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!

Sub 38 at last!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coughs, colds and food poisoning...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learning how to race, learning how to pace

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

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

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

Tavy 7 (C) Charles Whitton

(C) Charles Whitton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming up short...

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the yummy cake, Honiton RC!

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

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

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

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

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