Category: Races

Solstice Saunter 2024

Jess GuthLeave a comment

Good Morning from the muppet who didn’t really stretch after completing the 5 mile Solstice Saunter yesterday. I’m not too stiff or achey but I didn’t sleep all that well because my body seemed to be working its way along each niggle to try and work out what to do with it – so it felt like I was mostly awake with something or other hurting a bit.

I like the Solstice Saunter. It’s held at Bolton Abbey annually on the day of the Summer Solstice. It’s a 5 mile undulating course which is very familiar because most of it is on our usual Bolton Abbey loop. As an added bonus the medals are always stunning. I was looking for to it. At the back of my mind was that little bit of doubt given that I didn’t exactly find parkrun a breeze and 5 miles on a hilly course is a different thing altogether from 3 miles on mostly flat. But I always wanted to go and do this.

So we set off, probably a bit too early really and got there about an hour before race start. We picked up our numbers, went to the loos, sat by the river for a bit and eventually wandered down to the start. At the start Kath and I split and Kath went further forward (I don’t think she quite went to the ‘nearly quick’ section, the name of which made me laugh). I stayed at the back with the slow jog/fast walk crowd.

We set off in waves and as we did I smiled and noted how the first jog felt nice and easy, good slow place, nothing silly or exciting as so often can happen at the start of a race. I immediately dropped into 30 second run/ 30 second walk intervals. I was around a couple of people running with dogs and neither had particularly good control of the dogs so it was slightly annoying. I thought about dropping back and keeping them in front of me but after a couple of run intervals I had left them firmly behind me and forgot about them. Then for about half a mile I kept going past and then being overtaken by a woman who was running constantly. I would go past on my run and then she would come past on my walk. Eventually though she moved ahead and I was quite happy to let her go. I was a mile in and it wasn’t easy.

Mile 2 has a lot of up in it and I didn’t even try running that. I was already feeling it and I wanted to enjoy it and stay positive so for mile 2 I walked up the hills and ran/walked down. It was a slow mile but quite a nice one. After that mile I was in a sort of bubble. I could just about see the person in front of me and I could just about see a couple of people behind me but basically I was on my own. It was perfect. I ran/walked fairly randomly for the rest of the loop really. I topped briefly at the water station for a conversation about the universe expanding – yep more random.

As I got close to the aqueduct there was a photographer and as I approached I said ‘You’re going to make me run aren’t you’? He insisted he wouldn’t but I did anyway and kept going for a bit once I had passed him. Then there’s another uphill so I marched up that. That was a fairly consistent pattern, power march up, jog down. The route here is up and down and not in a straight line so mostly I couldn’t see anyone. Bliss!

I got to the bottom of nemesis hill and could suddenly see a few people who were closer than I had thought they would be from when I had seen them earlier. I tiny little competitive streak appeared from somewhere deep down. I marched up nemesis hill as I have done so many times and when I got to the top I had gained on the people in front quite significantly even though they were on the downhill. Game on! I jogged down and was now pretty close. I also still had just over half a mile to go though, so let’s not peak too soon. I stayed behind them as they jogged and I ran/walked. With every run I was getting closer and I wasn’t dropping back in my walks. With about a quarter of a mile to go I passed them. At about the same time my left calf starting getting a little crampy on the run segments so I slowed off a little but kept the interval. Then I popped up over the last hill, saw Kath and broke into a job that somehow I kept going to the finish. The field finish was tricky terrain on tired legs and it felt like I just sort of threw myself over the finish line. Yay done.

It was hard. I walked lots and lots. It was slow. But it was a great event and a lovely evening. And just look at the medal!

Meh, meh and meh again

Jess Guth1 Comment

Ah well that glorious few seconds at the end of the last run I wrote about was short lived. I’ve been out once sine then and it was fairly miserable. Although I was excited I’d got out at all. Then I got a little busy with stuff and with excuses so did sweet FA for the rest of the week. Yesterday was supposed to be ‘Dopey proof of time day’ but there was absolutely no way I was dragging my arse round the Manchester Half Marathon and Kath is still coming back from injury. So no proof of time for us so we will be starting our Dopey races at the back – hopefully not dead last though. It’s a bit meh to have not started yet another race. But we went to Manchester anyway and had a lovely Saturday, wandering round the city, watching the world go by, drinking mocktails and generally just being. It was lovely. Somehow though on Sunday I was exhausted. I slept for a chunk of the afternoon when we got back and I went to bed really early and slept for about 11 hours. I feel marginally better today. I am not really up for doing hard things though. Every excuse busting trick in the book isn’t really working. I am happy on the sofa and not at all interested in moving off it. Possibly a bit of depression, maybe just end-of-term fatigue. Who knows but it’s meh.

