The night before the night before

This time tomorrow, my cough and I will be tucked up in our hotel in Haddington, just a short drive away from the start of the John Muir Way Ultra.  I'm still quite excited about this and aside from worries about my cold, I've stayed fairly positive throughout training.  But now, this close to the start, some anxieties are creeping in.

First, there's the weather.  Depending on whether one looks at BBC Weather or the Met Office, the forecast for Saturday includes 13-17mph wind (with gusts to 25-30mph), 30%-50% chance of rain, and 3-5 degree temps.  With the windchill, that takes it into minus numbers.  Sigh.   Once, just once, I'd like to run a race in reasonable weather.

Second, the adverse weather has thrown up all sorts of issues about what to wear.  My shoe choice has been made (Saucony Excursions) but everything else is up for debate.  Waterproof jacket?  If yes, the winter-weight one or the lighter spring one? Long tights or capris?  If long tights, compression vs windstopper vs the ones that make me look thinner?  Base layer is sorted, but the mid-layer will depend on which jacket I choose and whether I actually think I'll be wearing the jacket or just carrying it in case it rains heavily.  Old hydration vest, with its sticking zips and lack of pockets on the front but very broken in, or new hydration vest with lots of pockets in the front but which I've only worn for two one-hour runs.  And then there's the different versions of  the buff, ear warmer headbands, and gloves....good thing that I'm driving down, as I'm leaning towards emptying my running drawer into the boot and making a final decision on Saturday morning.

And finally, it looks like there may be navigational challenges.  My understanding was that the route stuck to the well-signed John Muir Way, but apparently it deviates in places to avoid town centres and to give more time on the trails.  The route notes are along the lines of 'Turn left at the third toadstool; follow the trail to the secret door in the hidden wall; take the next turning through the graveyard whilst avoiding zombies; and finally turn right before the bridge.  If you cross the bridge, the trolls will get you.'  We've been assured that there will be marshals (with stakes for the vampires, of course) at the more confusing junctions, but I suspect that this whole thing may be more of an adventure than I was expecting.

What a difference a day makes

After yesterday's debacle, I was seriously leaning towards not going for today's 60 minute easy-effort run.  I tried to convince myself that yesterday's performance - or lack thereof - was an indication that I needed more rest but actually, I just was feeling lazy and didn't fancy moving from the sofa.  Because I couldn't think of a good reason to justify taking today off, and because I knew what Ben would say if I tried, I ended up with no choice but to get dressed and get out the door. 

Within five minutes, I was running into a freezing headwind and being pelted with huge heavy raindrops (no idea where they came from; the sun was out when I left the house) and seriously considering taking myself right back home again.  But we ultra runners scoff at bad weather (when we aren't whingeing about it) and besides, I knew that by the time that I got home the sun would be back out so I put my head down and plodded into the storm.

Sure enough, the sun was soon shining again and because I had plotted a route that was not only mostly downhill or flat but also mostly kept the wind at my back, I ended up with a very enjoyable run.  My legs felt back to normal although I suspect that it might have been another story if I had tried to make them run any quicker or if I had been running into the wind for any length of time.  The crushing fatigue that I felt yesterday seemed to have gone, and I only started to cough (but at a much reduced intensity) once I was back home again.  Phew!  It looks like the race might be on after all.

Struck down (sort of) at the final hurdle

I have a cold. 

After months of training - months of SUCCESSFUL training, I might add - and months of doing everything that I possibly can to get myself to the start line in one piece, I have been felled by a bloody cold.  FFS.  I knew from a raging sore throat that it was coming on last week but told myself that if I could just get my last two long runs in, I'd have two weeks in which to recover from any unwellness that was lurking.  And while it's true that there were two weeks, I had forgotten that my colds (and more specifically, the hacking, booming, endless cough that I get with my colds) take forever to resolve. 

One week has passed, in which Ben suggested that I not run until today, and I'm still a coughing machine.  I've coughed so much that I lost my voice for two days and then gave myself a migraine.  I have not, though, cracked a rib like I did several years ago during another violent coughing episode. #gratefulforsmallfavours

As horrible as my cough is, it is not in my chest so I did do today's run, which was meant to be 6x5 minutes with alternating sets of threshold and 10k pace, but I felt for most of it like I just wanted to lie down on the soft grassy verge in the sun and have a nap.  A combination of wind, post-cold lethargy, and sluggish legs from not having run for five days meant that threshold and 10k paces just were not happening, and even a fast jogging pace was a bit of a fantasy.  I was left feeling that if the ultra had been today, I'd have been a DNF.  I've felt so optimistic about this race and today was the first time that I've thought, I'm not going to be able to do it.  And frustratingly, not because of poor training or injury, but a bloody cold.

I'll try to stay focused and try to stay positive - there's still a week to go and surely I'll be a bit perkier by then.  If not....well, let's hope that it's a lovely day for a long walk!

Going strong

I have reached a lot of running milestones during my time being coached by Ben and each one has felt at the time like the Best Thing Ever.  Well, this week surpasses all of the other milestones for sheer unbelievability and wonderfulness.  Wait for it...

I ran 42.09 miles this week.  Me.  The one who could never manage more than 15 miles/week without something popping, snapping, or seizing.  Fuck me.  I have no idea whose legs these are, but I'm not giving them back.

