It’s ok to be a gym lightweight
Social media is sometimes like an aunty who once heard you say that you liked frogs and then buys you frog-shaped content – slippers and soap and ornaments and birthday cards – for the rest of your life. The minute you get curious about something, let’s say… how to do a deadlift… social media will give you so much content about deadlifts you will feel like you never want to do a deadlift again.
When we hold all potential human knowledge in our pockets, it’s so hard to hold on to curiosity and learn something new. But I have been trying. Once a week, since January, I’ve been to the gym to lift heavy weights. I’m 48 and menopausal, with creaky knees. After battling injury for a year, I now fully believe that lifting heavy weights is going to keep me running.
Heavy weights? I thought this was about being a lightweight. It is, I promise. The weights I lift are puny compared to what I see the awesome women in the gym lifting. But they are heavy for me. I can feel them engaging my core, challenging my stability, and building new muscles. I’m going once a week, and my legs feel stronger and more stable when I’m running. When I did crossfit a few times a week, I was strong but I had so much DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) I could barely run.
If you don’t lift weights, going to the gym can be intimidating. Everyone looks like an expert. It’s hard to pick what to do, even harder to know if you’re doing it right. It’s scary to join a class, and expensive to get a 1:1 personal trainer. So social media is doing a lot of heavy lifting (sorry) when it comes to training advice. Over the past few months I’ve had instagram accounts telling me that I won’t make progress unless I lift 3 times a week, that I shouldn’t do deadlifts, I should do romanian deadlifts, I should only squat, I should never squat.
I’m not going to give out training advice, but I will share that I:
- Only lift once a week – once a week, every week, is my commitment;
- Prioritise strength, not fitness – I get my cardio from running;
- Take my time – yeah I look at my phone between sets;
- Pick things I like – slam balls are fun;
- Do the same workout every week – then I don’t have to make decisions;
- Embrace being a lightweight – form is more important than numbers;
- Increase weight s l o o o o w l y – in four months I’ve only upped my squat and deadlift weights once;
- Regularly put my wedding ring in the washing machine (in my shorts pocket).
This is working for me. I can now squat down to sit on the floor and stand up again without using my hands! This is my olympics. Find what works for you, and don’t let people on the internet tell you what that is. Including me.
A perfect ten
Ten miles is the perfect long run. Throughout a year of being injured, it has floated in my mind, a persistent goal. Over this year I’ve let go of caring about being fast, or entering races. But I haven’t let go of this dream: a ten mile weekend run.
In ten miles you can achieve something. You can get out of your local area, and maybe even back again. You can get tired, and pull through it. You can get seriously high on endorphins. It’s a long run you don’t need to plan for – if you forget to take food or water you can refuel at the end and still feel ok for the day. But it’s also far enough to make you properly hungry and thirsty. To remind you you’re alive.
I have run a couple of ten mile races and, as a race, it’s a treat as well. A ten mile race is a half marathon that takes you gently by the shoulders and says “hey, it’s ok, just for today we don’t need to run the last 5k”.
The last time I ran that far was back in November 2023, splashing along a grassy path that unexpected became a freezing stream, in the fields west of Stamford. Back then I thought my running was on the up, so I’m nervous to write this. But I don’t need my running to be on the up any more.
Today I ran ten miles. It was only half of my friend Laura’s 20 mile run, but I didn’t feel I was missing out. I felt only joy to be running 10, and an equal joy that I didn’t have to go any further.
It’s marathon season now, with Brighton tomorrow kicking off the big UK spring marathons. I gave up my place at the (new) Norfolk marathon back in January but I don’t feel envy for anyone running one this month.
I am truly happy with where I am. Today’s run was a ten.
Life lessons from the injury rollercoaster
Dear Reader, you can see patterns in anything if you look for long enough. My soon to be year of running injured looks like the rolling hills of an inevitable eliptical workout. But am I on a downslope or an upslope? It looks like I should be at my lowest, but I feel hopeful. A disclaimer: here be lessons, but… never take advice from someone who’s falling apart.
