mindfulness – Not a Jogger

More than a race

Two weeks ago, for the first time in 18 months, I pinned on a race bib. I ran the St Neots half marathon and it reminded me that, despite what we see and share online, running isn’t really about racing. I started running to get fit and it took me six years to enter a race. When I ran, I ran alone. It didn’t occur to me that I might want to run *with* other people, let alone against them.

In the year 2000 I was living in Cambridge, and my friend Caroline talked me into joining weekly runs with the Hash House Harriers. It was fun, and I realised that a) I enjoyed the running much more than the drinking, and b) I was definitely a front-runner keen to sniff out the route, and not a back-of-the-pack conversationalist.

My first race was the Grunty Fen half marathon. I can’t remember if I did any training – doubtful – but thanks to the internet (yes, it existed then) the results are online and I can tell you that I finished in 1:53:45. The race was in September and it was very hot and extremely flat. There was no shade and few spectators. At one point there was a slight slope and everyone started complaining about “the hill”.

One race down, I obviously entered the London marathon (..a tale as old as time..). I applied for a charity place and, as soon as I’d raised the money, got a stress fracture in my foot from wearing new trainers on my first 20 mile run (..tune as old as song..).

Have I learned anything in the past thirty years? I was pondering this on the way to St Neots. I’ve spent the past 18 months dealing with persistent knee /foot issues. With physio exercises and strength training, I’ve kept them at bay and kept running, but I haven’t managed to do “proper” (as in high mileage) training.

What I did manage was 2-3 easy runs, plus a long run at the weekend. I tried a few speed sessions, but struggled to find a pace and stick to it. My splits were all over the place, my lungs feeling like they were going to burst out of my chest, knees creaking scarily for days afterwards. For the last few weeks I dropped the speed and just tried to include some half marathon pace miles in one run a week. But what was half marathon pace? It started at 7:45 minutes a mile, then dropped to 8s, to 8:30s, then to… whatever I could manage that day.

Like the peaks and troughs of my low mileage progress chart on strava, St Neots half is described as “slightly undulating”. That’s one of the reasons I love it. This was my third – and slowest – dash around the country roads around Abbotsley village and a reminder that there are enough slopes to keep it interesting, but not too many to make it hard.

I finished the race in 1:41:56. A whole 13.1 miles at 7:45 pace. I was amazed! On the day it felt controlled, like I was holding back for the first five, pushing for the next four, and only feeling the strain in the final four. My new carbon plate shoes (yes I caved) helped in the race and with recovery. I felt really strong on the uphills, which I’m putting down to squats and deadlifts, and the last four miles of St Neots are (very slightly) downhill which makes it easier for the mind if not actually for the legs.

Even though I was doing the race for fun, and time wasn’t important, I felt nervous on the way to St Neots. Why was I worried when nothing was at stake? I have been thinking about this. My friend Laura was running too, and also feeling a bit nervous despite not aiming for a fast time (for her).

No matter what your goal, there is so much that is stressful about a race: eating at the right time, drinking enough but not too much, going to the toilet, wearing the right clothes. Getting these things right is hard enough, then you have to run the thing.

But once the race is underway, all there’s left to do is run. Running doesn’t have to be about racing, but racing is always just running. And running is the same as it’s always been: one foot in front of the other, cold air, warm breath, blue sky, green fields. Breathe in, breathe out. Same as it ever was.

Marking the equinox

Last Sunday was the autumnal equinox. A moment of uneasy equilibrium, when day and night briefly share 12 hours before daylight tumbles towards the winter solstice. I meant to go for a run, and pay special attention to the sunrise or sunset. To mark the moment with pictures, maybe write about it. I didn’t remember. I did run but it was raining and, behind the clouds, the sun was just an assumption.

This morning while I drank my pre-run coffee I read about the equinox. I learned about the “solar terminator” – the edge between night and day – that separates the part of the earth experiencing darkness from that experiencing daylight. A circle constantly rotating around the earth’s surface, twice a day, moving at 463 metres per second. At the equinox, it moves around the globe like a spinning line of longitude – bringing darkness on one side, and light on the other.

