There’s an almost back-to-school feeling in the air lately.
The race is run. Not almost run, like in the song, but actually run. The immediate recovery is complete, and now it’s right back to normality.
Except it isn’t.
Things feel different. There are a couple of obvious reasons for the difference which I won’t go into here, but I’ve been surprised by some of the other things that have come about.
Generally I feel so much more in control of what’s going on around me.
A few days away from working at the day job and away from harp related email have helped enormously of course, but otherwise the difference is mostly due to having more time.
There’s no denying that training for an ultramarathon takes time – 35-50 miles a week takes a LOT of time, and more so if you’re a slow runner like me. And even more so when you add hills and trails to those miles rather than endlessly bashing tarmac.
The training clearly takes phenomenal amounts of energy, but I think what I hadn’t appreciated is just how much it drains you even when you’re not actually training. I have been so tired for these last few months. My greyhounds’ sleeping habits and my inability to switch myself off at night haven’t helped, but most of all running and planning and driving around and endless extra loads of washing have totally worn me out. Housework has been a long distant memory beyond the essential, I’d hardly played my harp except for booked gigs and my motorbike’s MOT and tax expired without me realising. My dogs have been missing their sofa time with me, and me with them.
I had three unscheduled days at home after I arrived back a bit earlier than planned, and I barely told anyone I wasn’t still away. My weekend plans were changed by the weather, and I hardly left the house except to buy food. Instead, I just pottered around doing whatever took my fancy.
The scruffy pile of sheet music that has been shooting me dirty looks for months – tidied. Filed. Scanned into the iPad I’ve had for a couple of months but not had time to use.
The pile of receipts that has been slipping down the back of the table for months – tidied. Filed/binned as necessary.
The kitchen floor – properly clean.
The dust bunnies under the sofas, under the stairs, behind my bike – gone.
The washing up – done and put away.
I read, dozed, watched telly, ate the last remaining items of junk food, and circled round again.
I had a bride and groom-to-be round last week to confirm their music choices for their wedding next weekend. My harp was pointing the other way, giving me a different perspective, so before they arrived I took a quick picture for my Instagram feed. As I looked at it before briefly editing it, it occurred to me my house looked…
Pretty wonderful actually. Inviting. Homely. Quietly stylish even. It looked like I lived there. Tidy but not clinical. A greyhound snoozed on the sofa.
We had a hugely enjoyable hour talking about their wedding and the music they wanted. It quickly turned into a session of “can you play…?, what about …., oh what’s that song that goes….etc” and not only did I have all the music they wanted (bar one new thing which won’t take long to learn at all), it was all things I already knew well.
And we soon had a list of great choices which are special to them, and which I enjoy playing. I can’t wait to be a part of their day.
I love sharing the music I play, and it was great to do so at home. I loved feeling comfortable in my house not worrying about how untidy it was or what cleaning I hadn’t done. Their little girl loved having a go on the harp and loved meeting my dogs.
There are some tremendously absorbing musical projects in the pipeline, and rather than worrying about how on earth I’m going to fit everything in, I’m actually really looking forward to getting started in even though I know they will take a lot from me.
There’s space for those projects now, and as I went through my list book this morning, I realised there’s space for quite a lot of things at the moment. Rather than worrying about how empty things look, I am really enjoying the peace and I’m thinking what else I want from my life and how it will all pan out.
When I started this blog last year after deciding my old one had come to an end, I thought I’d be writing about running a lot. It’s one of the things that’s most important in my life and I do a lot of it. Because of where I live and the kind of running I do, I get to go to some pretty special places even when I’m just out racking up the miles. I’ve met some brilliant people through running and it’s fair to say I tend to plan my life around what’s coming up next runwise. It has changed my life for the better and when it goes well, I look and feel like this:
Thanks to Nicholas Beckett from Edinburgh Sports Photography for this fab picture from the 2014 Highland Fling Relay
Instead, over the last year this has become a blog about feelings, about change, and about restlessness. A relationship ended last summer, and trying to recover from some of the things that had happened has taken a lot more from me than I expected. I needed to find a way deal with all the feelings, and writing seems to be a way for me to do that.
But now, I think I’m through the worst of it and I’m reflecting on other things. One of them is quite big and looming quite large on the horizon.
I’m a week away from another big race, another big distance that will once again push me to, and probably well past, my limits. I didn’t know these limits could even exist for me but over the last few years I have pushed and pushed myself onto bigger and longer things. I tend to fall apart emotionally every so often but physically I always seem to hang on. I hope that continues next weekend.
I’ll be running the Great Glen Ultramarathon which covers the Great Glen Way, a long distance path that links Fort William to Inverness. The exact distance depends on who you ask but is around 71-73 miles. I have 22 hours to complete this, and my aim is just to finish it within this time. I’m hoping to take around 20 hours, and I’d be absolutely delighted if it was around that. There’ll be no sleeping, not too much stopping and definitely no falling in the canal.
I started training properly in December last year with the annual Marcothon challenge. I ran for 31 days on the bounce and only really struggled to get out the door on days 3 and 4, a bit unexpected so early on.
And then work craziness kicked in and January, February and half of March were a total training disaster. I was working long hours at the day job and working weekends doing the rounds of wedding fairs with my harp. I was in the midst of a deeply unpleasant working environment and was arriving home emotionally and physically drained. My heart rate was crazy and I just about hung on to my mental health despite not being able to run very much, but it was a pretty close call and I was shocked by how long it took to shake all that off again.