This chart is from my garmin account. I deleted strava before christmas when the tops of my feet starting hurting as well as my knees, and jealousy turned into loathing for everyone out there running ten miles like it was nothing special. No more sharing of photos and wildlife spotting for me. Just an obsessive list of private, unfiltered thoughts on how each run went and why.
My garmin notes run in cycles: celebration! commiseration! mystification! A good run might be because I did my strength exercises the day before. A bad run might be because I was tired from my strength exercises. Or because I didn’t do them. I warmed up. I did too much warm up. It was early. It was late. I was desperately searching for clues as to why my feet and knees were hurting.
At christmas, I pushed running to the back of my mind like crusty trainers in the shoe cupboard. I dug them out and saw the physio (again) in January. Her opinion was a surprise: I was doing better. My glutes and hamstrings were stronger, nothing seemed seriously wrong. She asked if I’d been doing anything different, and I said I’d been going to group cycling (spin) classes. Actually I had wondered if that’s why the tops of my feet hurt. Her advice: stop the cycling and see if that helped.
It did.
I had been making a pattern where there wasn’t one. Assuming that my ankles were sore because of my knee pain. But maybe, they weren’t connected. This week I ran my first 10k without pain in two months. I started the week planted to the sofa by a cold. Ran 4 miles on Thursday, also without pain, then on Friday I went to the gym for a couple of hours. I mixed cardio with strength, and finished with *proper weights*: deadlifts and back squats on the lifting platform. Swam 40 lengths with Martha on Saturday, ran 6.2 miles on Sunday. Is this the beginning of a good pattern?
It feels too early to say, but it’s not too soon to share one thing: building strength is the cure. I’ve done a few months of regular homework: split squats with a 5kg weight in each hand; hamstring curls on a swiss ball. The other day I realised that I can almost do a single-leg squat now – something that would have been unthinkable for my shaky ankles and creaky knees a year ago. Building strength for the functional movements of life can only help. This week’s gym session was my third *proper* session and the first where I felt really good. Strong. Like I belonged.
I miss running
It’s a new year, and nine months since experiencing knee pain, that’s now morphed into foot and hip pain. Soon it will be a year since I last raced.
If I leave a day or two between runs I can manage 2-3 miles of jogging without pain. Sometimes 4. Sometimes 1. For most people this wouldn’t be an issue. I can walk, cycle, swim, and work out, without pain. For me – a person who has run 5+ times a every week, for 30 years – it’s life altering.
Now that I can’t do it, and I can’t see a clear path to doing it again, I realise how much running defines me. I knew this. But now I really see it. I see how it shapes me, how it comforts me. It stops me from being an absolute arsehole to my family.
To stop this, I’ve been trying to understand all the feelings I get from running, to see if I can find them elsewhere:
- Endorphins – the high from getting out of breath, and pushing my body, especially on a long run.
- Peace of mind and alone time – when no-one knows where I am, and even I am not sure where I’m going next.
- Connection to nature – seeing the skies, plants, animals, and birds change with the seasons.
- A shift in mood – the answer to that feeling of unease, when I don’t know what’s wrong or what to do about it.
- Fitness and good health – strong heart, strong lungs, strong legs.
- Self worth and a feeling of achievement – the big goals that sit in the back of my mind, and the little ones that can be ticked off on every run.
- Motivation and self belief – I thought it took motivation to get out and run; turns out running gave me motivation to tackle the rest of my life.
I have found some of these through walking, swimming or workouts. But only one or two at a time.
Running ticked every box with every run.
I miss it.
Run early, and the day is Thine
At St Guthlac’s church in Market Deeping, a pair of sundials are built into the walls of the bell tower. The one on the south-eastern wall says, “The day is Thine”, and measures out the hours from five am. On the north-western face, its twin warns, “The Night cometh”, and marks the few daylight hours from four pm.
