Category: Running

Boston, baby!

I ran the 2019 Boston marathon! I haven’t written a race report in a while, but I’m making an exception for this one.

Why is Boston so special? Because you have to work hard to make it to the start, work harder to make it to the finish, and when those Bostonians say “Good Job!” as they hang the unicorn medal around your neck, they really make you believe it.

If you don’t believe me, watch this excellent film. Be careful though, it might make you want to sign up.

Getting to the start

As a Brit, Boston was a race I was aware of, but not one I thought I’d ever run. I’m not a huge fan of aeroplanes or big city marathons, so the thought that I would fly somewhere ‘just’ to run a marathon was nuts. But then, in 2017, a couple of my running clubmates ran Boston, and I realised what a big deal it was. Given that most people struggle to run fast enough to qualify, and I could, why wouldn’t I?

After many years of not caring about this race, I suddenly cared a lot. We planned a big trip around it, seeing friends in Connecticut and in New York. We saved for 18 months – booking the hotel room as soon as I nailed my qualifying time at Edinburgh (after a failed attempt in London) in 2018.

No pressure, then

Boston

With all the expectations I had of the race, the holiday and the $$$$$$$ we were spending on hotel rooms, I had one job: get to the start line uninjured. I abandoned the high mileage Hansons plan which did so well for me in 2016 but resulted in injury in 2018. I used one of the free Boston plans (level 3) and something crazy happened – I actually enjoyed the training! It was varied, interesting, and most of the interval training was 10k or half marathon pace, not 5k. Win win win.

I arrived in the US ready for the taper, and… well… let’s just say I enjoyed it.

The most well-organised race I’ve ever run

So, my holiday was great! But what about the race? I trained for a 3:25, and ran a 3:32. It was amazing and awful – sometimes at the same time. But definitely mostly amazing.

Things I loved:

  • So many fast women! I started in the blue wave, with a qualifying time of 3:32, and I was mostly surrounded by female runners for the whole race. This was brilliant and in my experience very unusual! There was not a whole lot of chatting going on (we were working too hard for that), but it was truly awesome and inspiring to run alongside so many speedy women.
  • A race run by runners, for runners. It felt like a local race, scaled up, but not commercialised. Everything you wanted was where you needed it when you needed it. Coffee? Bagel? Toilet? Toilet again just before the start? They even gave you a bottle of water BEFORE your medal at the end. Extra points for this.
  • The volunteers – there were almost half as many volunteers as runners and it showed. They were SO GREAT at every water station and at the finish they made me feel like a rockstar.
  • The City – this is a big deal for Boston. There were signs everywhere from the minute you arrive. The crowds during the race were smaller than London, but three times as enthusiastic. One guy locked eyes with me and shouted ” I BELIEVE IN YOU”. I believed in him.

Things I didn’t:

  • The weather. It is so changeable there you could get anything, and we did. Torrential rain stopped before I started, but the humidity stayed. It was already warm and once the sun came out at 10 miles I knew my pace was toast.
  • My bloody shorts. It was the third day of my period, and I should have known better than to wear blue shorts. My biggest worry was that spectators would think that I’d shat myself. “It’s blood!” I considered shouting, “I just have my period!” Seriously, I am ashamed to say it did knock my confidence and I was really self conscious for most of the race. Plus towards the end the dried blood made for some pretty bad chafing. Sorry if this grosses you out (actually, no I’m not), but for all you bleeders, know that it happened and I got through it. No-one died of shock or made a rude comment and I am a WARRIOR.

The things I will remember

  • The rolling ribbon of runners stretching out in front of me as far as I could see, seemingly stationary in the far distance.
  • The smell of weed as we passed the groups of college kids.
  • The fight not to pass out running up (and down) the Newton Hills.
  • The taste of Gatorade. So much Gatorade.
  • That I did not walk.
  • That the sun went in as soon as I finished.
  • The feeling of joy when Dan and Martha met me afterwards.
  • The taste of the Harpoon IPA afterwards.

“Welcome to Boston!”

No more personal bests?

I heard something clever on a podcast lately about running. No, I don’t remember which one. I listen to a lot of podcasts.

