So we start from this time last year:
October
I spent the latter half of the month recovering from the stinking cold I had, and worrying why my HR was so high on my runs. I came to the conclusion it was stress from the events of October, recovery from being ill and getting over the Amsterdam Marathon. Last October I had the best tasting pie I have ever had (I'm not a big pie fan, you may not think that to look at me but its true) - thank you Michelle. It was so good it deserves a photo :)
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| It was. |
November
So I started working at BW in Bristol. I cannot believe that Mark and I used to commute down every day, getting up at 5.30, leaving mine at 6, getting to BW about 8.30 and leaving at around 4.30. Repeat x4 or x5 days a week, and it was so dark in the mornings and evenings... Amazingly I still managed to find the time to run. At that point I didn't run from work at lunch time, I was actually doing Wonder Woman changes in the midlands and going out with both my clubs. Obviously I don't have kids, pets (a life?) but am still astounded I managed to fit it all in.
November was the month of XC races and night running (and a combination of both). You know from previous blogs I love XC. It is also obvious I gues that I love running with my clubs, but Dudley Ladies has a very limited selection of winter routes in Wombourne (think "clockwise loop" or "anticlockwise loop" Zzzzzzzzzzz). Someone had a lightbulb moment (yes pun intended) where we decided to go to Decathlon en mass and buy head torches, thus enabling us to do our summer routes in the winter for added excitement.
Night running is a weird thing, there is quite a lot of light if there is a full moon, and usually you get some light pollution from your surroundings. The head torches provide help to avoid major hazards, but running off road at night is something that really wakes up your senses. It can be spookily quiet, the only sound being the sound of your own footsteps and breathing and sometimes the breeze blowing through the trees. We've had owls flying around, bats in our hair, and badgers run out in front of us from hedges.
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| Running with Dudley Ladies I'm not sure who needs protecting |
The pace slows down a little more than a normal road run, but it is FUN, and some big muddy hills more than make up for any downsides. Sometimes on a Sunday run we do some of these routes that we also do at night, I look at some of the sections and wonder how the hell we managed to do them in the dark without serious injury.
December
More XC and speed work. I love speed work. Since Gobi took over my training I no longer have a fear of running fast, I enjoy it and I enjoy the training processes that make me quicker. We don't have a track at our club but we have some brutal speed work sessions where we run upwards of 10 times round a measured distance housing estate; the point of speed work is not to simply go flat out, but to try and do all your reps at a similar fast pace with a measured recovery time. I seem to be quite good at this consistency even without looking at my watch. It definitely helps.
In December I "found" ParkRuns. Parkruns for those who don't know are a series of free 5K races that happen all over the country at 9am on a Saturday. I had been to a few, but hey it's another opportunity for a bit of speed, and if I run 50 of them I get a free t-shirt. The atmosphere is lovely, they are all run by volunteers, and you really are running against yourself. Obviously having others around pushes you a little bit harder. Another thing to obsess over - "collecting" different ParkRuns and working towards that 50 target.
For those of you who don't know, up until the middle of 2008, I was about 18 stone. I still ran and enjoyed it, but obviously my times were slower because of carrying all that lard around. I turned up at the club one night in December, and got pushed towards a woman with a notebook. Yes it was a magazine reporter at the running club wanting "inspirational stories". Well I'm not sure about inspiring but I told her about my progressive weight loss and how it had improved my running. Would you believe she considered some of the runs I've done to be slightly mental. Pah! The next Sunday a photographer was there, snapping our little group as we headed out for a run. I appeared in the January edition of "Wolverhampton Magazine", inspirng lots of unfit people hoping to change their lives (and probably giving up by 15th Jan), but hey I didn't think I'd ever be in print.
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| "I'd like to thank my parents....." |
Yeah rubbish I know but 15 mins of fame. I love the upper photo of me and my friends. The photographer caught us all completely unaware so the laughing and smirking is all natural (we are actually taking the mick out of the photographer...)
