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Having Flu, The Spine Race, and Heated Rivalry

Jess GuthLeave a comment

Not really a running or a work post so I didn’t know what to do with it. Just roll with it, I am. I have had a really weird week and a bit. I have been knocked out with flu so maybe my brain has just gone to mush. I have been trying to think about writing. I have been trying to think about work stuff. But I have been distracted by chaos in the world, by the scary geo-political shit we’re in the middle of. I have also been distracted by the state of Higher Education and legal education. I have been wondering about what the point is, or at least what my role in it can and should be. But my flu addled brain didn’t come up with much useful – it just got itself stuck in ‘we’re doomed’ mode.  Anyway, two things happened at the same time – the Montane Winter Spine Race and the release of Heated Rivalry in the UK. I was not expecting to get drawn into either.

The Spine Race is a 268 mile run up the Pennine Way. There are also shorter options but they are all serious endurance races. I was always going to check in with the race because Kath’s coach Allie Bailey was doing the full Spine. And maybe it was just because I was ill and not actually capable of doing anything other than sit on the sofa, but I got seriously hooked on the dot watching and the social media updates of how everyone was doing. I was so anxious for everyone given the conditions. It was brutal, there was so much snow, it was icy, it was cold. I devoured the updates from those along the course and those who had to call it along the way. I was totally invested in the success of strangers. I internally cheered every checkpoint arrival, I refreshed the camera feeds to watch people arrive and leave. I worried about the front runners having gone off too fast – a worry that turned out not to be completely unfounded. I read the messages people where leaving for the athletes, I read anything I could find on social media and I celebrated the love all the runners seemed to have for each other, the mutual admiration, respect and support. 

Each runner will have their why. You don’t attempt a race like that without a why. I didn’t at all care who won, I cared about the runners getting to run their race, to address their why. I felt a little stab of excitement every time a dot on the tracker moved forward. I was so glued to it. I was so gutted for people as they had to stop and retire. I always knew I would be interested in the race. I didn’t anticipate the emotional rollercoaster and obsessively checking dots on a map and Instagram reels for a week. Whenever I fell asleep (which was a lot), I would wake up and immediately refresh the dots. From Monday, Kath, who was working, got way more updates than she wanted. Watching the runners just put one foot in front of the other, just relentlessly moving forward somehow made me believe that anything is possible. That while the world is going to hell, humans continue to be resilient and brilliant and surprising and that maybe there is hope for something better. If people can do these extraordinary things in the face of all adversity then hope remains. 

And then Heated Rivalry dropped. It is one of the most achingly beautiful, heartbreaking and in many ways gentle love stories I have ever seen or read. I am usually so late to popular culture success stories that it feels weird to have seen this as soon as it came out. It also feels weird to be so affected by it. I wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting to be excited for a queer love story, for a queer story on mainstream TV, to enjoy the 6 episodes and move on. I did not expect for it to punch me in the gut and pull at my heartstrings hard and for me to spend the next week rewatching the series several times. Each time I noticed something I had missed before, every time it hit harder somehow. I cried more through this series than I have at anything for a long time (and I cry at everything) and the emotional impact is so intense, so visceral. And it annoys the hell out of me that I don’t really fully understand why.

I have read lots of commentary online as to why the show appeals to (straight) women and yes, I think the story speaks to me because of some of that. There is an absence of toxic masculinity in the way the relationships develop even if it all takes place in the aggressively masculine setting of hockey. There’s so much emotional availability, so little power play and at the same time so much anxiety, fear and uncertainty. It’s so unbelievably sweet and at the same time it’s totally heartbreaking. The acting is superb, the story telling perfect, the cinematography and soundtrack brilliant. It has some of the funniest lines in it and it has believable characters that I can’t help root for. From the first scene I wanted their happily ever after. I watched the first time through absolutely terrified that they wouldn’t get there. I was waiting for the nightmare moment, the horror story, the thing that somehow breaks the spell, the hope. I wanted a proper queer romance so much but I didn’t trust it. Not until I had seen it through and the happily ever after came. The second time round, I saw so much more in the way the characters and their relationship develops because my nervous system wasn’t on high alert. I wasn’t waiting for disaster to strike and the beautiful queer love story to be turned into a tragedy.

