Tag: half marathon

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.

Yorkshire Dales running day

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I went for a little run today which felt a bit silly because Kath was on a big run. It was the Due North Burnsall Half. So while Kath was making her way over 13 and a bit miles of up and down some Dales bumps, I plodded along the river for three quarters of a mile. Not quite the same but still a stroke of genius on my part. In my head today was always about Kath’s run and me supporting her. But I also hadn’t run yesterday because I somehow just ran out of steam in the afternoon. I also didn’t run on Wednesday or Thursday because I am utterly useless at getting my arse out the door after work at the moment. So I sort of felt I should really run today and for ages I couldn’t see how I would make that happen. Until yesterday evening when it dawned on my that if my run is 30 minutes and Kath is out on a lumpy bumpy half, I will have loads of time to see her off, go for my little plod, get back, have coffee and cake at one of my favourite cafes and welcome her back at the finish.

So that’s what I did. I’ve done 3 runs of running a minute and walking 90 seconds 8 times now so it is time to try the next set of intervals on the plan. I’ll see how I feel because my knee started niggling again the other day although it was mostly fine today. I probably turned round one run too early as I ended up with a bit of a random loop but had I continued I would have been that really annoying person who comes past you on a path and then almost immediately stops and turns round. So I turned before I got tangled up in a group of hikers. After my run I had coffee and banana and pecan cake at Riverbank Burnsall. If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, pop in. The cake is always excellent and I have had worse views drinking my coffee!

After coffee and cake I went back to the finish area, wandered around a little, read through a paper that I need to revise and resubmit to let it whirl round my brain a bit and watched the first 10km runners come in. After a while I got bored just sitting so walked down to the river and back. There was now a steady stream of half marathon finishers coming through so I stood at the finish and clapped them in. I heard lots of mutterings about ‘bloody hills’ and the run being hard, oh and those ‘bloody hills’. There was some shaking of heads as people crossed the finish line – mostly in disbelief rather than disappointment I think and a few ‘I’m not doing that again’ or ‘I did not like that’ comments. One poor guy who wasn’t local had done all his training on the flat. He seemed a little overwhelmed (as well as knackered). All those initial ‘fuck that was hard’ sentiments seemed to quickly melt away into exhausted but happy chatter all around me. Everyone seemed to agree that it was a brilliant but brutal course.

I spotted Kath coming over the iconic Burnsall bridge – well it is iconic if you’re from round here – you see the bridge, you know its Burnsall. Anyway, I saw her run across the bridge and make her way into the field and down the finishing stretch where I met her with a big hug she didn’t really want. (I should know this. I mean the last thing you want when you are trying to work out whether you are going to puke, fall over or cry and in what order is someone giving you a big squeeze hug – but I was excited to see her and didn’t think). It was a hard fought one for her and I am very proud of her. She’s so good at doing hard things. We picked up her goody bag and her well earned Cornish pasty and sat for a little while. Then I drove us home and have tried to help with recovery by providing food, an ice pack, water, cups of tea and kind words. Somehow I am very tired now. I shouldn’t be. I had a little plod and then spent most of the rest of the day doing very little.

Anyway, I can highly recommend the Due North events and now that there is a 10k option I might have a go myself. Those hills scare me a bit, the runs seem way more impossible than a road marathon but if I can get myself running fit then why not? Why not add another impossible thing to the list of impossibles I would like to do.

Long Run Day and a Stupid Brain

Jess Guth1 Comment

So it was 17 miles day today. Well actually 17 mile day was yesterday but yesterday things felt all wonky and weird for both of us so we went for a walk instead and moved 17 mile day to today. The plan was to get the train to Leeds and run back to Crossflatts. It started off with me at some point having turned off the alarm so we didn’t wake up in time for the train we were going to get out to Leeds. That nearly de-railed us but we eventually decided to just go for a later train which is fine on a Saturday as the car park as Crossflatts doesn’t fill up.

We got into Leeds and set off along the canal towards home. It was a gorgeous morning and the first couple of miles felt absolutely fine. My new running vest fits well and I easily sipped both water and fuel as we made our way through the first 5km and towards 4 miles. I was slightly disappointed with my pace but it was all fine and there were loads of herons which always make me smile. Throughout mile 5 my right calf tightened a bit and my right foot got pins and needles which took another mile-ish to sort itself out. Then my right hip flexor started niggling. All of this before we had even hit 6 miles. And of course that thought went through my head and bang – brain malfunction.

I managed another mile of run/walk but just after 7 miles I lost the mental battle. I am pretty sure that I was probably physically ok but I just couldn’t get there. It is so hard to explain and looking back just feels silly. I went from thinking all was fine and the run was actually pretty positive to allowing a tiny twinge to derail me completely – and I am cross and disappointed at myself for that. Immediately the importer syndrome kicked in. I had only got to 7 miles, there was no way I would be able to do Dopey – I wasn’t even worthy of trying. That spiralled into thoughts about just not being good enough, being too fat and too old to be out there running and that I was just foolish for even trying. For my stupid uncooperative brain, I had the evidence that I should just pack up and go home and bin all my running shoes right there.

We kept walking. Not that we had a choice in that anyway as there was nowhere to come off the canal to get a train. We just walked. I tried to walk relatively fast but I couldn’t get within Disney Pace. We shared a banana and just kept walking and walking and walking… Eventually I started to feel slightly more positive. I was still walking and while hips and feet weren’t exactly happy, there was also no real pain or anything signifying injury. I kept an eye on how long each mile was taking and did the maths – I was still within overall Disney Pace so the goal became to finish half marathon distance within that pace. According to Strava I did and according to Garmin I just missed it.

We had agreed to stop in Saltaire and have food and try and turn the day into a positive one. We got pizza and it was great and then we got the train back to Crossflatts. I have stopped spiralling and have got my brain back into a more positive space. We have agreed that as things stand we will give the first 3 runs of the Dopey Challenge a good go and then we’ll decide on strategy for the marathon. It may be that Kath just goes for it to get Dopey, it may be that we do it together and she tries to help me get round. We don’t have to decide right now and there is still a month of training left to go. Stretching and strength could make all the difference. I do still feel like a running imposter. I still feel like everyone we saw out there was judging me (they weren’t) and that I shouldn’t be taking up space in the running world. But I am back believing that those feelings are nonsense. I know I have as much right to be a runner as everyone else and I will eventually get back to believing it, too.

So 13.5 miles instead of 17, lots of nonsense in my brain but overall a good day and we go again tomorrow.

Some runs just need to be over

Jess Guth1 Comment

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.

Post Covid Running

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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.