January
Marathon training starts in earnest, and my longer runs really started. In the month of Jan we also have the County and Midlands XC championships. This word strikes fear in to a lot of people. Now I would be the first to admit I worry about a LOT of things, but I genuinely don't give a shit about being at the back of a race. At the end of the day you are racing against the same faces that you race with in the leagues, so it is another case of seeing if I can beat "Pauline" (she eats my dust these days)
In January I started running at lunch times in Bristol. Great thing number #34833498 about running: you pack some kit and off you go. NEW STUFF TO EXPLORE! :) Where I work is on the A38, so give it a mile and a half and I'm in the parks and have a choice of weather I go on the Festival way, past SS Great Britain, along the banks of the Avon, or through Ashton Court and over the suspension bridge in to Clifton. I love Bristol. A nice city and plenty of hills which in my humble opinion is never a bad thing for run training. When Mark was around we would go off to Blagdon Lake, the Bristol to Bath Cycle Path, and again Ashton Court, although "we" only went to Ashton Court the once. He turned purple half way up the hill and stopped speaking to me for a bit. Thought it best to leave that one for solo training runs.
February
I did the the coldest run in the entire world - Newbury Parkrun in temperatures of -14 (I kid you not). I could not feel my hands, my buff froze (I SAID BUFF) and at the end I had ice crystals on my eyelashes
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| Trying to think of a caption, the only thing I can say is COLD |
March
March was the month of PBs, and the start of a bit of craziness in the back to back runs. I factored in some races for A) marathon training variety B) they can be a good indicator of how you are actually doing
Cambridge Half Marathon - 1:51 - A small PB but considering I'd been on my feet all day at the Intercounties XC I was well pleased with that on a twisty turny course with morons congesting the paths in the last 3 miles.
Back to back 20s - Rhayader 20 on Saturday and Ashby 20 on Sunday. Done in similar times, and I felt great after both
Cannon Hill Parkrun - 24:11 - A reasonably big PB given the distance, weird how this was the weekend after the back to back 20s - you'd think I'd be knackered.
In March my mum had her knee replaced, and whilst she will never break dance again, I am very proud of the way she got through the operation, kept battling with the physio exercises and within 8 weeks you wouldn't really have known she'd ever had it done. March was also stressful again in so much as I had the threat of being evicted from where I live. (I own a house I rent out, and rent where I actually live) Letting agency I rent my lovely place from went bust and I was the one getting horrible letters from Wolverhampton Court. It is sorted now, I have new landlords but at the time it was incredibly stressful. My point here is hank goodness for running or I'd have gone mad.
April
Pbs continued - each race seemed to be a PB. It's not the be-all and end-all but it's nice.
Oakley 20 - An accidental PB, half it was slow, half at Marathon Pace and I came in quicker than my old PB to a new PB of 3:13. I don't really give a monkeys about 20 mile PBs but it gave me a good feeling
Maidenhead Easter 10 - this has to go down as one of the races of my life. One of those ones where you just feel really good from start to finish. There was a slight hiccup at the start where everyone went the wrong way, but the course was still 10 miles (in fact it was long!!) so it was all good. I set out at about 8.15 pace, thinking "too quick, too quick" but I held my nerve and came in at 1:23. If the course was spot on it would have been 1:22. I ran at 8.14 pace avg and felt great all the way round.
Obviously in April it was the Manchester Marathon. I'd watched my friends at Brighton 2 weeks before, and London on the TV the week before, and then it was my turn. The heatwave I feared did not happen, instead pissing cold rain, gales, sleet, and I was hypothermic pretty much before starting. I won't go on about it, I've written about it in other blogs, but the fact my friends came and surprised me by supporting will stay with me forever. Really touched. It was a 10 minute PB, coming in 4.02, and if it wasn't for that pesky weather it would have been a sub 4. Watch 2013 it is my intention to SMASH IT!!
May
Well I had a bit of a rest, didn't I! (people forget rest is important) I forgot to mention in April was I went to Newbury again, and whilst sitting in the cafe trying to eat the worlds biggest rock cake, we were talking about "cool runs". I'd seen one that finishes at Niagara falls in the USA, and I'd also spotted an interesting looking 4 in 4 in Donegal, Ireland. Thinking Gobi would laugh me out of the place I mentioned it but to my surprise it was a question of "when is it" and then shortly after "we can get you ready for that". Guess I'm in then! :-0
I had an experience at work in May that really upset me, where basically an old man told me I was too fat to run marathons. I think he used to be a runner and we'd had a bit of chit-chat as I was going in and out of the building in kit. Ironically when this exchange happened I was in normal clothes and looking particularly foxy that day (I don't think that too often so yet another bubble burst *sigh*)
Him: "I really don't know how you run marathons at your size"
Me: "Excuse me?"