“First you run for health. Then you run for time. Then you run for meaning”

Me, I’m right in the middle of the last section: searching for the meaning in running.

I ran a lot of miles in 2018 – 1,627 – and entered 17 races. I did not got a personal best (pb) time in the marathon. I did not get a pb in the half marathon, 10k, 5k, or Mile. It was the same story in 2017.

Every week my lovely running club members post their new personal best times on our club facebook page. “How lovely!”, I post, “You are amazing!”, and I mean it, I do. I am also hugely jealous. All these runners improving their times, feeling like life is on the up and up, whilst my times are getting slower, or staying the same.

I am 43 years old and wondering: am I on the downward slope towards death now?

Reality Check!

I am still running fast. I ran a parkrun 30 seconds outside my pb earlier this year. I am marathon training at the moment and, on a good day, running can still feel great.

At this point you’re either thinking “Don’t worry, Gina, you’re not past your best, you can still get a pb if you work hard enough!”, or “so what? There’s more to running than being fast.”

If we were having this conversation last year, I would have agreed with the first thought. Now, I’m trying to get on board with the second one. Should I embrace slow running?

Slow down and just enjoy it

Before the 2018 London Marathon, when the blazing sun made me want to walk from mile 3 and vomit from mile 10, I told everyone that if I couldn’t run my goal time (already 15 minutes slower than my pb), I would “slow down and just enjoy it”. I am here to tell you, I did slow down, and I did not enjoy it.

Why does slow running equal enjoyment? It’s not an either/or. I’ve had some good slow runs and I’ve had some horrific ones. Dragging out the pain is not a win for anyone. A 5 hour marathon must be harder (for the mind and body) than a 3.5 hour one.

So what’s it all for?

I’ve been running for 20 years. I love running. I am a running evangelist. I am a running ninja. I am a running bore. I run 4-6 days a week, every week. If I haven’t run for two days I feel wrong. If a week passes and I don’t go for a run, I am either ill or injured. Have I mentioned I like running?

It’s normal that there isn’t much room for improvement now. Yes, I could find new time-based goals: age-group pbs, new races, new distances, embrace ultra running… But I think that would be missing the point. Running for meaning, for me, means remembering why I love running.

Running gives me headspace, gets me outside, shows me the seasons passing and the phases of the moon, introduces me to new places, gets me where I want to go, makes me friends, makes me strong, shows me what I’m capable of, helps me believe in myself.

Personal bests are temporary. Running is forever.

The sharp end

This Saturday, at parkrun, shifting from foot to foot about three rows from the front, checking out the Helpston Harriers vests ahead, a fellow runner said to his friend, “Woah, we really are at the sharp end!”

I was standing there too. A quick blast on the horn, a broken chord of garmin beeps, and we were running. Sprinting kids, grizzled guys gurning by the first turn, sharp elbowed men cursing the plodders in search of a pb. And me, failing not to go out too fast, again.

There are not many women at the sharp end. I knew a couple were ahead of me but I couldn’t spot them – too small, too slight, to be noticed in amongst the sea of men.

At that parkrun, 7 out of the first 100 to finish were women or girls, but we made up nearly half (48%) of everyone who walked, jogged or ran around Nene Park that morning.

Parkrun is not a race. Our local cross-country league, on the other hand, is. It starts in three weeks’ time (oh god), and I just received this message about it from my club:

“More often than not“? This guidance is new, I think. I’ve always understood it to be fastest 7 men, and 3 women. And that’s what it will be. In the first race of 2017/18 season, 5 women finished in the top 100, and only 20 in the first 200.

So why not 5 men and 5 women to score? What is the argument against it? I guess the rules originally reflected the number of runners of each gender a team could field. And they do still mirror them – in that first race last year 38% of runners were women, 62% men. But there were 195 women, more than enough to score. If the teams have the runners, why isn’t the scoring equal?

Could it be elitism, rather than sexism, that drives this choice to hold onto old rules? Elitism is what competitive sport is built on. Rewarding the performance of the very best – who push themselves to their limit – over the mid-pack runners who’d rather hold onto their breakfast and not break their ankles. Prioritising the sharp end, over the fun-runners.

