In sickness and in health

I like the titles of my blog posts to have a duplicity of meanings and this one certainly does not disappoint. The most obvious reference, and the most negative one, is to me having spent most of November ill with glandular fever. A more positive spin on the title is that it represents the words you utter during a marriage ceremony, which is quite befitting given that Matt and I just got engaged at the end of October and are currently planning our wedding for July next year.

I wasn’t feeling great before half term, in October. If I had rested early on, I’d probably be fine now. But I didn’t. I carried on training and racing through it. Since then I have picked up cold after cold after cold; four of them, in as many weeks. I know the sage advice is to rest when you are ill, and I do try, but I have to confess that my patience for resting starts to wear thin after day two of doing nothing. I didn’t feel great when I ran the Templer 10 and after doing it I got much worse: crazy huh?! Who’d’a thought that racing 10 miles on a head-cold doesn’t top the list of the best recommended cold and flu remedies?! I started to improve after a week, no doubt because I was forced to take it easy as my legs were so wrecked, but then, a few days later, I got yet another cold and just in time for the Drogo – terrific. Flying in the face of wisdom, I decided to run the Drogo on this cold. Even as I type this I can see my mistakes; I can hear myself telling other people in my position to listen to their bodies, to rest, not to race etc. I do tell myself the same stuff; the problem is, in the next breath, I sooth myself with flattering unctions in order to believe that it will be alright: it’s just a snivel; hell, if I back off every time I don’t feel 100% I’ll never run; I’m tougher than this; staying in bed with a Lemsip and day-time TV is for lesser mortals. Back and forth, back and forth, this internal debate rages in my head. Do I run? Don’t I? It nearly always ends up being the former. 

Unfortunately, and much to my annoyance, in the end, the body always gets its own way. If I keep trying to placate it with pseudo promises of rest that are never delivered, it eventually wizens up to this and realises that if it wants the rest, it will have to do something drastic to ensure it gets it. It is around about this point that my body tends to give up on me, in an alarmingly spectacular fashion: ‘screw you; I ain’t takin’ any more of this crap’. It did it to me after the Snowdonia Marathon, which I decided to run whilst on antibiotics for a urinary tract infection. Its way of paying me back for this particular bout of abuse was to turn this into a full-blown kidney infection that landed me in Yeovil hospital on a drip for four days. This time, its revenge for making it run with glandular fever was to make me go ‘splat’ whilst out on a club run; an evening which also culminated in a little trip to the hospital. I must add in here that I don’t go out of my way to inflict abuse on my body like this; I’m not a masochist! I didn’t know I was suffering with glandular fever when I decided to run. I thought I was just a little "under the weather", and other such platitudes. Just a soppy-southerner who always feels the cold. I genuinely believe, every time, that I’ll be alright and that I can get away with it. I am invariably shocked to discover that, actually, I’m not as invincible as I might like to think. In all seriousness, I’d like to say a huge thanks to the SWRR 8m/m group who looked after me so well, particularly to John and Jim who stayed with me. I was lucky it happened when I was out with them and not up on Haldon on my own, in the dark, with a head torch. That could have ended very differently…

The past few days I have finally started to feel better. I’ve managed to get through the day without needing to put the heat on in the house – a miracle in itself! I’m not needing to go to bed at 8pm and have 12 hours sleep simply in order to function the next day. I’ve got more energy; I’m looking slightly less like a walking-talking corpse. It’s all good. NOW is the time I need to be careful. NOW is the time I risk starting to overdo things again. The internal debate – ‘you still need to take it easy; if you want to have a successful 2015, you need to rest now’ versus ‘you lazy sod, you haven’t trained properly for weeks; how are you going to hope to be competitive in the races you’ve planned for the New Year by loafing about on the sofa swilling tea all day? Get your arse out there’ – has started in earnest. To try and assuage the guilt that comes with being on light training, I have deleted myself from Strava. That site might be good for a lot of things but it isn’t good for an ill or injured and yet still fiercely competitive runner who needs no encouragement to overstep their limits. I don’t need to know that my rivals are putting in 70 mile weeks, including intervals, hills and tempo sessions right now. I need to do my own thing and not be influenced by any external forces: my internal forces are virulent enough!

I am trying to stay positive through all of this. At least I’m not injured. I have a wonderful new fiancé and our wedding to plan; a lovely new house to make into our ideal home; a big family Christmas to look forward to and a lot of good friends around me. I have much to be thankful for. I will get better, and sooner rather than later if I am sensible. Can I be sensible? I can but try.

No running pics this time round, just a happy memory: Matt and I on the cliffs in Cornwall, just after we got engaged. :-)

Getting back on the horse!

It’s been a long while – by my standards – since I last raced. I’ve been doing parkruns a plenty as they are a fun, pressure free, yet motivating way to get in a tempo run and to measure my fitness… or, rather, current lack of it. Due to my recent string of injuries and the resultant drop in fitness due to interrupted training, my appetite and nerve for racing have somewhat deserted me. Sometimes, though, you just have to take a deep breath and get back on the horse: feel the fear and do it anyway! (And I say this as a former horse-owner, addict and general equestrian nut who has taken her fair share of tumbles!)

If you are going to get back on the horse, it might as well be a horse that you like and know well. On this occasional my horse was the Templer 10 – an event I love and in which I have participated more than any other race. It is a scenic, 9.5 mile, flat off-road route along the Templer Way and through Stover Country Park and Hackney Marshes nature reserve. Having won it the two previous years, the pressure was most definitely on for me to perform again this year. That said, winning it the previous year had granted me a free entry to this year’s race, so at least that took the financial pressure off: if I had a disastrous race, at least I wouldn’t have to pay for the privilege and could look upon it as a free training run.

This was another Teignbridge Trotters organised race: always well staged events that usually culminate in top quality cakes and refreshments! The last time I raced properly was also at one of their races – the Totnes 10k in August – and that did not go so well. Again here, I had a free entry so I thought I might as well give it a go, but having had a month off with no running to rest my posterior tibial tendon, I had lost masses of fitness. So I wasn’t exactly expecting a scintillating performance, but neither was I expecting the whole thing to be a game of survival from about one mile in until the finish. The impromptu fartlek burst about 2 miles in, to escape a herd of stampeding cows, pretty much finished me off and I puffed and wheezed my way around the rest, actually being reduced to a walk in the uphill wooded section. I eventually dragged my out-of-condition body over the finish line 5 minutes slower than last year’s time and several places lower, to the sound of the finish line announcer trying his best not to sound patronising and referring to it as ‘a brave effort’. Not my finest hour and a definite confidence knock.