I started a new job in the middle of March and some balance was restored pretty much instantly. My training diary has been much more consistent since then, I’ve banked some good miles and built up as carefully as I could given the mileages I would need to be doing as the weeks went by. I’ve still done nowhere near enough miles, but by the time I get to the start line I will have run almost 700 miles since January. The whole of last year I ran just over 900 miles.
I’ve trudged up big mountains and picked my way carefully down again (including in rather unexpected knee-deep snow one weekend!). I’ve crossed Helvellyn with a wayward husky who I picked up along the way, just chatting to a stranger and sharing the craziness of the conditions. I’ve camped out in the freezing cold in the shadow of a snow covered Skiddaw, waded across icy rivers, been kissed by a big dog, been attacked by a less big dog, got a bit lost on more than one occasion, been rescued by a fisherman, and drunk beer in the sun after 9 hours on my feet. I’ve learned to confidently pitch a tent on my own, put faces to social media profile pictures, boiled in 30 degree heat in Scotland in June, been half frozen in arctic conditions in the Lake District in May and I’ve finally done something that made my mum worry about my safety. And I’ve only lost one toenail along the way.
Running wise I’ve done a few fast sessions, mostly (and very unexpectedly) along the Clyde. I don’t know what it is about running in the city centre but I go faster there and I love running in my lunch breaks. The only thing I can put it down to is to being fresher in the middle of the day than at the end.
The inscription reads Better to die on your feet than to live forever on your knees. A memorial to a group of Scots who left to fight fascism in Spain in the 1930s.
In the middle of a proper Scottish heatwave. As the Glaswegians say, pure roastin!
But mostly I’ve run a lot of slow miles. I’m not a fast runner at all, I get in a dreadful panic with my breathing if I push too hard. Given what’s been going on emotionally, I’ve kept my running as something that makes me feel good and have paced things according to how I’ve felt at the time.
There have been a couple of unexpected breakthroughs along the way.
The main one has been regarding food. I had a chat with a nutritionist at one of the shows about what I was planning and the worries I had regarding the length of time being such a big increase on what I’d done before.
I faded badly in the 53 mile long Highland Fling last year as my energy levels were so variable. And I have always struggled with not being able to eat much following a big run and then as a result battled with arm-chewing levels hunger for a good few days after.
We spoke about the importance of not just fuelling to the end of a big run, but fuelling for recovery. This was something I hadn’t really thought about before, and he explained the importance of eating during and just after a run in terms of the impact it would have on my training afterwards. Given the step up in mileage I was looking at, this was what made the penny finally drop and I vowed to make some big changes.
The solution was to start eating earlier, to be much more focused on eating regularly and to really think about the required quantities of carbs and protein. I’m still not good with getting enough protein and my diet needs a lot of work but despite that, I’ve had some great results.
I have been rather shocked at how much I’ve eaten on runs compared to last year. I’m a small girl, I weigh really heavy for my actual size and I have battled with my weight since I was very young. I am very, very conscious of how much I eat. I’ve never starved myself as I love my food too much, but we don’t have an easy relationship. However I knew things had changed when after the Helvellyn day, I realised I’d eaten everything in my pack despite taking a bit more than I thought I needed, and I could have eaten even more still. It was a cold day and I was moving more slowly than expected because of the snow but I was still really surprised.
Long runs are now fuelled on an interesting combination of Bountys, digestive biscuit bars, small tins of Coke and marmite sandwiches with a couple of caffeine gels thrown in along with the occasional Snickers bar and bag of Randoms. I tend to feel a bit like a cart horse on long days but the benefits have really been felt.
The other breakthrough has been appreciating how well my body has coped as the mileage has gone up. It seems that long and slow suits me, and I recover well.
My bad leg has complained a couple of times, and the good leg has taken a pasting making up for the weakness. But thanks to my very supportive osteopath Daniel Gerber and knowing/feeling when to stop for a day or two, I have been able to keep going towards the bigger picture. The bad leg has still not quite recovered from the Ben Venue hill race descent last October (warts-and-all race report to follow at some point) and complains firmly at too much steep downhill. I think that will need to be a consideration for a while yet until I get that leg built back up again – I’ve really missed the cycling this year as it helps both legs work together better.
I’ve chosen my kit for the race, and I might even be standing on the start line in shorts since I’ve found some that are long enough for me not to inflict my pasty wobbly thighs and footballer knees on the world.
As has become the pattern since my bike racing days, my kit is a bit battered, well worn (apart from the new shorts) and has seen me through some big adventures. I introduce new kit slowly, one thing at a time and never on race day. It gets tested on a long training run and is then either designated as race-fit or otherwise, in which case it only gets used on short runs.
Running at Tiree last year, I realised too late that I was wearing a stripy long sleeve top and leopard print leggings which clashed somewhat. Tough luck. Both have done many happy miles, they don’t rub or get overly damp or sticky, they’ve survived endless washing very well and I always pull them on with a smile. It might seem daft but having favourite familiar old friends really helps settle my nerves when I’m fretting.
