechanically sound and don’t have to work hard to stay injury free. I do stretching, core strength work, icing, foam rolling, regular massaging and try every gimmick product going to try and stay on top of my injury; some other jammy sods just head out of the door and run and sack off all of this and have less injury problems than I do: where's the justice?!

I moan, however, but for the string of colds and coughs, things have been going better these past few weeks than they have since back before injury in February. In the past 2 weeks, Matt and I have banked a couple of tough, hilly, off-road 13 milers, which has given me a confidence boost. The pace of these has been slow (9m/m), but pace was not my focus. For my own peace of mind, I wanted to have a couple of decent length, steady runs in the bag before the New Year so I could test my legs over the distance and know what I have got to work with. Having run both these 13 milers niggle free, I now feel more confident that, with a good rest and recharge of the batteries over Christmas, I can start to crank the Grizzly training up a notch in January. If all goes to plan - this plan being the one that I formulate in my head in bed each night as I lie there waiting for sleep to wash over me - next year should see me start to kick the ass of some of my key running goals and address some PBs that are now well past their sell-by-date. Maybe that is just pre-slumber, dreamscape, idealism... guess we'll just have to wait until 2014 to find out!

Learning how to race, learning how to pace

It is hard to believe that we are already half way through November: autumn is whizzing by. The clocks have gone back, the temperature has dropped and winter is knocking at the door. I now have 4 long months of dark evenings and naff weather to get through before we emerge out the other side. I really dislike winter. Sure, in essence, it should be inspiring to a runner: making the first imprints on freshly fallen, white powder snow, but in reality, when do we ever get this type of picture-postcard winter in the UK? If snow does fall, it instantly turns to sheet ice and then to brown mush and is a death-trap in waiting, set to play havoc with a runner’s training schedule.  I’m definitely a sun and heat lover and enjoy training in warm, sunny conditions. Motivating myself to head out of the door after work when it is cold, damp and the light is rapidly diminishing is a real effort. My breathing is also much worse in winter with the cold air hitting my sensitive, sports asthma-riddled lungs, making racing and intense training a quite unpleasant wheeze-fest. Nope, you can keep winter thanks very much.

Autumn this year has once again been terrific from a racing point of view. As I said in my last post, I enjoy autumn, particularly off-road trail races, and I always seem to perform well at this time of the year. The past couple of months have definitely seen me make huge progress on the injury rehabilitation front and I am starting to regain confidence and to trust my useless excuse of a left leg a bit more.

If there is one positive thing to emerge from my injury experiences this year, it is that it has tempered down my gung-ho attitude to racing. Essentially, it has taught me to race more sensibly and to use my head more. Having to hold back more at the start and ease my leg into the run has highlighted two things: firstly, the race is a far more comfortable and pleasant experience as I don’t hit threshold by the end of the first mile and have to hang on from then forward, watching the mile splits gradually dropping off as I realise I have once again been too ambitions. Secondly, it has taught me that I can run negative splits and feel strong at the end, resulting in me running a faster time for the race overall. Well whaddya know?! I used to think that the only way to run fast times was to go out as hard as possible to “bank” time for later on. I now realise that, by running at my target pace from the start, my mile splits don’t then drop off and I even have something left to pick up the pace in the last couple of miles and run faster than expected. I have been pleasantly surprised this autumn that, by adopting this more measured approach, I have run course PBs on the Powderham 10k, the Parrett Trail Relays, the Tavy 7 and the Templer 10, despite feeling that I am less fit than last year and having done no where near the same volume of training. It’s an encouraging sign.

Tavy 7 (C) Charles Whitton

(C) Charles Whitton

So I'm finally learning how to pace, but also how to race. There is a big difference between time-trialling a race and racing a race. The former has usually been my approach of choice, whereby you go out hard and try to defend the position you fall into from the start by hanging on as long as possible. This strategy has inevitably seen me do a lot of front running from the gun. I used to think I performed better and ran faster by doing this, as you run scared the whole way which pushes you onwards, but now I am not so sure. In the Tavy 7, the very talented veteran athlete, Ann Luke, came past me in the opening mile and so I decided to sit on her shoulder and see what happened. I found that I ran a much more relaxed race as I had my opposition in my sights and could cover any moves straightaway. Despite her age – she’s 26 years my senior! – Ann is an amazing athlete and to be respected. She started to pull away from me on the downhill stretches as her downhill leg speed was much faster than mine. Usually in this situation I would start to think negatively, resign myself to the fact that she was gone and turn my attentions to defending second, and duly start glancing over my shoulder to check that that place wasn’t under threat. Today though, I felt confident and was determined that I wasn't giving the victory up without a fight. I knew that I am strong on hills and it was a predominantly uphill finish. If I could just limit the damage and keep Ann within my sights then maybe I could claw her back on the climb at mile 5. Sure enough, by mile 6 I had drawn level. The last mile was tough – it was uphill and into a strong headwind. This race is run on a very exposed moorland course and the timing of the event this year, to coincide with the worst Atlantic storm to hit the U.K. this year, only made conditions even tougher. I bided my time and tucked in behind Ann and a male athlete, knowing that if I pushed too soon, the headwind would zap all my energy. As we approached the 500m to go sign, I saw Matt, my boyfriend, stood on the corner, cheering me on. That was the boost I needed to make my move. At 400m to go there is a left turn, out of the wind, but up a steep climb. I pushed hard up the climb and managed to put a good 50m between myself and Ann, and then sprinted down the final field for the finish line. The icing on the cake was that Rob Orton, my team mate, had also won the men’s race, so we’d done the double, and won the ladies’ team prize to boot. A victory is always special to me, in any circumstance, particularly so when it is against a formidable opponent such as Ann, but a victory shared with club mates is extra special.

A bonus victory for me these days is to come off a race totally niggle free. The Tavy 7 was the furthest I have raced on tarmac (usually more aggravating to my achillies than off-road surfaces) since my injury in February and so I was nervous, but it held up fine. One day of rest later and I was able to do a fartlek session on the Tuesday with no after-effects. Progress: at long last!

One week later and it was time for one of my favourite races: the Templer 10. I think the title of the race was selected more for its alliterative properties than for numerical accuracy, as the race in fact measures in at around 9.5 miles, but it sure packs a lot into those 9.5 miles. The route takes you along country lanes, fields and woodland tracks, around a country park and a lake, and through a nature reserve. It’s multi-terrain in every sense! A quick scan around the assembled company at the start and I guessed that my own club mate, Cathy, would be my closest rival. We set off together and I deliberately tried to hold myself back, planning to conserve energy for later, as this was to by my second longest race since February and so I wanted to be sure I didn’t crash and burn in the latter stages! The first 2.5 miles of this race are flat and on road, so it’s very easy to go off too fast. Comparing my mile splits to last year, I was 50 seconds slower over these opening miles this year and yet I went on to produce my fastest time on the course by the end of the race: further proof that sensible pacing pays off! I remember coming along the river bank in the last half mile of the race and, again, seeing Matt waiting there to spur me on, and feeling so strong. I knew the finish approach well by now, this being my third time of running the race, so I knew where to push on and I had already kicked it up a gear some way back. I ran past Matt beaming like a Cheshire cat and finding enough puff to tell him that I felt great. I knew with a mile to go that I was on target to beat my previous best time on the course but I had not quite calculated that I was going to beat it by almost 3 minutes. That was really unexpected, given that my long training runs at the moment are no longer than 10 miles, so I was pleased to find that my legs haven’t forgotten how to keep a pace up for that distance! Also unexpected was that we managed an unprecedented 1, 2, 3 in the ladies race, with Cathy and Hannah finishing 2nd and 3rd behind me. Another team prize for the Harriers ladies resulted :-)

