... or a year of frustrations?

Stop. Pause. Rewind. Forget everything I said in my last post as since then everything has changed... and NOT for the better!! To fill you in, we need to rewind to Sunday 10th February 2013, where the frusurations begin.

The Half-marathon PB that wasn't....

I had had a superb 3 weeks of training between the First Chance 10k, on 20th January, and the Exeter Half, on 10th February. I had been running totally injury free and pain free in my achillies for the first time in months and months. I had been nailing some good times at track training sessions, including a 1 mile time trial which was done in 5:21 and some 800 reps done in 2:45s. The Thursday before the Exeter Half I went out on a 10 miler and just felt great - like I was floating along, so I headed to Exeter on the Sunday confident that I could not only set a new PB but that I could knock a good minute or more off it. So what happened? Cue the exasperating British weather....

An overnight downpour the night before flooded part of the course and so on the morning of the race the organisers, Iron Bridge Runner, had to make a last-minute adjustment to the route to allow the race to go ahead, and to go ahead safely. Instead of completing 3 loops of the riverside course they planned to now send us out and back down the same path. Pre-race estimations were that this would bring the distance in short, at about 12 miles. These (gu)estimations proved to be just a tiny bit out, however! To every runner's surprise, the revised course actually came in longer than expected, and in fact longer than the half-marathon distance, with all our Garmins showing around 13:25 miles.

Completing lap 1 (about 4 miles) of the 3 lap Exeter (just a bit more than) Half Marathon

I had a great race and just felt amazing. I ran the whole thing stride for stride with Luke Reed from Axe Valley Runners. At last year's race we had also found that we were about the same pace and he eventually got the better of me in the sprint finish, him finishing in 1:24:26 and me in 1:24:29. This year we decided that as we were going for a similar time, we would work together. And it worked really well, We took it in turns to set the pace and we gave each other encouragement all along the way. As you keep turning around and heading back down the same path, it was easy to gauge where you were in terms of overall positions in the race and the gaps between the runners in front of and behind you. After an initial jostling of positions over the first 3 miles, from then on the positions were set and Luke and I were occupying a comfortable 8th and 9th place overall. In the ladies race I had nothing to fear as the gap between myself and the next female was about 1/2 a mile on lap 1, a mile on lap 2 and had extended to a 2 mile lead by lap 3. I was basically just running for a time.... but a time that wouldn't count as the course was no longer of a true distance.

Working with Luke Reed of Axe Valley and taking turns at leading (and drafting!)

As I went through 13.1 miles, my Garmin read 1:22:58. Had this been a true distance, I would have pushed on at the appropriate time for the finish and would probably have posted a time of around 1:22:45, which was the time I was hoping for and felt capable of. Luke and I were together to the bitter end, when, once again, history repeated itself and he ditched me in a stronger sprint finish, but I reduced the gap from 3 seconds last year to 1 second this! I crossed the actual finish line, at 13:25 miles, in a time of 1:23:43: still a PB, by almost a minute, and over 13 minutes clear of the second lady (think all the fast women were at the Bovey Tracey cross-country!) but it's a PB that isn't official and isn't accurate. If only the finish line could have been moved 150m nearer, it would have been ok! Frustration number 1!

My haul from the Exeter Half. All lovely, but an official shiny new PB would have been the icing on the cake!

Frustration number 2 came the next day when I woke up and had a lot of pain and stiffness in my achillies. I wasn't bothered by this in the race and yes, my left calf did start to get tighter in the last 3 or so miles, but that was to be expected, and I have had worse - much worse - in other races and not had any problems the following morning. I was forced to rest the leg on Monday and Tuesday, aware that I had even bigger fish to fry the coming weekend when I would be making my debut in the Devon County vest at the Plymouth Hoe 10 mile race. On Wednesday I still had some pain and stiffness in the leg and I made what would proove to be a stupid decision to go to track anyway. 1/2 a rep into my 4 x 1km reps and my achillies was screaming. I took them very steady but was forced to stop at 3. The next morning I paid for it and was limping into work.
I then didn't run again until Saturday when I decided to have a steady jog around the new Killerton Parkrun course in Ashclyst Forest: if my achillies held up ok, I would run on Sunday; if it didn't, I would contact the team manager and tell him to give my place to the reserve.

On Saturday it started off stiff - nothing unusual here, this is how it was for the entire summer last year and yet it held up ok week after week and got me through a hectic season - but it did work in as I went round the course at a steady 7:30m/m, just enjoying the new route and chatting with Lucy and pulling daft poses at the cameras! No ill-effects afterwards meant that I was confident that it would do the same the next day in Plymouth and work in as I went round. Also, another odd quirk regarding my achillies - and this is largely why I am at a loss as to what actually triggers the pain in it - is that sometimes it responds well to a good blast in a race and hammering it for a few miles can totally sort it out! This happened at First Chance 10K in 2011 when I had just come back from 3 weeks in the Maldives where I had been unable to do much running at all as the sand totally messed it up. I started that race practically hobbling, but it worked itself in, and once the DOMS had cleared a few days later, I had no pain at all and was able to throw myself into my marathon training programme! I was kinda hoping that the same thing would happen in Plymouth.... it didn't.

Injury woe and Plymouth Hoe...