Struggling already, barely 1 mile into the Totnes 10k in August 2014

Since Totnes I have got my head down and got back on the training waggon. I am only now up to 25 miles per week, and haven’t touched any speed work or structured intervals yet, but I have been cross training hard and swimming a lot. I have recently joined the Exeter Triathlon Club and have benefitted from some proper coached sessions to improve my technique and breathing pattern, which I’m sure will help me with my running. Running-wise, I’ve been hitting the trails at Haldon Forest on the way home from work a couple of nights a week. That place is a labyrinth of narrow, twisty, technical trails and wider, straighter, compacted forest access tracks. You could easily fit 15 miles in without retracing your steps and it has options for a totally flat run, if you stay up on the ridge, or a mega hill that is 1 mile long if you drop down to the base of the forest. This will probably be my last week of being able to run in the light after work, but fortunately I have got to know it well enough to feel confident navigating a route in the dark, so I think the head torch will be making an appearance soon.

Back with the Templer 10 though, and I loved it! I have always liked this race, it’s just the perfect mixture of different terrains and scenery, which makes it go really quickly. My time was down on last year, to be expected, but I was utterly amazed, given the strong line-up in the ladies race, to come away with another win. I knew I had some strong ladies behind me and I don’t have any endurance to fall back on at the moment. We also managed to retain our Harriers’ team prize for a consecutive year, which was an added bonus. I had told myself that if Templer went ok and my legs came off it ok, I would run the Drogo. Unfortunately, between times, I picked up a stinking cold that was still bothering me on race day and so I had a dilemma as to whether or not to run. In the end, I decided to give it a go as it was actually quite comforting to know that if it went badly, I had an excuse to fall back on!

Start of the Templer 10, in Kingsteignton.

Tackling one of the many wishing gates on route, no time to make a wish as I went through!

Another 10 mile multi-terrain race, but, unlike the flat terrain of the Templer 10, Drogo is hills, hills, hills. 3 of them, all whoppers! 1800ft of climbing in total along uneven, stony and, this year especially, very wet and muddy tracks around the Teign Valley, starting and finishing at Castle Drogo. The start of this race always scares me as it’s a mad dash up the drive to get a good position, then try and hold onto it down a seriously steep set of steps, hoping that you don’t get shoved from behind by the lunatic fell-runner types who throw themselves down past you, hurtling down to the valley floor. If you don’t start fast you end up getting stuck in a queue for the bridge over the river 1.5 miles in; however, this doesn’t play to my strengths – I prefer to start steady and work my way through, but as the opening 2 miles are so narrow, this is not possible and you would struggle to make up all the time lost whilst waiting to cross the bridge.

Flagging and full of cold, having just climbed the final killer hill - Hunter's path - at the Drogo.

It was a pretty close race on the ladies side, with a competitive line up. The positions chopped and changed from the start. I was jostling for 3^rd and 4^th place for most of the way, overtaking a girl on the uphill climbs, only to be overtaken by her on the descents: she was fearless on the downhill and descending has never been my strong suit. Then, on the long flat stretch back along the river between mile’s 6 and 8, I managed to overtake her and another woman and made my way up to 2^nd. However, the last hill – Hunter’s Path – is a killer at the best of times, but especially so when you don’t have the miles in your legs (I have only been running 6 – 8 miles on training runs and Templer 10 was the only time I’ve been over 8 since June!). Today, what with feeling a bit under the weather anyway, I was a spent force by the time I got to this point; I got overtaken by a fast-finishing female from Haldon Trail Runners and had no way of hanging onto her: back down into 3^rd again! I had to dig very deep into my mental reserves to retain my podium place, just managing to hang on in there to cross a very welcome finish line! So, no, I didn’t win it – despite being given race number ‘1’ by the organiser (the ultimate kiss of death!), and yes, I was slower than the last time I ran it in 2012, but only a minute slower, so maybe the situation is nowhere near as disastrous as I thought. And once again, as at Templer, us Harriers ladies won the female team prize - smiles all round!

With my fellow winning Harriers teamies and our prizes. :-)

The best thing is that my legs have come off the race unscathed. Well, no, quite so; I have been experiencing that familiar and much-missed feeling of DOMS these past few days, on a truly epic scale. I guess without the miles in my legs to withstand it, those hills took their toll! But it’s a nice feeling and good to have it back: up until now my injuries have put a limit on me actually pushing the rest of my body to the point that DOMS is able to set in. It was nice to stretch out in bed on Sunday night with that satisfying feeling of having done something.

So, what now? Well, I have another hilly, off-road race coming up in December – it’s a new one for me and that comes with the advantage of there being no expectations on myself. Well, no, correction: no expectations in terms of a time; I would, of course, still like to podium if possible! And then, thinking ahead to 2015, I have a couple of races booked in, a 10k and a 10 mile. My main aim for next year though is to be ready to run a marathon again by the autumn, so lots of long, slow distance stuff over the coming months to get the miles back into the legs and to try to get them to the point that a marathon is a reasonable ask of them again…. like it used to be!

Going cold turkey!

‘No running for 6 weeks’. The words reverberated mockingly against the 4 walls of the stark white tiny treatment room I was sat in at Ocean Physio. Ok, a touch melodramatic, but if you knew me and my complex relationship of dependency with running, you’d know that it is vastly akin to that which a desperate addict shares with his drugs. Running is my drug and I need my regular fix, so hearing that I would have to go cold turkey for 6 weeks is not what I wanted (or, indeed, expected) to hear. I had hoped that I was going there to be fitted with a pair of orthotics and so, whilst not expecting them to be a miracle panacea of a cure straightaway, I thought I would at least be able to resume very light training as I slowly get accustomed to them. Nope. No running. At all. For six weeks. Why does it feel like a life sentence?

Yes, I’ll admit, I do have a tendency towards the histrionics sometimes, and yes, I know the situation could be far far worse. In reality, I am lucky that I have never had to stop running completely for this long before. Maybe if I had, if I had rested previous injuries properly instead of trying to run through them, then I wouldn’t be in this situation now. Maybe if I had succumbed to the lure of the eerie and artificial underworld of the orthotic earlier then I would be running pain free and putting together some consistent training right now. Maybe maybe maybe. But I am not and I could not have timed it any worse to be ‘signed off’ running for 6 weeks: the start of the summer holidays. The 6 week period of the year in which I have all the time in the world to run in the sun, which I love. No, for me it’s now six weeks of being stuck inside a gym, working my merry way through yet another sodding strength and conditioning programme. Terrific.