It’s honestly a total coincidence that most of my kit is my favourite colour (blue blue electric blue since you ask) given most of it is bought at heavy discount and/or a couple of years out of date. Thanks to my gran who gives me birthday/Christmas money and a bit of petrol money when I go to visit, I have an escape/adventure fund and this goes towards my running shoes and race entries etc. If ever I get to go bike racing again I shall have a Sponsored By Granny sticker on my bike. In fact maybe I should put one on my running pack. I think she’d quite like it.
There’ll be a small fluffy lion in my pack too, a gift from my Brownie leader days. This was a really happy (and much missed) part of my life, and thinking of that time reminds me to be strong and courageous when I am flagging, as I know I will. This poor wee lion has been rescued from the toothless jaws of my greyhound on more than one occasion, but lives on to fight another day. The words to Rabbit Heart by Florence and the Machine also help explain the significance of lions for me but there’s also another aspect, perhaps a story for another day.
Dario’s post on the West Highland Way. The very top of Loch Lomond looking south.
The race starts at 1am on Saturday 2nd July and the cutoff is closing time, 11pm on the Saturday night.
I’ve run in the middle of the night before, supporting Audrey at the West Highland Way race last year, coming over the Devil’s Staircase some time getting on for midnight. It was incredibly special looking out over the mountains around Glencoe and thinking of the rest of the country (apart from a few hardy fellow runners out in the Scottish Highlands!) being tucked up in bed.
But I’ve never run through into the early morning and I have to admit to being rather worried about this.
At 1.40am the other Saturday morning, I opened the kitchen door to let the previously mentioned greyhound out for a visit to the garden. It was totally dark, and I shivered a little as I realised I’d be about 3 miles along the way by this time on race day.
And then a few nights later, said greyhound needed out at 3.30am, and it was light.
I’m desperately excited about seeing the sun rise over the Great Glen as I head east, and I hope I’ll be in a good state and still smiling by the time it goes down again next Saturday night.
There’s one 10 mile run left to do tomorrow morning, and then just a couple of short ones next week. As is normal before a big event, I’m nervous, but as one of my music teachers reminded me a few years back, nerves can come in anticipation of something exciting as well as for negative reasons.
There’ll be packing, and epic levels of faffing, but the race start will be here before I know it and I can’t wait.
Almost four years ago, in the first week of my new life in Glasgow, one of the course leaders presented us with Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto For Growth. It’s a 43 point list that basically makes you think hard.
I like lists, and I like thinking hard and questioning things, so I love this one in particular.
I think back to many of the points regularly, but no. 18 is a favourite as I often push myself beyond the point of what might generally conceived to be sensible (I guess that depends on the company you keep).
Sometimes it’s a conscious decision, when I’m doing something new, or something risky, or something difficult.
Sometimes it’s an unconscious realisation that I have been trying to pack too much in, in desperate fear of not making the most of every second of my life. I know it’s a total cliché, but life really is such a gift, and the death and serious illness of loved ones has made me determined not to waste it.
As I get older, and as I spread my wings north of the border, I love life more and more. Sometimes this can bite me quite hard as I continue to attempt to pack more in. I’d love to be able to balance things better.
But beyond watching my beloved greyhounds sleep, with their paws in the air and their whip-like tails flicking as they dream, I just don’t know what calm looks like. Every time it looks like I’m approaching any sense of pause for an extended period, something happens to shake things up.
I’m over a great big hurdle. I completed the monumental training weekend that had been looming in the diary for weeks. The sun was unbelievably strong, the terrain difficult in places but I managed pretty well considering, and I was amazed by the results. I ran 60 miles over two days, and apart from a couple of annoying blisters and epic levels of hunger, there are no lasting after effects.
From Victoria Bridge, Inveroran, West Highland Way
Lairig Mor, looking towards Kinlochleven
Looking back north at where I’d been – heading back to Tyndrum
The mighty Buachaille Etive More, Glencoe. I ran 40 miles the day before and had 20 to go. I had no idea just how hot it was going to be.
As expected, I’m really, really tired. The last few weeks have been pretty tough going, balancing the increase in training and two demanding jobs, but it has all been leading up to this point. I’ve felt my emotions start to unfurl a bit, and a lot has come to the surface. Partly as a result of the abusive relationship storyline on the Archers, partly due to managing a long term injury without compromising on what I want my body to do in less than four weeks’ time, and partly due to my friends completing their final degree recitals at the RCS while I just listen rather than performing my own.
And yet, despite this exhausted, emotionally and physically ragged phase, the creative part of my brain almost feels like it’s on fire. This seems to come from long runs. While I’m running, my body is totally engaged in keeping itself going and my mind is away, free to explore and think and process and digest. Add to this the surroundings I am able to run in, beautiful, empty, truly wild in some places, and it’s no surprise that often when my run is over, I have often found a solution to a problem, written a song or a tune, shaped a musical phrase differently or figured out some tricky pedalling despite being miles away from my harp.
There are projects and ideas popping up left right and centre. This can lead to a different kind of exhaustion and so needs managing in a different way, but I love this extra unexpected dimension that running has given me as I’ve continued to push my distances up. I desperately want to write, to compose and I desperately want and need to sit down with the harp and get my fingers and arms good and strong again so I can really, really play again.
But the next few weeks will see some enforced attempts to calm things down and rest up ahead of the next big challenge. I find it easier to rest properly when I’m not at home. I adore where I live but there’s always something that needs doing and I find it hard to ignore it.
I’m taking a trip to sunny Suffolk to see my parents for a weekend, where I will have to sit for a while in an airport departure lounge, then sit on a plane. With nothing to do but read and wait.