Start of the Templer 10 at the Passage House Hotel, Kingsteignton

Having fun at the 6 mile point of the Templer 10 race

The only thing that hasn’t worked out this autumn is my plan to really target the Westward League cross-country. Once again, this plan will have to be shelved for yet another year. The first round, in Redruth, came the day after the Parrett Trail Relays. Despite my plan to conserve energy for the cross-country by “jogging” around the 8.7m leg 6 of the relay that I was running, I ended up having stiff competition on my tail from a Yeovil runner, so had to put more effort in that I would have liked. The next morning I woke up and put my running kit on and went out of the door to test my legs. There was no pain from my achillies but my calves were tight. Matt said to play it safe and not to run, my Mum thought that I was being over cautious and the injury had made me nervous and I’d be fine. Either could have been right, but I decided not to run. No one race is worth setting my recovery back by months and yes, I may be being overly cautious, but I’d rather that than have to go through the 4 long month injury-recovery cycle again for the third time this year! You can drop one of the six rounds, so technically, if I did all the others, I could still manage the series, but the Newquay round was sandwiched in between 4 other races and I’m trying to limit my racing at the moment. I definitely race better when I race less and I can also fit better quality training in when I am not spending 4 out of the 7 days a week recovering from and tapering off for races. I will do the next round as it’s in Exeter and is the Devon County Championships, but the rounds after Christmas I’m not sure about. Much as I want to help out the Harriers’ ladies team, they will interfere with my Grizzly training, which has to be my priority in the New Year.

My other plans? Well, I have a few up my sleeve. I have finally managed to choose between the First Chance 10k and the South West Inter-counties Cross-Country Championships which, very annoyingly, are both on the same day on January 5^th. Whilst I am desperate for a coveted sub 38 minute 10k, the possibility of being able to don a Devon vest and represent my county is too good an opportunity to pass up, particularly after being selected last year and being forced to withdraw due to injury. As regards the matter of the 10k PB, which is fast becoming a millstone around my neck, I have a few ideas up my sleeve. I’m not going to publicise them though, as each time I do that, things seem to conspire to prevent it from happening! Needless to say, if it comes off, you’ll be able to read about it here first! If it doesn’t come off, you’ll still be able to read it here, but it will be more of a moan-fest in this latter case!

Coming up short...

Since badly injuring my achillies in February, I have been forced to revisit all my goals for 2013. The 'biggie' that I was building up for was London Marathon in April: that was the first major event to go flying out of the window. I had also secured myself a place at the Edinburgh Marathon as a back-up to London, in case I got ill on the day, didn't quite get the time I wanted, needed a another crack at it etc. That went too. I had also secured free entries for the Guernsey Marathon (that took place last weekend, 22nd September) and the Bournemouth Marathon (6th October); inevitably, these have had to be shelved too. All the key build-up events I had scheduled in to lead up to these marathons, such as the Duchy 20, the Yeovil Half Marathon, the Torbay Half, the 20 mile RAT race, have all been knocked on the head too. I just haven't been able to do the mileage that I used to churn out in my sleep and so long distance events have simply not been achievable goals this year. It's been a frustrating year in that sense; however, I like to think of myself as a positive person and to prevent myself from going mad whilst I've been injured, I have re-evaluated all my plans for this year in order to extract some positive experiences and gains from what has otherwise been a pretty appalling year on the running performance front.

My usual ethos is: the longer, the better! I definitely feel that my strengths lie in the longer distances as I have a stubborn, bloody-minded attitude and an uncanny ability to block out pain, both of which are somewhat essential traits in order to succeed at endurance events. The title of my blog alone is a bit of a giveaway that my heart very much lies in marathon and ultra running and I like to think any chances I have of being up there with the country's top athletes will be at these races and not over more traditional track distances. That said, this year I have embraced the unexpected opportunity to really attack some shorter distances and this has generated some pleasantly surprising results. My 5k PB (18:15) in June, run on an already mashed up tendon, gives me an indication that without an injury and with a solid block of training behind me, a sub 18 minute time is very much within my grasp next season. This Sunday, instead of being where I really wanted to be - toeing the start line of the Guernsey Marathon in St. Peter Port - I was at a very different kind of race.

Honiton Running Club organise an annual event called the Cotleigh Canters, at the quaint little village of Cotleigh in East Devon. There are 10k and 5k options on offer and a 3k fun-run for the kids. Not wanting to do any more running on tarmac than I have to at the moment, I opted for the 5k: again, a sign of how things have changed this year, as before I wouldn't have even contemplated lacing up my trainers for anything shorter than 6 miles - I just didn't see the point! The 5k is advertised as a race and not a fun-run, but nevertheless, amongst the usual smattering of senior and veteran runners, there was a large proportion of teenagers on the startline... Well, I say on the "startline", but they were actually stood a good few yards in front of the line and edging further forward with each passing second until the starter finally blew the horn to get us underway. It was lovely to see so much enthusiasm for the sport from all these youngsters and it's a promising sign for the future! From my experiences at Parkrun, the teenage runners tend to go off like bats out of hell at the start as if they are running a 400m race. They have enthusiasm and confidence in abundance and seem assured that they can keep up their suicidal pace for the whole 5k! Within the space of 100m, I found myself languishing back in about 20th place and feeling as though I was crawling, yet a glance at my watch revealed that I was in fact running bang on 6m/m pace. No problem, I thought, let them go; I'll reel 'em back in on the hill! And sure enough, as we turned the first corner and started to climb the 1km long hill, I slowly worked my way up through the field. It took me until 3.5km to draw level with the leading man - in fact a 16 year old! - but once I did I surged past and thought: I could win a race outright here! I wasn't about to pass up this opportunity and so, after a conservative opening mile of 6:45 up the hill, my next miles were done in 5:55 and 5:40 and I felt stronger and stronger as I pushed on for the finish. If the shout I overheard as I rounded the corner to the finish line of, "Oh my God! It's a woman!", was anything to go by, I think people were as surprised as I was that a female had won the race outright. (Either that or I badly need to consider a course of HRT...). However, I'm not going to get too carried away, as most of my competition were teenage boys and not senior males: I'll have to try and beat them next time!! ;-)

Battling it out for 1st overall at the 4k mark.

The win was a massive confidence boost though and my time of 19:01 on a course with a 1km long hill on it wasn't too shabby. The president of the running club who awarded the prizes was lovely and offered me the celebration cake they had had made for the event as an extra prize for beating the female course record and for being the first female in the history of their club races to win a race overall. The cake is massive and, 5 days on, we're not even half way through it yet!

Thanks for the yummy cake, Honiton RC!