Ok. That’s enough sulking and navel-gazing. Time to focus on the positives. I think (hope!) I finally have an accurate diagnosis of what’s been causing all the issues with my lower left leg. I have been prescribed a pair of orthotics which should help. I have been given a detailed strengthening and stretching programme to improve the flexibility of my calves and ankles. If I commit to this, and it is a big commitment (the stretching programme takes 15 minutes to complete and must be done five times every day for the next 6 weeks), then I will hopefully see lasting results and prevent a recurrence of any lower limb injury. If it doesn’t work, if I do all this and then, 6 months down the line I get injured again, I think I may have to target golf as my next hope for making Rio 2016! My 24 strokes over par round of my local pitch and putt course the other night showed great promise and lifted this from being a nebulous notion to a plausible plan. ;-)

Whilst I hate the gym, I am at least lucky in the sense that I have the free use of a very impressive one at the school in which I work. For 2 hours before school and 2 hours after, the gym is exclusively available for staff to use but, usually, I am the only person who takes this up. Three of us in there at once is the most crowded I have seen it yet! It’s a fabulous facility, full of all the cardio and resistance equipment I need, and, unlike at my own gym, for which I pay £30 a month, I do not need to limit myself to just 15 minutes on the c.v. equipment, which is barely a warm up for me! So I shall throw myself, with a fervour particular to fools, into my prescribed regime, and much good may it do me!

          The fabulous gym at my work that I can train in before and after school each day. 

I would like to thank Teignmouth Community School for allowing me to use this amazing facility free of charge. 

Learning to love the cross-trainer!

CV, resistance and weight equipment galore and I am the only person in there!

The biggest downer is that I have a coveted place in one of my favourite all-time events – the Snowdon International Mountain Race – on July 19^th, at which I will be now registering yet another DNS. Highly annoying as this one cost £32 to enter and I have also had to take a few days unpaid leave from work to get up there in time for it. Ho hum, can’t be helped. I will have a terrific time in Llanberis anyway, catching up with all my old North Walian friends and doing lots of mountain walking instead…. at least I am allowed to walk I suppose. I guess I had better get used to life in the not-so-fast lane for a while!

I tri-ed...

On Sunday June 1st I took part in my first triathlon. I had been umm-ing and aah-ing about doing one for a while and kept putting it off, telling myself I don’t have the right kit, I haven’t done sufficient training on the bike, etc etc. In the end I figured that I was just excuse-mongering because I was nervous about venturing out of my comfort zone; so I decided to take the plunge, choose an event, sign up, then just man up and do it! So I entered the Total Buzz Events Taunton Triathlon, held at Taunton School. It was a sprint distance event, with a 400m pool swim, a supposed 20km bike ride, which got extended to 30k (18 miles) due to a last minute course change instigated by the organisers due to safety reasons, and a 5k run. I fully understand and respect the need to put safety first, but the added distance on what is already the longest discipline of the three did not play into my hands. Not that I’m a weak cyclist; I could probably hold my own against the opposition… given the right equipment! I feel this was a genuine and justified case for blaming the tools and not the work-man for a below-par performance! I was cycling on a basic hybrid model (one of about only 4 athletes not on a road bike!) and so, whilst my legs were turning ferociously at ten to the dozen, I was still unable to generate a speed anywhere near that of the road bikes and time-trial machines, with their light-weight carbon frames, sleek high-pressure tyres and aerodynamic handle-bar position. Basically, however hard I cycled, the amount of time I would lose over a 20k cycle, let alone 30k, far exceeds the time I could ever make up on a 5k run.

Nervous but excited: waiting to get underway on my first ever triathlon!

I had managed to get my 400m swim time down to about 8m10s in the time-trials I did myself in the pool and was hopeful that, with the added adrenaline on the day, I could lower this to 8 minutes. However, I was slowed slightly by sharing the lane with other swimmers and having to pull over twice to allow them to pass, and by a ridiculously shallow shallow-end (below knee height when standing, making it impossible to tumble-turn, difficult to pull a normal front crawl stroke without striking the bottom, and requiring an interesting twisting manoeuvre to turn yourself around without bashing your knees on the pool floor). This all resulted in the loss of a couple of seconds every other length and so I was actually quite pleased to see the time of 8:29 on my stop watch when I completed my 16 lengths and exited the pool towards the first transition (T1, to all you tri-techies!).

Swim done - heading for T1. 

Triathlon tip from a resourceful newbie: put fleecy lined slipper Crocs filled with talcum powder at the exit of the pool: by the time you run across to transition, your feet will be almost dry, clean and ready for your socks!

The transitions did worry me slightly. The sheer volume of kit you have to take with you to a triathlon is quite baffling to a newbie coming at it from a running background. For running races I arrive fully dressed and shod, ready to run, number pre-safety-pinned to my vest and there to remain for the duration of the run. The only other bits I would take are my inhaler and something warm and dry to put on after if it’s an inclement day. For my first triathlon, I arrived with a whole car full of kit crammed in the boot in the available pockets of space around the bike. This instantly flagged me up as a tri-virgin who had yet to invest in a rear-mounting bike-rack! Aside from the bike (pretty high up on the kit list in terms of essentials), I had my helmet, pump, puncture repair kit, water bottle, tri-belt (to attach the number), swim suit, goggles, socks, Crocs (to wear on exiting he pool), running trainers, which I also cycled in, but for those taking it really seriously, you really need separate bike shoes with cleats, sun glasses and a cycling jersey or tee-shirt, two towels (one to deposit in transition to dry your feet before the bike; the other to shower with after), and a whole new change of clothes for after the event. If it’s a cold day or an open-water swim, you can add wetsuit, waterproof cycling jacket and gloves to this list. In short, there’s a hell of a lot to remember, and this is before you even begin to memorise the various rules.

Faffing around in T1: I'm sure you get more efficient at this with practice!

When you enter the event, you’re sent a 5 page A4 document with instructions on it outlining all the triathlon dos and don’ts. You have to ensure that your bike is racked under your race number and all your kit is laid out alongside it, and not encroaching on the space of your neighbouring competitors, before transition closes at 8am. Oh, yeh, triathlons are also aimed at the early-riser types, of which I most certainly am not one! You need to familiarise yourself with the transition area as there are rules a plenty to observe here: ‘enter in this direction; exit in that direction’, ‘don’t mount your bike before the “bike mount” line’, ‘dismount before the dismount line’, ‘put your helmet on before touching your bike’, ‘rack your bike before removing your helmet’, ‘number showing on your back for the bike, on your front for the run’, and, my particular favourite, ‘no nudity in transition’. Not being the most body-confident of people, this last one wasn’t too difficult to observe! On paper, it all looks rather daunting, but on the day it all flowed quite well and the marshal that pointed out that I hadn’t swapped my number from back to front as I headed out on the run obviously recognised the wide-eyed triathlon newbie in me and was very polite about it!