How do we get more women at the sharp end, though? Maybe by not treating them as fun-runners, and giving them an equal chance to score.

Mmm Bop! Running London the Hansons way

Gina marathon

I turned 40 last year and yesterday I ran the 2016 London Marathon in 3 hours, 18 minutes and 3 seconds! This is a 10 minute personal best.  Can you tell that I’m happy?

I never thought I would run London. The huge crowds of runners at the start have always terrified me. But I had the chance to go for a ‘Good for Age’ place (starting at the much smaller Green start), so I took the backhanded compliment and went for it.

Things I loved:

  • Tower Bridge!
  • The energy of the crowds at Greenwich, Canary Wharf and especially Lower Thames Street. It really did make me run faster and feel better.
  • The comedy signs.  “If Trump can run for president you can do this” (at least 2), “If Leicester can win the league you can do this”, “Wave if you’re not wearing underwear”, and my favourite: “Touch here for Power”. Good work.
  • The music. All the drummers! When someone played Prince! The awesome noise at Run Dem Crew! And best of all the rave tunnel just before 24 miles. Next year they need strobes.

Things I didn’t:

  • Kids wearing surgical gloves wanting high fives – parents, chill out
  • The first 4 miles

The thing I forgot about:

Marathons are hard.

The Hansons Marathon Method dictates not running more than 16 miles at a time, which meant that the long runs were some of my easiest training runs. The tempo runs, maxing out at 10 miles, were harder.

26.2 miles, at tempo running pace, was the hardest. All the training (I averaged 50 miles a week) will do a lot, but it won’t run the race for you. All the work on the day still has to be done, and done by you.

The worst bit by far was the first 4 miles. It was impossible to find my pace in the crowd, dodging other runners, traffic islands, speed bumps, kerbs, water bottles, discarded clothes. I knew I needed to slow down but I couldn’t make myself do it. The need to get to the last 10 miles, just to find out if I could cope, was overwhelming.

Once past half way I got my confidence back. My splits were even, I wasn’t going to blow up. By 19 miles the wheels were definitely staying on. It was tough – my feet hurt a LOT – but what can you do? After 21 miles I stopped thinking about finish times and just concentrated on maintaining pace for that mile. At 23 miles I knew I could do it. At 25 miles I started the push. At 800 metres to go I started sprinting for the line. At 600 metres to go I stopped sprinting because that was insane, and enjoyed my coast to the finish.

I’m so glad I did it. I’m even more glad I’ve done it. I don’t think I’ll do it again?

The thing I’m most proud of:

Check out my splits!

Marathon chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How not to train for a marathon – have a baby and then get no sleep.

Dog

On this day in 2013, I had a baby. 2 hours before she was thrown onto my chest in the operating theatre, I had my first sleep for 3 days: 30 minutes of epidural-induced bliss.

Before Martha arrived, I was not a big sleeper. Never had more than 7 hours a night. Didn’t do lie-ins. Always up early. Fond of a night out.

Now? Sleep – oh, sleep, is the holy grail. The answer to any question. The solution to every problem.

At the beginning sleep is plentiful but sporadic. You all fall asleep at random times, in short bursts like Ellen Macarthur. You feel like Olympians trying to do a decathlon in the dark wearing wellies. Team spirit gets you through – “we can do this!” you croak to your partner as you pass in the hallway at 3am, handing off the baby like a baton. You watch a lot of box sets.

Slowly, progress is made. The baby sleeps for longer in one go. Unfortunately this long sleep starts at odd times, usually in the middle of dinner, and once you realise it’s happening, it’s half-way through. “Bed!” you yelp, abandoning the washing up to the cats and failing to brush your teeth for a week. The moment your head hits the pillow you are asleep.

Then, just as everything is getting better, everything goes wrong. The long sleep starts well, and sometimes lasts a bit longer, but it is fickle, oh so fickle. One night in two weeks she will sleep through the night. You, on the other hand, will still wake up every two hours. All the other nights she will wake up at the drop of a phone, or the clink of a belt buckle. “Why can’t you get changed in the bathroom?”, you will hiss at each other. The TV, like everything else, is now a distraction from feeding. Box-sets remain unwatched, possibly forever.