That made me think about the last (and I think only) time I was even remotely invested in fictional love story to the point that I would re-watch episodes obsessively: Willow and Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was important at the time because there weren’t really any lesbian love stories. It was one of the first times I saw something resembling a part of me in a TV show. That was 1999. I was at university. Everything was pretty relaxed, fun and fluid and it didn’t really matter whether I was referring to Tara and Willow as witches or as lesbians, same, same, but different. I think all of us in my little university bubble were just exploring, pushing boundaries and seeing where we ended up. In that world I was out even though I sort of didn’t need to be. But I also had a (on/off) girlfriend at the time – and she was not out. She was at a different university, she was sporty, she played on all the sports teams and while I think it has probably always been easier for queer women in sport, she struggled for a long time. When she eventually did come out at university, she got all the love. But she never came out to her parents and it was a really long time before we came out to our friends at home and the reception wasn’t awful but it also wasn’t accepting really. And I wanted my sunshine, I didn’t want to be a secret. And I was also absolutely terrified of what that actually meant – a bit like Ilya on the drive to the cottage. Watching Tara and Willow in Buffy, initially a secret, then not and then they killed Tara. It didn’t help. It confirmed something unspoken but something we sort of all knew. Queer love stories don’t have happy endings. There has to be something tragic, or queer characters aren’t allowed to stick around for too long. I cried over and over again because that meant that my own love stories were destined to secrecy or tragedy, one or the other (see also Brokeback Mountain).

There was Queer as Folk around the same time I think – which was fun and then a few years later I watched the L-Word. Maybe that should have been my world, the one I watched on repeat. I did have the DVD set but I was nowhere near as invested in that series as I am in Heated Rivalry and I don’t remember really relating to the stories, they didn’t get at the emotion in the same way. Heated Rivalry gives us the possibility of queer joy without the tragedy. All us queers finally get our happy ending. Or part of the happy ending, because the actual happy ending would be the safety to come out and just live our fucking lives.  And I wonder whether that is why Episode 3 breaks me every time I watch it. Scott and Kip is the more grown up perspectives in some way. It’s the antidote to Shane and Ilya taking an age to admit to themselves that they are so deeply in love with each other. Scott is a little older, him and Kip are clearer about what they want and that they want to be together – and then boom, society, sport, heteronormative bullshit hits. The Art Gallery scene breaks my heart every time, as does Elena’s speech as she dances with Scott. I have sobbed through it several times. Sunshine, we all deserve sunshine and sunshine should not be terrifying, it should not come with risk. Sunshine should be joyous and celebratory and, well safe. 

I saw someone write that Episodes 1 and 2 hook you, episodes 3 and 4 break you and episodes 5 and 6 heal you. Well, I think that’s pretty close. Although I think I was completely invested in the Shane/Ilya love story from the gym scene early on. The looks, the passing of the water bottle with the deliberate hand touch – haven’t we all been there. I mean, I haven’t for over 20 years because I found my person, but before that – the trying to figure out who is safe, who is on the same wavelength. The club scene in series 4 also resonated so much. Things I had just completely forgotten about. The pretence, the other people, the eye contact, the doubling down, fuck. And all because somehow pretending to be ‘normal’ was easier than just saying ‘yeah that’s my girl’. Somehow that seems absurd now. But that’s what happened so many times. And the end of episode 4 and start of 5 captures it so well and punches me right in the gut. We were in such a safe space really and I have never really thought about my coming out (which wasn’t one event) as in any way traumatic or difficult but somehow watching the Club scene in particular was a reminder that perhaps it wasn’t actually as easy as I now remember it. That the fear was real and powerful and that often secrecy felt safer. Pretence and the hurt we caused each other through that pretence still somehow felt better than being honest with our various joint groups of friends. 