I walked past the church this Sunday in the afternoon gloom and smiled, thinking about my run that morning. It was the day the clocks went back, so waking up at 5am to eat breakfast before leaving the house at 6:30am was really waking up at 6am – practically a lie-in for me.
Contemplating where to run, I couldn’t face any route from my house. They are all worn out with overuse, even in their autumn colours. So I cycled west to Nene Park, watching the full moon descend into pink clouds. At the lake, I stopped to take photos of the cormorant tree, surrounded by circling rooks. Mist spread from the river as I crossed Milton Ferry Bridge, and the first rays of sun peered over my shoulder.
I locked my bike to a post at the top of Ferry Hill, and stuffed my coat into the pannier. I jogged slowly down the hill to Castor village, with the sun lighting the treetops bronze and gold above the green. On the road from Ailsworth to Helpston the ploughed fields were flat and brown – devoid of birds and life – but the roadside trees glowed in the morning light. At the edge of Castor Hanglands, I caught a glimpse of a deer as it pranced away from me into the woods.
I chose this route so that I could run along my favourite bend in the road. I can’t remember when I was there last; probably spring. Time telescopes. A Sunday run from 2021 could be yesterday – familiar but strange, with odd things to notice: a gate standing alone with no fence around it; a sign warning that “deer management is in progress”. Last Sunday I ran past a tree with four red kites in it, perched like ancient kings on their wooden throne.
If you run the same route every day, your brain doesn’t see it – it mostly fills it in from memory. It takes a new scene to feel new things, to make new pathways in your mind. The day is Thine. The Night cometh.
Physio killed the cardio star
Physio exercises: I am doing them; I hate them; they’re working. It’s been ten weeks since my second trip to the physio (this injury cycle) and I’m finally ready to jinx it by writing this. My knees are not fixed, my rage is getting a regular workout, but… I’m running.
Nothing is more revealing of how pathetic it is to be human than a page of simple physio exercises, sitting unopened in your inbox, silently shaming you. Why is it so hard to take a few minutes for tiny stretches or little calf raises we can do while watching tv?
I wouldn’t know, because my physio exercises are not those kind of exercises. They’re the kind of exercises that take me as long as a five mile run, and make me nearly as sweaty. Four times four sets of twelve (split squats, hamstring walk outs, squat jumps, hamstring curls on a swiss ball). With weights. With rest between. With plyometrics now added. Plus skipping. And pilates.
If this sounds like strength training to you, that’s because it is, and I resent every single minute that it takes out of my life. To begin with, I did the whole routine every other day. I started to have have anxiety dreams about hamstring walk outs, and put it off until bedtime, then spent 45 minutes in my pyjamas swearing on a yoga mat.
I’m down to three times a week (ok I’ve done it twice this week, plus skipping and pilates), which has helped. Other things that have made it less horrific:
- wearing trainers rather than wobbling around in bare feet;
- building up to using weights for all sets by starting with one, then two, etc;
- doing at least one set in the gym – no idea why it’s easier there, but it is!
Another thing that might have helped is starting HRT. When I mentioned to the physio that I was menopausal now (last period, October 2022), and currently having a hot flush once every 15 minutes, she said this might mean an increased risk of injury as I enter menopause, with slower rates of healing. When I thought HRT might get me running again, I made the appointment.
“Is it menopause?”, is very much like a less fun version of “Is it Cake?”, with none of the satisfying feeling when you get it right. I don’t know if the HRT is working, or the strength training is. But I ran 27 miles last week and every run felt ok. Please don’t let this jinx it.
Three minutes of nirvana in a business park
It’s midsummer and I’m jogging eastwards on the cycle path that runs between Lynch Wood business park and the Oundle Road. I’m sweating and tired from five miles of running. 22 degrees at 7am, the sun is high above the treetops already, and there’s only a hint of freshness in the air to remind me it’s early morning.