Talking of coming up short; on Tuesday this week, I had a go at my first ever 3000m race. In fact, it was only my second ever track race in total, after the 5000m I ran at the Devon County Championships back in May. It was the last Exeter Harriers Open Meeting of the season and so a good opportunity to try out this distance and record a time before the end of the season. I used to think of 5ks as an out and out sprint and so this would have been a distance I would never have entertained this time last year. However, I think that doing lots of shorter stuff has rejigged my brain into thinking that 5k is a half decent distance; 10k is quite long; 10 miles is an uncomfortable slog and anything over that is simply beyond contemplation at the moment! In reality, 3k is not far - just under 2 miles - but thinking of it as 7.5 laps of the track built it up to be something bigger in my head and led me to go out too cautiously. I was aiming for a time of around 10:40, which would be around 1:25 laps, but I fell quite some way short of this target. I was hitting the 'lap' button on my Garmin at the end of each 400m circuit, but, in the darkness, with the flood lights casting shadows in awkward places, I was unable to actually read what my watch said and virtually found myself running blind!

My 3000m debut was nearly brought to a dramatic and comedic end at one stage as there was this small but not insignificant incident involving a super-market trolley! What's a trolley doing on the track, you ask? You make a valid point! Basically, the starter carries his starting gun and equipment around in it and pushes it from place to place. He had evidently not seen me coming at the end of lap 3 as I was isolated between a group of fast guys way out in front and some other runners who were some way behind me. As I passed the finish line and looked up, to my shock I found him and his trolley occupying lane one: he had already started out to cross the track. An official ran in from the far side to try and push him back and so the man threw the trolley into reverse and beat a retreat off the track as I simultaneously swerved to avoid crashing into the side of it! Lap 4 was my then my slowest of all: not because of the very minor detour - that cost me nothing time-wise and I wasn't remotely bothered by it - but because the incident just tickled my sense of humour and my legs started turning to jelly as I struggled for 100m to suppress laughter. I could just picture the results: Sutcliffe, Ellie: DNF (untimely end to race due to collision with super-market trolley). I'm sure Mo Farah has never encountered this problem! It also gives a whole new meaning to the expression 'to get trolleyed'!! Jokes aside, it wasn't my best performance: 10:56 in the end, and some way short of my 10:40 target. However, my last km was easily the fastest of the 3 and so I know now I need to attack the race harder from the gun next time and visualise it as a 2 mile point-to-point race instead of 7.5 laps, which, psychologically, makes it seem much longer!

With fellow Harriers Adam, Rich and Mike, looking shiny and sweaty after our 3000m efforts!

I have no races on the horizon until the on 13th October. I was recently contacted by the organisers of the Great West Run (the South West's equivalent of the Great North) and offered a free "VIP" race entry: don't be alarmed - we're not talking VIP on the same scale as the VIP runners at the Great North here!! Much as I am flattered to have been asked and hate to turn down opportunities such as this, realistically, I am just not ready to do justice to a road half marathon yet. Yes, I could get round, probably under 1h30, but if I am being treated as an elite runner, I'd want to put in a performance that is worthy of that treatment, and I couldn't do that over this distance at the moment. So I think it will be the first round of the Westward League cross-country for me that day instead!

Between now and then it's a case of cramming in a few weeks of decent training. I have secured a place in the Grizzly ballot for March next year and that is going to be my target, so to be on that start line in competitive shape and to have a chance at placing in what is one of the toughest races in the South West, I need to be starting to build up towards it now. This means a winter full of off-road runs, hill reps, long intervals and steadily increasing the mileage: if 2013 was about coming up short, in 2014 I'll be in it for the long-haul.

Turning over a new Autumn leaf

As I write this, September is well underway and the past few mornings have had a distinctly autumnal feel to them. Upon leaving the house in the morning, the air feels crisp and cool and the first leaves are beginning to flutter down from the trees. I am using this new season to have a fresh start with my running. I have always enjoyed autumn from a running point of view; it seems to be riddled with lovely off-road trail races, made all the more pleasant by the cooler but not cold temperatures and the crunchy autumn leaves underfoot. I have also had better luck on the injury front in autumn and I am hoping that that is going to be the case this year.

Since my last post I have now had a course of three ESWT treatments at the R D & E hospital in Exeter. ESWT stands for Extra-corporeal Shock Wave Therapy and it is a non-invasive procedure that bombards the tendon with high pressure blasts of air, creating shock waves throughout the effected area, that work to break down scar tissue and boost blood flow and thus rejuvenate the damaged parts of the tendon. I was dubious that this treatment was to be the ultimate panacea of a cure that the doctor made it out to be but I can definitely notice marked improvements since the last dose, which I received 2 weeks ago. There has been no swelling in the tendon since then and very limited stiffness on waking in the morning. I have also managed a few races, including a 10k on tarmac, which was a real test, with no ill after-effects. It's hard to know whether or not this is because the injury was already healing anyway or whether the treatment has boosted and accelerated the healing process. Either way, it's feeling much better, and long may it continue!

I have had some pleasing results in the few races I have entered recently, managing to come in as first lady in each of the last 5 races I have done. After tempo-running, rather than racing, the Harrogate 10k in Yorkshire, I have had wins at the Holyhead Breakwater 5 mile race on Angelsey, North Wales; at the Totnes 10k multi-terrain race in South Devon; at the Roseland August Trail (RAT) 11 mile race in Cornwall; at the Torbay Regatta 10k road race in Torquay and, last weekend, at the Powderham Castle 10k multi-terrain race, just across the Exe estuary. The biggest surprise was that in the Totnes, RAT and Powderham races, I managed to beat my times from the same events on the same courses from last year. This was a real positive boost as it shows me that despite all of my injury problems and my lack of training miles this year, I am actually fitter than I was last year and my basic leg-turnover speed is faster. Being diligent with the cross-training whilst I've been unable to run has definitely helped to keep my fitness levels up and the break from running and pounding out the miles has clearly breathed life into my legs. The RAT was the biggest shock as, at 11 miles, it was the longest run that I had tackled since my injury in February. I was nervous as to whether I would even be able to get around without aggravating my achillies and so I have no idea how I not only managed to beat my time from last year, but beat it by 10 whole minutes! From somewhere, I found an extra minute of speed per mile, and it all felt very comfortable on the day. To be fair though, I didn't feel brilliant during the race last year and I ended up keeling over in an embarrassing heap at the end of it, which is the only time I have ever done this after a race, so that won't have helped my cause last year!

Holyhead breakwater 5 mile race: approaching the 2.5 mile turnaround point

At the finish of the Totnes 10k (actually 6.5 miles). Pleased to improve my position from 2nd last year to 1st this, and my time by 2 minutes.

Running though Portmellon on the 11 mile RAT race

Receiving my unique and RAT themed trophy from Mimi Anderson - running guru extraordinaire and former aneroxia sufferer turned runner: what an inspiration!

A place I thought I'd never stand: on top of the podium at the Torbay Regatta 10k road race

Heading out on the Powderham Castle 10k race, where I finished 4th overall and 1st female in 39:15.