I guess you can’t talk about Heated Rivalry without talking about the sex. Although that in itself is bullshit really. The sex is no more explicit than sex scenes in other shows. The difference is that the sex is between men. And honestly, the sex is hot. I assumed it wouldn’t be (for me I mean), because, you know, men. Not really my thing and also, I’m like old enough to be their mother. But it is so much hotter than any hetero sex scene I have seen on TV. I’ve been thinking about that. Obviously, the people in the series that we see having sex are incredibly beautiful people, I can appreciate that whatever. But I think the sex scenes are also shot with such care. They centre desire, sure, but also tenderness and care. Consent is everywhere and then there is so much kissing. I think that stood out for me – so much kissing. Do I just tune out when watching sex in other series or films, or is the focus not on kissing or is it a kind of power thing in straight sex. I don’t know but I wonder whether ‘We didn’t even Kiss’ hits so hard because actually we see a lot of passionate but really tender kisses right from the start. The sex and maybe in particular the kisses show the evolution of the relationship – it’s communication. It’s sex for a reason in the show and I wonder whether so much straight sex on TV is kind of irrelevant to the story, it’s just there but doesn’t add much to the characters. Whereas here it’s key. You cannot tell this story without the sex. 

There is so much more, there’s the women of the show (let’s take a minute for the Rose Landry’s (of any gender) of this world), there’s Scott Hunter’s coming out, the recognition of possibility that brings for Shane and particularly Ilya, there’s Kip’s dad and Shane’s parents. This week, the show has been everything. 

So what am I taking away from watching dots on a map and Instagram updates of one of the most brutal endurance races in the world alongside several ‘reheats’ of Heated Rivalry?

  1. Humans are phenomenal and we never know what we can do until we dare try
  2. We all have our demons, we all face them in different ways
  3. I am an absolute sucker for a proper queer romance
  4. “Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird” is absolutely the best way to swear
  5. The word “Compatible” can do a lot of heavy lifting!
  6. And more seriously, representation, fucking matters. Queer stories matter. Somehow I saw more of me, felt more at home, in a show about queer male hockey players than I have ever seen or felt in a mainstream TV show, even one with the odd queer character. I can’t explain how or why, but that’s how it feels. 
  7. We (I) needed this. The world is going to hell, anything not heteronormative feels under attack. It feels like we’re going backwards. Heated Rivalry is hope and I think that’s why I want to just watch it again and again. We need hope.
  8. The Spine Race being at the same time as me watching Heated Rivalry meant that there was something else to attach that hope to. It wasn’t just about fictional characters, I watched real humans achieve extraordinary things. That is also hope. Real hope that the world can change, because we can do things that seem impossible, that are terrifying. We can keep going with hope.

Happy 10 Year Dopey anniversary

Jess GuthLeave a comment

10 Years ago today I ran my first marathon. And my first marathon was part of my first Dopey Challenge. 10 Years. The world has changed. I have changed. And yet it also seems like yesterday. I had a much longer blogpost in draft. I was trying to make sense of the last 10 years plus of running and what I have learned. But I couldn’t quite get the words right. I am not sure I am quite clear on what it is I wanted to say. Or maybe it’s my flu-fogged brain. I started drafting the post just after I posted the last one about feeling good – then I got flu so I haven’t run all week. So maybe what I started drafting doesn’t feel quite right now.

So I will just share these two pictures. Our Dopey Challenge Finisher picture and the Marathon medal. Reflections of what is now really 11 years of running properly – sometimes more not running than running – might still come. But as I sit on the sofa today feeling frustrated that I got flu just as I was settling into quite a nice exercise routine, let’s just let this be a reminder that sometimes it is fun to do the impossible.