On the warm-up track at Brickfields, I could feel stiffness in it, but again, past experience has showed that this often works itself out in the race. I did double the warm up I usually do, including plenty of drills and strides, to make sure it wouldn't get too much of a shock when I put the hammer down at the start of the race. Wearing the blue and white of Devon also added to the pressure: I had to justify my selection and do the vest justice after all! So naturally, I went off hard, too hard (first mile in 5:41). This race is so competitive as the Devon v Cornwall Peninsula Challenge ensures that all the top runners from both those counties are there, and then you get those who - like myself last year - were not selected for the county teams and so turn up with extra fire in their bellies as they have something to prove to the selectors.

The Peninsula Challenge Devon ladies team 2013. 

L-R: Lucy Commander (SWRR), Alison McEwing (Erme Valley), Ami Yetton (Plymouth Harriers), and me!

My achillies hurt all the way round, it just went from being an annoying ache in miles 1-2, to a very uncomfortable hindrance in miles 3-5, to a very painful drawback in miles 5-7, to, finally, an agonizing disability that I could barely run on from mile 7 until I finally speed-hobbled across the finish line. I have never wanted to pull out of a race so badly either. Guernsey Marathon the second time, in 2012, was painful, and there was an agonizing moment during that race, at about mile 15, where every fiber of my body screamed at me to slow to a walk. But here, I didn't know how much damage I was causing by forcing my body to run on an ever-deteriorating left leg. The internal debate as to whether or not to carry on started at about mile 6. At mile 7 it intensified as a) the pain got drastically worse and b) I passed a very accomplished runner from Torbay AC who had withdrawn and was walking back to the finish. Good God did I want to step off onto the pavement and join him! But I kept telling myself - you have never DNFed. If you go down that route it's a slippery slope. How long before you start DNFing regularly because things aren't quite going your way? Also, I tend to like to think of myself as being a little bit uber-hardcore and therefore above succumbing to the weaknesses that other runners give in to. (I should perhaps mention here as an aside that this line of thinking has got me into a lot of trouble in other areas of my life in the the past too...) And, moreover, I just don't agree with quitting and my respect for my fellow competitors seriously diminishes if they DNF for anything short of an actual, physical loss of consciousness! So I dug the hell in and carried the hell on!

When I finally did reach that Mecca that was the finish line, I burst into tears, both at the level of pain I was in and also at the relief that it was finally over and I could stop forcing my screaming left leg to carry me on any further. My time? 64:05. Amazingly, a PB, by just 13 seconds, but not so amazing really, just frustrating, as I had run this shorter distance at a slower average pace than my half-marathon the week before, and I was in much better fitness than this time indicated. I was hoping for something in the region of 62 minutes, so another 64 clocking represented frustration number 3! What was amazing though is that I had finished as the third counter in the Devon ladies team (4 run, with the first 3 to count), as one of my team mates had also had a bad day at the office. I had also managed to beat 3 out of the 4 Cornish ladies, and so, with my friend and training partner Lucy clocking a superb PB of 1:00:43 in 2nd place to lead our team home, Devon ladies won the Peninsula Challenge for only the 2nd time in the history of it running (the first time being back in 2006 in the first year of the trophy). So that at least made the pain a little bit worthwhile.

Hoe-rendous, hoe-riffic, hoe-pless... and other such puns!

2 laps of the Brickfields track to go and I'm in absolute agony, desperate to finish!

And so we come forward to now, 10 days after the race. I spent the first few days limping, unable to even walk properly. I have only run once since, 3 miles, and that didn't go too well so have not attempted it again. I am boring myself stupid trying to keep some level of fitness up by swimming and cycling myself into sweaty oblivion in spinning classes. I am seeing a specialist sports injury doctor on Friday in the hope of some answers, and in the hope that I can persuade him to refer me for an MRI scan so I at least have an idea of what I am up against here! I have had to pull out of the Duchy 20 mile this coming Sunday and also out of what was to be my debut appearance for Devon at cross-country at the inter-counties XC championships in Birmingham on March 9th. I can also say with some confidence that London is a no-go for this year too. With only one run of 16 miles and one of 17.5 in the bag since last August, I do not have enough base miles to fall back on. Sure, I would get round, but I have a championship start and so I don't want to embarrass myself by starting at the front and then ending up crossing the line alongside the fancy dress and charity contingent! Frustration number 4 is that after holding off on booking a hotel and trains for as long as I could, I had only just booked them a week or so before the Plymouth race. So I guess we will go to London anyway and just watch the race and see what it's all about for next year when, with any luck, I will be on top of this injury and able to finally have a stab at London and nail a PB!

What makes this all the more frustrating - cue frustration number 5 - is that this is the worst injury, by far, I have had, and yet it has come at a time when I have been taking the most sensible approach to training and running ever! When I think back to the relentless racing regime I put my legs through last summer and my achillies was still better than it is currently. Yes, it ached and I had constant pain if I squeezed it in it in the right (or wrong!) spot, but it was the same ache and pain that I have been blighted with since about my 4th month after taking up running in 2010. It got me around Guernsey Marathon though and was no worse for it after. So why then, now that I have tried to cut back on racing (before the Exeter Half I hadn't raced for 3 weeks, a reasonable gap, I feel), does just the one race take me from being injury and pain free in my achillies to the worst state ever with it? It's unfathomable!

In conclusion: running is a decidedly frustrating sport: one minute things are going superbly, you are totally on track with your training and you are feeling great; the next, you pick up an injury by busting a gut for a PB that doesn't even count anyway, then you under-perform on your first appearance running for your county, and it all starts unraveling spectacularly before your very eyes. Why do I do it? Simple really: because when I am not running I am the crabbiest person ever - as this injury has shown! - and so I know I need to focus on getting this sorted and getting back to doing what I love pronto!