When I arrive at their house I will be jumped on by four whippets. I will sit with at least one of said whippets on my lap, drink tea, catch up with my mum and dad, eat, drink wine and sleep. I will tease my dad about the latest acquisitions in the garage and maybe pass a few spanners as we swap news and exploits. We will probably relive the Ventoux adventure yet again, and nod sagely as we agree (again) that life hasn’t been the same since.
Mont Ventoux with my dad, 2014
We hearz there is an impostor in our midst…
Kentwood Hall, Long Melford
After that, I’m off down to visit my gran for a weekend. I will drive for three and a half hours, watching the weather over the Lake District, feeling the compression effect as the M6 traffic begins to build south of Lancaster, and I’ll listen to the radio. I gave up music in the car years ago, as a result of a fortnight spent almost solidly on the motorways and A roads between Colchester, Leeds and Manchester just after my granddad died. I’d exhausted all the CDs I had in the car and just wanted to hear people talking.
When I arrive at my gran’s house, we will have an endless bear hug. In fact we’ll have about three as this is the time it takes for me to calm down all the emotions I feel when I see her. I know how lonely she is without my granddad, and I am desperately sad I can’t spend more time with her.
I’ll drink tea and eat more cake than I should. Food at my gran’s is a guerrilla-like battle where it’s not a question of “are you hungry/do you want to eat”, it’s how much food she can get down you before you realise how much you’ve eaten or you go home. I prepare in advance now, accepting that it’s just her enjoying having someone to fuss over after years of dealing with four children and my high maintenance granddad, and then the emptiness of that ending.
I always warn her when my dogs are stood behind her in the kitchen, as I worry she will trip. She will kindly but firmly remind me that she managed four kids and numerous Alsatians and so she still has eyes in the back of her head thank you very much.
In between feeding me up, we’ll watch several repeats of Midsomer Murders/Morse/Cadfael/whichever one is on, and at least one of us will fall asleep in the chair. At night I’ll bunk into the single bed in the spare room and attempt to keep the dogs from sharing it with me. There’s not much space on a single bed even when you’re five foot tall, but factor in two great big skinny dogs who want to rest their weary old bones on something soft and … well.
After that, there’ll be a last few short runs, some packing and assembling of kit and food, and then off to the race.
After the race, there will be a holiday and a long awaited chance to rest, recover, reset and consider the next move.
Sunday morning. Rain tapping against the window. I roll over. The bed is empty and I remember why. He left an hour or so ago, and is now battling up the hills in the weather I am seeing from under the duvet.
I get up, put my running kit on and head down for breakfast. My bacon sandwich is delicious, the bacon perfectly cooked, and I hear the B&B owner discussing the provenance of the sausages he is proud to serve. I suspect the bacon comes from the same place. I rarely eat meat these days, but bacon butties and smoked fish are something I would find hard to give up.
I’ve had a good look at the map that is drying out from yesterday’s amble round the Fairfield Horseshoe. I’d hesitate to call it a run – it was steep on the way up and very technical on the way down. We got snowed on, more than once. For one moment I thought I was going to have to lower myself down what appeared to be a rock climb but we found another way. But I ran where I could and enjoyed myself immensely. D could have gone a lot quicker, but didn’t. When I asked hesitantly, tentatively, very nervously, if he was getting frustrated with me, he said no, gave me a big hug and off we went again.
He offered to carry the pack on the first climb, and bravely, fighting every independent feisty obstinate cell in my body, I let him. A pale blue girly XS Salomon pack didn’t really fit him but he managed.
Now back to the map. A friend has suggested the Kentmere horseshoe. There’s a fab looking route round Helvellyn but the road nearby is closed. Decisions.
The rain continues. My tea is a little too weak but you can’t have everything.
I pack everything up from the weekend, and everything I need for a few hours running in the mountains. I am tired. I should be looking forward to getting out in the hills but, honestly, I’m not.
I settle the bill with the B&B owner. He asks what my plans are for the day. I look at the floor. A voice comes from nowhere.
If you were going to sit. Just sit. And look, and read, and sit. For the day. Where would you go?
It’s my voice.
He ushers me over to the huge map on the wall. He offers Grasmere as a first suggestion and recommends a cafe there. Inside or out. Either is good, he says.
The next suggestion is Rydal. We ran past on our way up to Fairfield yesterday. It looked lovely.
The cafe is excellent, he says. And the gardens of Rydal Hall are beautiful, he says.
I recall a day spent with one of my dearest friends, sitting, pondering, and wandering round the gardens of Brodick Castle on Arran on the single day of summer we had in Scotland last year.
Rydal it is.
I cross the road into the garden centre. It’s huge, but there in the plant house is the Cotswold concession. I desperately need a decent pair of gloves as the last link in my collection of kit for next weekend. We’ve been in every outdoor shop in Ambleside and there has been precious little choice of decent waterproof not too bulky gloves for teeny female paws. And there they are.
The chap behind the till clocks what I’m wearing and asks me where I’m off to. To the cafe, I reply. He laughs.
I wander through Ambleside. There’s a bookshop. A proper bookshop. I hesitate to say old-fashioned. It shouldn’t be.
I wander in. A girl/lady/woman, I’ve no idea which, she’s a similar age to me and I’m not sure what I count as, asks me if I need any help.