Slowly, real progress is made. Only now you know better than to talk about it, even to each other. Slightly more rested, you realise how tired you actually are. You go back to work and pretend to be a normal person. You drink a lot of coffee, but never after lunch, because then you lie awake after a 3am wake-up and know you are up for the day.

Running helps, up to a point. When you’re a little bit tired, exercise makes you less tired. It also helps you sleep well.

Not marathon training, though.

If I have learned one thing in the last year it is this: marathon training when you’re getting no sleep is a stupid idea.

I realise, looking back on old photos, that I was a MASSIVE SLEEPER. All I did during my previous marathon training periods, or possibly my life in general, was NAP. I loved naps. I had no idea how much I loved naps until it wasn’t possible to have any. There are so many photos of me asleep – on benches, in the garden, on the sofa – that either my husband is a somnophiliac or I took a whole lot of naps.

Sleep is important for athletes, and non-athletes who happen to be runners of marathons. It’s well known that Kenyan runners just eat, run and sleep. I have found time for the first two during this marathon training (well, mostly the first to be honest), but the third? Not so much.

On Monday I’m running the Milton Keynes marathon and I am worried. I’ve done (most of) the miles, but I really haven’t had the rest. Will I be able to run at anything like my target pace over 26.2 miles (8mins 15 secs per mile)? Will I be able to get to the start on time given that there are no direct trains from London (grr)? But mostly, will I get a full night’s sleep beforehand?

I will let you know.

The Week I questioned my Sanity

In December I decided to run the 2014 Milton Keynes Marathon.

Today, I would like to know why.

For some people, juggling a full-time job with an 8 month old baby, an occasional social life, the need to finish the last series of Breaking Bad, sleep for at least 6 hours a night and a contain a nascent caffeine addiction might be enough. Apparently not so for me – I feel the need to train for and run a 26.2 mile race as well.

The sleeping. It would all be going so well were it not for the sleeping. Or the lack of sleeping. Or the sleeping for 1.5 hours at a time.

Oh, sleep.

In every interview I ever read with a top runner, they talk about the importance of sleep. Paula Radcliffe has a nap every afternoon. All the Kenyans do is run, eat and sleep. It’s a way of life. Alas, not my way of life. Instead of a nap, I have a diet coke. My body hates me.

My body is just about holding it together. Three weeks into my training plan, I’ve made it to 33.5 miles, over 5 runs with the longest being 12 miles. I missed my hill session on Thursday – it felt like a bad idea to push it in my zombie state. Weirdly, the easiest run of the week was the 12 on Saturday – mainly because it ended at Monmouth Coffee. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for coffee.

Can I continue in this fragile state? We will find out.

This week:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 7 miles steady
Wednesday: 5 miles easy
Thursday: 5 miles easy (was supposed to be the hill session)
Friday: rest
Saturday: 12 miles slow
Sunday: 4.5 miles easy

Total: 33.5 miles

New shoe shuffle

I bought new trainers at the end of August. As ever, I had left it too late and waited for holes to start appearing in the toes of my existing ones (pair II) before shelling out for new ones (pair I). Pair II needed to be binned straightaway, but I couldn’t start running 30 miles a week in pair I.  The worst running injury I’ve ever had (a stress fracture in my foot) was caused by a long run in new trainers in 1999.

Pair III came to the rescue – my marathon shoes, sentimentally kept on the shelf. They were in better shape than pair II, I decided. They would have to do.

I am still, after a month, alternating pair I and pair III. The new pair still feel small (they’re not) and tight (they’re the same size). Last night, running home, I had to stop and loosen the laces twice in 5 miles. At the weekend I stuck to pair III over the half-marathon distance. I know that soon I’ll break the new pair in properly, but that just as I do they’ll start to break down. The toes will rub thin, the inside of the heel will wear and tear into a hole.

Too new becomes too old so quickly and, for the brief period when the shoes fit perfectly, you take them for granted and forget you’ll ever need another.

And yes, it is my birthday next week.