In spring and autumn, at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, both poles see the sun, and both northern and southern hemispheres share the light equally. Afterwards, one’s loss is the other’s gain.

The weeks around the equinox are a dream time for running. Every pre- or post-work run catches a sunrise or sunset. One wet evening I chanced on a rainbow in the eastern sky, the nearby clouds lit purple. But really I’m a sunrise person. In between some biblical rain, this month I’ve seen the mist rise from the River Ouse over York Minster, caught the first light of the sun turning a gate into a magic portal, and gazed on ghost trees in the fog over flooded fields.

At sunrise, I have the paths to myself. I like to run along the river, or in the woods. The colder nights and still warm days mean that vapour rises from the water and floats among the trees. The grass is soaking, and fences drip with tiny golden orbs of dew. In the city, the neon lights of the Esso garage are briefly a fairground ride against the technicolour sky.

This morning I remembered the Equinox – a week late, but does it matter? The sun rose today at 7am, and will set at 6:41pm. The nights are being drawn in for us in the northern hemisphere, whilst the days loosen their grip, extending their warm grasp southwards.

At the gate to Old Sulehay woods, the fog was lying over flooded fields, with a sunrise lightshow peaking high above. To the south of the path, the meadow was waist high with grasses lit ochre, mist blurring the trees and bringing everything closer, nearer. I took some pictures and they are spectacular but they don’t contain it. The sounds of birds rustling and settling and jostling the leaves. The distant cars that never appear. The tiny lights of a farmhouse on the horizon.

In the woods, the lightshow is reduced to a strip of gold and blue overhead, with clouds looming pink in the west over the horse chestnut trees. A carpet of curling leaves and conkers litter the top of the hill. It is darker here, and a tiny bit creepy. I take my earbuds out so that I can hear the birds, but also the sound of anyone approaching. Back on the road, the sun has risen and drifts of roadside weeds burn orange against the fields. No interesting birds today, just pigeons and magpies, starlings. A few pheasants.

No hares in the fields, but plenty of deer. I run a couple of miles along the road to Kings Cliffe, stopping for a wee behind a gate. Over 11 miles, I don’t see any people. A few cars, but no cyclists, runners or dog walkers. Everyone is at home, in bed or inside, enjoying the warmth. Maybe putting the heating on for the first time. Maybe preparing to go out later, when I will be at home warming up and hiding inside.

This summer, on holiday in Sardinia, I took a video of a sunrise over the sea as it lapped against a ruined tower. When I uploaded it, instagram asked me if I wanted to flag it as AI. At dawn, the world looks so perfect that it doesn’t seem possible, or real. Mid-way through the clip, a tiny mosquito buzzes across the screen on its way to biting my arm in three places.

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.

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.

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.

Staying in the moment

My daughter is nine, and developing a nice sideline in life coaching. On Thursday night when I was fretting about work while making the dinner she said “worry about work when you’re at work” and it worked. I did stop worrying. One of the biggest challenges of being a parent – for me at least – is staying in the moment. There are so many distractions, from existential worries to whatsapp alerts. I know that this time is precious. Soon, she’ll be a teenager and won’t want to talk to me for hours at 9pm, and then she’ll have a phone and I won’t want her to be on it.

My aim for today’s run was to stay in the moment: to enjoy being outside on this cold and clear January day. I did enjoy it, but not in the mindful way I had hoped for. My feet were moving calmly, but my brain was running everywhere. Remembering something I said in a meeting that I wished I hadn’t, worrying what trainers to wear at the race I’m doing on Sunday, wondering if I needed to get dad something else for his birthday.

Occasionally I’d stop to walk and find that my mind cleared. The constant beat of questions and worries stopped and I would notice the gutter of ice at the edge of the road, a golden plover in a field, or the fingers of an oak branching into the blue sky.

After my run I swam a few lengths in the swimming pool at the gym. It was nearly lunchtime and very quiet. Shafts of sunlight rippled through the end of the empty fast lane and I ducked in to bask in the glow, eyes closed. I was happy and I can’t remember what I was thinking about. Maybe summer. Maybe nothing.