Today’s run was not fun. None of it. But it’s done. The original plan was to do two 7 mile-ish loops at Bolton Abbey. However, we managed to not pick up Kath’s running vest when we set off so she had no phone and no water and no fuel. So rather than risking anything silly we agreed on one loop and I gave her one of my bottles of Tailwind. We set off and for the first while I could see Kath ahead of me – the distance between us getting further with every walk break I took. I felt pretty good. I dropped down past the Abbey and jogged across the bridge and started walking up the slope. Not a slope I had ever planned to run anyway. When I started running again nothing felt right. And that was the story of the run.
I didn’t settle in at all, not to the rhythm of the run walk, not to the running and not even to the walking. I walked more than I ran. My brain was noisy and random and even though I tried to consciously find joy – there just wasn’t any. I briefly glimpsed some as I hopped through golden crunchy leaves just before mile 5 and then when I saw a heron at 6.5 miles but otherwise it was just meh. My breathing was wrong, something always hurt and every time I won the argument about it not being real and whatever had been hurting went ‘oh ok then, yes I am fine’, something else would pop up and hurt. In fact it was so predictable by about mile 4 that it became funny. At about the same time I was also suddenly really hungry. I had some Tailwind and walked a bit drafting a rant blog about the awfulness of running in my head.
At every opportunity where I could cut the run short by doing a smaller loop, I had a real battle and every time I carried on along the planned route. I couldn’t quite decide whether to tell myself I was an idiot and should just stop or whether to be proud of myself. When I passed the aqueduct, the last point at which a shorter loop was possible, I thought I might settle in. Nope. I kept coming across people. I mean, obviously there were going to be people, and everyone was friendly but I didn’t want people in my space and I was always a bit surprised that I sounded both strong and cheerful as I said ‘Good Morning’. Anyway, with a million imaginary niggles and thoughts bouncing around everywhere I eventually finished with only the last 2 miles actually being within Disney allowed pace. I consigned the run to the ‘done’ category and joined Kath for food and coffee at the Tea on the Green cafe.
The mileage is ramping up but so far my body seems to be coping well. There are no actual niggles following Tuesday’s 9 miles and today’s 7. In fact Tuesday’s 9 miles were so delightfully uneventful I should have dedicated a post to them. I ran/walked the first 7 of them at remarkably consistent pace and then I ran out of daylight and decided the safest thing to do would be to walk the rest of the stretch along the canal until I could see properly again on the roads and when I got back onto roads with street lamps I basically just had the hill to walk up. Today’s run might have been pretty awful but like all runs, it ended and the memory bank of running the loop previously and of getting through previous awful runs was helpful. It didn’t have to be pretty, it just had to be done.
Well I had Covid again and it wasn’t nice. It sparked the 100 Days of Wonder blog series on my other blog so that’s something fun and light to come out of it but running wise – meh.
Honestly I am quite scared to run. What if my lungs just really don’t work? What if getting ready for Dopey is now completely impossible? Well being too scared to run isn’t going to help with that is it! We went for a walk at Bolton Abbey once we’d both tested negative and that was ok but we were soo tired afterwards and maybe we went too soon because we both felt crap again for a few days after.
Then I put off trying to go out for a few days. Then I went to a work thing in Worcester and somehow the idea of a little tourist run was easier to wrap my head around than just a run. I woke up early anyway so it’s not like I had to drag myself out of bed. I stood outside the hotel for ages waiting for my watch to pick up the GPS signal but it didn’t so in the end I just set Strava to track. I ran down the road towards the Cathedral. It was still dark so it wasn’t your usual tourist sightseeing run. I ran in intervals but skipped the odd one here and there but also stopped to take pictures.
After the cathedral I went a bit random but was vaguely thinking to head to the river and see just how dark the path would be and make an assessment as to safety at that point. Once I got there, the path was light enough but it seemed deserted. I hesitated for a second but then thought that I was on my own anyway and whether I went down a well lit path along the river or a not well lit narrow street probably made little difference. I saw another runner going the opposite way but that was it. I stopped to say hello to the Kleve Swan (donated by the town Kleve in Germany which is twinned with Worcester) and then made my way back through town and to the hotel. It was only a short 2 miles loop but that was definitely enough for my lungs. It felt positive to be out though.
Today we went to Bolton Abbey again to try a run. My lungs still feel heavy (don’t know how else to describe it really) and I was a bit worried about the slopes. Running on the flat is one thing… We set off, each doing our own thing and Kath soon disappeared out of view. I was struggling mentally. On reflection I was actually physically fine but as I was running my mind raced about worrying about how my lungs felt, how high my heart rate was and was that a niggle in my knee? I struggled to settle down and then I saw a couple walking ahead and for whatever reason I absolutely did not want to have to run past them. Anxiety levels were suddenly sky high. I did another walk and run interval and then I turned round. As soon as I did I settled down a bit. I told myself I could just run/walk back to the car and then stop.