I turn the corner onto the shaded path. On the left, office buildings are hidden behind trees planted 35 summers ago. To the right an occasional car can be heard, but not seen, passing on the A605. The hawthorn hedge is bursting with umbellifers after a rainy spring. Even the tarmac is a pattern of leaves: the penumbra of plane, hazel and ash. The leaf shadows shift and move in the light, blue and gold against the grey. I slow down, and move to the right, as a man passes with a loping dog.
Alone now, my jog drops into a walk. The shadows deepen into forest on either side of the path, and I shade my eyes with my hand against the sun. I drink it in. Pollen and insects loop around in the breeze, backlit gold on dark green. A bee hangs in the air, a still point as I move past, wings beating furiously to hold it in place.
Ten metres ahead, a muntjac pushes through a gap in the hedge on my right, turning its head to look back at me. It hesitates, deciding whether to push back through. Instead it trots ahead, keeping to the path. I try to keep pace, to keep it in sight between patches of sunlight. After a few seconds it shimmies through a different gap in the hawthorn and off towards the road.
Uplifted, I start to run again. Slow. Aware of the sound of my breath and the brush of air on my arms as they move. I turn back to check for movement: humans, dogs, deer. Looking west, the light shifts into the harsh glare of summer. Leaves lie flat against the sky, and I’m aware of how weary I am. How much I don’t want to get home, to the heat, and all the work I haven’t done.
The end of the path approaches. The avenue of trees opens into a concrete junction. A roundabout, bollards, road signs, kerbs. A mock-tudor office block. For a few minutes, nature took over the suburbs, and joy pushed up through cracks in the concrete.
Being sensible / that injured feeling (FGSJ!)
“You’re so sensible! I need to be more like you”, a friend said, about my approach to being injured. I felt good for a few seconds, imagining all the miles I hadn’t run, the risks I hadn’t taken.
Then it was back to that injured feeling again: frustrated, guilty, scared, jealous (FGSJ!). Opening strava without thinking, and immediately closing it, but not before I’ve scrolled through enough friends’ runs for pure rage to well up in my throat. In the office, I hear someone standing in the kitchen complaining about their track session last night, and am rooted to my desk by cold twisting vines of envy.
The worst thing is, I don’t know whether I *am* being sensible. Yes, I acted on the first signs of injury, I went to see a physio, I pulled out of my marathon, I stopped training. But I didn’t stop running completely. 12 weeks on, I can manage 20 miles a week, but my knees aren’t cured. They don’t hurt, but the backs still swell up after a run, and I can’t run two days in a row.
At the back of my mind is the fear; what if this is for ever? And what if I just have to accept it? My first running injury (a cracked metatarsal) sent me to the GP, who was mystified as to why I was bothering the NHS with this minor issue. We are not elite athletes. No-one is going to greet us with concern at a packed walk-in clinic, and say “You need an x-ray and a CT scan, stat”. Doctors, like non-runners, think that if your knees hurt when you run, you should stop running. Just do something else instead!
I have been doing other things. Pilates, hiit workouts, deadlifts and squats, swimming. But cycling is too painful on the crotch (how do women do it??!), swimming breaststroke makes my knees click, and the gym plays terrible loud music.
I want to be outside. I want to be running. I don’t want to be sensible.
FGSJ!
I ran in May
Walking through Castor Hanglands a few weeks ago, my mum looked at the trees finally coming into leaf and said, sagely:
“Oak before ash – we’re in for a splash, ash before oak – we’re in for a soak“
I’d never heard this before in my life. Which came first this year then, mum? I asked. No idea! she laughed. Either way, we got the soaking in early May. Rain fell continuously for weeks, every single day. The meadows of the Hanglands (the name ‘hangra’ is Old English for a wood on a hill) were boggy, clear water standing on the surface, reflecting the looming clouds. May skies rolled in, full of thunder, hiding an invisible sun.
Running slowly through Thorpe Wood in early May, dying bluebells were replaced by rampant clouds of wild garlic. Jogging home, I swear I could hear the grass growing on either side of the path – shooting up like drinking straws to catch the constant rain.