The Torbay Regatta race was not a scintillating performance, by any stretch of the imagination. It incorporates the Devon county championship race and has historically attracted a very high quality field. I have run it once before, in 2011, and, despite running under 40 minutes, my time was only good enough for 8th female on that occasion. This year, however, a glance around me on the start line did not reveal any major challengers or threats. Sometimes you get a visiting runner from outside the county that turns up unexpectedly and surprises you, but mostly now I know the other local ladies so well that you can usually have a good idea of your finish position before you even start running! I almost wished that I had no chance of placing as, with it being my first proper race on tarmac since the ill-fated Poole 10k, I was worried that my achillies would protest and so I would have liked an excuse to coast around and take it easy. No such luck! I found myself in the lead from the outset and from then on I felt under a certain obligation to hold onto it and not get overhauled. I did not enjoy this race in 2011. The course isn't the most inspiring and, as the other side of the road is still open to traffic and it's August bank holiday weekend, you end up running alongside coaches and touring buses the whole way and breathing in endless lungfuls of fumes. There's a large hill on it, that you tackle twice, and at the far end of the course, in Paignton, you have to run 2 laps of the Green before heading back. This year I was ticking along quite nicely on the stretch out to Paignton. I ran the first 3 miles in just over 38 minute pace and it didn't feel too uncomfortable... and then we hit the turn around point and it all went downhill. BANG! We turned into the most horrendous headwind. Why is it that when you have a tail wind, you never feel it, and yet the minute it's in your face it's like battling into a wind tunnel?! The turn point also coincided with the 5k marker and I think my body has gotten a little to used to running 5ks of late as it was clearly hankering after stopping then and there! A glance behind me revealed that I had a fairly decent gap on the next female, but I had now become isolated and was exposed into the wind. She was in a group of runners and so if she tucked it, it's feasible that she could claw her way back up to me. Despite feeling rubbish, I had to press on harder. Turning around to tackle the 2nd loop of Paignton Green was a real low point. I felt as though I had nothing left to give and should be on the last mile rather than only just after halfway, as my lungs were bursting. I did not enjoy any more of the race and it was just a case of trying to hang the hell on and get to the finish. A brief boost occurred at the end of the 2nd loop when I saw that I had extended my lead on the second lap, but my speed was dropping. In the end I crossed the line in 40:12. I came in as first lady but a glance back through the history of the race reveals that this is the slowest ever winning female time: not my proudest statistic! So although I won, I think it was a case of 'in it to win it': the faster ladies just weren't there on the day and so I struck lucky. When I placed 8th at this race 2 years ago, winning it, with it being the county championship race, would have been something beyond my wildest dreams, and so as I stood on top of the podium receiving my trophy, flowers and £60 of Argos vouchers (fab prize!), I savoured a moment that might not happen again... mainly because I bloody hate this race and don't think I can face doing it again!

Start of the Torbay Regatta 10k, in Torquay: not in my top ten favourite races!

In addition to these races, I have been enjoying putting in a weekly appearance at various parkruns. In addition to our local parkrun at Killerton, my boyfriend Matt and I have tried out a couple of others in the area. On our way to Cornwall for a holiday 2 weeks ago, we sampled the Plym Valley parkrun on route. This was a nice course which incorporates grassy meadows, canal tow paths, stoney tracks and a small section of tarmac lane. It's not the easiest of courses - I would say harder than Killerton - and so I was pleased to get under 20 minutes with 19:36. The week after, Matt, myself and Carly and Adam - our regular parkrunning buddies - trekked up to Montacute House in Yeovil for the inaugural parkrun there. This is a good old fashioned cross country style course, run entirely on grass around the pastureland of the house. It's not an easy course as the grass is long in places and the surface underneath is rutted, and so again I had to work hard to break 20 minutes but managed it with 19:37. As it was the first parkrun and I came in as first female, I have also bagged myself my first ever parkrun female course record! How long I can hold onto it for remains to be seen, but I've set a decent enough bench mark for others to now come and have a pot at!

4th overall, 1st lady and new course record at the inaugural Montacute parkrun.

Photo (c) Adrian Midgley.

Montacute parkrun: 19:37. Photo (c) Adrian Midgley.

And so, my plans for the autumn? Well, my main plan is to be sensible and try and stay injury free. With so many lovely races on at this time of the year, it would be easy to get carried away. I could easily race every weekend in the local area if I wanted but I am limiting myself to one race every fortnight and trying to stick to mainly off-road, trail races, which are the ones I really enjoy at this time of year. I would really love to do an autumn half marathon and there are so many coming up to choose from, but I think that is still a bit of an unrealistic target at the moment and one that could easily lead to re-injuring my achillies. My main aim for this season is to have a real go at the Westward League Cross-country. This requires committment as most of the races are quite far away - Redruth, Newquay and, my particular favourite, Westward Ho! - and it also requires me to be fit and sound: spikes aren't the most forgiving footwear for people with achillies and calf issues! The Westward League is very competitive and you really need to be in the peak of fitness to have any chance of doing well at it, so I will make a decision nearer the time on how my fitness and injuries are.

For the moment though, the biggest thing I am enjoying is being able to head out of the door on a decent length off-road run and not worry that I may end up having to walk back or phone to get picked up as my injuries are playing up. I have a slight niggle in my left foot at the moment that I tweeked 2 weeks ago on my first intervals session since May, on the Exmouth track, so I need to keep an eye on that and make sure it's not hanging around for too long, but other than that, I am able to run at a descent pace again, on any surface, which is something I will try not to take for granted again!!

Impatience, injury and irritability

It's been a few months since my last post and an awful lot has happened between then and now. Remember the title of that last post? It contained the words 'patience' and 'progress', as all the signs were that my resting was working wonders and things were progressing in the right direction. And they were! I had been able to reintroduce some light speedwork into my training and I was back racing again, injury and pain free. In May, I managed a couple of good performances at two 10k multi-terrain events; the Killerton 10k, where I placed 1st lady and 5th overall, and the Crediton Crunch 10k, again 1st lady and 17th overall. I even managed a new 5k PB in my first ever track race: the Devon County Championships 5000m, posting a time of 18:25 for a gold medal in the senior ladies category. So what went wrong? I got impatient... possibly even greedy: I
wanted more!

Crediton Crunch Multi-terrain race: this chap got to the puddle first and got the best (driest!) line, forcing me to go wide and get wet!

My first ever track race! The Devon County Championships 5000m

When I wasn't able to race, at first I missed it like hell, but after a while you get used to it and almost become fearful of it, as you don't want to go out and deliver a below-par performance. In many ways, I miss those early days of being new to the sport, new to the area, and being an unattached athlete. Nobody knew me or expected anything of me; I was incognito! I could either do well and sneak in under the radar, or do badly and nobody would notice. I'm not saying that I am in anyway 'one to watch', far from it! But on the local running scene, when you compete a lot, people do get to know you and know what you are capable of, and there is this indirect pressure to perform. It works both ways: I do it with other athletes. You see the same names on the start list and the same faces on the start line and you subconsciously start to calculate a predicted finish place for yourself based on past experiences of competing against these people. You don't query whether or not they are in the same shape as last time, whether they've been ill or injured: you expect them to run as well as they did last time you raced them. With me, I always tend to lack confidence and underestimate myself and this leads me to predict a finish position much lower than where I usually end up. That's why I remained as an unattached runner for almost a year: because it took me that long to convince myself that I was good enough to join a club and that I wouldn't be a total embarrassment to myself or to them! When I signed up for my first marathon, my main goal was not to come last! I estimated a finish time of around about 5 1/2 hours. I in fact ran over 2 hours quicker than that and came 2nd, but still I didn't think I was in anyway a decent runner.