After a little while I started laughing at myself. I turned round because I didn’t want to run past people on a wide footpath. What an idiot. I settled into the running more and forgot to worry about how I felt physically. I then decided that I would do at least 2 miles. That took me just a bit further than the car so I thought I might as well keep going a bit and go to the end of the car park. I ran on the grass and despite the damp creeping into my shoes it felt nice to be on the softer ground. I looped round watching a heron fly off into the distance. when I got close to the car I was still a bit off 3 miles so I kept going a bit, headed over the bridge over the Wharfe and turned back. 3 miles was fine. The lungs are still a bit heavy, it was slow and ploddy and clearly I am having a slightly mad phase but I got out and that’s progress. I waited for Kath to complete her equally positive loop and had a chat with a curious jackdaw.
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!
Nearing the end of January and I haven’t run as much this month as I wanted to but I have definitely made progress. As of today I have run just under 20 miles – not far off a 3rd of the entirety of last year’s mileage. I have done some yoga almost every day. Sometimes only 10 minutes and often sabotaged (supported?) by Storm Cat but this is huge progress and I have done a few strength and HIIT sessions. I have lots to feel good about really. And I am trying. There’s that niggling voice in my head that keeps reminding me that I am way behind where I should be given the things I have coming up. A voice that keeps telling me that I am insane to think I can do the Yorkshire 3 Peaks in 90 days. A voice that keeps pointing out the obvious fact that I am still close to the heaviest I have ever been. A voice that will not accept that losing about 6 pounds over the course of a month is fine, good and steady progress and instead insists that the weight loss needs to be faster.
Storm Cat helping with Yoga
But while the voice is there, it is less forceful than it sometimes is. Yesterday I eventually managed to get out in the afternoon. I had all sorts of plans when I was still sitting on the sofa. I was going to run the 2 miles down the hill and along the canal a bit before turning round and running 2 miles back including the hill. But as I set off it soon became very clear that my lungs were not playing. I couldn’t get air in, I was puffed after just a couple of 30 second running intervals and the idea of taking a walk break out was ludicrous. It was tempting to just give up and there was a time where I would have done. But not yesterday. I physically shrugged and said to myself that it would be silly to turn back. I’d done the hardest bit and got out the door and being out was good. Plan A might not be on the cards but doing something is better than doing nothing. So I carried on, I stuck to my 30 seconds runnings followed by 30 seconds walking and gritted my teeth. The voice was there but it never got into monologue mode.
Me after the longest 2 miles ever
My back was niggly (lack of core strength) and I sounded more like a steam train than human but somehow I made it to a mile. ‘So’, I thought to myself ‘If I just do that again, I will have run 2 miles, and 2 miles is good’. On I went, suddenly conscious of the people along the canal, conscious of what I looked and sounded like, the assumptions people would make. The voice got louder and at about 1.5 miles I nearly stopped and walked home. I was, rarely for me, running with music so instead of stopping I just turned the volume up and focused on the lyrics to push the voice out of my head and then, suddenly there we were, 2 miles done. Everything seemed to hurt, I felt slightly dizzy and I couldn’t get air into my lungs fast enough. I started walking home and I recovered. I was fine. I did it. Perhaps not plan A but I was out and moving. Good enough.
This morning we went to Bolton Abbey and right up until we set off I was looking forward to it. I like running at Bolton Abbey. I like running through the wooded bits, I like the paths – not really trail so my scaredy-cat brain doesn’t need to worry about mud and slippery and all the silly things it worries about – but not tarmac either. I like listening to the birds, looking out for herons (none today) and the otters which continue to be elusive. I like listening to the musings of the river that sometimes whispers in confidence and sometimes shouts in anger but mostly just tells her own story as she meanders. But Bolton Abbey isn’t flat and I was not at all sure I had it in me today. Plan A was the Barden Bridge loop, Plan B was the Aqueduct loop and Plan C was to run to the Strid and back (actually plan C was to get back in the car and find somewhere for coffee and I wasn’t far off implementing Plan C after having gone for a pee). Kath set off to run the Barden Bridge loop and for a while I could see here ‘Dopey in Training’ shirt make steady progress ahead of me. She looked comfortable (she later said she wasn’t and it took her ages to settle) and that made me smile.
I walked the first 3 minutes to get moving and then I started running 30 second intervals. I was struggling physically from the go. Lungs struggled and my back was sore. I was in real danger of spiralling into negativity and just giving up. But I was wearing my new Dopey in training shirt. Kath bought it for us for my birthday, we designed it together and it came the other day. I couldn’t give up on its debut. I needed to give it a proper inaugural outing! I thought about what doing the short proud could look like today. Well so much of Dopey and certainly the training is actually just getting it done. It isn’t always pretty and more does it have to be. It’s about getting in the right mental place to just grind it out. So doing the shirt proud today meant doing the distance today, no excuses, even if it meant walking lots. I walked up the path by the Strid noting that Plan C was conquered – I was not turning round now. I ran down the hill and managed a few more proper 30/30 intervals along the flat. I was coming up on the aqueduct. The loop would still be 3.5 ish miles, that’s good. I’ve been struggling so doing that would be progress, right? Maybe – but that’s not what I set out to do today. Remember: The distance. Today. No excuses. Dopey. Proud. Nothing was seriously hurting, nothing was getting worse. I was tired, I was huffing and puffing but I was fine.