Good luck to all the Dopeys starting the marathon tomorrow. One foot in front of the other!

Doing Hard Things

Jess Guth1 Comment
Me, about half way round the Rasselbock Half Marathon

I started this post quite some time ago – just after finishing the Rasselbock Running Half Marathon at Sherwood Pines just over a month ago. What I started trying to articulate then was that I like to think that I am quite good at doing hard things, that I am ok out of my comfort zone and that I trust myself to do have a go, figure it out and get it done. Just sometimes, I forget. I signed up last minute and did the half marathon to prove that I can indeed still do hard things and that doing those impossible things can indeed be fun. I was struggling for the words then and sort of gave up on the post.

I think I was struggling for words, because what I just said doesn’t quite capture it. I have been thinking about it and now, a month and a bit from doing it and 3 weeks away from the Great North Run, I think I am beginning to untangle it a bit more. So I think the reality is more like this: I love my comfort zone and I love being good at things. I generally only do things I know I will be good at. Being pretty good at school from the start, learning to read and to swim early and being good at horse riding when I first learned as a kid – and those really being the only things I did – I never learned how to learn and work at something. I never actually learned to do hard things – nothing I had to do was hard to me and anything that was hard, I just didn’t do. And I pretty much managed to get through life like that (not consciously, I am just lucky that what I am good at conforms to what society expects – I did well at school, I went to uni, I got a good job and even though it wasn’t quite that simple or linear, it pretty much holds true). And then I started running. I am a crap runner. And I don’t usually mind being a crap runner. Running has taught me 3 key things that I don’t think anything else ever has:

  1. You can be objectively awful at something but still really enjoy it and get pleasure and the benefits from it. Objective success based on society expectations or on what others can do is pretty meaningless.
  2. You can find something really really hard, both physically and mentally and still want to do it, sometimes even enjoy it and get a lot out of it. And the feeling of having enjoyed something once you have finished it even if you didn’t really enjoy it at the time, is a powerful thing.
  3. You can get better at doing hard things. You can train yourself to do hard – not just to get physically better or mentally stronger so that the hard becomes easier- although that’s part of it – but to think about doing hard things in a different way. It’s a way of believing in yourself, trusting yourself and not accepting a ‘no, you can’t do this’ – even from yourself.

But when my running isn’t going well or I am struggling to get out, I no longer feel like I can do hard things. The ‘can’t do this’ voices get louder and doing the impossible no longer seems like fun, it just seems impossible. I retreat to the girl who was good at everything she did because she learned to avoid anything hard. But life’s not like that as an adult. Life is full of hard things. Work is hard – often just with volume of stuff, but sometimes also intellectually. Article revisions, managing relationships, juggling priorities… it can be hard and I am better at it when I remember that I am good at doing hard things. And I become much more confident in my ability to tackle anything when I am consistently running, because consistently running means I am consistently practicing doing hard things. My mental strength and ability to get things done, work at things, prioritise and push through are not something that I have brought from life to running, they’re all things that running has brought into the rest of my life. So without running consistently as a reminder that I can do hard things, the rest becomes the hard things I just don’t do. I end up doing the easy quick win work, I don’t prioritise as well and I avoid the things that will require me to work at them.

And let’s be honest, running has been inconsistent. Some of it has been happy running which has been nice but it has also been easy running with permission to bail out and walk all of it or sit on a beach instead. And that all has its place – but I have not been practicing doing hard things. Not at all. So when Kath saw the Rasselbock Marathon and we discussed doing it so she could get a marathon in as part of her ultra training that particular weekend, I signed up to the Half. Untrained, barely running 2 miles at a time and terrified that I would be so crap that I would be timed out on one of the most inclusive events around. Doing. Hard. Things. I could tell I had got out of the habit because even signing up made me nervous. Was this going to be another DNS or maybe a DNF, was it going to be horrible, how painful was it going to be?