Him "Your frame, you're just not a marathon runner, it must be really hard for you"
Me: "Do you realise how that is coming across?????"
Him: "Well look at Tom upstairs, he is 8st and a pair of lungs"
Me "errrrrrrrrrrrrr" <rapidly walking off>
Seemingly innocent but it really upset me. Men. Even when they do or say nothing they have the power to upset, and when they open their mouths the damage is often worse. Take note you cannot win. Ever the professional I said nothing to Mr-foot-in-mouth, but collared our account manager on site because I couldn't find Mark. I had no intention of complaining or anything but I just sat there blubbing at him for 20 mins wondering what was wrong with me. Arrrgh!
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| It ain't over till....... |
June
Stourbridge are quite good for club trips and doing different events, and in June I was lucky enough to run a leg of the Welsh Castles relay. This race is very popular and quite hard to get in to, and our club got in to the mixed teams category. I had the 2nd leg on the Saturday, and despite it being another torrential downpour (I think the clouds follow me around) I had a really good run, managing a similar 10 mile pace to Maidenhead on a much hillier course. The thing I love about this event is that for a club runner each leg is a manageable distance - approx 10 miles - and everyone runs the best they can for the team. We had all ranges of speeds in the team and we all had stormers. The scenery was lovely, we got to see lots of castles and the rest of Wales albeit at a relatively high speed. We had some laughs and such a happy time, it was brilliant fun supporting and screaming 'supportive words' at your runner from the minibus. I would love it if we could do this again. If no one wants to organize it for 2013 I will try and make it happen.
July
I trained my proverbials off for the imminent Quad and I LOVED all the long runs. Topped up my weird suntan lines in the little summer we did have. I didn't do a lot else!
August and September
I will talk about these months in one go because the Quad spanned both.
I kind of broke the news to people that I was going to do this 4 in 4 event in August, and I was genuinely touched by the sponsorship I got. If I had high opinions of people before, in August the generosity and general niceness of people meant they doubled. This in turn was very motivating on the days when I felt I would rather stay in and watch The One Show (desperate times!). It made me get my arse out the door because I could tell myself there were people that believed I could do it. I was doing some hefty blocks of 4 long runs but 99.9% of the time - loving it.
And boom, then it came. The Quad, which is a whole other blog http://ndellar.blogspot.co.uk/ For little me I smashed it. I love this photo:
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| Raaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! |
As I ran down the driveway of the hotel on the last Marathon it was a mixture of "fuuuuuuuuuuuuck! I've done it" and looking up at the sky through the trees wondering if someone was looking after me. I wanted to cry but couldn't. I still haven't. I hope I made people proud.
My physical recovery was good. I missed running on the 7 days of rest I was forced to take, but I think it has made me feel more hungry for getting back at it. In some respects mentally the Quad has helped me, I still respect the Marathon distance, but I am a lot more familiar with it and it has helped me get my head round other distances both longer and weirdly shorter seems easier too.
In other respects mentally the come down has been hard. I am most definitely not an attention seeker, I don't really have a lot of confidence in talking to people - I'm good at pretending sometimes, other times you probably think I'm ignoring you when actually I'm too scared to talk to you. In a lot of cases now I feel people no longer have anything to talk to me about, and friends I thought I had aren't really that friendly any more. When an event is that all consuming, and it is all you can think about for months, when it is gone it leads to a BIG empty feeling.
Organising the JW Ultra teams for Stourbridge was awesome. I love my club, and I love seeing so many friends on that day.
October
So this leads us back to October this year. Having built back up slowly and remained injury free I'm loving the XC season, and the good news is that off of the back of not very much speed work over the summer I don't seem to have lost much if any XC pace, in fact I might have got a bit nippier. Happy days. These races also give me a good excuse to bake, something I love doing but I can't sit at home with a tray of chocolate flapjack beckoning me, so I think everyone is a winner
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| Decisions. Both? |
I would summarise that the past 365 days have been pretty awesome.
I promised myself around this time last year that I wouldn't mess about because life is too short, and I think I've managed to keep that promise pretty well. I've managed to do some amazing things that I really wanted to do. I hope to do the same in the next 365.
Excellent year Nat well done xxx
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