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.
When I was 8 years old, I was so scared of the wind that I got into a stranger’s car and asked him to drive me home, just to get out of it.
Every morning before school, I would open the curtains to see if leaves or rubbish were being blown along the street. If I could hear the howl of the wind in the chimney, my throat would tighten and my stomach would begin to churn. “I feel sick”, I would say, and mum would let me stay at home. Why didn’t she make me go to school? Mr Leroyd, my teacher, had told her that 8 year olds often develop sudden phobias which go away if they are ignored, so that’s what my parents did.
I don’t remember what happened when I got out of the stranger’s car when it pulled up to our kerb, but I do know that the man took me to our door and spoke to my mum. It makes sense that letting me stay at home to watch tv was preferable to that.
It’s been windy this week, and I have hated it. I had to get the train to London on three of the days, which meant cycling against the wind to the station for the first time in weeks. My knees are creaking as a result and, today, I cycled so slowly back from the supermarket that I nearly fell off my bike. It’s a short, flat ride.
Running in the wind isn’t as hard as cycling. Today, on my day off, I cycled to the gym (why do I hate myself?) so that I could go for a cross-country run. On the bike, the wind was grim. On foot, it was fine. Refreshing, even. I ran from Thorpe Wood, up Ferry Hill and out towards Marholm, then across the public footpath which skirts the Milton Estate to Castor Hanglands and back through Ailsworth and Castor. I love this route in every season. It’s high ground (for round here), so even at its muddiest it’s still a pleasure to run.
The path goes through farmlands and woodlands. Flocks of linnets rose and crossed my path from field to field. A single skylark struggled against a gust, eager to get away from me. Approaching the crossways of two footpaths, the windsock that marks the private air field was being blown horizontal. A long sward of clipped green grass sat temptingly behind the PRIVATE sign. I always think that this airstrip would be a great place to do interval training, though someone would probably shoot me for it.
Back on the Helpston Road, a pheasant scooted across my path, backlit by a weak winter sun. A constant comb of light, a few shafts breaking through the clouds, hovered in the eastern sky. As I approached Ailsworth I slowed to a walk to get my heart rate down, the remains of November’s covid still lurking in my lungs. Before the A47 bridge, birds of prey circled concentrically: red kites on the left, a buzzard on the right.
I was surprised by the January colours on this run. I was slow, and had lots of time to look at the landscape. The ploughed fields looked purple, but shards of hay glowed orange in the furrows. So often, colours seen at a glance reveal themselves to be two quite different ones, in close up.
This week I went to a training session that’s been on my mind. It was on polarity thinking, something that can be used for ongoing problems that have two correct answers which are interdependent (eg, self and others; continuity and change). There are upsides and downsides for each pole, and the aim of polarity thinking is to stay in the upsides of both poles, without sinking into the downs.
As I was running, I was thinking about being scared of the wind. Was it the wind that was frightening, or its effect: how it made me feel? The swirl and howl of a gale raised a panic in me that I couldn’t deal with. Indoors was safety from that. Outdoors was risk. I’m not frightened of the wind any more, but I am scared of heights, stairs that you can see through, and really big dogs. Staying inside my house would keep me safe from all of those, but stop me from doing almost anything. You never know when an architect is going to put one of those staircases in.
When I was getting changed into my running kit this morning, my nose started bleeding onto the bathroom floor. I’ve had The Cold for three weeks now and I’m still not tired of complaining. It’s been horrific – like having a head full of glue – but so satisfying to moan about. I had to start my run breathing only through my mouth, and the bleeding stopped.
I left the house with no plan as to how far I’d run or how long. I didn’t have a purpose for the run other than to get outside. Headphones in, I started off with an audiobook, but there was no space for my thoughts so I put some music on. Music makes my mind wander; speech doesn’t, which is usually what I want. But today I wanted to wander.
From my house, all paths lead to Nene Park, so I knew I’d end up there, but would I do a muddy river run, a lakeside loop, or a longer outing to Castor or Alwalton? If I don’t start a run with a plan, I can listen to my body, adapt to the weather or conditions, and it can be less boring. But it can also be bad, of course: much easier to give up, harder to stay focused. Today I didn’t finally agree with myself how far I was going until mile 5. I had been hoping for 10, but settled on 8. I ran for 1 hour 15 minutes, but was outside for another 20 minutes on top of that, looking at birds and taking pictures with my phone.
