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!