I need to something else. I am going to see if posting my plan for the week here helps me actually do it – I am not promising. You might just get a week of excuses but here goes:

Today I was going to run. I haven’t. I have done an upper body strength session and 5km on the bike (was meant to be 10k but my legs died – meh). I will do my Daily stretches and the foot injury prevention session 1 before bed

Tuesday: I am off work so no excuses! 45 minute run and I would like to re-start the Dynamic Runner strength programme. Daily stretches and Foot session.

Wednesday: Re-try the 10k bike, Daily stretches and foot session and the 2nd strength session

Thursday: Rest (I am away for work) so just daily stretches and foot session. If I want to do something because I am bored in the hotel, there’s a beginner barre that doesn’t need equipment or much room

Friday: Still away so a morning run from hotel – 45 minutes ish. Daily stretches and the last foot session

Saturday: 5 mile run, Strength Session 3 and Daily Stretches

Sunday: Bike, Daily stretches and Session 1 of another injury prevention programme – maybe the ankle strength one (7 days)

The Daily Stretches are always around 15-18 minutes and the foot programme is no more than 10 minutes each time. The strength sessions are 20-30minutes. And yes I know it is not the ideal plan with the strength sessions back to back etc but it’s where they fit in around being away. I’ll keep you posted!

Cliffe Castle parkrun

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I am not entirely sure I had really thought through what ‘doing Cliffe Castle parkrun’ would mean when I suggested it for New Years Day. It’s our home parkrun. We have actually only run it two or three times before and have volunteered a few times. Anyway, starting the new year with a parkrun seemed like a good thing to do and when deciding which one, we quickly discounted those which would be muddy in places – mainly because my feet are still a bit sensitive and definitely prefer cushioned road shoes over trail shoes at the moment. But I am barely 5km fit. I have had hardly any runs of that distance and my lungs and willpower seem to give out around 2 miles ish at the moment. So I have no idea what made me think that joining a group of people to haul our backsides round a 3.1 mile course with a huge hill in the middle that you have to do 3 times would be a good thing to do this morning.

Anyway, I am assuming you all know what parkrun is. If not – it’s a weekly 5km timed run, usually on a Saturday but with special events on Christmas Day and New Years Day, which is free and you just need one registration for all parkruns round the world. So, Cliffe Castle parkrun. I always say I quite like the course because it is basically all down hill apart from the so-called Cliffe. But I think maybe I just forget how bad the Cliffe actually is. I was expecting more people to turn up today than did and while I was expecting to be really quite slow, I wasn’t expecting to be right at the back. It doesn’t actually matter at all but somehow in the moment it did matter. I didn’t like it. I have come last at parkrun before (I know, I know, you are never last, the tail runner/walker is…) when I did it in Bath and I don’t usually mind the idea or the reality of coming last. But today I did.

We set off at the back of the pack and jogged reasonably happily down the hill, turned left onto the path and eventually found ourselves at the bottom of the bloody big hill known affectionately (or not) as the Cliffe. We walked up it and I had definitely forgotten how steep it was and how long it goes on for. When we eventually doubled back on ourselves and the hill changed from actual hill to slight slope there was no way I was running yet. I didn’t start running again until we were back on broad tarmac paths going downhill. I was tempted to duck out and just go back to the car. But that would have taken a little more planning and as quickly as the thought came, we were past the entrance to the grounds that would have made that possible.

I ran/walked lap 2 until we got to the Cliffe. We walked up again and my lungs were next to useless. I huffed and puffed my way to the top and seriously thought about going to the car. Kath was spending her time chatting away and trying to make me laugh but my sense of humour had parked itself at the finish line and if I wanted it back I was going to have to finish. So, more run walk, with a little more walk, for lap 3 and a walk that felt more like a crawl up the Cliffe the third time. I barely had enough breath to say thank you to the marshals at the top. Still huffing and puffing I tried to keep run/walk going, I tried to ignore the fact that the tail walker was the only person behind us and that it was beginning to feel like the marshals were waiting for us (they weren’t, there were a couple of finishers not far in front and some more not far in front of them). I ran up the last hill and got to the finish with lungs burning and struggling to breathe. Still, it’s done. I am sure at some point I will enjoy having done that.