The headless rider! Off out for a nice 30k bike ride :-)

The bike section was somewhat demoralising. The ‘whoooooooosh’ sound as another, invariably male, competitor zoomed past me on his lean, mean racing machine got a little bit tedious after a while. However, it wasn’t, as I had initially feared, a total embarrassment. Considering my rickety piece of kit, I actually did ok. I was by no means the slowest overall and I did comparatively well on the few inclines, even managing to overtake someone on one hill… for the one and only time on the 30k out-and-back course! Also, had there been a prize for the fastest person not on a road bike, I’m pretty damn sure it would have been mine! Nevertheless, I was still out on the course for 1h06m and so most of the competitors with similar swim times to me (which is how they rank you and get you to line up your bikes in the transition racks) were already back, so I struggled to find a space to park my bike back on the rack, nearly sending another competitor's expensive piece of kit flying... :-/ My time also put me way down on the leading female, and, with her also a strong runner and relatively strong swimmer, this meant I would have to do the 5k run in a world-record destroying time of 3 minutes to overhaul her: never gonna happen. Not that I should have even been thinking about placings on a debut attempt, for which I wasn't all that well prepared, but the competitive instinct in me doesn't just disappear because it's a different sport. Don't be daft!

In T2 and about to head out on the run. 

I had difficulty finding a park as I got overtaken by so many people on the bike phase, so all the people that started the swim around the time I did were back and parked up!

I was relieved when I got to the run section as all the technical parts were over: bike racked, helmet off and away I went, heading out to do what comes naturally to me: just putting one foot in front of the other, as fast as my legs and lungs would allow! Having done no brick training whatsoever, I wasn’t too sure how my legs would feel after the cycle, but the initial jelly-legged sensation experienced upon dismount from the bike soon worked itself out and I didn’t feel overly sluggish. I was pleased with my run, which I timed on my own watch at 18:35, but I have a sneaky feeling it didn’t measure a full 5k. Again, this did not play to my strengths: with the bike leg being over distance I could have used a long, not a short, 5k to make up for it.

Back in my comfort zone: on the 5k run.

I felt ever so slightly euphoric upon crossing the finish line: that much loved but, recently, much missed giddying feeling of satisfaction at having tested myself; at having “tri”ed my best and accomplished something new and unknown. I finished 7th female overall. First was way way out in front, but I was only 2 minutes slower than second, which was lost on the bike. Basically, if the bike leg had been the advertised 20k and not 30, I would likely have finished as runner-up, so I can't complain at all.

It was great to experience that buzz again (maybe that's why they call themselves 'Total Buzz Events'?!) that has been missing in my running for some time. It was a welcome change to take part in an event in which I had absolutely no preconceptions of how I would perform and so, no matter what I did, it would be a PB! With time passing steadily by since I took up running in 2010, and with the races (and the win count) notching themselves up, a routine established itself, resulting in an almost robotic ‘here we go again, time to perform’ approach to the sport. Feelings of excitement, anticipation and accomplishment have given way to expectation, apathy and apprehension. If I still felt as though I were moving forward with my running, perhaps I would feel differently; but with the past 18 months having been blighted by injuries and my running (both training and racing) has been dictated by what my left leg can cope with rather than what I would like to do and which goals I would like to accomplish. In short, running has become something of a chore, just something I do, when my body will allow, rather than a joy and something that I want to do.

Crossing the finish line of my first tri generated a buzz and natural high that I have not experienced with my running for some while now.

When I started out with running, I instantly knew that I preferred the endurance stuff than the eye-balls out, lung-busting short stuff. When you complete a marathon or an ultra you feel as though you’ve been on a journey and the post-event euphoria is immense. I just don’t get that from 5ks or 10ks, even if I run well and manage a PB. Other people have told me to bide my time for the longer races, that my legs are still unaccustomed to the distance and I am better off getting some speed into them now and then upping the distance slowly and shelving the longer races for now. I agree: that is the standard approach. You start out as a youngster on the track, doing 800m and 1500m races; then you graduate to the 5000m and 10’000m and start incorporating a few short road races, and then, 10 or so years later, you might do your first marathon. Superb, if you have risen up through the ranks from juniors, but I haven’t. I was forced to run cross country at school and was selected to represent my school at local level athletics because I had a modicum of fitness and was clearly not too bad at it, but I didn’t enjoy it and I didn’t continue with it. I then abused exercise for weight-loss from the age of 15 onwards and grew to hate it even more. It was only at the age of 26, when the idea casually popped into my head that I might like to run a marathon, that I took up running and training properly and actually started to enjoy heading out the door for a run, rather than having to force myself due to some misguided logic that because I hadn’t exercised since that same morning, I was becoming lazy and losing my fitness.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that I found my way to running because I wanted a personal challenge and, over the past year and a half, it has no longer been giving me that challenge. I have spent more time in the gym these past few months, trying to maintain my fitness, than I have actually outdoors, on the trails, running through the countryside. So, whilst I have absolutely no desire to redefine myself as a triathlete just yet, nor to invest in the hundreds of pounds of kit that the sport demands if you want to do it properly, it was lovely to have a go at something completely new and to experience that much-missed natural high that comes from pushing yourself, physically and mentally, to achieve your best. 7th female and 79th overall is a little lower down the pecking order than I would like, but it was far more satisfying than many of my running victories and, as debuts on a £150 hybrid bike go, not a bad benchmark to revisit at some point in the future.

Right now, I need to re-evaluate where my running is taking me; both literally and metaphorically. Whilst my coach would like to see me improve my times at the shorter distances before tackling a marathon again, I’m not so sure. Aside from the satisfaction issue, doing the speed-work required for the shorter stuff is invariably what breaks me. My legs were at their strongest and most injury-free when churning out the longer, slower, higher mileage weeks for marathon and ultra training. So I think it is back to the drawing board for me. I need some fresh goals, some new targets to keep me motivated, and I need to get back to doing what I do best and stop faffing around with all this unsatisfying and painful (on the legs and the lungs!) short stuff!

In front of the beautiful facade of Taunton School, glad that I gave triathlon a tri... ahem, try. 

But at £38 a go and with no medal or tee-shirt to show for your money, it's not something I'll be rushing back to until I invest in better kit and get some proper training behind me!

Photo credits, bag holding extraordinaire and chief calmer-downerer and supporter go to my boy friend extraordinaire, Matt!

Here comes the summer fun!

It's been a long time since my last post and that is mainly because I have just been rehabbing my torn calf, taking things incredibly slowly with the recovery process (well, slowly by my own standards, which is probably still faster than my coach would like!) and generally having a fun time with 'non-running' things. I have recently started a new job, working in the sixth form at Teignmouth Community School, which is going well; Matt and I are house-hunting (which is considerably more time consuming than I would ever have realised!) and I also managed to fit in a rather indulgent 2 week holiday to the Maldives in Easter. All of this has meant that I've been less irritable than usual regarding being unable to run as I've been occupied with other things; much to the relief of those who have to live with me and put up with my customary "it's not fair, how can I be injured yet again" rants.

                                                                   

Running whilst on holiday on Vilamendhoo Island, in the Maldives: a great heat and humidity training venue!