But the thing with signing up fairly last minute means that you don’t have a lot of time to spiral. I was also stupid busy at work so didn’t have much time to think about it and the focus was Kath’s marathon (she was awesome!). I managed to put my half to one side because I convinced myself that I was just going along to support Kath. And then we were on our way down to Sherwood Pines. On Saturday morning we headed for parkrun – might as well. That in itself felt like ‘doing hard’. I was ok going round using my run/walk intervals but I was slow, slower than I am really comfortable with. But that’s just comparing myself to the runner I was rather than focusing on the runner I am now. Nothing hurt though and overall I actually felt ok about the half after having completed the 5k. It was also lovely to see my friend Jo and the Fordy Runs crew at the parkrun and to see the set up for the next day.

Half marathon day came. I set off before Kath. The marathon set off half an hour after the half to avoid congestion on the course. I settled in at the back around the three and a half hour pacer although I had no intention of sticking with a pacer. I know I prefer doing my own thing. However, after a little while the pacer settled in with me. I checked my watch and her pace was off by a lot. We were going downhill and were roughly 14 and a bit minute mining. We chatted a bit and she asked me several times if I thought she was on pace. Then she decided she was ahead of pace and needed to slow down and I thought I would be sensible and join her and we walked a while. Eventually though I remembered that I really need to do my thing and this running faster for a minute and then walking really slowly is not how I pace my run/walk – so I left her and did my thing. I went through mile one at 16 minutes and she was a way behind me so that just confirmed I didn’t want to stick with her. She might be very good at getting round in the specified time but I much prefer even splits. For a couple of miles we leapfrogged each other and then I think she eventually settled into her proper pacing and went ahead. I settled into my own headspace. I was walking more than I wanted to really but mostly I was having a good time. I was enjoying being out there. I was enjoying the feeling of not having a choice but to finish (there’s always a choice), of having a reason to push through the doubts. I just kept plodding. Every now and again I would have a chat with people I passed or coming past me, but never for long.

Kath caught me at an aid station, she was struggling so my focus shifted from me to encouraging her. I had some water and coke and carried on leaving Kath to go to the loo. When she came past me again she looked much stronger and seemed happier. All good. The route was nice – woodland paths, some sand, a lot of shade which was so welcome in the ridiculous heat. Part of the reasoning for this run had been to practice fuelling so I had apricots as well as some haribo and tailwind in both flasks. If I was to get anywhere near the recommended amount of carbs, I’d needed to drink a flask an hour and have several apricots. The haribo were emergency fuel. I was doing ok-ish on the drinking but really struggled eating so gave up on that. When I had nearly finished one flask I wanted to replenish my tailwind at the next water station but I couldn’t get my stick pack open. It just wouldn’t tear. So I gave up in that in a huff and just filled the flask with water and got myself round on that and flat coke from the aid stations. I thought I might like the little pretzels and other things they had but I didn’t want proper food. Not even the haribo. I should of course have just asked for help to get the stick pack open. I honestly just didn’t think of that on the day.

I was genuinely having a great time until about 10 miles. Then I was getting tired. Nothing really hurt, my hips were beginning to niggle. I was pretty much only walking. I knew from my pace that the 3.45 pacers which included my friend Jo would be catching me up soon and when they did it was nice to have some company for a while and chat and catch up a bit. Right towards the end I couldn’t quite keep up with them which annoyed me slightly – I was here to do hard things after all – but I came in at 3.46 something – just behind the first marathon finisher (who had run double my distance in half an hour less than me).