I carried on. I saw Kath on the other side of the river still looking good. I waved. I smiled and dropped back into running intervals. I’d walked a fair bit but I was doing ok. I hot two miles and in spite of being a chunk slower even than yesterday, it hadn’t felt too bad. I crossed Barden Bridge, I tried to stick to the 30/30 intervals on the flat and once past the aqueduct again I walked the slopes, ran the downhill and did a bit of both on the flat. Nemesis hill doesn’t seem so bad just walking and I ran down the other side. Back on the flat I tried to drop back into 30/30 but my calves were cramping so I jogged/hopped /walked from random landmark to random landmark. Through the last gate, onto the bridge and I could see Kath sitting with a coffee at the Cavendish Pavilion. I jogged to her and was done.
The running itself was pretty awful but it was a great run. I got a little bit better at doing hard. I reminded myself that the little niggly voice is not in control. January has not been perfect but it has been good enough and good enough is bloody brilliant!
Week 5 complete! Yay. Today was such a mental battle. It wasn’t so much the getting out because we had already decided we were going to Bolton Abbey to run. It was such a gorgeous morning so in a way the getting out bit was easy. It was a bit chilly though. According to the car it was 4 degrees (centigrade) when we left the house and 2 when we arrived at Bolton Abbey. But the sun was out and I felt positive. I was creaky – I ran and did the first HIIT workout in forever yesterday so that’s perhaps not surprising. I decided to walk a couple of minutes before easing myself into my 30/30 run/walk intervals. I made my way up the first slope and at the top- ish I set of for the first run. It felt like running through treacle.
I could see Kath ahead and she had chosen the top path and I decided to follow her and get the slopes out of the way early. Making my way up to the top path felt impossible. My legs were heavy, my lungs burning and it felt like I was going backwards. I just made it to the top, turned right and realised that there was no downhill now. The path just sort of undulates upwards for a bit. Just as I was thinking about whether just a nice walk might be the better option today a tall runner came cheerfully striding towards me and beamed a big ‘hello’ at me. Somehow that really cheered me up and gave me enough resolve to keep going a bit. I was pondering the various meanings of ‘undulating’ in running commentary and race descriptions to try and take my mind off things but every step felt so hard. It was like I had to force my brain to force my legs to keep moving and my legs were saying no and my brain was saying no – mutiny all round.
At about half a mile the light caught my eye. I was mid way through a walk, I stopped the watch to just admire it for a bit and take a couple of photos (they don’t really do it justice). I was stopped for less than a minute, I was still puffing but I thought I might as well do a little more and shortly after another runner came flying round the corner with a little brown dog and I got another happy ‘Morning!’. Both of the runners I saw on the top path early on seemed content in their runs and cheery and like they were enjoying themselves. Somehow that helped me focus more on the positives of my run – being out, autumnal clear air, the light, the colours… . I dropped back down onto the main path down by the river to head back towards the car park. I hit a mile and the running sort of settled down and just was.
As I got closer to the car park, it got quite busy and I am clearly getting closer to my life goal of being a grumpy old woman. Groups walking together all seemed to need the entire path, dogs were mostly not under control, dogs on long leads were waddling across the path so I had to hurdle the lead, families were walking taking up all the path and just stared at me when I said ‘excuse me’ from a distance and then ‘excuse me, can I just come through please’ meaning I had to zig zag my way through. I was pissed off by the time I got to the last stretch before the Cavendish Pavilion and went through the same process and got no reaction, no attempt to move dog on lead or 3 small children to one side to leave enough room for me to get past. So I just said ‘Excuse me, please can I come past you’ for the 3rd time and when nothing happened I snapped ‘I am not stopping!’. As I said that one of the children told their mum to move out of the way and shifted creating just enough space. The mum shouted something after me and it is probably just as well I didn’t hear it. To be clear – this is not a single file path – this is a path where you can easily walk 4-5 next to each other so making space for me to come through was really not a big deal and they were coming towards me and I was already tucked away on one side – so no excuse really.
I was glad to clear the gate and continue towards the car park where there was actually space to avoid people. My plan said 2.5 miles but I had told myself that I could stop at 2 as I am still one run behind from week 4. But I figured I might as well get the 2.5 done given that I was out and not completely dead yet. I ran alongside the river on the wet grass and there was something rebellious and fun about running on the grass getting wet feet. My watch was running out of battery and when it leaves the battery warning across the screen so you can’t see any of the stats so I knew it had beeped for 2 miles and I knew I was going really slow. I sort of guessed that if I did another 8 runs after the 2 mile beep I should be round about 2.5 miles if I was guessing my pace about right. Turns out I wasn’t far off at all – Garmin said 2.51 and Strava being Strava stole a bit and makes it bang on 2.5 miles. Week 5 done. Happy.
really (not) a runner 