Anyway, where all this wittering and waffling is leading is to say that, despite all of the progress I have made since taking up the sport in 2010, part of me still feels like an erroneous guest in the company of far superior athletes and that I really don't deserve to be seen as 'stiff competition' and a 'pre-race favourite'. I find this attention rather unnerving as it can only go one of two ways: either you do manage to deliver (no big deal, they expected it of you anyway), or you fail (probably a bigger deal to me than anyone else, as failure is not something I entertain in my life). Just tonight, in an online group for the Roseland August Trail Race that takes place on August 17th, in commenting on a photo that had been posted of the race trophies captioned 'Who's favourite to win one of these?', a runner from Cornwall had typed in my name! I was a little bit shocked to read it. Don't get me wrong, I'm also flattered - thank you - but why me? Above all the other runners? I know what a nightmare year I've had on the injury front. People think you are 'sand bagging' when you say, 'Oh, no, I'm struggling with injury, so I won't do that well this year'; but I'm not! When I say that, it's in genuine belief that I won't!

Realistically, I probably shouldn't even be doing the RAT this year. I've had to drop down from the 20 mile to the 11 again - frustrating in itself - but even that is going to be a tall order. Just a glance at my training diary tells me that I am grossly under-prepared. The last time I ran the distance I will need to run next Saturday was on 10th February, at the Exeter Half Marathon. Since then, my longest run has been 8.5 miles, and I've only been over 7 miles on three occasions. Since May, my longest run has been 6.5 miles. My highest mileage week since February has not surpassed 20 miles. So I am really not just 'bluffing' or being falsely modest when I say that I am by no means a firm favourite for the win this year! But the one thing I can say is that I wouldn't be toeing the startline unless I intended to give it a damn good try! I am one of the most determined people you could ever meet and what I lack in physical strength I more than make up for in tenacity and sheer bloody-mindedness. I also seem to have a remarkable ability to block out and run through pain... which is not always a good thing! So I may well end up doing better than I expect: it will either be that or I will end up wrecking myself beyond belief and being air-lifted off the cliff path! I don't do things by half!

So anyway, back to May. It was all going well. Too well. So well that my 18:25 PB at the 5000m and an 18:50 clocking at the Killerton parkrun meant that I thought I was in good enough shape to go for a sub 38 minute 10k PB. This is a goal I have been chasing for a long time. It is my only PB at the major distances that has stood since 2011. All the others got overhauled last year, but this one still eludes me. I am beginning to feel that I may never get it as circumstances always seem to conspire against me. I either time my fitness right but pick the wrong course, or find the right course but whilst I am undergoing a post-holiday fitness slump! I have come close to a sub 38 on 3 occasions (38:04, 38:10, 38:06), but still not got there. Very keen to have another crack, I researched 'flat', 'fast' courses in May and June and came up with the Poole 10k on June 2nd.

Devon County Track Championships, 5000m: 18:25 for 2nd female overall and 1st senior female.

Since May, I have had the benefit of being officially coached by the very talented local athlete and all-round-good-guy, Gordon Seaward. Gordon has been a huge support to me for a while, having got to know him through his involvment with parkrun as the chief timekeeper, so I was thrilled when our informal little 'chats' and 'advice sessions' became something more permanent and official. On Sunday 2nd June, Gordon drove me up to Poole and the plan was for us to run around together. Gordon is a vet 60 athlete but one of the best in the country: this year alone, at 61, he has run a sub 39 minute 10k and an 18:10 5k; he's no slouch!

There was some stiff competition at Poole, with a Kenyan lady heading the field and the amazingly talented vet 40 athlete, Emma Stepto from Cornwall, also on the startline, along with Helen Dyke and a string of other sub 40 minute ladies. Unfortunately, the race had a 2pm start - never the best for me, I prefer to get on with it in the morning! - and it was a particularly hot day. By 2pm, the sun was beating down and I knew it would be a tough ask to get a sub 38. But Gordon hadn't driven me up there for nothing: I had to go for it. I went through the first mile in 5:45m/m and it all went down hill from there. The course was 2 laps of a very large lake near Poole Harbour and there was a particularly stiff headwind on the exposed promenade section between the lake and the sea. This really slowed my pace down and, when I finally turned out of it, I was confronted with a long, slow, uphill drag up to the start / finish / halfway point, which further impacted on my speed. So, as I went through 5k, I was already adrift of my target pace. Things deteriorated rapidly from here. Whilst I had the speed over 5k to do the time, I didn't have the endurance for the 10k to match it. Doing Parkrun every week had certainly helped me to get my fitness back, but at only 5k, it did not help my speed-endurance much!

At this point I started to lose heart. I was hot, uncomfortable, struggling to breathe, and I was only half way! Poor old Gordon copped for an absolute earful of negativity! "Urgh, I hate this", "We're off-pace; we can't make it", "Arrcgh, only 6k, you've got to be joking. Geeeees!". He was struggling too but yet he still found the energy to encourage me and lift me up. "You're doing fine". "Yes we can". "Stop being defeatist". "Focus on Helen, reel her in". This last command was about the only one I managed to fulfill; I did manage to overtake Helen Dyke with about 1 mile to go, but I think that was rather because she was having an uncharacteristic off-day than due to any scintillating, 11th-hour bursts of speed on my part!

In the end I managed to 'hang the hell on' and finished in a time of 38:34: not the sub 38 I wanted, by a long way, but given how utterly crap I felt from about 2k in, I'm highly amazed that it was even under 39! Also, I don't personally think it's the fastest of courses: the stretch along the sea is very exposed and you run into the direction of the prevailing wind; there's also a nasty, long uphill drag on each lap that further saps your energy. Positives were that it was superbly well organised and, even though I only finished 4th, I won £50! However, that £50 would soon be spent on yet more physio and treatment as the race aggravated my achillies yet again. I didn't really feel it in the race but I sure as hell felt it the next morning when I took that tentative first step out of bed to find that I couldn't even walk on it. This time it scared me more than ever as I hadn't even felt it coming. It went from being totally fine and pain free to totally wrecked and agonising without me feeling a twinge.

The finish of Poole 10k: not a pretty sight! But then, I probably looked like this most of the way round!

The following week I had the Yeovilton 5k penciled in. I was really hoping for a PB here as I knew that I was capable of bettering my 18:25 with the right conditions. I rested my achillies for a whole week and approached the race with the thinking that if it is wrecked, it's wrecked already and it's going to need loads of time off regardless, so I might as well hammer it tonight and get a PB out of it. These thoughts were echoed by Gordon, who said to me on the startline, 'Enjoy it; this will probably be your last one for a while'! And he was right. Even doing strides in the warm up I could feel it and it got progressively worse throughout the race, but I was dammed if I was trashing it for nothing. This fueled my fire even more and I pushed on harder and managed to overhaul the young female runner who had beaten me in the first round and I crossed the line as first female in a new PB time of 18:15.... but at a price: I couldn't even walk after.