On the path to the park I saw a couple of big groups of runners out together, in their high-vis jackets, chatting and looking cheerful. Friday morning is always busy on the trails around Nene Park, but it was much busier than usual. There were lots of walkers and runners, most of them older than me, with some wearing the odd outfits of newly reformed new year’s resolution runners. I always love seeing the random things people wear to run – it reminds me that anyone really can just leave the house and go. Today a wiry Jacob Rees Mogg type dashed past me with purpose, sporting long grey socks and a faded country casuals cotton rugby shirt tucked high into bunchy shorts, his gold framed glasses slipping down his nose.
I took a lap around the nature reserve at Woodston Ponds. I’m never sure if it’s ok to run on the wooden boardwalk – I don’t want to damage it as I know it has to be repaired by Wildlife Trust volunteers. If I’m doing a gentle pace like today though, I figure it’s ok, I’m not pounding around scaring the birds. From the entrance gate of the reserve, I spotted a heron high up in a tree overlooking the River Nene, and he was still there when I made it to the river side of the loop, surveying his domain.
Herons and cormorants are common birds around here. So common, I rarely notice them until they fly past unexpectedly – a heron lifting off from the bank on silent wings, a cormorant wheeling onto the water. They make me remember: dinosaurs still live among us. Today I got the rare treat of an egret, on the backwater near Goldie Lane. When I stopped to get my camera out, it stalked away through the reeds, less like a heron and more like a flustered hen.
At the furthest point of my run, just before I turned for home, I noticed a group of cormorants in the middle of Gunwade Lake. They kept disappearing underwater so it was hard to tell how many there were – maybe six, which felt unusual. Or do groups of cormorants fish together all the time when I’m not looking? I thought about all the people I’d assumed were new year’s resolution exercisers, like they were rare egrets, and I was a common heron, even though I haven’t run regularly for weeks due to Covid then The Cold. We were all out there together, on our feet, in nature.
It’s been a funny old year. But haven’t they all been, lately? A journalist asked for some stats at work the other day and I had to write an email justifying why no two years are really comparable and then I stopped and thought: why am I doing this? Of course you can’t compare 2020 to 2021 to 2022. We’re living through a series of crises.
It has not been a vintage running year for me. I picked up a calf injury by pushing too hard in a 30k race in February, deferred my Brighton marathon place, trained fitfully over a hot summer, ran the Rutland marathon and did not enjoy it, then finally got Covid and missed the beginning of the cross-country season. My annual mileage is set to be my lowest for many years.
But, surprise! I still love running. When I have managed to get out for a run – even (especially?) the ones where I walked – I’ve loved it more than ever. The injury and Covid were rotten, but they made me appreciate running more. I missed being outside, covering ten miles with ease, and getting out of my head as well as the house.
I went part-time (if 4 days a week with some work on fridays really counts as part-time, which I would argue it does not) in March, with the intention of doing some creative writing on my day off. I’ve found it hard. Not working quite so much has been great, but it turns out that creativity is not a tap I can just turn on when I have a spare few hours. Also, there are a whole heap of other things I want to do with six hours to myself, and running is high on the list.
My best runs this year have been Friday morning runs. Some of them with Lazy Girl Laura, but most of them alone. Does running count as being creative? Maybe not, but it definitely does count as beautiful. I’ve shared some of my favourite running photos from the year in this blog. You can’t see me in any of the pictures, but I was there.
‘Such perfect marathon weather’. The smooth path stretches along the edge of the dam. A family claps and cheers from a bench. Ten more runners overtake me.
‘I’m glad I’m not going out too fast’. The smooth path ends, turns gravelly and weaves through a carpark and up onto a grassy slope.
‘I just need to keep the lid on for ten miles’. A marshal shouts, “well done young lady”. I’m 46, but I’ll take it. The stony track curves up and down around the inlet of the reservoir.
‘Look at the water, maybe I’ll see the osprey’. The lead runner of the half marathon whizzes past.
‘Keep it steady’. Another sharp uphill, a right turn, a left, a downhill.
‘The turning point must be soon’. The lead male runner passes, big beard, leopard print vest.
‘Do not speed up’. The first woman runs past, pink t-shirt, big smile.
‘I do not need to speed up’. Five more women pass and the turning point is there. The route doubles back around a line of orange cones in the woods.
‘Keep a lid on it’. Runners pass, still on their way to the turning point. The five mile marker goes by.
‘Only five? No, don’t think that. Half way to ten ’. The runners coming the other way are slower and more friendly.
‘This is better, I’m enjoying it’. Say “well done!” to every female runner. A dog lifts its leg to pee on the seven mile marker post.
‘Nearly at the dam, now’. A man sitting on a bench makes full eye contact with me and says nothing. Across the dam. A child jumps up and down, blowing a whistle.