I have been following my program: you know, the tedious core strength training, squatting, lunging, rolling around inelegantly on a gym ball etc. one? However, I have to confess that as I have started to reintroduce running, the strength training days have dropped off somewhat. I realise this isn't ideal and that if I want to prevent a recurrence of the injury I should be more diligent with my program, but I am not 100% convinced that it's doing me any good anyway. My leg is undoubtedly better, but that's because I have rested it for longer this time, and so would be the case irrespective of whether or not I hurl myself across the living room atop a giant inflatable round object on a daily basis. Or maybe I'm just being cynical because I find all of this "core" stuff tedious and boring.

I did a HIIT class at my gym last week: blood and sand was it hard work! HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training and the basic idea behind it is to get your head down and bury yourself for a short but intense period; mind you, when you are flogging yourself within inches of death, 30 minutes doesn't feel that goddam short! You target all the key muscle groups and get a cardio workout that boosts your metabolism and ensures that you are still burning fat over 24 hours later. You work in divisions of 3: there are 3 blocks, 3 rounds within each block and 3 different exercises within each round. You have 30 seconds of recovery between blocks and only 10 seconds between each round: barely enough time to pick up your water bottle off the floor, take a sip and resume your position. As with my first experience of yoga, I instantly took a massive ego knock as I once again found that I was one of the weaker ones in the class... no, the weakest. I couldn't keep up the required pace on most of the activities (I'd take double the time to complete a burpee and soon fall behind the rhythm), meaning that I didn't manage my requisite 10 reps of each exercise. My fellow class-mates might not have looked as toned and athletic (and I'm damn sure that none of them have ever or could ever run a sub-3 hour marathon), but they were sure as hell stronger than me and weren't collapsing in a pathetic heap on the floor halfway through the press-ups round. Yup, there's no escaping the fact that I am just plain weedy. I left the class with a resolve to start attending on a weekly basis... but that was before I woke up the next morning, aching all over and having to reassure myself that I hadn't been violently beaten up during the night. So I used this, the 'this-clearly-requires-too-long-a-recovery-period-which-might-be-fine-for-these-other-ladies-who-do-nothing-but-this-all-week-but-I-of-course-have-a-tough-training-schedule-to-keep-up-with' excuse, to absolve me of any guilt I might have felt at my failure to pick up the phone and book in for the following week...

On the running front, I am slowly getting back into things. My weekly mileage has not yet surpassed 27 miles and most weeks are only coming in at around 20-25, over 4 running days, but it's a start and I very much need to get this right this time. It's taken me double the time to recover from this injury than it did after I tore it the first time, in February last year, and this despite me stopping dead and walking home as soon as I felt it go this time round, as opposed to continuing on a further 5 or so miles at a speed-hobble towards the finish line of the Plymouth Hoe 10 race. This has inevitably meant that I've dropped a huge amount of fitness (the 2 week long all-inclusive beach holiday at Easter didn't help matters there!) but the fitness will come back once I can start to put together some decent sessions again and I think I am approaching that point again now.

Since I got back from my holiday I have just been having some fun doing some trail races and trying out some new events. I did the Haldon Heartbeat 8.5 mile wooded trail race at the end of April (probably 2 miles too far for a first race back, but luckily my leg held up fine) and then the Hope 24 Relays the week after. This was a new event, held at Newham Park near Plymouth, and the Harriers entered 4 teams as a club, so we went there en masse. The concept was to run as many 5 mile trail circuits of the woods and parkland as you could, as a team, within a 24 hour period. Due to my leg niggle, I just did the 3 legs (which still brought me in at around my current average weekly mileage in one day!) and enjoyed 3 pleasant, scenic 5 mile runs and some good laughs with other team members.

Set to pass on the 'baton' (wristband) to my team mate at after my first leg in the Hope 24 relays.

The following week I took part in the tough, hilly Killerton 10k, organised by Relish Running. Both this and Haldon Heartbeat were races that I have done before and so, despite enjoying them as they are both over stunning routes, I subjected myself to a bit of self-scrutiny afterwards as my times for both were minutes down on what I'd done before. So for the past few weeks I have decided to try a couple of new events that I haven't done before so I cannot compare times and give myself any ammo to beat myself up!

A superb aerial shot of the start of the 10k race at Killerton House.

(I'm down there, in 12th place - also the position I finished in overall!)

Some stunning wooded, bluebell lined trails were the reward for tackling the killer climbs at the tough but scenic Killerton 10k.

Last week I did a brand new race, organised by Chard Running Club, quaintly called the 'Wambrook Waddle'. The slightly twee title though beguiles a truly tough-as-nails route - without a doubt the toughest 10k I've ever done, with a personal worst time to boot! The route basically involved descending and ascending a steep-sided valley, 3 times, with stream crossings in the bottom for added funsies. I did manage 1st lady and 6th overall, but with it being a new event there were only 44 people in the race.

The first stream crossing, 1/2 a mile in to the super-hilly 'Wambrook Waddle' 10k, near Chard.

The Waddle was no doddle! Heat + hills made it the toughest 10k I've ever done!

Yesterday I did a race down in Plymouth called 'Muskies Madne5.5'. Nope, that's not a typo, that is their clever way of incorporating the race's distance into its title. I went there expecting a trail run through Ham Woods, on the outskirts of Plymouth, and so was a bit disappointed when informed at the start that only a third of it is on wooded trails and the rest is on road. I am trying to avoid road at the moment, due to the impact on my calf, and I'm certainly trying to avoid races that start with a fast, steep downhill opening mile on tarmac, but hey-ho, I was here and so had to justify the long, bank-holiday-traffic-blighted journey down there by giving it a decent crack. I was hoping for a nice relaxed, low-key race: what I got was potentially the most competitive female race outside of a cross country event that I have ever done. I guess that, at full fitness, I might have been able to take a clear lead from the start but, at my present level, I was fairly evenly matched with four other females in the race. One lady went out fast from the gun, but four of us were running closely together in the opening mile. It didn't take me long to realise that my competitive spirit is as strong as ever (I'm not too sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing at the moment!), as I was adamant that, of the four of us, I would not be one of the two people that would be returning home without a prize! As soon as the downhill came to an end and the climbing started, I managed to pick off one of the ladies, but 3 of us entered the woodland section stuck together like glue. They would both pull away from me on any downhill sections and I'd have to work hard to stay with them, but as soon as we hit an uphill stretch, I'd naturally pull myself back. With it being a one-mile long, uphill drag to the finish, I was hopeful that I could draw on my hill strength and forge a gap. As soon as the really hilly bits kicked in, I did indeed start to sneak a small advantage and as we emerged from the winding sections of what is one of many of Plymouth's sprawling housing estates, I could even see the first lady just up ahead of me. As the hill continued, I knew I was gaining on her and, as we entered the finish field, she looked behind for the first time, saw I was there, and started to surge for the finish line. Had this race been 10k and not 5.5 miles, I would probably have been able to take her, but, as it was, I just ran out of room and finished 10 seconds adrift. So, had I known that the run was going to be so fast, furious and competitive, and had I known that it was only going to be one part wood to two parts housing estate, no, I probably wouldn't have made the trip down, but in the end I was glad I did as the run gave me a huge confidence boost on two counts: a) my calf held up ok, even on the downhill, tarmac sections, and b) my fitness situation isn't nearly as dire as feared and I do still have what it takes to dig deep and 'pull it out of the bag' when needed!

