Ho hum run – Not a Jogger

Walk ‘til you feel like running

Places I have cried lately: in the car (many times), on the train, on a run, in the office, at parkrun, at Lidl.

I’m 48 and sandwiched between my 11 year old’s dreams and the reality of coming to terms with my mum’s dementia. I have a full time job that is rewarding, but stressful and serious, and on my mind, always. I used to have hobbies. Now my hobby is seeing my husband and daughter in the two hours between finishing dinner and going to bed each day.

What has this got to do with running? Everything and nothing. I wish I had more time to run, but I don’t. Making time for running means going out with the dawn at 5am, or the bats at 9pm. But it also means cutting back on sleep and I can’t do that now. So running has had to become less important for me, and I’ve become really envious of people taking on new challenges or gym work or big sessions or long runs. But when I look harder at the envy, I can see that it’s really about me, not them, that it’s just guilt – guilt that *I* am not doing more, that *I* am not fit or fast.

Running is my solace in stressful times, my escape. I can’t let running become another stick to beat myself with, another item on a to do list I can never finish.

This Sunday morning I wanted to run 10 miles. The forecast was fine and I planned to get up and out at 5:30am. Instead, at midnight on Saturday I was wrenched out of the first blissful hour of sleep by my daughter plaintively saying she felt sick. I spent the night on the floor in her room while she dozed with all the lights on clutching a bowl. In the morning she was fine, but I was a wreck.

At 7am I made a coffee and had a little cry in the kitchen, as I blearily crushed and squirted 3 different medicines into our ancient cat’s food. It’s just too much first thing in the morning, to be making coffee and toasting bread and drinking water and microwaving milk and wiping surfaces and checking for cat sick. I was grumpy as I stomped up the stairs, and mean to humans and felines alike.

I sat waiting for the coffee to do its work and searching for a reason to go for this run. I wanted to do it, I wanted it to make me feel better, but I was tired in the brain and in the stomach and in the legs. I wasn’t ready to go out until 8:15, too late for early birds and peak walking hour for dogs – my least favourite time to run.

I left the house and started walking, taking my own advice from yesterday’s parkrun with Martha: “just walk until you feel like running, and don’t worry if you don’t”. I walked a mile before I felt like running at all, and then jogged slowly on and off to Ferry Meadows. While I was jogging I listened to part 2 of the Bandsplain podcast about Pearl Jam. Then I listened to Corduroy three times in a row. I love that song. I love how we can get pleasure from other people’s pain, even from our own if there’s beauty in it.

At 5km I stopped my watch. I didn’t want to go home, I didn’t want to sit on a bench and cry, and I didn’t want to run. I decided to walk to the cafe, buy a coffee and walk home. It felt good to decide this. Sometimes you can’t escape your feelings. Can’t outrun them. When I run I can usually get out of my own head but I knew that wasn’t going to happen today. 5km is a good run. 5km was enough.

Motivation: delicious carrot or vicious stick?

Sometimes all it takes to make me run is the promise of coffee and cake at the end. Here is Sunday’s. It was warm, tasty and swiftly inhaled at The Spoke on Holloway Road after a fast, hard 10 miler.

Most of the time there are no cakes at the end of a run, though, are there? There are no prizes for running 6 sodding sodden miles home on a dark Tuesday night, only dripping trainers and beans on toast again.

This week I ran five times. Twice I came home in the pouring rain, picked up my daughter from nursery, gave her warm milk and a lovely bath, then put on my kit and went back out into the rain to run 6 or 7 miserable miles in the dark. After doing this on Friday night, on Saturday and Sunday morning all I wanted to do was stay in bed, even though the sun was shining.

So why didn’t I? No-one is forcing me to run. I signed up to train for a marathon with absolutely no cajoling from anyone. Most people, including my family, think I am mad. So what is forcing me out of the door?

I don’t need to “lose the baby weight” (and nor does anyone). I’m not unfit. I’m not unhappy. I don’t need a goal. I’m not being pushed by anything negative. I’m motivated by the biggest, most delicious slice of cake and cup of coffee imaginable: finishing a marathon a year after having a baby. Just doing that – proving to myself, and no-one else, that I’m still here. I’m still a runner.

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 6 miles with 8 x 40 secs hill reps
Wednesday: 7 miles
Thursday: booze
Friday: 6 miles easy
Saturday: 5 miles with 2.5 mile tempo in the middle
Sunday: 10 miles steady

Total: 34 miles

One good reason for running in the dark

Nobody is around to see how slow you run or notice you stopping to walk.