Festive Ultra Day 3 and some New Year New You reflections.

Jess GuthLeave a comment

I did not sleep well at all. I woke up not all that long after having fallen asleep to an absolute downpour outside, then I needed to pee, then at just after 3am Storm cat woke me purring and rubbing and being her best fluffy cuddly self (I assume she was hungry) and then, just after I dozed off again it was time to get up. I felt all achey and grumpy and sore. I dropped Kath off at the station and drove to the office. When I looked at my messages once I got there, Kath had had to walk home because there were no trains into Leeds due to flooding at Kirkstall. Well, at least she got a couple of miles on the board for us!

I have been overwhelmingly tired all day. I’ve tried to get on with stuff but I’ve just made mistakes and couldn’t quite get my brain to where it needed to be. Maybe because I am tired, or maybe because fitness (or the lack of it) is on my mind because of this festive ultra, I am seeing adverts for diets, exercise programmes and for ‘health’ apps everywhere. My timelines on social media are full of advice to help me ‘have [my] fittest year yet’, ‘finally lose that unwanted weight’, ‘get rid of hormonal weight gain fast’ or simply ‘have your best year ever’. There’s an awful lot of new year, new you stuff out there at the moment. That’s been whirling around in my head as we dragged our slightly tired, slightly grumpy backsides off the sofa and went for a walk to make up today’s distance.

So in the silences in between off-loading about work and putting the world to rights I was mulling the idea of ‘new year, new you’ and I can see the attraction of picking a point in time to start over, to do things differently. I am often guilty of picking an arbitrary date to change something – to start running again (in fact isn’t the festive ultra just that – an arbitrary thing to get me into a habit of exercising again?). The more I think about it, the more the idea reminds me of a coaster I have with the slogan in the picture. Tomorrow, next week, next year is attractive because it never has to come, we can always pretend we’re going to do things tomorrow. It can always be tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow – hang on that’s a different story altogether). So the particular tomorrow of New Years is slightly different because we tell ourselves that on this given tomorrow, things will actually change. But here’s the thing, as the clock rolls over from the 31st December to the 1st January, you don’t suddenly change. You are still the same person with the same habits (good or bad), the same influences around you, the same pressures, the same hopes and dreams, the same biases, prejudices and ways of thinking and being. A clock, a calendar moving from one minute, year, to the next doesn’t change your lifetime of becoming you. It’s just another tomorrow.

I have, over the years, ranted about the new year, new you thing. Particularly in relation to health, fitness and exercise it does so much harm, causes so much unhappiness and costs a ton of money. I’m not going to repeat that rant. I’ve been reflecting on the mythical tomorrow of New Year and on making resolutions, on planning, on thinking about aspirations for the coming year and the extent to which we are conditioned to think that we somehow need to be better. I actually think that pressure is there in the media all year but it takes on a particular aggressive and persistent form as we count down to next year. A lot of the adverts seems to suggest that previously we’ve just been doing it wrong, buying the wrong products or following the wrong plan so surely in the New Year we’ll be smarter and finally do the right thing… or maybe this year we just haven’t been trying hard enough so surely in the New Year (tomorrow?) we will focus and finally commit and do what’s been determined to be right for us. I doubt any of that is true and all those of you who have been doing your best, who have been surviving and juggling and muddling through – I see you. I am you.

I am trying to be immune to that intense pressure but it doesn’t always work. Sometimes I think about how I must get my running back on track properly, how I need to implement x-y-z strategy or plan and just bloody well do better. But I am trying to be gentle and kind. On the 1st January 2024 I will, hopefully, still be just me. I will have had another birthday so my number will have rolled on by 1. I’ll still be fat and unfit (but maybe just a little less unfit than I am today), I’ll still be my reflective, slightly grumpy overthinking self. I’ll still suffer periods of depression and anxiety. I’ll still have an irrational and slightly over the top love of all things Disney and I’ll still think I can do anything when I am sitting on the sofa and don’t actually have to do it. Will I make any resolutions for 2024? Nope. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have hopes and dreams for the year. I’d love to run consistently, I’d love to continue the much healthier work life/ non work life balance that the last couple of months of 2023 have brought. I’d like to have time to think and read and dream. But resolutions won’t get me there. Resolutions are a sort of pressure. A requirement to be better, to do. Resolutions have to be measurable otherwise how do you know you’re being better? They involve comparing and numbers and tracking and measuring and and and… And I already have way too much measuring and metric-ing in my work life.