We're now 2 months on and I am finally back running again, but steadily. No speed work yet and although I have done a couple of races in the past 2 weeks, I have just tempo ran rather than flat-out raced them. The positive thing is that my referral for an ultra-sound scan on my achillies came through at the R. D. and E., which I had last Thursday. The scan revealed that I do have tendonopothy, but not a severe case. It's not vascular and there's no serious scaring of the tendon. I'm going to have a course of electro-shockwave therapy, which the doctor reckons will sort the problem. After struggling with it for so long, I daren't allow myself to believe that the cure is as simple as that, but I'd like to hope that it will do something to alleviate the problem. When I think what times I have managed to achieve this year, particularly over the 5k distance, on the back of virtually no proper training, I am confident that if I could be injury free for long enough to put a solid block of training together, I could easily achieve that elusive sub 38 10k at some point. Fingers crossed, as I've had enough injury troubles in 2013 to last me a life time!

Patience, Parkruns and progress!

It's now 10 weeks since my injury and I am thrilled to report that over the past couple of weeks I have made major progress in my rehab. They do say that for a calf tear you are looking at 6 weeks rest and recovery, and certainly from 6 weeks on I was able to start running properly again. Until then I just stuck to cross-training and swimming in the week and only ran 5k, each Saturday, at my local Parkrun. Finally, the patience - which, I might add, is not generally a word that I regularly entertain in my day-to-day vocabulary - is finally paying off!

I decided to use Parkrun each week as a means of assessing the progress of the injury and, as I started to notice improvements and was able to up the pace a little, of testing my fitness. Probably the biggest thing I have learnt from this injury and enforced lay-off period is not to panic about losing fitness. I used to think that  if I went one week without running to a level that aerobically taxed myself, I would then notice a massive drop in fitness the following week. This thinking led me to attempt a track session the Wednesday after injuring my achillies in the Exeter Half on the Sunday, fearing that if I didn't, my fitness would plunge to such a level that I wouldn't be as competitive and would embarrass myself when running for Devon at the Plymouth Hoe 10 mile the following Sunday. Looking back on this week now I can say with certainty that I was a bloody idiot. My fitness would not have been affected one iota from missing that one track session (a session I ran at only half pace and had to abandon after 3 measly reps due to the pain in my achillies anyway). What my body needed was a week of rest to allow the injury to heal, then maybe - and it's a very big maybe - I would not have injured myself to the extent I did in the Plymouth race. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, huh? So if I can take anything positive from these past 10 difficult and mentally taxing weeks, it's that I don't need to panic as fitness does not disappear over night and it's far more beneficial to respond to my aches and pains and sack off a session if I feel any niggles. It's been a steep learning curve, but I think I have just about learned that lesson now.... the hard way!

Killerton Parkrun moved to a new temporary course in the nearby Ashclyst Forest in mid-February, due to deteriorating ground conditions at Killerton due to the incessant rainfall. The new course at Ashclyst was much tougher, it being a 3 lap course with over 300ft of climb over the 5k distance. However, the surface underfoot, on gravelly forest tracks, was very forgiving and my achillies seemed to like it. Testing myself over it each week never aggravated it and it allowed me to have at least one run to look forward to each weekend. Over the 6 weeks that I ran the route there, I gradually improved my times from 23:23 on my first conservative, jogged attempt, to 21:28 five weeks later. After Lucy's time of 21:18, this was the next fastest female time on this much slower, hillier course.

The temporary course at Ashclyst was kind on my injury-riddled legs!

The 101st Parkrun had a 101 Dalmatian's theme. I won the best costume award. The guy on the right (in the left hand photo) didn't put any effort in at all.... ;-)

On 10th April I felt ready to tackle my first proper race. Keeping things short and sweet for a first outing, myself, and 3 other Harriers, drove up to Yeovilton for the first round of the Summer 5k series. Held over a totally pancake flat course, this route offers the potential for fast times. My aim for this first round, though, was not to set any PBs but to just see how my leg would fair on a race on tarmac and to see where I am at in terms of speed and fitness. The result was a massive confidence boost. I thought somewhere in the region of 19:30 - 20 mins would have been a reasonable ask and so I headed out conservatively, not allowing myself to dip below 6m/m. To be honest, I didn't really have the leg speed to go much faster than this anyway, not having done any speed-work since early February. Yeovilton always attracts a good quality field and so, on this occasion, I was happy to let a few female runners head off in front of me and to run my own race. Surprisingly, the sensible approach paid off as it was an absolutely awful night, with a fiercely strong headwind on the home stretch, and by containing myself over the first mile, I found that I was able to keep consistent pacing throughout, whereas those who went out hard started to fade into the headwind at the end. I managed to overhaul 3 other ladies over the course of the race and finished in 2nd place, just 6 seconds behind the first lady in a time of 18:52. Sub-19 was not on the radar at all pre-race, so I was thrilled. Most importantly, I ran the whole thing without pain and didn't suffer any major discomfort afterwards or the next day.

Yeovilton had shown me how much I had missed racing and all the emotions and physical effects that go with it: the pre-race jitters, the start-line excitement, pushing my lungs and legs beyond their comfort zone, the final adrenaline-fueled surge for the finish line (a surge that I was unable to manage at Plymouth due to the sheer agony I was in) and the euphoria you feel upon crossing the line, knowing that you've given your best and it's now over and you can go back to the race HQ and swill tea and scoff cake! All of this is a part of the racing experience and it's the reason I am motivated to force myself out of the door to train when I've just got in from work, I'm tired, it's pouring with rain, it's freezing, and it would be so easy to just plonk my arse down on the couch with a cuppa and my latest Barbara Nadel novel. I know that people take up running and join clubs for a whole variety of personal reasons - to lose weight, to get fit, for the social aspect - but I have to confess that personally, I don't really get how people are able to push themselves in training and do painful speed work sessions and tempo runs with no end-goal on the horizon. I just don't see the point! For me, training is all about the end product: the race. And racing isn't just about the winning and your position in relation to others; it's about testing your own boundaries and beating your own times. I cannot motivate myself to push myself beyond the pain barrier in training without the competitive element there as motivation.

With my taste-buds tantalized at Yeovilton, I was hungry for more, and so on 14th April I took part in the Honiton Hippo race. This is a multi-terrain race in every sense of the word, over a distance of 7.5 miles. It includes 3 river crossings - which, this year, due to the heavy rainfall - were the highest they have ever been in the history of the race. The last river crossing was even up to chest height on the tallest male competitors, so they had to remove it from the junior race and reroute them around it. Luckily we still got to tackle it, but the rope that they had strung across the river was a crucial piece of equipment: some competitors opted just to swim across! Part of the race goes around the 'Landrover Experience' complex and there were two very deep, muddy sumps to wade through. One had the added fun of having a cargo net over it, forcing you to crawl through on your hands and knees: a nice twist by the organisers! I opted to start extremely cautiously as I did not know how my achillies and calf would hold up over this distance as it was farther than I had run since before my injury. I let a fellow female competitor go off in front of me down the steep downhill start but found that as soon as we hit the uphill, even at a conservative pace, I was able to claw her in. At about halfway, I was experiencing no discomfort in my leg so I was able to push the pace a bit more and enjoy that exhilarating feeling of running swiftly through the beautiful countryside of East Devon. By the end of the race I had extended my lead to 5 minutes and still felt strong. I was enjoying the terrain and scenery and, unlike in many races where you push yourself hard from the gun, I was not just hanging on in sheer desperation for the finish line to appear, which was the biggest boost ever and meant more to me than actually winning the race.