Today I’m 18 weeks pregnant. I look like I’ve eaten three bowls of pasta and they’ve somehow lodged themselves below my belly button. You wouldn’t give up your seat for me on the train, but you might consider giving pointing me towards a gym (if you were a total bitch).

I’ve been trying to keep to the plan of running 3 x 3 miles every week, and sometimes I’ve managed it and sometimes I haven’t. It’s not that I’m less motivated, it’s just that I have more excuses. Sleeping badly, feeling tired, needing to wee every 20 minutes (seriously), weird stretching pains. I could go on, but I really shouldn’t. Apart from the odd pains and the weeing none of these excuses are any different or more valid than those of all runners when the alarm goes off at 5:55 and they don’t want to get up.

This morning I did get up. It was dark, but compared to Wednesday’s funfest of rain, wind and dark, at least it was only dark. I pulled on my biggest running gear (now looking comically small), a weird belly support tube thing, and ambled out of the door. It was blackest night, even at 6.15am. There were no stars and no lights in the windows of the tower blocks. I skirted the busier roads of Finsbury Park, hoping for tail-lights and milkmen to break up the gloom. There weren’t any. Running up Hornsey Road, I spied a black bra lying in the gutter.

There might be one good reason for running in the dark, but there are plenty more not to.

The Return of the Darkness (not the band)

It’s a beautiful thing to be running again. Sadly this does not mean that all runs will be beautiful.

On Monday morning I left the house at 6.20am and stepped straight into a dark, damp Dickensian fog. Mist hung over the roads with a quiet menace, creeping down the hills, suffocating street lamps, muffling every sound. I hunched my shoulders, even though it wasn’t cold, as the fog gradually soaked my head and ran in tepid droplets down my spine.

My running wasn’t pretty either. Being pregnant means I have a ready-made excuse to wimp out/ cut short and I was happy to use it. As soon as I’d done 10 minutes I was looking to turn back. In the end I managed 21.28 minutes’ running, with a bit of walking up the hills.

This morning’s run looked similar. It was dark. It was damp. The fog had retreated however and my mood improved accordingly. I’d been awake since 5am so by 6 I was more than ready to get up and do something. I ran for 30 minutes (not counting 3 walking breaks up hills) and made it round a regular Crouch End circuit. This is as close to a ‘normal run’ as I have managed since being up the duff and I feel absurdly proud of myself.

It’s amazing what a change of perspective will do for you. If you had told me six months ago I would be happy with running for half an hour three times a week, and walking up all the hills, you would have had to give me a pretty damn good reason.

Luckily, you would have one.

Sometimes the only thing left to do is go running

Yesterday evening I was not happy.

I had just finished a five day training course which included going in on a Saturday and dealing with work emails every morning and evening. I am putting on weight, but can’t seem to stop myself reaching for the crisps. I was coming down with a cold.

I was tired and grumpy.

I needed to make dinner.

There was only one thing for it – go for a run.

Junk Miles or Golden Wonders?

I have been running lately, I really have. I just haven’t felt like writing about it. What could I say that I haven’t said before, or that you haven’t thought before? I haven’t done any new training sessions or run any races. I don’t even have any new trainers. Is there anything new to say about running?

Of course there is. It’s tricky though. I know this is a blog but I try not to be too personal on it. I may write about me, myself and I but I don’t think this is the place to discuss my multiple personality disorder.

After my marathon came the inevitable comedown. The stiff hamstrings I picked up during training kept grumbling and, to be honest, I let them. I should have stopped running for a couple of weeks to give them the chance to recover.

I didn’t, though. I didn’t stop running because I have to stop running.

Soon, probably in a couple of weeks’ time and not for long, maybe a couple of months. Not for anything terrible either. I just can’t run during some medical treatment. I’ve done it before and I know it won’t kill me, but it’s become a big mental block, stopping me writing.

I’ve loved so many of the runs I’ve been on lately so much that I don’t want to share them. I haven’t run at faster than marathon pace. I haven’t pushed myself, thought about my performance or planned my sessions. I heard miles like these referred to lately as “junk miles”.

During last week’s junk miles I paused to appreciate wet roses in a morning shower. I watched storm clouds clear to blue sky and back in ten minutes. I ran up Highgate West Hill without stopping.

They’re not junk, any miles you can run without thinking or worry. They’re golden. No rules, no responsibility, no plans, no targets.

