Category: Uncategorized

Are you looking forward to racing again? Because I am not.

It’s now been a year since the the race I trained for – the 2020 Peterborough Marathon – was postponed for the first time due to coronavirus. It was moved from 5 April to 13 September 2020 “with the hope that this will give you something exciting and challenging to look forward to and plan for.” On 1 July 2020, in the face of continued uncertainty, it was deferred to 11 April 2021. In January 2021, “in these trying times”, it was moved to 23 May 2021.

It now looks like it will go ahead, under strict social distancing measures in 9 weeks’ time. Sublime Racing have been exemplary race organisers: keeping runners informed, making sensible and sensitive decisions, putting the families and health of their volunteers first. As a runner, I haven’t had to do anything other than move a date in my calendar.

Actually, wait a minute, wasn’t there was something else I was supposed to do for the race? For the marathon? For the 26.2 mile marathon? I can’t remember anything these days unless it’s on a list. Er, hang on, was I supposed to train for it? Because I haven’t done that.

The past year, but especially the past few months of lockdown in England, have been stressful and depressing. Working from home + schooling from home + exercise restrictions = a lot of pressure on time outside. Sometimes I wanted to run, sometimes to walk, sometimes just to escape, but always to feel better. Running slowly made me feel good, but running fast or hard did not.

I used to enjoy the feeling of running hard, of pushing myself. But now it just makes me feel bad. Partly because I am physically struggling. I have no bounce, no zip, no strength. But mostly, it’s mental. I am so much slower, so much weaker, and I hate it. It makes me want to give up. I can’t imagine not feeling like this. It feels insurmountable.

For many of us, normal life has stopped, slowed down, and moved to a tiny screen. 170 miles of daily commuting shrunk to 17 metres from bed to desk. No more cycling to the station, walking to the office, running to meetings, dashing for the school run. No trips to the shop for a can of coke, a lunchtime coffee, a sandwich, a breath of fresh air. No popping round, no dropping off, no picking up.

I have been running. But that is all the exercise I am doing. On a good day, I think, “I’m like a Kenyan athlete! I just eat, run and sleep”. But I’ve forgotten about the sitting – so much sitting – and I’m definitely overselling the running.

I’m averaging 33 miles a week and I’m doing a long run (12 miles +) most weekends. But I know I am not fit enough to run a marathon. I could run/walk it and get round, but I’ve finished enough marathons to know that this would be painful, and I would not enjoy it. After all this time not racing, wouldn’t it be fun to do the race just for fun? Yes, yes it would. But would it be fun? Oh, reader, it would not.

Yet.

Nobody likes to feel left out. Last week, my daughter was describing her friends choosing to play with other people at breakfast club. She described the feeling really well saying, “I don’t know where am I now. Where’s the space for me?”

We talked about why her friends might want to play with others, and about how she also chooses who to play with – and who not to play with. Everyone is left out sometimes. But that didn’t make her feel better.

I’m feeling left out too. Before Corona, I felt part of the “running community” through my club, and through parkrun. I could never make the Monday club night, but I did regular races and met up weekly at parkrun. I didn’t have to make an effort, the running community was just there for me and I took it for granted. Lately, I feel increasingly cut off and I’ve been thinking about why.

I like running alone

I run alone, almost always. Since March, I’ve had to start most runs before 6am just to be able fit them in. I live with my husband and 7 year old daughter, so one of us is on child duty when she is not at school. He also runs, also alone. We have done one run together this year: a half marathon on my birthday.

I like running alone. Before I joined a running club I assumed everyone ran solo all the time, because I always had. I like being alone with my thoughts. I like listening to podcasts. I like stopping to take photos or look at birds. I like being silent. I like not feeling embarrassed about how often I blow my nose. I like going faster or slower when I feel like it. I like running at my own speed.

Other people don’t

Most other runners I have spoken to, especially women, find it more motivating to run with other people. The time passes more quickly, on an easy run it’s fun to chat, and on a tough run you can share the pain together. It’s also much harder to cancel a run when you know you are someone else’s reason to turn up.

