Running packs and other vital things

Oh shit. My running pack’s arrived. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. I didn’t think I’d actually have to do it. Now I have a number and everything. And a revolting yellow running top. Yellow? Jeez, this just gets worse and worse. As Lucy said, about age 8, “Not many people can wear yellow, can they?”. I also have a Brook running top which doesn’t fit (though it’s better colours) and dozens of nice safe black ones. And my running raincoat. Which I love. I think I'll wear that, and then the top doesn't matter and I'll be a bit protected if it's rainy or cold. Oh. It's yellow.

See what I did there? I did what I have been doing since the bloody pack arrived and I opened it, peaked in, burst into tears and closed it again. I have been displacing my anxiety by focussing on the things which do not matter. Here, in no particular order, are the things which don’t really matter, but which have taken up quite some brain time recently:

• what colour top I run in;
• what pub we meet up in when we’re finished;
• whether I save up episodes of the Archers , Play of the Week & The News Quiz or download new (to me) Desert Island Discs;
• whether I take my own water bottle or grab the ones on the route:
• how many bags of jelly babies I need to buy to make sure I have enough black, red and pink ones;
• whether my GPS watch is able to stay in touch with the satellite all the way round, or if it might drop out sometimes, thus recording my run slightly shorter than a full half marathon (ANNOYING);
• what I’m going to eat on Sunday afternoon;
• what I’m going to eat on Saturday night;
• what I’m going to spend my day doing on Saturday;
• who I leave my bag with while I run (within reason);
• whether I’m going to notice my supporters as I run, what with my tendency to look at my feet;
• what my supporters are going to do with themselves between Steve finishing and me finishing;
• If I'm going to make my £1,000 fundraising target (nudge nudge, here's the link, doing really well so far, thank you all for your support)
• whether people will laugh at me because I’m so slow/whether I’m going to be the slowest/whether I will be faster than the slowest people who ran the race last year and whose times can be looked up on the internet. Apparently.

And when those distractions fail, I just wander round wondering what I walked into the kitchen/living room/hall/office for.

There is only one thing, of course, that really matters. It’s currently sitting in my chest like a mass of fighting butterflies and sometimes making me cry and it is:

• whether I’ll be able to run for 13.2 miles on October 7^th

After my big 10mile run the other week, I felt pretty confident I would be able to – I thought it was just about possible that I could do it. But last week, I got THE INJURY and now I’m not so sure.

I knew an injury would have to come at some point, and I am happy that the one I have is just a niggly/muscular/annoying thing, rather than one accompanied by words like “popping noise” “agony” “tear” “ligament” or “sports physiotherapist”. Essentially, I have a rather achy thigh muscle which has developed into something which is stiff and painful when I’m not running and barely troubles me when I do. In fact, I have managed to achieve an injury which works in my favour. Of course, when I stop running, my leg stops working which is a bit of a nuisance. I have an injury which is forcing me to keep going. Which is just as well.

It has slightly curtailed my training. I had to skip two midweek short runs just after it happened and, more seriously, I wasn’t able to run my final really long run (of 12 miles). However, everyone tells me and that if I can run 10 miles, I can run 13 and the 12 mile run would only have been for confidence. Luckily I have bags of confidence. Oh.

Anyway, I must go, the run is less than 2 weeks away and, as I mentioned, I have an awful lot of very important things to think about.

Jelly Babies

I thought I had never much cared for jelly babies. I thought I didn’t like their dry, cracky, dusty outside or their too-sweet nasty-textured inside. I now realise that I was eating them wrong. I now realise that the way to eat a jelly baby is from a sandwich bag squished into your sports bra from about 3 miles into a 10 mile run. Eaten that way – warm, soggy and a bit damp despite the sandwich bag – they are about the best food known to man. Or ploddy woman, anyway.

Sorry, is that TMI*? I don’t think they were actually sweaty – I was careful to secure the bag each time before wedging it back down my bra. I think they were just warm and melty. Whatever they were, ten of them are almost the only reason I was able to run 10 miles before breakfast yesterday morning. Only the black red and pink ones, obviously. Orange, yellow and green can kiss my ass. Nasty nasty.