And so, where to go from here? Well, my next challenge is something totally new: I am going to be competing in my first ever triathlon this coming weekend (1st June), in Taunton. It's a sprint distance, with a 400 meter (16 length) pool swim, followed by a 20km bike ride and a 5k run. I will probably suck on the bike as I'll be doing it on my rickety little hybrid, not even a road bike, and my swim won't be the strongest, but hopefully I can have a decent run and do enough not to embarrass myself totally. I have no intentions of moving over to triathlons yet and have only entered this as a sort of 'fact finding' mission, to see whether or not I like it, whether I have the potential to be any good at it and whether it is something I might like to consider at some point in the future. I've also entered it just to try something totally difference and to continue my objective for the summer of having some fun with my training and competing, and mixing things up a bit. Not too sure how I'll get on; mostly I am just terrified of violating one of the many many rules and being disqualified and sent home in disgrace. A 5 page long A4 document is emailed to you when you sign up: "don't dismount here, don't put that there; put this on first; don't remove this here; no nakedness in transition", etc, etc. Not too sure if I can remember all of this but I will at least aim to observe this latter rule and keep myself covered up. Either ways, I will give the whole event a damn good tri! (Boom, boom smash!)

Well that's torn it...

It was all going so well. At long last, after making a slow and steady comeback from my last injury in June, things were finally starting to fall into place again. The patience was paying off; I was progressing. After having good runs at the Stoke Stampede 10k and the South West Inter-Counties cross country, I had another good run out at the Oh My Obelisk race in Dawlish. This is a multi-terrain race measuring in at 11.5 miles and with 1800ft of climb. I had good competition at this race in the form of an off-road specialist from Axe Valley Runners, and so I had to work harder for the victory that I would have perhaps liked, but I managed a time 3 minutes faster than last year, in muddier, tougher conditions, and so I was pleased that I was on track for the Grizzly later in the season. 

And then, I tore my left calf muscle. 

Again. 

So that’s torn any ideas I had for a good season; in fact, that’s written off the season completely. Around about the same time it happened last year: it’s like Ground Hog day.

At the 4 mile point of the 11.5 mile Oh My Obelisk multi-terrain race; my last race before tearing my calf again.

Finishing the Oh My Obelisk race: 1st lady, 3 minutes faster than last year.

The thing is, I really had been sensible this time. After rushing back into running (and racing) too soon after my initial calf and achilles injury last February, I realised I had to take a much more measured approach and get things right this time. I increased the mileage very very slowly. I listened to my body, even if that meant stopping a training run 1 mile from home and walking the rest. I sacked off all forms of speed work and hills and I tried to keep off tarmac as much as possible. I limited my racing to low-key, off road events, of 10k distance or less to start with, and I tempo ran rather than raced them. Each month I increased my monthly mileage very very steadily and I was icing, stretching, foam rolling, massaging, leg pressing and calf raising my lower left leg into oblivion. I had not raced for 3 weeks when this latest injury happened and I had been taking things steady in training sessions, doing longer, steadier reps, mixing in some cross training, and avoiding the track where possible to try and limit the stresses on my left leg.

With my previous two injuries (Is it 2? I lose count. They all tend to merge one into the other and the past 12 months have seemed like one endless injury battle), it was all very well for me to pout and moan that it wasn’t fair, why me, I don't deserve this, it sucks, yadda yadda; but really, I had done a lot wrong and a lot to deserve it. I found that burying my head in the sand and bemoaning the perceived injustices of it all made it easier for me to cope with. It also made it easier for me to ignore the root causes of it and not make any real effort to deal with it. Sure, I saw physios and specialist sports doctors; I had umpteen massages, acupuncture sessions and ESWT treatment on it, but I didn’t do anything to actively address the problem myself. I just wanted a quick fix. I rested it minimally, tried to take shorts cuts in the rehab process, and basically carried on running throughout (the longest I went without running was 1 week). So really, it’s not blinkin’ well surprising that I ended up reinjuring it: I had never gotten to the bottom of what was causing it or allowed it to heal properly in the first place. 

This time, I find it harder to accept that I am broken again, as I really have tried to take things slowly and not over-do it. I felt that this time I had every right to indulge myself in a private sulk and a ‘woe is me’ session as it had all been going so well and then it seemingly fell apart without warning. But then, if I am truly honest with myself, there were warnings. Both my calves felt really tight after the inter-counties cross country. I’m not used to running in spikes and they are notoriously unforgiving on even the strongest of calves as they offer minimal cushioning and require you to run more on your forefoot (you’d soon come to grief if you didn’t as there are no spikes or grip on the back end!). I did have an easy few days after the cross country, which was adequate to rest my stronger right leg and restore it to normal, but not enough for the troublesome leftie, who still felt tight and a bit achey. But I had goals, dammit, that I had to train for, and time – as it is always wont to be – was of the essence. So I resumed training and refused to acknowledge the persistent dull ache in my lower left leg that still lingered on a couple of weeks later. The thing is, when you train and compete to a certain degree of intensity, you are always going to experience niggles; it’s just par for the course. If you are using your muscles beyond their day-to-day normal functioning level, then they are bound to give you the occasional reminder that they are tired and would appreciate a rest. Tight hamstrings, aching quads, tight calves: this is perfectly normal. If you backed off and rested every time something just didn’t feel perfect, you’d never train, and you’d certainly never progress. The trick is learning to recognise the point at which something goes beyond reasonable aching and starts to become a more persistent niggle. This is an area in which I seem to have an uncanny knack of turning a blind eye. I now need to realise that if it’s anything involving my lower left leg, then alarm bells should start sounding immediately and I should back the hell off. Leftie has proved more than once that he just ain’t up for it!

So where do I go from here? How do I progress? For regular followers of my biannual moaning sessions (which it seems is what this blog has unwittingly turned into, apologies, that wasn't my initial intention), you will know that I have already spent a great deal of money seeing a whole bunch of supposed experts to try and get to the bottom of this problem. Well, last month I paid to see another, this time taking a fresh approach and going for a comprehensive gait analysis. It may seem strange, after 3 ½ years of running, that I have never had this done before. I did book in for a gait analysis at a running shop once, but what actually happened when I got there was that I was told to run up and down the pavement outside the shop whilst the owner looked on: not terribly scientific and not the best way to detect any less obvious, minutiae subtleties in my running form and technique. So I booked in at Ocean Physio for an appointment with Andy, the clinical director, of the clinic. Although the appointment was only booked for 45 minutes, I eventually emerged from the clinic at closing time, 1 hour 20 minutes later, after having had a top to toe service and MOT! I would highly recommend them - great customer service.