In one of the wooded sections of the Honiton Hippo 7.5m multi-terrain race

The delightful crawl through a muddy sump under a cargo net in 'Landrover Experience'!

A successful race, followed by that pleasant after-feeling of stiff, weary, tired limbs that tell you that they have worked hard and need a rest but are not screaming at you in injury-induced agony: a feeling I have missed so much these past few weeks. However, I was careful not to get too addicted to the feeling and get sucked back into a must-race-every-week cycle again. So no racing now until 12th May, giving me a whole month to try and get back into some proper training.

Last weekend I went up to London for the marathon. Of course, when I booked the trip it was with the intention of running in the marathon, having earned a championship start from my Taunton time from last year. When I sustained my injury, I still thought I would be running London - hell, I thought I'd be back running again after a couple of days rest. Denial is a wonderful thing, but it only gets you so far. There comes a point when you realise that these future dates you have penciled in your diary are rapidly making the leap of time to become the present... and you are still pissing-well injured. The Duchy 20, the Inter-counties XC in Birmingham, Yeovil Half-Marathon, Yeovil Easter Bunny 10k... all of them, woooooosh, sticking a big two fingers up at you as they swoop on by. Then you reach the acceptance phase and you realise that there's nothing you can do; you aren't physically capable of even jogging 13 miles on tarmac at the moment, let alone racing it, so you might as well channel your energies into getting the injury better rather than in wallowing in self-pity and being bitter about why you got injured in the first place. In the end, I had a truly fabulous weekend in London supporting all my fellow Harriers and other running buddies. It was a glorious day for spectating and, without the stress of competing, I was able to enjoy the weekend, the Expo, the event, and enjoy it over a few guilt-free glasses of wine! I even managed to sample a London Parkrun - Mile End - and have a solid run to finish first lady in 18:55 and set the second fastest female time on the course. The bonus was that Vicky, one of my best mates from my undergrad days, with whom I shared a flat in Bangor and who now lives in Ealing, was able to join myself, Adam and Carly there, so we had a lovely morning relaxing in the sun after our run. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole weekend and I experienced a very similar high sharing in the successes of all my club mates and supporting them on their runs to what I would have experienced were I able to have run it. Plus I've now sussed out the course and the routine for when I am able to take part, so it was a positive experience all round.

Adam, Carly, Vicky and me, enjoying the sun in Mile End Park after the Parkrun.

Watching the elite men, including Mo Farah, go through 7 miles in sunny London

This week I managed a successful track session on our beloved pot-hole riddled, cinder track in Exmouth. Nothing to set the world on fire, just a sensibly paced session of 5 x 800m reps. I finished the session pain free and could have managed a 6th, but my plan was for 5 this week and so I stuck to it. Get me and my new-found sensible streak! My caution was rewarded with fresh legs for this morning's Killerton Parkrun - now back on its original course. With a dry, firm surface and my friend Lucy to chase around the course, I even managed to set an unexpected new Killerton PB, carving 16 seconds off my previous best to clock 19:20.

So right now, things are looking much brighter. Nevertheless, I am now only too aware of how this injury can flare up at any time and so I know that I need still to exercise caution and not get too carried away. Also, my left ankle is still swollen around the achillies come the end of each day, whether I've run on it or not, so it's by no means right. My plan this week is for a good solid week of training as I am away all next week in France on a school trip and won't be able to run at all. A kick back week will be no bad thing and now I can rest easy in the confidence of knowing that I will not suddenly revert back to the level of fitness I had in 2010, prior to taking up the sport, just from having one week off. No need to panic! My summer season will not be over just from missing one week, much the same as the sky will not fall in if I am not personally there to hold it up. Don't worry, be happy :-)

Human pin cushion!

I figured it was about time I give an update on my injury progress. It was 4 weeks to the day yesterday that I hobbled across the finish line of thew Plymouth Hoe race and since then I have run a grand total of 12 miles; 3 miles each week at Parkrun, to assess the progress of the injury, with no running and just cross-training / biking / swimming in between. This is the least amount I have run since taking up the sport in May 2010 and not being able to train has tested me on many levels: physically, financially and definitely psychologically. I'll deal with them each here in the hopes that if anyone else is going through the same issue - long term injury, particularly involving the achillies / calf - some of what I say may be of help, if only to say, 'what a bloody fool, no wonder she's injured', and to steer you to do exactly the opposite!

Financial
Being injured is a costly process! Here is the tally of incurred expenses thus far:
Money lost in entry fees for races entered that I won't be able to compete in:
£8 (Duchy 20 - fortunately a cheap one!)
£8 (Easter Bunny 10k)
£28 London Marathon
Forunately I had a free entry for the Yeovil Half and my Siblyback entry was kindly transferred by the organisers - Dig Deep Events - to the June event... by which time I had better damn well be recovered!

Money lost in hotels / travel costs:
£190 (2 night hotel stay in London, non-refundable)
£120 (train fares for London - as above)

Money spent on physio:
£65 thus far as rising. (The only saving grace is that the acupuncture (outlined below) was free on the NHS!)

Money spent in desperation on gimmick devises in the vain hope that they may help:
Foam roller: £15
Balance board: £8
Strasburg sock to sleep in and stretch tendon: £39
Tiger Balm and Ibuprofen gel: £6
Elastic exercise band: £5
Kinesiology (K.T.) tape (2 rolls): £16

Total injury cost thus far: £508 .... and mounting. I NEED to get this sorted soon as my wallet - not to mention my waistline and my wits - are weeping!


Physical 

The first thing I did was to register with a specialist sports doctor in Exmouth, whom I have now seen twice. He assessed my achillies, foot alignment, injury history etc. and diagnosed me with equinus foot (essentially, horse foot!). As some of you may know, I used to be a keen horse rider and had a horse for a a few years when I lived in North Wales. I chose to sideline horse riding for a while as my injury record in that sport was even worse than it is in running and so I deemed the threat of a bad fall to be too great. Now I find myself diagnosed with a horse-related running injury: the irony is just too glaring! Basically, equinus foot is where the foot rotates inwards, usually as a result of poor ankle flexibility - which he reckons I have in the left ankle - and causes the arch to cave in and the foot to over-pronate. Because he deemed this a biomechanical problem of the ankle, I am still classed as a neutral runner and so stability shoes and / or orthotics would not make any difference. So, what did he advise? In the long term, making my ankle more flexible and stronger with a series of calf stretches and exercises. The issue: my calf muscle was so damaged and painful from the race that I couldn't even put my heel down at first, as the stretch was too painful, so actually doing a calf stretch was sheer agony and made my calf feel as if it was about to rip from end to end like a zipper unfastening. The interim solution: acupuncture.