‘I should be feeling better than this’.
The path stumbles between mole hills and rabbit holes. ‘This grass is really green from the rain’.
The route goes back past the start funnel. ‘Try to look good’.
The loudspeaker calls out the names of passing runners. A few cheers. ‘Try to feel good’.
Out of the carpark, the seventeen mile loop back to the finish begins. ‘I won’t count the hills’.
There were six hills between that point and Hambleton Peninsula. ‘This might be a bad patch’.
The half marathon turning point is behind me at eleven miles. ‘I might feel better soon’.
The path stretches out along the north shore, looking flat but somehow going uphill. ‘It’s good to be outside’.
Mile fourteen. Mile fifteen. Up the hill to mile sixteen, my chest pulls with every breath of air.
“Stop it!” I shout out loud.
But I can’t push away the negative thoughts. Over the final ten miles, I try everything.
‘It’s good that my achilles isn’t hurting’.
‘Every uphill has a downhill’.
‘This gel will make me feel better.’
‘I always love running here’.
‘It’s still a beautiful day’.
‘No-one is going past you’.
‘Everyone feels the same.’
‘Don’t walk unless you have to’.
‘Just walk if you need to’.
‘Just get to the finish’.
‘You’re going to make it’.
When I cross the finish line I feel two things: relief, and certainty that there was nothing I could have done differently. This day wasn’t my day.
It is true that much of a marathon is what’s inside your head, the stories you tell yourself about how you’re feeling, the stories you tell yourself before you start, and how you spin it afterwards. But now that I’m older, I can see that it’s really the body. Yes, you can make yourself keep running or let yourself give up, you can decide to push or decide to walk. But it all comes from the body. The training, or the feelings on the day, dictate it too.
Looking at my insane heart rate recordings, I know I couldn’t have done anything else on this day. I know that the rushing of blood in my ears, the nearly fainting, that was the very edge of what was possible. I went right up against it. There was nothing more I could have done on that day.
When you’re young, or you have tons of training in your legs, you can carry a bad day and your brain is your only barrier. As you get older, on a bad day you can’t push through it. But on a good day, you can run just as fast as ever.
I’m running, but I’m not fit. I mean, I’m fitter than someone who doesn’t run. But I’m not race fit. I mean, I could run a race, faster than some people, but not as fast as I want to run it. Okay, I am a bit fit. And the bit fit that I am, to be specific, is Mile Two Fit.
In Mile One, I am slow. Every run at the moment starts slow – this is the thing about being over 40, I have to start slowly no matter how many warm up exercises I’ve done in the hallway. My knees are creaking, my back is stiff, I’m shuffling my feet.
By Mile Two, I am ready to rock, ready to run, ready ready ready steady go baby! I feel great. I don’t even feel like I’m trying. My legs are turning over, my feet are bouncing, my breath is coming easy. I’m holding myself back and I’m still super fast. Can you even believe that mile split?!
By Mile Three the party’s winding down. I keep pushing the pace but it’s not easy now, it’s an effort. I have to concentrate on breathing, think about my stride, work hard to drive my knees forward and pick up my feet.
At Mile Four, it’s over, but I’m still moving, just about. I’ve already done 5k! Everything else is a bonus at this point. Mile Five is extra – if I slowed down enough in Mile Four I might get a second wind for half a mile. Mile Six is usually the last, so it’s fine to walk a bit of that.
Mile Two, I miss you. I want to live in that Mile Two feeling for the whole run. Mile two, I love you.
Perspective is an odd thing. When parkrun were pushing for a return in England in September 2020 it felt too soon, and that turned out to be correct. I didn’t want to be Run Director responsible for a junior parkrun event when cases in Peterborough were rising and a friend or family member of a volunteer could potentially catch COVID and die as a result. Back then there were 10 new cases in P-town every day (about 36 per 100,000 people). This week, the rate is ten times higher – 360 per 100,000 people, and yet I’ve been happily running and volunteering at parkrun and junior parkrun for a few weeks now.
It’s obvious what’s changed. I am vaccinated, along with most “at risk” older and vulnerable people in the UK (though maybe not in Peteborough?). And vaccination is preventing severe illness and death. But coming back to racing and parkrun is still something I’m getting used to, and I wanted to write down how I’m feeling so that, in a year’s time, I can look back at this as Captain Hindsight and point out all the things I got wrong. Or hopefully not! Anyway:
Running outside with other people now feels safer
Remember in the early days of COVID when we weren’t sure whether we should even be outside at all? People in my local facebook group warned of particles of virus floating about like giant snowflakes in the air, and complained about joggers – our dangerous breath and sweat and snot and spit. I wore a buff for my runs and raised it over my nose and mouth when I passed people, but that didn’t stop them looking scared and moving away.