Something local and quirky please. I’m off to sit in a cafe for the day.
She offers a couple of suggestions, and then directs me outside to look in the window where their customers’ Top 10 of the week selection is displayed. I see a book by the author of a crazy Swedish language film I enjoyed last year. I didn’t know it was a book before it was a film. The film involved a very old man and a significant body count. It was hilarious.
I buy two books and stroll towards the cafe.
There are sheep, and cows, and people heading out to the hills.
I get to the cafe. There is an enormous piece of chocolate and Guinness cake staring up at me while I order my coffee.
We sit, outside, over a waterfall. Me, the chocolate and Guinness cake, my new books.
Oh, and Flora.
Flora is part of the Go Herdwick trail, and some kind person has given her a wee hat to keep her ears warm.
I’ve run a lot lately, up a lot of hills. In the last month, the Mell trail in the Trossachs, the Arrochar Alps, the Pentlands and now Fairfield. I’m shattered. I love being in the hills but I’m so, so tired. I’ve run/walked/staggered up the equivalent of half of Everest in three weeks.
I sit and read another book about farming. The cake is lighter than it looks, and it slips down quickly. I slurp my way through another coffee, and then head back to Ambleside. Via another couple of shops. Ewegene and Ewegenie follow me back to the car.
We head off to Great Langdale. I loiter on the finish line, hoping D hasn’t come in already.
I chat to a girl/woman/lady also waiting on the line. Her husband, an ex England rugby international, died a few years ago. She had travelled all over the world with him, and in later years they had moved to the Caribbean to set up a rugby program there. He died very young, very suddenly, from a heart attack. She met someone new who is into cycling. She’s a former runner who is carrying a knee injury and is starting to discover cycling for herself. We share frustrations at life ending too soon, and at those who get to take it for granted.
D isn’t expecting me and hardly recognises me as he crosses the finishing line. He has had a tough day but is smiling, elated, pleased with his efforts. I hand him an enormous Bath bun from a new favourite cafe in Ambleside.
I had a brilliant day.
I’ll be back in the Lakes in a couple of days, and I have no doubt I’ll have a better, safer time as a result of a proper rest day on Sunday.
Last week was a funny old week really. Lots of good things seemed to sneak in.
After the training lows of the week before, I was amazed to post my biggest weekly mileage since I started running. And I realised just recently that I’m starting my fifth year of running!
I can’t quite believe where the time has gone, and what has happened in that time, and what happened leading up to that time to place me where I am just now.
But I digress.
I had some wonderful comments from happy harp listeners and clients.
I revisited some old haunts, some favourite places to run. I discovered new places and in doing so, I found some new favourites.
I reclaimed the Cobbler from the jaws of bad relationships past, and avoided getting myself into mischief on Saturday by going up mountains in conditions I wasn’t equipped for.
It was really hard saying no to just going a little further, a little higher, despite the snow, just to see. But in the end it wasn’t quite so hard saying no more to the endless energy sapping boggy mush that lay between Beinn Nairnan and Beinn Ime.
A 12 mile loop around Loch Venachar was absolutely stunning on Sunday morning, and sharing it made it even better. Finding a new little thinking spot and enjoying a recovery lunch in the Brig o’ Turk tearoom might just have made it a perfect day out.
Things feel so much lighter. I have a big event coming up in a couple of weeks that I’ve been worrying about a bit, and while I still have a lot of logistical stuff to sort out, I’m starting to believe that I will be able to do it.
The bigger one is about 10 weeks away and that feels like it will be OK again too.
There’s also a holiday in the diary, and I’m so looking forward to seeing another part of Scotland I’ve always wanted to visit.
I found myself looking at places to live, just daydreaming really. But I came across a disused barn for sale for development in a perfect location. Although there were big plans to make it someone else’s idea of just so, I couldn’t help think that with a loo, shower, kitchen and plenty of hot water, it was pretty much perfect as it was. It reminded me of a friend’s workshop where I’d spent some happy times a few years back.
And there are other good things quietly going on in my life too, scary but in a good way.
Ultra running is about many things, but for me one of the biggest is dealing with the highs and lows as they develop over the course of a long training run, or an even longer race. I accept that these are part of the game, and I’ve enjoyed learning to cope as things change over a long day. Dipping energy levels, sore legs, wheezy lungs, poor weather conditions, tough terrain, landscape that isn’t always beautiful. These all come and go, often unpredictably.
You’d think I’d have worked out by now that life is just the same, and that I really don’t need to worry so much when I find myself under a bit of a cloud for a while.
I’m sat on the sofa, disentangling one greyhound from a phone charging cable while maintaining a respectful distance from the other, who will startle and bolt for her bed if I move too quickly.
The new year has brought good things, bad things and sad things already. A poorly friend, hard going at the day job, and then of course the news of David Bowie’s passing came through yesterday morning.
I finished Marcothon on Hogmanay. It was my biggest ever mileage in a calendar month. Then I took a couple of days off running. I should have run the Hardmoors 30 on New Year’s Day, but I decided against it in the end. I felt a little sad about it, but I missed it for the right reasons and it will be there another year.
There are new things in the calendar this year. 3 days in the Lake District at the end of April. 70-odd miles inside 24 hours along the Great Glen Way between Fort William and Inverness in July. Hopefully third time lucky at the 75 miles between South Woodham Ferrers and Salcott cum Virley (with an overnight stop).