So how did I feel about it. I loved it. I had indeed done the hard thing. I had finished a half marathon in the heat without having trained for it – just going on experience and understanding of how hard I can push my own body safely. I can do hard things. And I did enjoy it and nothing was broken or really painful. Girl did good! But now, a month on. Hm. I walked most of it. It’s the slowest time I have ever recorded for a half, did I really do a hard thing? Didn’t I actually just stay right in my comfort zone and not push? Wouldn’t doing hard things actually mean running more than I did, not stopping to walk quite so easily, having less fun and more determination to get it done more quickly? And I honestly don’t know. Well, no, I know that I couldn’t have pushed much more without risking injury or heat stroke or at a minimum just utter misery. And I keep trying to remind myself that ‘hard’ does not mean miserable and awful or stupid and risky. And what I did that day was hard. There were times when I wanted to stop but not seriously, and there were times where I did push myself to run a bit more and to get moving. I am trying to remember that I was taking a baby step towards getting used to doing hard again. But I don’t quite believe it.

How I feel now is probably shaped by running since then. I have, once again, not been consistent. I ran a little 5k the week after, another 3 miles in the Yorkshire Dales a couple of weeks ago and a 5 mile plod along the canal at home last week. That’s it. Hardly sensible or even useful Great North Run training. So yeah, The Rasselbock Half was all about reminding myself that I can do hard. And it was a well timed and needed reminder. That reminder now needs build into a habit. Doing hard as a one off takes effort and willpower. Being practiced at doing hard, being in the habit of just doing it even if it seems impossible, being comfortable with the possibility of failure but refusing to not try because I might fail, or worrying about the possibility of being outside the comfort zone, finding something tricky or not being able to do it – all those things come with consistent running and re-wiring my brain so it doesn’t just know, it also believes that doing the impossible is fun.

Happy more waking than running

Jess GuthLeave a comment

After my Happy Running in Bath, Edinburgh and at home, we headed to Seahouses for a week of writing and thinking for my DBA. We had a lovely little apartment and the perfect location and as well as some lovely walks on the beach I also had one little run.

I didn’t go far and I found it really hard and was initially frustrated at the lack of fitness. I was also a bit unsettled because we’d had to change plans. The initial plan was to drive Kath to Craster for her to run back and for me to have a plod there before driving back. But the road was closed and rather than trying to work out an alternative, we pulled into the car park at Beadnell Bay to regroup. Kath was unsettled and so was I but eventually we got going and she set off to run to Dunstanburgh Castle and I set off on my plod.

After about a mile I realised that I didn’t want to run, I wanted to walk in the sea with bare feet- so that’s what I did.

I didn’t run very much at all that week but I loved walking on the beach, playing with the sea and just being.

Philadelphia running

Jess Guth1 Comment

We’ve been back from Philadelphia for 2 weeks now so it’s about time I caught up! I’m in the middle of a lush Spa Day so finally feel like I have the headspace to write. Philly was good for running for me. Here’s a summary:

A picture of the Liberty bell in Philadelphia
The Liberty Bell

Run 1: the first morning we had a little explore round the block from the hotel using Couch to 5km week 3 intervals.

Run 2: We ran (week 3 intervals again) to the Museum of Art and then obviously we took it in turns to run up the Rocky Steps.

Knee high to the Rocky Statue

Run 3: last morning and a 2 mile explore along the river

Not a run but time on feet: 11 miles walking round Philly on our last day to see the Japanese House and Garden.

All the running felt quite hard. It felt too warm and I felt like breathing was tough. But what wasn’t hard was getting out to run. Somehow getting out is easier when I am away somewhere. It was also lovely to run with Kath. We’re not doing much of that at the moment.

While in Philly I made all sorts of plans for when we got home. I really thought I was getting somewhere with consistency. But that’s not quite how it worked out. More on that later.

Philly was also good in the sense that there were lots of reminders about why I want to run and why I want to be fitter. I would have liked to have been able to do more tourist running. It’s fun to go see the sights on foot early in the morning. I also want to be able to walk places and not worry about distance. I got more tired than I’d like towards the end of our walk. I don’t want fitness for fitness’s sake, I want to be able to keep going on our adventures.

Dilworth Park and its fountains