Have you ever had acupuncture before? I hadn't, and it's the most bizarre experience. It's one of those treatments that I would broadly categorise as 'alternative therapy' and which belongs in the same department as arnica, epsom salts, reiki, meditation and yoga! I am not an out and out skeptic when it comes to these things, but let's just say that I approach them cautiously minded, hoping - but by no means expecting - to be proven wrong! The doctor inserted about 12 needles into my left calf, ankle and big toe, and then attached crocodile clips to some of the needles and then plugged the clips into an electric meter. He then handed me the meter and the dials and informed me that I was in charge of my own voltage! I slowly started to increase the volts by turning up the dials, but felt nothing. Being me, I started to get suspicious at about this time that if I felt nothing then it meant it was having no effect, and so I cranked the voltage up to maximum. To say I nearly went shooting off the bed, whilst simultaneously screaming and wetting myself would not be too much of an exaggeration. The electricity kicked in alright and with an almighty shock that shot down my lower leg and exited via my big toe, leaving it throbbing and red. That'll teach me to be so bloody overzealous in future! I then lay there, twitching uncontrollably, whilst periodically inspecting my spines and feeling like a torture victim in a laboratory. After 20 long minutes, the doctor announced that I was "done" (much in the same way as one would announce the successful cooking of one's Christmas turkey) and he unplugged and de-spined me, leaving me sprouting blood from my twelve newly acquired minutiae orifices. I was then informed that this was the first of three treatments and so I could look forward to being spiked and shocked again twice more in the not too distant future. Oh joy.

Me and my electronically charged needles

Did it help? No. It's meant to be a remedy for pain relief, but I did not feel any different after the treatment to before. Well, no, I had a throbbing big toe, which wasn't there before, so it did have some effect! He gave me a rehabiliation sheet which outlined several useful exercises, including that old chestnut that keeps coming up time and time again: eccentric heel drops / calf raises. There are different schools of thought on this. Some say you should do the 'lowering' part only and raise yourself up on your good leg, others say to do raises only, whilst others say to do both. All I know is, I have tried the exercises on several previous occasions and they have in fact caused other problems in my calves and the backs of my knee and not had a positive effect on my achillies either.

I have also seen a physio at the marine camp who came highly recommended by Gordan Seward. Gordan has been a huge help throughout this process. He is the time keeper at the weekly Killerton parkrun, but he is a long time athlete - and a bloody good one at that - and what he doesn't know about the sport and about injuries is probably not worth knowing. He's a lovely guy who gives freely of his time to help and advise young and enthusiastic (often over-enthusiastic!) runners, and he's somewhat taken me under his wing of late to make sure that I get this injury sorted once and for all so I don't end up being blighted by it for my entire running career.

So last week I went with Gordan to see Rich, the physio at Lympstone Commando. He did a series of tests on me and determined that I do not have one leg shorter than the other (as one physio had previously told me I did), and I do not have a collapsed left foot arch (as the sports doctor told me I did) and that, biomechanically, I am an almost perfect specimen! That's great on the one hand, but on the other, it means that there's no pin-point reason to explain why I keep getting problems in my left achillies. The one thing he did notice is that my right calf is visibly larger than my left: a pretty good indication that it's more developed and stronger and so likely to give me less problems. This is something I have always been aware of, even from before I took up running. My parents thought I was imagining it and used to call me ridiculous on the few occasions that I got the tape measure out in attempt to prove it to them, but I am right leg dominant, so it makes sense that it would be more developed. I used to hate my larger right calf and wish I could lop it off; now I would give anything to have another to match it!!

Rich and Gordan both believe that my achillies issue is simply a result of doing too much, too fast. Many athletes would build up over a period of 10 years before tackling their first marathon, I did mine after 3 months! I have only been running for 2 and a half years and in that time I have competed in over 80 races, 9 of which have been marathons (and 2 of those 32.4 mile ultras). Come to think of it, I probably have overcooked things slightly. The problem with me is that my personality has always been given to excess and so I don't just dabble and flirt with things, I dive in, head first, without ever pausing to check the depth beforehand. Sometimes I don't have the depth to fall back on, and I think that I am now being reminded of that. I am finally starting to learn that you feel pain for a reason and ignoring pain - whilst at times seeming heroic - is in fact just stupid, as it will only get worse to the point that it forcefully insists that you give in to it. I have ridden my luck on my dodgy achillies for far too long and my sheer bloody-mindedness has made this injury far far worse than it need have been.

Psychological

Which leads me nicely onto my next topic: the psychological impact of being injured. Now, I have always said right from the start that if I ever got seriously injured to the point that I couldn't run, that I would worry for my sanity, and I have proven myself to be right on that point! Everybody needs a goal in life, a reason to strive, something to fight for, a motivator to get up in the morning. For some it's their family, for others, their career, and for others, it's sport. I used to be massively career minded. When I was at Bangor, studying for my PhD, I had no other focus but that and so I put all my energies and efforts into it. I took up running at the very moment that I had started to lose focus and interest in my research, and so there was almost an imperceptible shift that took place, whereby I just transferred all my ambitions and attentions from my PhD to my running. Believe me, when you go at things with the fervor and ferocity that I tend to, there is only room for one focus in your life! The problem of course comes once this focus is taken away, as it has been for me for the past four weeks.

Until the Plymouth Hoe calamity, I was fixed on my target of a sub 2h55 time at the London Marathon in much the same tunnel-visioned way as an eagle fixes on its prey. It occupied many of my waking thoughts - and some of my sleeping ones too - with the planning of my training, key build up races, race strategy, tapering and the organising of the trip itself. London is of course now definitely ruled out, along with all my key build up races along the way that I had hoped to set new PBs in. Now, when I get in from work, I am faced with more tedious cross-training - which I simply do not enjoy. I like to run, outside, to feel the wind in my hair and to hear the sounds of nature. I do not like sitting on a bike in the gym, sweating away to some God-awful music being blared out far too loudly, whilst staring at the same blank wall for an hour. Also, all this cycling has been giving me monster thigh muscles; it's amazing how quickly your physique adapts itself to a new sport within a matter of weeks. The thunder-thigh, Chris Hoy look is really not something I go in for, and so I've been having a series of internal dilemmas as I try to weigh up the cardiovascular benefits of sticking with the cycling against the drawbacks of the negative impact its having on my physique and self-image. It's a toughie!

I have also been having a tussle in my head about the progress of my injury versus the degeneration of my fitness at Parkrun each week. With each outing the pain in my calf muscle - which I now know to have been caused by a partial tear of the gastrocnemius muscle as a result of the stresses transferred to it in the race from my achillies - subsides, leaving me feeling positive, but as it subsides I have been able to push the pace a bit more, which has highlighted to me my considerable drop in fitness. I keep telling myself not to panic, fitness can be regained provided you have the injury under control, but only half of me ever listens to this logic!

Ultimately it's perhaps not a bad thing that this has happened. Yes, the timing of it might have been dire, but then, is there ever a good time to be injured? I always have plans, so whenever it happened it would have been inconvenient. But it has forced me to address this on-going issue that I had previously chosen to ignore and it's made me realise that I need to listen to my body and be a bit more attentive to its warning signs in future. Yes, it's frustrating that I have it when I know of runners who compete far more than I do and who just coast by without a single niggle, but their bodies are clearly made of sterner stuff than mine. If only my physical strength was an equal match for my mental tenacity: then I really would be a force to be reckoned with!!

The only running I have been doing these past 4 weeks is at my 5k weekly outing at Parkrun, where I assess the progress of my injury. This was the Harrogate parkrun, one cold morning in late February.