This year, I am aware that groups of my running friends are going out to run together regularly, and that it’s been a source of joy for them during the pandemic. They’re keeping each other company and keeping each other running.

I was invited, and joined in a couple of times, but now I’m out of the loop – mostly because I deactivated facebook, which I recommend to everyone.

I have done a handful of runs with other people – with my sister, and with my nephew. But when it comes to setting up runs with those I know less well, I haven’t made an effort. It’s hard to make the first move, and am I really prepared to break out of my solo running bubble?

If I run with a slower group, will I find it hard to stick to the pace, and will the group feel less comfortable because I am there? If I set up a run with a faster runner, will I feel under pressure to match their pace?

I hate running fast at the moment. I hate the feeling. The laboured breath, the painful chest, the burning legs, the mental effort. All of it. I can barely remember the strength that speed training gave me when it kicked in during a race: the flying feet, the bounding knees, the leap and push. No more.

This year, I am running just to keep running.

So where am I now? Where’s the space for me?

This week I got an email about a marathon squad, which made it clear it was not for me: “this is a group for those in the mid to back of the race. Nobody is too slow to join us. If you are a regular marathoner or expecting a time of 3.45 or faster, this is probably not the group for you.” I completely respect this response – I’m not the person this is aimed at. I don’t need a group to motivate me to run, and if my pace might put other people off, then that would be bad.

But the message also gave me the bad feeling that my daughter talked about. Where is the space for me? I don’t want to get faster, or stronger, or go longer. I’m not welcome with the slower group. So where am I?

This is where I’ll be: out on the trails, in the mud. Stopping to walk or dashing up a hill. Breathing it in. Looking around. In the dark. In the rain. Watching for the light. Running.

“I think I’ll run a marathon on Saturday morning”, I said to myself on Thursday evening. The weather looked good – sunny but cool for July. The last time I’d made this decision, four weeks ago, it was humid and 22 degrees by 7am; I gave up at 16 miles.

I didn’t train for this marathon. I mean, I did train for a marathon, but that was weeks ago in another world. A world of playdates and swimming lessons, commuting and cross-country. A world where races were cancelled because the wind was a bit too strong. At the one race I did I get to run – the Tarpley 20 – we huddled together in a school hall before the race, sharing pens and drinks, hugging our friends and, afterwards, helping ourselves from the open cake buffet with our sweaty fingers.

I didn’t train for this marathon, but over the course of the lockdown my weekend long run got steadily longer. I just couldn’t get enough of being outside. I went from 10 miles to 12 miles to 13 miles to 15 miles to 16 miles. I wasn’t running fast, I was taking as much time as I could get away with. I walked whenever I felt like walking. I found new paths and followed signs I’d never noticed before. I noted each bird returning from migration, I found bright blue eggshells, I took hundreds of photos and videos.

One Sunday, back when one piece of daily exercise was all we were permitted, I ran 7 miles to Castor Hanglands just to hear a nightingale. I walked for an hour when I got there, trespassing far beyond what I imagined my allotted time should be, squelching through mud in leaky trainers. Finally, I brushed across a carpet of dying bluebells to hear three nightingales exchanging  low warbles and high peeps of song, covering the range of sound in all directions. I was elated, guilty, satisfied, scared. I jogged home and lived off that moment for a week.

The roads and trails from Woodston to Castor along the River Nene, up from Ailsworth towards Helpston, over to Marholm and back through Ferry Meadows, have become stitched into my brain. I love them. I see them in my dreams. I’m not tired of them, even after running 26.2 miles on them this weekend. Yes, I finished the marathon this time.