So there will be no aims or targets to lose weight, to run longer or faster, to be more successful or productive. There will be no requirement to ‘do’. There’ll be none of that, nothing measurable, nothing tangible. I just want to wake up on January 1st, linger, listen to purrs, drink coffee and anticipate the magic and wonder that 2024 holds. In the meantime – back to measuring. We are at 52km, just over 30% to target so we are still going strong – even if my feet say otherwise.

Festive Ultra – Day 2

Jess GuthLeave a comment

I was determined to make a bit more of a contribution to our total today. At least I was until I actually got out of bed and was faced with the reality of actually going out and making a contribution to our total. I procrastinated a bit, played through some of the usual excuses. Hang on was that a twinge in my back? How’s my foot? I’m sure I felt that complain a minute ago. My jacket is still damp, maybe I should wait. Kath is out on her long run, maybe I should wait until she’s back in case she needs rescuing along the way… Eventually, as is usually the case, I ran out of excuses and got sorted to head out.

I hadn’t given distance all that much thought. So as I set off I thought that it would be good if I could actually maybe finally manage 3 miles without any drama. As I tried to work out where that would take me I decided that 3 miles made no sense and that instead I would run the start of my current usual loop but then drop onto the canal and try and get to Fisherman’s Bridge and then back to Bar Lane which should be about 4 miles (it was in fact exactly 4 miles). I haven’t done 4 miles in an age. I seem to have a bit of a wobble after just over a mile and things get hard and apart from one ‘Sheep Loop’ I haven’t even come close to doing 3 miles run/walk. So who knows what possessed me to decide I was going to do 4.

A mile came and went. I dropped onto the canal. I picked off walkers one by one. I nodded in acknowledgement at a number of runners coming towards me. I don’t really know what I was thinking about while running the first mile and a half or so. Then my thoughts suddenly turned to whether I really needed to do 4 miles or whether 3 would do. I considered a number of options. I wondered about turning round at 2 miles and heading back the same way which would give me 4 miles but would certainly mean I wouldn’t be able to manage run/walk to the end as I am still completely dead on hills. Then I wondered about turning round at 2.5 miles and coming back the half mile which would take me to a bridge where I could then walk home from. Then I wondered about just running a loop and heading on to the bridge as intended and then crossing and walking up from there. None of those options were quite what I wanted though.

I reminded myself that I really do want to get better at doing hard things. I have lost a lot of my mental strength generally and certainly in running and I need to build that up as much as I need to build my fitness. That reminder got me to the 2 mile beep. I did a quick mental scan of myself. Nothing hurt, feet were still dry, I was slightly too warm and a little grumpy for now real reason. Ok, onwards. I started looking around a bit, no herons, no kingfishers, just some ducks and about 4 dog walkers ahead. Ooh I could just turn round before I get tangled…. No! At the bridge I turned round and fairly soon had to weave my way in and out of the dog walkers again. For a little while I ran on the ‘I’ve turned round which means I must be nearly finished’ high but then it got hard. The 3 mile beep came and went and I just refused to think about it. I just kept running for 30 seconds and walking for 30 seconds until my final bridge was in sight. I reminded myself a couple of times that I could do it and yes my feet might be a little sore and my back a bit achey but we were in single figures in terms of running minutes left. The 4 mile beep went just a few steps before the bridge.

I was relieved to finish. I was getting to the stage of a run where I wasn’t sure if I could persuade myself to keep going. That might of course just be because I knew I was finished and I can never run further than I am supposed to be running that day. I walked up the hill home feeling quite happy with my efforts and also really quite tired. When I got home Kath was already home and about to get out of the bath. So I could have a soak in an epsom salts bath and then have some lunch. Since then I have been trying not to fall asleep. I do need to stretch more otherwise I don’t think I’ll be running tomorrow! We also might go for a walk later on this evening which will be a nice way to make sure I don’t stiffen up completely. Kath has been running strong with a solid 10 miles today. Currently we are at about 32km so just a little ahead of target on daily distance.

Happy Sunday!