Everywhere there were puddles and piles of blossom, petals bruised by careless feet. For days, I couldn’t catch the sun on my skin – it would only come out when I was stuck in meetings, or on the train. I wasn’t running much, only two or three times a week to help my knees recover. Every time I planned to run, it poured.
The timetable of spring was jolted out of order by the downpour. Tulips refused to open. Dandelions clocks were weighed down by water, unable to share their seeds. Cowslips fared better, sprouting in fields and roadsides untouched by mowers. It’s nearly June and I haven’t seen a single orchid – it’s usually peak season by now.
One Sunday in the middle of May, I ran along the footpath to Short Wood and Glapthorn Cow Pasture. It’s a favourite route, and by parking at the top of Southwick hill I could cut the run short to 5 miles, just manageable on my creaking knees. At first I was disappointed. A fine mist rose up from the fields and stayed there, the sun never quite breaking through. But the birds called through the fog, a hare hopped away as I approached, and cow parsley crowded in from every roadside and hedgerow, jewelled with drops of water. In Glapthorn Cow Pasture, I walked slowly along the path, catching my breath and holding it as a trio of nightingales sang to each other.
After the fog lifted, a sudden shift. The sun peeped out and the rain stayed away. My two-to-three runs a week became three-to-four. I made it to Ferry Meadows in the early morning and saw goslings, ducklings, baby moorhens, swallows, swifts, sand martins. I heard the cuckoo. I “cast a clout”, and took my gloves off.
Now we’re nearly at the end of the month. The hawthorn blossom is finally out and my gloves are staying in the drawer. I’m not running far, but I made it over to see the buttercups on the Nene Park rural estate, and out on a run with my friend Laura. Two months on from knee injury, regular gym sessions are helping my mobility. I can’t run fast or contemplate a training plan, but I’ve achieved my goal. I ran in May. I’m training to keep running.
I swam one length
I’m not badly injured. Just the kind of injured where I can run, but I’m not sure I should. The kind of injured caused by “overuse” rather than anything specific.
A running injury caused by running: a classic of the genre.
The physio said my knees are “irritated”. The right one is particularly pissed off, making weird clicks when I bend it, and both knees feel a bit swollen the day after a run. Clicks are normal, apparently, but mine don’t feel normal.
I tried running less, stretching more. Leaving it a day between runs stopped the swelling, but I felt too nervous to run fast in case the knees got worse. I don’t want to put up with it, I want it to go away. So I’ve been resting for a week to see if that helps.
I am not good at resting.
After days of doing nothing, on Friday I cracked and cycled to the gym for some sweet sweet sweat. I rowed 2km, did 30 minutes on the elliptical, swam 20 lengths, and cycled home. Swam 20 lengths? So why does the title say one?
When the London marathon was beginning without me in it, last Sunday, I was walking in the rain listening to Lauren Fleshman’s excellent book, GOOD FOR A GIRL. Everyone who cares about women or girls, or running, should read this book. It’s so insightful about what it means to push our bodies and minds to the edge, and how risky that can be for women in a system built for men. Anyway, a throwaway line from the book stayed with me – when injured, Lauren just decided to teach herself front crawl.
I never had swimming lessons. One day my dad took my armbands off, held my belly up for a bit and then let go. It was like riding a bike, if riding a bike involves your parent constantly asking why you still swim like a banana. As a consequence, I can swim one stroke: breaststroke. Badly.
At the pool on Friday, I thought about Lauren Fleshman *deciding* to swim, and I thought about my daughter worrying every week about swimming lessons but going anyway, and I thought about the few times I’d tried to do front crawl and couldn’t get the breathing right, and I just decided to do it anyway. I kept swimming, I kept trying to breathe in every third stroke, I kept trying to breathe out less forcefully in between so that I wasn’t desperate for the breaths every third stroke. It didn’t work, I did run out of breath. But I did keep going.
I swam one length of front crawl and hated every second. Yesterday, I went for a run and loved every second. And my knees are still irritated.
I know the feeling.
Not a Jogger 