I’m so excited about everything that’s coming my way. A little extra food consumed over New Year wasn’t quite run off thanks to those few days off, but I know the extra warmth around the middle will soon disappear once the miles climb up again. I love the security of building my training up – the feeling that progress is being gradually made, and that the preparation I put in now will be felt in every mile I run later this year.
There is a mountain on the German/Austrian border with my name on, and I hope to climb it this year. There’s talk of a trip back to Mont Ventoux, a big (motor)bike ride around the north coast of Scotland, and of hills and mountains to be walked up, run up, cycled up. A couple of long distance trails to be explored. There’s a tent and assorted camping kit to be researched and chosen, and navigation to be practised in whatever weather Scotland cares to throw at me.
Right now, most of all, I can’t wait for the days to draw out a bit so I can get up in the hills behind my house after work.
And for now, I’ll be listening to a lot of music. David Bowie was a huge part of my teenage years after I borrowed the Singles Collection on tape from Stratford-upon-Avon library when I was about 14. It was a great introduction to his music over the years. My dad was a big fan too, and listening to the music that he loved helped me learn a bit more and gave us something else to share.
Dad’s favourite song is Let’s Dance. I have two, and I couldn’t choose between them. I adore Sound and Vision, and I also love Everyone Says Hi from the Heathen album.
I’d had the album for a good few years, but for some reason, I had it in the car the weekend I made the final trip north from Essex to start my new life up in Glasgow. I listened to that song on repeat for much of the journey.
It includes the wonderful lyrics, which are among some of my favourites ever:
Don’t stay in a bad place,
where they don’t care how you are
That’s not to say no one cared because that’s just not true, but I needed to move and start again, and the song felt like a letter from the past wishing me well in the future and reminding me I could come back if it didn’t work out.
Mr Bowie, thank you for everything you did and everything you left behind. I was angry enough about cancer, now even more so.
Someone posted something somewhere yesterday, I can’t remember it exactly, but they were saying how the earth was however many billion years old, and how lucky we’d been to be on the same planet at the same time as David Bowie.
For the last 29 days I’ve been doing a running challenge called Marcothon. Briefly, it started when one person decided to run every day in November. The next year his wife decided to run every day in December. Since then, it has gathered momentum and is now a firm fixture in the running calendar.
Two years ago I decided not to try it as due to my asthma, I wasn’t sure if I could run every day through winter. I went for an 80 mile month instead, and at the time this was my biggest ever mileage.
Last year, as a more experienced runner and knowing my asthma a bit better, I reluctantly threw in the towel after my run on Day 17, coughing, spluttering and knowing it had been really stupid to go out feeling so ill. The next day my peak flow had dropped by nearly 50%, I had the death rattle so much feared by asthmatics, and it was straight off to the doctors where I was diagnosed with the second chest infection of the winter. There would be two more to follow that one.
This year, despite practising like mad for a solo concert late in the month and attempting to save my legs for an ultramarathon on New Year’s Day, I find myself still in the hunt after Day 29. Even more unbelievably, despite feeling plenty of warning tickly throats, so far (touch wood) I haven’t succumbed to a lurgy. And yes, I did just touch my head with my hand.
The lasting reflection I will take from Marcothon is how noticeable even small changes can be.
Due to time constraints, a lot of my runs have been along the same route at a very similar time of day.
I run along an old railway track next to a small stream that has moved from a trickle to a raging torrent during Storm Desmond, and now back again. At the height of the storm it was truly frightening running next to it – the path is normally a good distance from the water, but as the rain continued to fall, the power and strength of the water rushing by was hypnotic and I felt myself being drawn towards it. I saw how near the water was to the bridges I ran over, and the force the bridges had to withstand.
I’ve noticed how the niggles move around my body. Something that one day has felt quite worrying has completely gone the next day. The outside of my right knee, then underneath my left knee. And then a worrying lump on the outside of the really bad ankle.
I felt dangerously tired on a couple of days, even early in the evening. My legs were fine but I struggled to keep my eyes open. I made it home without even remembering these runs, but I know I must have done them because Strava tells me I did.
I’ve run early in the morning, late at night, whatever I could squeeze in.
Some days have felt easy but have been fast. Other days have proved to be a huge effort for a slow time.
The weather has changed drastically, from being utterly soaked from the moment I locked the front door to the moment I returned three hours later, to picking my way neatly along frozen footpaths a few days later, to running in a vest in the middle of December at a distinctly northerly latitude.
My longest run was several laps of my local forest. I hadn’t been particularly looking forward to it, but I needed the miles and the hills so off I went. I was amazed at how different each lap was. I only met a couple of people during my run, but each time round I noticed extra marks in the mud next to the distinctive marks of my new Terraclaws. Bike tyre trails, a buggy, horseshoes, wellies, more and more paw prints.
I watched as the trees bent and twisted in the wild, biting winds. Every time I run down that particular path I am amazed the trees still stand after each storm, and yet they do. They shed leaves, and lose the odd branch, but otherwise they stand firm while the chaos blows around them.
There have been other, bigger changes as well.
At the start of the month I rather nervously went out on a date.