It was not a typical marathon day. I got up at 4:45am, had some toast and coffee, left the house at 6:45am and was home by 10:35am. Even when I started, I didn’t feel like I was about to run a marathon. Every mile I wondered “will I finish it today?”. I was under no obligation. I hadn’t told anyone I was going to do it, and who would have cared even if I had? By 10 miles, I thought I could finish. I felt good, I was running a very sensible pace (for me) and it was just a long training run. At 23 miles I could definitely have stopped. But I wasn’t going to stop. I was fit, I was healthy, I was outside, I was alive.

Going for a jog? That question used to make my blood boil. No, I am not going for a “jog”, I do not jog, I run, I would say. I am a Runner. Running was serious, dynamic, intentional, a permanent state. Jogging was something other people did. Occasionally, slowly, and wearing heavy duty cotton.

God, I was patronising. I feel differently now. I am still a runner (of course!) but now the label that irks me is at the other end of the fitness scale – “Athlete”.

Two years ago I moved to a new city. I didn’t know many people, and I had some time off work in the Spring. I decided to take up a new sport, in addition to running, and I chose Crossfit.

In Crossfit everyone is an athlete. Everyone does the same workouts and the message is that anyone – everyone – can succeed. Each year, through the Open, thousands of people submit five workout times online and can compare their performance to anyone else in the world. It’s thrilling to see the times of the elite athletes and a real model for how a mass participation sport can be driven by, and keep connected to, the success of those at its very top. How many London marathon runners know the names of the elite field? Every Crossfitter has checked out Katrin Davidsdottir’s Instagram.

But can everyone really succeed in Crossfit? It’s bloody hard. I’m fit, competitive and bloody minded and I found it almost impossible. You can scale the workouts, but you have not really made it unless you have done them “RX”. Everyone may be called an athlete, but I found the culture unforgiving of weakness.

Nobody cares, train harder.

Maintain control of your destiny without regard for the obstacles and hardships that are laid on your path.

We can’t live with self-pity. It cannot exist.

I kept up the Crossfit for about a year, until marathon training took over. After the marathon I felt guilty. I should go back to Crossfit, I thought. I have lost all my gainz. I no longer even lift. Instead, I watched a lot of lifting videos on Instagram. I gazed at six packs. I weighed up the pros and cons:

• Pros: learning new skills; improved flexibility; handstands; my body looked good.
• Cons: dread of each class; 2-3 days of agony after every class; inability to run fast or far any more; cost; always finishing last; growing obsession with how my body looked.

I didn’t renew my membership. Instead I took up a different 9am class each Saturday morning: parkrun. Peterborough parkrun is massive – regularly hosting 600 runners, and all of human life is there. Babies, children, people with disabilities, families, older people and their dogs. I had done a parkrun or two before, but never really “got” it. I don’t lack any motivation to run, and why would I need to meet in a park to run a measly 5k? Also, if I can’t get a pb time every week, why would I bother?

But then, my nephews decided they wanted to run it, so I ran it with them. And then, my sister in law decided she would give it a go, so I ran it with her. And then my sister, and then her husband, and then my dad (aged 72). Over a year I ran a couple of parkruns at my pace (and I did get a pb), but I ran 20 more that took longer than 30 minutes. I volunteered, I was tail runner, I just went along and cheered. It became part of my life, and of the life of our family.

At parkrun, you’re not even allowed to call it a race. It’s a run. We are all runners, even the walkers. Treating it like a race is not just frowned upon, it’s deeply uncool. When you come first, you get the same applause that everyone else gets. Everyone’s time is posted online, but there’s a crucial difference. The number that counts is not the time it takes you, it’s the number of parkruns you’ve done.  Every week we cheer people reaching their 50^th, 100^th, 250^th parkruns. It really is the taking part that counts.

It’s the taking part that counts – that’s what they say when you don’t win, I used to think. But not now. Now I know, that’s how you win, and we’re all winners, especially the joggers.

I love him.

Here is a picture of him running. 

If you haven’t read his book on running, then I am very jealous of you.

This interview with him from Runner’s World is inspirational, in that he’s just an ordinary runner, and possibly an ordinary person.

How, then, does he write such extra-ordinary books? 

Could it be all the running?

I love him.