He took baseline tests of my flexibility and mobility, balance and control, and power and strength, in addition to taking lots of measurements. Whilst I have had my leg length measured by physios I’ve seen in the past, they have never measured the circumference of my calves, and the findings were alarming. I have always known that my left calf is significantly less developed than my right: I can visibly see it when I look down at them or in the mirror. Back in the days when I had severe hang ups about my body size and appearance, I used to hate my right calf. It was shorter, stubbier, bulkier, manlier. My mother said I was just imagining it when I looked in the mirror and baulked, ‘Look! Look! It’s way bigger than the other one. It’s revolting. Why can’t I have two calves like the left one?’ Now, however, I’d give anything to have two like the right one; leftie is all style and no substance... quite literally: he measures in at over 1cm less in circumference than the right.

The other alarming discovery was that whilst I passed the flexibility tests with flying colours, I failed miserably in the balance, control and strength departments. I was told to perform a plank, but leaning against a gym ball instead of on a solid, motionless surface. Ever tried this? It's bloody hard. I got into position, everything quivered and shook and I collapsed in an ungainly heap on the floor very soon after. Andy candidly stated: 'Yes. The baseline for this is 2 minutes. You just did 5 seconds.' Embarrassing just doesn't cut it. I always used to laugh at the fact that I honestly cannot manage a single proper press-up: I can get down there, I just can't get back up again. I found it hilarious - who needs press-ups anyway unless you're a body-builder? - but now I find it worrying. I clearly have the core and upper body strength of a two year old... possibly less than that. No wonder those deceptively frail looking, 70+ year old ladies at the yoga class I used to attend could nail all the poses better than I could: all that wrinkly, weather-worn, slack skin beguiles ripped glues and abs of steel! So maybe my weediness ain't so darn funny after all - it's most likely the reason why I keep breaking down. It all makes logical sense really: if my larger, core muscles aren't up to the job, they transfer the workload onto the smaller muscles lower down (the calves) and they just cannot cope with the forces being placed upon them. The right one gives it his best shot, but leftie's more of a maverick and has decided he just ain't 'avin' it anymore. 

So, there's my answer, and it's got nothing to do with dodgy bio-mechanics or inappropriate footwear; it's because my body's not physically strong enough to cope with what I've been asking of it. So I have two choices: ask less of it (i.e., scale back my ambitions, training and intensity of my running), or strengthen my weak muscles so my body is able to cope with the intensity I ask of it. Obviously, I opt for this latter, and so begins a long, slow and slightly tedious program of strengthening all of my wayward and dysfunctional limbs and body parts. In short, not quite the, 'You under pronate; this orthotic will instantly solve the problem' response and quick-fix solution that I was hoping for... 

I am now 3 weeks into my prescribed regime and I feel battered, bruised and like I've been brutally attacked down some back alley and left there for dead. Each day I seem to find a new ache or pain as I try to extract life from muscles that have been lying dormant for years. I've been rolling about on a gym ball on the living room floor of my boyfriend, Matt's house, in a manner eerily reminiscent of a beached whale trying in vain to haul itself back into the ocean. That is when I am not losing my balance and falling off the ball, legs akimbo, crashing into the coffee table and sending all the table-top contents flying as I do so. Although, I think that secretly, Matt is rather sadistically enjoying having a front row sofa seat at these free slap-stick comedy performances. Glad one of us is. 

Last week, I registered yet another DNS at the Bourton 10k. Well, no, not quite true; in actual fact I registered a rather impressive gun time of 36:05 and a chip time of 26 minutes something (a new female world record!). How so? Well, we decided to go to the Cotswolds anyway for a mini-break and we went along to watch the race, me with my race number and timing chip in my handbag, and I can only conclude that I must have inadvertently wandered a little too close to the chip timing mat and set the thing off. Whoops. This is doubtless the best chance I have of setting a new PB these days though anyway. (I hasten to add that I did immediately contact the race organiser to apologise and rectify the error.) It looks as though I won't make the start line of the Age UK Exeter 10k on March 23rd either. I fear that if I do, I won't be able to hold myself back as it's a fast downhill and flat course, and I may aggravate the injury again. I am getting to the stage where I daren't make any future race plans or pre-enter any events, as every time I set goals, I end up breaking down, being unable to run, and losing a lot of money on unused race entries in the process. I remember the days when I could take for granted the fact that if I entered a race I would be ON THAT START LINE! I used to find it incredulous that some races had a 20% no-show rate: why would you enter and pay for something and then not run it? Now I understand it only too well as I seem not to start more of the races I've entered than I do these days.

In Bourton-on-the-Water during February half term, watching the Bourton 10k instead of running it: not 'appy :-(

So I am adopting a new, more relaxed approach to recovery and injury comeback this time round. I am not targeting any major races as that focuses a date in your mind and makes you more inclined to rush through your rehab and ignore any warning signs that you still aren't fully recovered in order to be race-ready for that set date. My previous two injuries have shown that, even with cross-training like a demon, a drop in fitness level is inevitable. This time, I am going to embrace that and use it as a positive as it will prevent me from jumping straight back in with my training where I left off in January. I can allow my fitness level to build organically alongside building the strength in my left calf. I'm knocking speed work on the head for the foreseeable future: to be honest, my 10k PB has only improved by 20 seconds since doing any speedwork anyway, so I don't think it is always the panacea it is made out to be. I want to spend the summer just having fun, learning to enjoy running again and not constantly be running in fear or breaking again. It's like my coach, Gordon, says: for a long-distance runner, I am still young; I still have time on my hands. Ultimately, my performances will be so much better for biding my time and not rushing things. I know this goes against my impatient 'but I want it now; right now' personality, but that's just something I'm going to have to learn to embrace.... or at the least, tolerate. I suppose miracles can happen; here's hopin'!

Starting as I mean to go on?... I hope not!

2014 all started with a big bang; unfortunately, I was not where I should have been when the said bang went off. Confused? So was I! Confused as to how I managed to miss the start of my first race of the year at one of the most important races I’ve ever competed in. I was donning the Devon vest and representing my county at cross country for the first time, lining up (or, in my case, not lining up) alongside the most competitive field of runners I have yet to come up against. This was the South West Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships, this year held at Killerton House, home of the weekly Parkrun I attend, and it was the most inopportune occasion to fluff up my pre-race preparations, let alone miss the start of the race completely.

The irony was that we had got to the venue with 3 hours to spare before the scheduled start time of my race to ensure that we could get one of the limited parking spots on site. We had sat in the cafe for over an hour to kill time, had a leisurely coffee, I’d registered and had the time to buy and screw in a new set of 12 inch spikes at the mobile kit store, as I realised that my 9 inch ones were woefully inadequate for the depth of mud on the course following weeks of heavy rainfall. I can’t quite put my finger on how things then seemed to unravel before my eyes, like I had no control over them. 