I’m going to miss them.

A Wet Weekend

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I exaggerate. It was the better of times, it was the less good of times. It was the passable of times, it was the sub-standard of times.

What am I talking about? I am talking about my weekend. My lovely four day weekend with four diamond opportunities to run in a sparkling celebratory fashion around the streets of London town. My jubilant, joyful firework display of a weekend which was, in reality, partly a damp squib.

It started well – a 13 mile run with Mr Notajogger on Saturday morning took in Regent’s Park and Highgate, and was planned specifically to pass by the Highgate Pantry in order that we could purchase two ginormous iced doughnuts (with hundreds and thousands on top). It is something of an unreconstructed bakery, favouring artifical colours over artisan cupcakes, and for that reason perhaps the doughnuts are ridiculously good. We feasted on them, full of the self-satisfied glow of those who have run an unnecessarily long way for no reason.

On Sunday it rained. I did not run.

On Monday it did not rain until I started running. I forced myself out onto the streets for a weak, slow and painful 7 miles. It hurt. I ran out of podcasts. My left sock had a hole in it. I had run out of clean sports bras and had to wear a tight white vest which is a size too small and slightly see-through.

On Tuesday I was hungover. Mr N dashed out of the house for a 10 mile run. 2 cups of tea, 2 breakfasts and 2 extra sleeps later I crawled out for a 5.2 mile run. It was supposed to be 5.5 but by 5.2 I was off the main road and no-one could watch me limping sadly home.

It rained.

Breaking Records Before Breakfast

This morning I ran 12.65 miles in 45 minutes and 57 seconds. I’m pretty pleased with that.

When my mapmyrun app on my phone first told me I’d run a mile in 3 minutes and 16 seconds I confess to a doubting its veracity for a second. “Mind you,” I then considered, “I did rest my hamstring instead of running yesterday, maybe that was just the extra push I needed towards running the fastest mile of all time by nearly half a minute?”

I was quite surprised I managed to maintain the pace over the full 12.65 miles, but the voice of the app kept telling me so every 3-4 minutes so it must be true!

The map of my run looks a bit weird, though.

Joy, Joy, Jubilee

Don’t worry, I’m not feeling joyful, jubilant or joyful about the Jubilee. I’m still feeling flat about running and about life in general, don’t fret.

This morning, though, I was determined that I would find something to write about on my run. It was supposed to be a sunny day, after months of cold grey mornings, and I looked forward to talking of blue skies and hope. It wasn’t. The gloves were off, at least, but the clouds remained.

2.5 miles had passed before a smile threatened my lips. Midway through my run I have to spend five minutes crossing the Holloway Road. It’s one of my least favourite things to do. I hate stopping for anything, but particularly for leering van drivers at 6.30am. There are three crossings to wait for and their timings are staggered to cause maximum irritation to pedestrians. Waiting, I lose all motivation to run and start dreaming of breakfast.

This morning, though, after a new personal best slowest crossing yet, I was greeted by this splendid sight in the window of Vivien of Holloway. What joy! If anything could make me a royalist, this dress would do it. With sash, naturally. And maybe a small tiara?

The Inevitable Comedown

I don’t much feel like writing about running at the moment. I do feel like running, but I haven’t been able to do much.

I took the week off work to recover from the marathon and catch up on sleep and country walks. It should have been lovely. It was okay. My legs felt steamrollered on the Monday with sore quads, calves and hamstrings. I contemplated taking an entire week off running, but by Thursday I was desperate to get out of the house. I didn’t really think through the consequences of taking a week off last week. What is the thing I like to do most on holiday? Run.

I managed to jog for 2 miles on Thursday, then a 4 mile trot on Friday, but neither was exactly enjoyable. This morning I managed 5 miles in 8 minute miles. My body is probably back to normal. My mind isn’t doing so well.

No doubt this is the inevitable, predictable, post-race blues. I was surprised to have them, and am reluctant to write about them, when everything went so well. This sort of thing is hardly going to inspire any runners to break their personal bests, when all I’ll allow myself is a couple of days of the glow before the doubts set in.

Even two days after the race, the achievement didn’t seem that impressive. I read other race reports of people running sub-3 hours and felt deflated. How do you make yourself feel better about running when you can’t go running?

On a positive note (yes please!), I did get a lovely trophy for my third place – it’s a glass paperweight with a flying pig inside it – I’ll post a picture of it for your edification later.

Me: feel good about myself after running a 3:30 marathon? Pigs might fly.