To be honest, I still hold my breath when I pass someone on a narrow path. Maybe I’ll always do it? But I know that outside transmission is much less likely, and as long as I’m not stuck running one metre behind the same person for 15 minutes, I feel comfortable.
I think COVID has made us more considerate runners. I will happily miss out on high fives if it means never being accidentally spat on or elbowed out of the way in a race, thank you very much. And as for the man I once saw sitting on a cafe chair in his sweaty pants merrily changing his trousers after parkrun, some things are best left behind.
I am ready to run a bit faster
When races started coming back in England, I was unfit, unhappy, and unready to race. Running saved my life hundreds of times over the past 18 months, but walking was also a big part of that and, for me, walking and racing don’t mix. Over the summer, many of my friends and family have been marathon training (and running! Shout out to Chris conquering the terrifyingly hilly Bath marathon) and inevitably I got fomo and signed up for a race.
I wanted to start with a race I would love, so I chose my favourite distance – a half marathon – and my favourite format – rolling country lanes. The Wissey Half Marathon takes place in “the idyllic Norfolk countryside, starting and finishing in the historic village of Oxborough”. It is advertised as fast and flat, but I wasn’t looking for a pb. I just wanted to enjoy it and push myself a tiny bit in the run-up and on the day.
I didn’t do much specific training. I was already running 30-35 miles a week, including a long run at the weekend. I did introduce a tiny bit of speed and hill work and what little I did, I enjoyed. I used David Roche’s 6 week re-introduction to speed and enjoyed the power hill strides, though finding an actual hill for them in Peterborough was the hardest bit!
I remember why I love races
After a month of grey skies and 18 degree damp, 5th September was of course warm and sunny. It was a perfect day for a picnic in the park, less perfect for racing 13.1 miles. On the car journey to Norfolk, I was surprised to find that I didn’t care. I was happy to slow down if I needed to, delighted to look at the views, and excited to get out in the countryside. I ran 11 of the 13 miles with a huge grin on my face, and yes the grin turned to a slight grimace in the last two, but we can gloss over that. My target was 8 minute miles, and I made it: 1 hour and 43 minutes on the clock, 12 minutes slower than my best, but I felt like I’d won.
I loved everything about the race: the parking on the village green; every single runner saying hello as we walked to the start; the terrible instant coffee in the village hall; fields of sunflowers either side of the road; rolling fields and combine harvesters; tractors waiting for the runners to pass; friendly marshals and their kids helping out; chats with fellow runners. My favourite moment was about 5 miles in: I was running with an older man who was run/walking (fast!) and we passed a “public footpath” sign pointing the way to a smooth grassy path along the side of a field, heading over a hill into the distance. “I wonder where that goes?” we both asked, in unison.
August in England. High summer, which this year means 19 degrees and grey skies at noon. Except for the days I wear jeans and a coat, when the sun comes out and it’s suddenly boiling. Until I put my shorts back on and it starts to rain.
When the outside world is room temperature, it’s unsettling. I can’t open a window to let the air in, it’s already there. Everything feels the same, inside and out. The strangest thing about this summer is that I could go for a run at any time of the day and it wouldn’t ever be too hot or uncomfortable or sticky; it would just be okay. Acceptable. Fine.
I should be using this opportunity to run interval sessions in my lunch break, and have a lie in instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to beat the heat. Obviously, I’m not doing this. Not (just) because I hate intervals, but because running at lunchtime sucks. I have already showered. I don’t want to get changed again. The paths will be busy; there will be people around and I might have to say hello to them. But most of all, I’m too hungry to run.
Lunchtime is for lunch. And eating lunch is very important to me, but that’s not the reason I’m not running at lunchtime. I have become an early morning runner. These days, more than half of my runs begin before 6am.
5:45am, 5:11am, 5:37am.
When my daughter was a baby, starting the day at times like these was pure torture. We used to say, “if it starts with a five, it’s a fail”. Now I’m choosing it.
Before corona, I ran at 5am because I had to. I needed to leave the house to catch my London train before 7am, and sharing parenting and bedtimes meant that mornings were the only option. But now we have an 8 year old who can put herself to bed and we both work from home. I no longer have to get up early to run, I just want to.
How did I get here?