As anyone who knows me will testify, I am meticulous with my pre-race preparations and timings and I always allow ample time to warm up, go to the toilet and get to the start line with 10 minutes to spare. Today, despite being at Killerton so early, I suddenly found myself in a last minute rush to get back from walking the course, go to the toilet (there was a queue – isn’t there always?), do an initial warm up jog in my normal trainers, then remove my leggings, put on my spikes, and head out to do some higher intensity drills and strides. I knew, as I was heading back from walking the course, that I only had 30 minutes to the start of our race, but now, suddenly, I was acting as if I had all the time in the world to complete my usual warm up routine. The big mistake I made was putting my Garmin on to measure my warm up as this prevented me from seeing the actual time ticking by. I wanted to check out the finish approach, to make sure I knew where to start pushing from, and so I jogged over to the far side of the course. All the men were still running; they had allocated them just 30 minutes to complete their hilly 9km course: a gross under-estimation of how long it would actually take them in these tough, muddy conditions. I got to the finish gazebo, with my hoodie, coat, hat and gloves still on, not having even started my structured warm-up routines yet, to ask Gordon, my coach, when he thought our race would start. For the first time I looked down at the time on my watch and saw that it was 1:40pm: exactly the scheduled start time of our race. Yet I still wasn’t overly worried as I believed that our race couldn’t possibly start whilst all the men were still out running on the same course. How wrong I was! At this point, Gordon glanced over to the start line, 100m away, and saw that all the senior women were lined up and under starter’s orders. Abject panic set in at that moment; this was the stuff of my nightmares: seeing the backs of the runners tearing off into the distance, whilst I am left staring after them, aghast and dumbfounded.

The start line... minus me. I am off stage right, frantically doing a strip tease.

I began stripping off my layers and, of course, the zip of my jacket just had to get caught in the lining, so I yanked it up over my head, along with my hoodie and hat. Gordon was telling me not to panic and I was just praying that they would be held on the start line long enough to allow me to hot foot it over there.

BANG!

The starting gun sounded and they were off. I was still in the finish gazebo, 100 meters away. Bugger. I started to sprint over to the course and had to hurdle a fence to get onto it. By now I was 50 meters adrift of the last runners and about 100 meters down on the leaders. In almost any other race, this wouldn’t be a problem; I would have ample time to make up lost ground. The thing with cross-country is that it’s so fast and furious from the gun, and the distance run is so short (just 5.6km for the women), that even a 10 meter gap can be impossible to make up, particularly against such talented competition. I started to make my way through the field, cursing and telling my club mates as I passed them that I’d missed the start (I felt the need to vent my frustrations!). I then realised that I hadn’t even had my asthma inhaler either: I really had ballsed this all up, good and proper!

The danger in these situations is that the adrenaline starts coursing through your veins and so you head off like a raving banshee, trying to make up the lost ground as quickly as possible. As I drew level with my highly experienced club mate, Cathy, she tried to tell me not to panic, to slow down and catch up gradually, but her advice came out in breathless gusts as I tore on past like a thing possessed, and so her sage words of wisdom were lost, cast adrift to the wind, as I tore on past.

I felt amazingly strong for the first two laps of the bottom field; a combination of being fresh, charged with adrenaline, and with this part of the course being flat. I surprised myself by how quickly I managed to claw my way through the field and get in touch with the front runners. The top 3 or 4 had an insurmountable gap on me, but I was almost back in contact with the next handful as we hit the first hill. This is when I started to pay the price for my speedy opening surge. There’s nothing quite like a hill to find you out and I found out pretty sharpish that the lactic had built up and my legs now felt like lead. I maintained my position up the hill but as soon as we started down the other side my team mate, Cathy, used her superior descending skills to the max and coasted past me. The gap she opened up proved too much for me to close on the next uphill section and so I found myself digging in deep to defend my place from a Wells City athlete who was hot on my tail. Unfortunately for her, she seemed to be struggling for grip in the muddy sections and, as we started down the last hill, which had by now been well and truly churned up by all the runners in the 7 races that preceded ours, she took a tumble. I narrowly avoided being taken down by her, having to do a nimble swerve and jump manoeuvre to avoid tripping over her. I felt awful just powering on and leaving her there; my matronly instinct was to stop, make sure she was ok and help her up, but then I remembered that this is cross-country and falls are just par for the course. Plus there were plenty of spectators on hand to step in, so I pressed on for home, feeling grateful that I had invested in those 12 inch spikes. In the final half kilometre, I got my second wind and was starting to gain ground on Cathy and a bunch of 3 other runners that all finished within 4 seconds of each other, but I ran out of room to actually catch them, eventually finishing 1 place and 5 seconds behind Cathy in 10^th place.

Trying to hang onto Cathy and a Wiltshire athlete on the last descent.

The final push for the finish line, caked in mud!

Before the start of the race, if you’d asked me if I would have been happy with a top 10 finish, I’d have said yes, of course! These are the South-West championships, where the best runners from 6 different counties assemble to battle it out in the Devonshire mud for individual and county glory; but I wasn’t satisfied. I came 10^th despite missing the start and having 100 meters of ground to make up, despite not having warmed up properly and despite not having had my inhaler. In spite of all of this, I felt strong, and so I was left thinking what might have been had I not been a complete and utter idiot and had I started the race properly, on time, alongside everyone else.

Really I am just kicking myself. I feel embarrassed, humiliated, frustrated, infuriated and I have nobody to blame for this but myself. All the other 80 women managed to get themselves to that start line on time, so why couldn’t I? In all honesty, I thought of myself as being above doing something ditzy like this and it is the kind of stupidity that I would heartily mock and deride if another athlete did it. I can try to explain it by it being my first event of this kind, on this scale, and so I made a rookie error, except that there were other women in that field for whom it was also a new experience and they still managed to haul their backsides to the start line on time. Really, there’s no excuse for it at all: I was just plain stupid. Simples.

One thing is for sure, I have learned a valuable lesson the hard way: these events start on time, to the minute, regardless of whether the athletes in the race before have finished running or not. The one consolation is that I was still the third counter of six in the Devon team and that, miraculously, I gained a silver medal in the senior ladies race as only one athlete in this age group finished ahead of me. As usual, the vet 35s were very strong but I must give a special mention to my club mate, Cathy Newman, who had a sensational race to finish in 9^th place overall, as a vet 50 athlete, and so beating all the vet 40s and 45s and a vast proportion of runners who are less than half her age. The woman’s amazing – we are privileged to have her in the club!

So 2014 has started eventfully. It has not started as I mean for it to go on in terms of making idiotic timing errors in races, but it has started well in the sense that I am feeling fit, running well and am on top of my achillies injury. I look forward to being able to redeem myself in the eyes of the Devon team manager on another occasion... if she ever takes the risk of selecting such a loose cannon again!