Those of you paying attention will notice that I haven’t blogged since the success of the 10k. That’s because in the intervening few weeks, things have gone terribly badly. After an initial high at having achieved the 10k, my training became the most gruelling, disappointing slog. I’d have flashes of success when I thought I had made a little progress, only for the next run to leave me defeated and walking after just 20 minutes. On several occasions I considered pulling out of the half marathon on the grounds that I was clearly never going to manage it and I did a lot of tearful raging against the whole thing. I resented the fact that in my busy life, more than four hours a week were taken up doing something I despise.

Anyway, in an attempt to shake up my training and give myself an outside chance of actually getting round a half marathon in October, I re-joined the gym. I explained the whole embarrassing shambles to a personal trainer young enough to be my daughter and threw myself at her mercy, “Please will you help me just get to the stage where I can run this bloody thing and then I never have to run again?”

She was a lovely mixture of hardcore (“Is this what you find hardest? Let’s do another 20 minutes then”) and soft hearted (she really wants to work in an animal hospital, but thinks she wouldn’t be able to handle how sad it might be) and I credit her with the breakthrough in my training that means that I will get round that sodding half marathon that’s just four weeks away. (When I first wrote that sentence, it said “..in just four weeks” but even I’m not that slow). 

I realised things were picking up when I had three runs in a row during which I didn’t stop in a frustrated fury and throughout which I held a steady, even pace. My gym workout improved dramatically over a couple of weeks and I realised my legs were getting stronger. In one week, three people that I am not married to pointed out how much slimmer my legs were looking.  

But all the time, I knew that on Sunday, my training plan required me to attempt a 10 mile run and I had no confidence that I was ready to do it. Before Sunday, the furthest I had run without stopping was still the 10k in July. I had attempted other long runs, but they had failed in one way or another. Sunday loomed large and although I could see progress I felt sick and anxious at the thought of trying to do it. 

I decided to approach it as though it were a proper race. I rested my legs for two days, I had pasta, I drank more water than is probably legal in East Anglia in a drought year, I went to bed early, I didn’t drink alcohol. I got up at 6 so that I could have something to eat before running at 6.30 when it was still nice and cool. I made a proper plan for being hydrated on my route and I put 10 black, red and pink jelly babies into two sandwich bags stuffed into my bra.

I resolved to use the 10 mile run to make a decision about how I was going to approach the rest of my training. I felt that if I was able to run the whole thing, then I could continue my training plan and do my best to run the whole half marathon in October, but if I was forced to walk or stop because I was crying with fury, I would develop a new ‘run/walk’ training plan to get me round the half. 

Anyway, thanks to careful preparation, a clear plan, a some decent training and, crucially, soggy jelly babies, I made it round and I ran all the way**. I knew I was going to make it when at about 7 miles my legs felt OK and I realised I was already running further and better than I have before (something I may have accidentally shouted out in surprise when I realised it). I BLOODY DID IT!

So, now we’re on the home straight. I have four more weeks to stretch to 13 miles. I have the confidence that I can do it, as long as there are enough jelly babies and I don’t get a nasty injury. I have also discovered a significant change in my approach as illustrated by my conversation with Lucy whose 11 year old nose for an embarrassing parent is sharp.

Me (euphoric): I did it! I ran ten miles! It’s partly due to having my jelly babies.

Lucy (delighted followed immediately by dawning suspicion): Brilliant!! Where did you keep them?

Me: In two sandwich bags in my bra.

Lucy (slightly horrified): So, you had bulky boobs that you kept reaching into as you ran along? Did anyone actually see you, Mum ? Didn’t everyone look at you really strangely?

Me (light dawning): Oh, I don’t know. I don’t even care.

So there it is. I’m slow, I’m overweight and I have bulky boobs that I fish around in occasionally. But I am healthy enough to run 10 miles and I don’t care what other people think.





* Too Much Information – how did you get online for long enough to find a blog without knowing that?
**Actually, I ran all but approximately 15 seconds when some stupid wanker stopped me – yes stopped me – and asked for directions to the station. I sent him the wrong way. 

 

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