It started in the first lockdown. Running early meant being alone on the trails and that felt safe. The spring and summer of 2020 were beautiful and that brought joy. Misty mornings, damp blossoms, and spider webs in the grass. In Autumn, encroaching darkness pushed me onto the roads but I didn’t feel sad. I welcomed the quiet hum of the streetlights and the changing of traffic signals on an empty street. The setting moon and the rising sun. Pouring rain. Christmas lights.
Running in the early morning is like a gift every day. There is always something fleeting to see, and I might be the only one to notice it. This morning the sun broke over a group of cows in a misty field after the rain, and I nearly tripped over a dead mole on the side of the road, velvety and perfect.
By the end of my run it was overcast and dull again. Room temperature. Grey.
All my joy in running comes from the world outside my body. The sun on my back; the dirt under my feet; leaves brushing by my legs. Traffic lights changing to green in the twilight. A glimpse of swifts overhead. The muffled thump of footsteps in the snow.
Joy comes from how my body reacts. The thrill of clearing a big puddle at the last minute. The gradual unclenching of my shoulders as I’m warming up. The moment when I can’t tell raindrops from sweat any more and give in to being soaked. As gravity takes over on a long downhill and my legs freewheel like they belong to someone else. The triumph of getting control of my breathing and knowing that I’m strong enough to start running again.
I run with my body, but experience it with my mind. When I’m running I can see so much, experience so much, and it is a liberation. My body and my senses are taken up with the act of running. I am freed from myself.
It’s strange that this feeling of freedom is rarely reflected in the images we share of running, and that the opposite is true. We seem confined to our bodies. We share photos of ourselves, staged or taken many times, with filters and flattering lighting. We cut out the backgrounds, we wipe away the sweat and salt from our skin. Sometimes, photos of people running do convey the joy or pain that we’re feeling, or record what we’ve achieved, but mostly they’re just poses, faces and clothes.
I don’t care how runners look. I want to know where they’ve been, what they’ve seen, and what they’ve done. When I see a sweaty, salty selfie it makes me smile, and I love a good race pic as much as the next runner, but I worry that with every image I share of myself I might be erasing a tiny bit of what running really means to me. What if all our running selfies are creating a Perfect Beauty Standards Running Monster that makes other women and girls think running is not for them?
It’s not how we look while running that matters, it’s how we feel. Our appearance to others is fleeting, passing in the blink of an eye. For me, it’s not what running is about. I want to see and understand what running means to other people, not what it makes them look like. More reflections. Fewer mirror selfies.
Well, this is awkward. It took me a couple of years to write about facing up to a future of no more personal bests. “Personal bests are temporary, running is forever”, I wrote, waxing philosophical.
But… it turns out I could get another personal best. And, um, not just one. In May, three weeks after Boston marathon, I knocked over a minute off my 10k time at Langtoft Road Run. I love this race. Flat country lanes, wisteria clad cottages, and the weather was ideal: cloudy and cool. My legs felt rested and the pace (6:45 minutes a mile) felt just the right side of too hard. Nothing really hurt until the last mile and then there was NO WAY I was slowing down and letting it go. A pb! My first personal best since joining Yaxley Runners in 2016.
New 10k pb: 41:38
PB Face
10 days after Langtoft, we met at the track on a warm Wednesday evening for the club’s annual Timed Mile. A love/hate affair involving no dinner, pre-race terror and a post-effort cough that lasts all night. It was worth it, as I went sub- 6 minutes for one mile on the track for the first time. Thank god that’s over for another year.
New mile pb: 5:57
Three weeks later in Ferry Meadows, I turned up to the first race of the Peterborough Grand Prix 5km series, interested to see what would happen. It was busy, and I was carried along by faster men and women for a kilometre before actually deciding to go for the sub-20. I’ve been there many, many times before, and failed. This time it felt possible. I had a moment of fear and a flicker of feeling I didn’t want to try. But then, belief! I was going to do it. The struggle in the last kilometre was real, but I forced my legs to keep turning over, kept counting to 60 (my last resort mental trick) and forced myself to sprint for the line.
New 5k pb: 19:54
This old girl, it seems, is on fire. The question is, why?
Is it my Boston marathon training kicking in too late? Is it a bit more hill training? Is it the handful of track sessions I’ve done? Is it consistent mileage? Is it pilates? Is it self-belief? Is it the cooler weather this summer?
I think it’s all of these things combined. My only epiphany during this purple patch is this: you won’t get faster by pushing harder during races if the pace feels hard, you’ll only get faster when that pace feels easier. You’ve got to put in the work to make it feel easy.
Not a Jogger 