A few days later, said date and subsequent second date having gone quite well, we were out in the hills, running in the dark with snow, wind and hail battering us and agreeing this was quite a good way to spend our time. First thing on Christmas morning, we ran 8 rather chilly miles round the forest, laughing, joking, busting our lungs on the hills I could run (safe to say there were less of these than usual after running every day!) and eating sweets on the others, before heading our separate ways for prior work and family arrangements.
I can’t quite believe where the month went, it has been hectic beyond belief. I started the month desperately willing the year to finally come to an end so that I could put it behind me and start again with a new one.
But now there are just two runs left before the bells ring tomorrow night, and once again another fresh start is just around the corner.
It feels like the midges have been particularly vicious this year. I certainly hadn’t expected to still be scratching the odd bite into November, but as I’ve learned, every Scottish ‘summer’ (haha) is very different, and the midgie level is just one indicator, and perhaps a more meaningful one than the level of rainfall or hours of sunshine. I think I was a bit spoiled my first year, as the number of bites has increased exponentially year on year since then.
As the bites fade, and the scar on the side of my leg heals, maybe it’s time to reflect on the running year I’ve had.
So far (touch wood big time), it’s early November and I’ve not had a cold yet. I’ve not had to resort to steroid treatment for my asthma, my peak flow has remained strong, my iron levels are healthy and I haven’t bonked out of any races this year. Straight away that puts me in a considerably better position than this time last year.
I’ve run more miles, but in less races.
I had some tremendously inspirational help with my running at the start of the year, which set me up brilliantly despite me being unable to see it through. There was just too much else happening at the time, and I hope to pick up where I left off at some point.
I ran both my longest ever and shortest ever race this year. I pulled out of a race for the first time (as in didn’t even start, let alone finish). I put late entries in twice on a waiting list and managed to get in to both races. I ran an ultra for my birthday. I had a long overdue trip to A&E, this time in another country which was a first.
I did my first hill race (to say I ran it would be a bit of a fib). It was awful but I survived, met some great people, didn’t get lost and didn’t fall over. Someone on Twitter asked me to be in their relay team, I said yes and it was fab. There have been a lot of positives, and a whole lot of negatives/learning points too. However, I’ve only been out cycling once, and that is definitely not so good.
After last year, I’d got myself into a bit of a pattern of never feeling good enough just being me, and trying to fix that by always trying to do something bigger and better than last time.
Looking back at this time last winter, I wasn’t completely sure I wanted to do the Fling, but having to make a decision/sign up six months ahead meant I wanted to have my options covered. It would be a big challenge, but I was fairly sure I could do it if I had a reasonable winter. I wanted to do Loch Katrine again having loved it the year before, and I knew it would be a good long run before the Fling. Beyond that, I didn’t really know.
I helped out by crewing for a friend who was running the West Highland Way race for the first time. This was a long, tough weekend but a really brilliant thing to have done.
I thought I might go to France to do some cycling again with my Dad, but I’d learnt from the year before that switching to bike training was not compatible with ultra training and so I was wary of signing up to anything later in the year. A wedding booking meant I couldn’t do the Devil, and Glenmore didn’t appeal. I had wanted to do Tiree, but was down to be supporting at Glenmore that weekend.
A change in circumstances meant I was suddenly free to do whatever I wanted for my birthday/Glenmore weekend, so I put my name on the waiting list for Tiree, booked flights and hoped. A few days later, I had an entry.
A few weeks before Tiree, I went to the Austrian Alps for a week to stay with a friend. It should have been a few days spent recovering from a break up and exploring everything the mountains had to offer, but that all ended rather abruptly when I found myself sliding down the side of a hill and coming to a halt with a bit of tree branch stuck in my leg. I was a fair distance from my friend’s house, and took the shorter but steeper route back, covered in blood and rather worried as to the state of my leg. That was a very hard earned summit and while it was beautiful briefly at the top, the effort to get there wasn’t particularly enjoyable and proved to be another hard learned lesson. (Gory photos available on request – I had hoped for a small neat bat-shaped scar but it was not to be)
What it did do was to stop me in my tracks, and I spent the rest of the week very sore from the stitches, reading, chatting to a parrot, drinking beer, eating ice cream, eating freshly caught freshly smoked fish, being pointed it at and talked about by some German tourists and generally enjoying some of the staggering Bavarian scenery. I promised myself I would return.
sun going down on the Konigssee in the Berchtesgaden Alps. Slightly creepy being in the shadow of the Eagle’s Nest, but truly a beautiful place and a lot of thinking was done on the shores of this lake.
Six stitches, an infected wound from a bit of tree left in my leg and an enforced break from running rather threatened the Tiree trip, but in the end all came good.
a bit raggedy round the edges, I couldn’t even begin to tell you which beach this was on other than it’s somewhere on Tiree and it must have been windy because I have an extra layer on.
I celebrated my 37th birthday recovering by trying out Stand-Up Paddleboarding (SUP) for the first time the day after the race. I can strongly recommend it – gentle but focused, meditative, flowing, rhythmic and stretching every single muscle in the body. I also had my first trip on a really tiny plane.
I decided to defer my Saltmarsh 75 place. I hadn’t done enough big back-to-back miles, and after last year’s disaster on day 2 (which I still haven’t blogged about), I really wanted to do a good job when I went back. Once it became clear this wasn’t going to happen, I moved my place into next year instead.
I wanted to do something that weekend though, and there was a hill race on, a hill I hadn’t done but one that was on my list and in one of my favourite areas of Scotland where I have had some great times with some great people.
only one way to go… straight up
Ben Venue proved to be some of the toughest few hours I’ve ever had, there were lots of choked back tears on the way off the hill, and I came very close to a serious asthma attack. It was something that should have been well within my capabilities, but all the bad things that happened this summer suddenly hit at once and everything was completely out of control.
There was a photographer waiting as I crossed the line so I had to at least try to smile. I felt worse after these 9 miles than I’d felt after the Fling, but some really nice people made me feel better after I finished the race. They brought me cake, and made me tea, and generally scraped me up off the floor and helped me feel better. I’d always been a bit wary of road runners, having only encountered the really serious/miserable variety, but here was the exact opposite.
The after effects lasted longer than those from the Fling, and are largely responsible for the tape covering my right lower leg. I literally bashed up against the limits of my already very badly damaged right ankle for the first time in many years, and it really, really hurt to the extent that I thought I had done some serious damage.
And then a few days after, I received a message on Twitter.
Would I like to fill in for a relay team?
Hmmm…Would I be too slow?
No of course not. Just come and join us.
As a result, I had a wonderful day enjoying all the autumn colours around Jedburgh.
I found myself in a part of Scotland I’d never been to and would never otherwise have come to, I met some new people, caught up with old friends and generally made my peace with the dubious joys of social media.
I also acquired possibly the brightest piece of clothing in my wardrobe in the form of a bright DynoRod orange race t-shirt, which will be extremely useful while clocking up the miles through the long dark Scottish winter.
I’ve just put my race entries in for next year.
Many times this year, I contemplated giving up completely. Speyside last year was a real turning point, and the Fling this year was another.
Now, when I enter a race, it is truly because it’s something I want to do for myself, rather than because I don’t feel like I’m good enough in other areas of my life and I think finishing a big hard race will make up for that.
That’s not to say I only want to do easy things, far far from it.
I’ll finish with another quote, this time from Jake Humphrey:
Never sit in the comfy chair
Thanks to Fiona Keating for this picture. I had been on my feet for 14 hours 40 minutes and had just finished running the 2015 Highland Fling, still smiling though!
Autumn is out in all its glorious colour in Scotland. We’ve had a beautiful few weeks with only a couple of really soggy days. The combination of shorter days, turning leaves, migrating geese and lower sun in the sky mean that winter is firmly on its way. But the landscape is absolutely stunning.
I’m going into my fourth winter up here. Bad things still happen in the ‘new’ life, but I am much more resilient and able to cope with the knocks when they come. A tough hill race nearly finished me off emotionally for a few days, but I got through it and will live to fight another day. Difficult days at work are shrugged off relatively easily, and there is a freedom and a lightness that I didn’t have where I lived before.
I’ve had my head down for a few weeks but I emerged a few days ago, having had a pretty much perfect week and a visit from my parents. I’m back running again, and while Saturday’s run was grey, damp, hard and badly disrupted by my asthma, the miles out on the Antonine Wall yesterday morning with friends were the exact opposite.
My entries are in for my races next year. This gives me some of the focus I need to keep going through the winter. There are three new ones, and an old one I didn’t complete the first time around.
Three of them are south of the border, two are totally different to anything I’ve done before, and one of these will yet again be the biggest scariest thing I’ve ever contemplated doing.
As a result, I’m tremendously excited while being ever so slightly terrified at the same time. But this is what I love doing, and I do it for the moments where everything stops around me and all I am aware of is my lungs working and the scenery around me.
I’ve had to rope my parents in to help with the big one, which will be a new experience for all of us. Dad is a long distance cyclist with a love of 24 hour time trials in bad weather, and Mum is really good at tough love and not giving in when you’re scared.
I’m learning a new piece on the harp at the moment and it has become a bit of a mantra.
Everything will be all right.
taken from Croy Hill early yesterday morninglookimg towards home from Croy Hill
I’d arranged to go for a short and gentle run with a friend and her dog after work. The stitches had just been taken out of my leg the night before, and I was cleared to run if I wasn’t too sore.
It was meant to be a trot down the old railway path near my house, but it was a really beautiful evening, and as the nights were starting to draw in, I wanted to make the most of the remaining light up in the hills behind my house.
We ran, walked, skipped, jumped, waded and staggered 5 1/2 miles over tussocky moorland grass (chest height in places for us wee folk), mud and impressive bogs between the Crow Road car park and the top of Cort ma Law.
We were treated to a spectacular sunset on a clear evening, and we could see the peaks of nearby Ben Lomond and the Arrochar Alps. Further south, we could see the peaks of the island of Arran.
The setting sun caught the windows of the houses across Glasgow, and we saw the planes coming in at the airport.
It was tough going underfoot and we walked to start with up the initial steep climb. But after a while, I couldn’t resist and just wanted to run.
Despite the fall a few weeks ago, my feet felt secure underneath me and I bounced happily over the lumps and bumps that make up the Campsie Fells. There are no flat bits.
I jumped over the worst of the bogs as much as I could and even when things got steeper I just wanted to keep going. My legs felt strong, and my asthmatic lungs worked hard but somehow felt even stronger.
It won’t be long now before it will be dark when I get home. But there are big challenges ahead next year, including running in wild places and dramatic scenery in dark and potentially wilder even more dramatic conditions.
I have the perfect training ground on my doorstep and I can’t wait to make the most of it.
...with a wee flourish 