Today's 18 miles (25 minutes running/5 minutes walking) on a hilly off-road route was great.  Even after yesterday's 12 miles, my legs felt fine.  Well, they felt fine up until two hours, when I stopped to have a chat with the owners of two lovely Alsatians.  Unfortunately, my legs interpreted the stop as them being finished and no longer needed, and they were most unhappy at being pressed back into service (especially since there was another hill looming).  It took most of the next hour to convince them to perk up and, while this wasn't exactly comfortable running, I knew that it was just tired legs and that I'd get through it.  And sure enough, after an hour's slogging and trying not to focus on how absolutely bloody tired my glutes, calves, and feet were, it was like a switch was flipped and I suddenly had functioning legs again.  Weird. The last half-hour was back to feeling comfortable, and I even had enough energy to pick up the pace for the last mile. I finished the run feeling strong and capable and positive, and confident that I could have continued on.

So that's it.  My last long runs before the ultra on 31 March.  I'm tempted to spend the next two weeks doing absolutely no running at all - there's no point in risking attracting the attention of the Running Gods at this late stage - but I suspect that Ben would not be supportive of that (although I haven't asked, so who knows?).  However, to show how determined I am to do all that I can to get to the start line in one piece, I will not be wearing heels to my Girls' Night Out in Glasgow tomorrow. 

We ultra runners know the meaning of sacrifice.

Note to self:  Putting a swoosh on them does NOT make them running shoes.

Get out of my way!

My long runs today and tomorrow (2 hours and 3.5 hours, respectively) are the last long runs as I approach the ultra at the end of the month, and I had grand plans of exploring some new routes to celebrate this.  But real life in the form of 20+mph wind and what feels like the start of a cold (why, oh why, oh why do my clients NOT STAY AT HOME when they are unwell????) meant that I sat on the sofa for far too long this morning feeling sorry for myself (cough cough, sniffle sniffle) whilst also perusing multiple weather charts, trying to find somewhere to run that wouldn't result in me being blown off my feet.

I eventually decided that such a place didn't exist in this country and proceeded to 1) moan to Bassman about hating running and saying that I think that it's really quite a ridiculous and pointless thing to do (which made him look askance at me and say that he couldn't believe that it had taken me this long to figure that out); 2) grumbled about how unfair it was that Coach Ben is in the Algarve at the Full Potential warm weather training camp and I have to YET AGAIN go out for a run wearing three layers, gloves, and my ear warmer headband; and 3) huffed my way out the door to do one of my usual road routes, fully intending to hate this run and everything that it stood for. 


Because I expected to just shuffle my way around the route and to walk when I got too irritated by the wind, I made the decision to not look at my pace at all.  No point in demoralising myself even further.  Once I let go of the idea that this was going to be a fun run where I achieved something, I surprised myself by starting to enjoy it.  The wind mostly came at me from the side, aside from between 70-90 minutes when I was running directly into it and 90-120 minutes when I had it at my back, and it felt manageable.  My calf behaved itself.  My breathing was nice and easy.  The sun came out and there were lovely views of the snow-covered hills across the water.  There were some snow flurries.  My legs felt springy and happy.  And I overlapped with Bassman, who was just doing the last section of his own run, for about five minutes half-way through which was a nice surprise.

Bassman asked what pace I was doing and I had no idea, but I glanced at my watch and told him that I had just about completed six miles.  We carried on chatting and running, when it suddenly hit me that six miles in an hour meant....10min/mile pace.  Surely not....I didn't look at my Garmin again until I was almost home, and got the biggest shock when I saw that I was going to be at almost 12 miles at 120 minutes.  I carried on for an extra four minutes just to make the round number, and finished feeling like I could have merrily carried on. 

Just goes to prove - surprise surprise - that what holds me back the most is....well, me.  Sigh.  We'll see if I can manage to get out of my own way again tomorrow.

I can't hear you!

I was absolutely positive that Ben told me that last week was going to be an easy week.  Turns out that, once again, I only heard what I wanted to hear.  It wasn't the most difficult week of running in the history of the world (nope, that honour is going to belong to this week) but it was harder than I expected an easy week to be and I made sure that everyone knew about it.  Knowing that it wasn't intended to be easy, however, makes me feel more kindly towards legs that behaved like uncooperative planks of wood.

I escaped last week with just tired legs and a overly tight left calf (again).  I've had so many injuries over the years that I don't even have to resort to Dr Google anymore to diagnose myself.  I was convinced for a short time that this was the start of Compartment Syndrome but it's more likely that it was related to running parts of my threshold intervals up a hill (it was Shetland; it's unavoidable), wearing heels to work, sitting like a pretzel on the plane, and unconsciously trying to find an excuse not to do the ultra at the end of the month (self-sabotage is alive and well). 

So on Sunday, when I finally had a good look at this week's running schedule, today's threshold intervals of 6-8-10-8-6 minutes separated by three minutes of jogging resulted in my first thought being 'my calf is going to blow up if I do that.'  My second thought was 'that's the hardest threshold session I'll ever have done.'  And, of course, my third thought was 'it's too hard, I don't want to do it.'  Ben said that missing out a run to give my calf more of a rest wouldn't be a bad thing given that training has been going so well, and I immediately assumed that he meant that I didn't  have to do The Hardest Threshold Run Ever. 

Yet again, I only heard what I wanted to hear.  What Ben MEANT was IF my calf is tight and bad and I NEED some rest (as opposed to just fancying a rest), then either drop or cut short one of this weekend's long runs.  NO EXCUSES for not doing the threshold run.  In fact, he suggested that I approach this run with a spirit of excitement  and curiosity about how my body might react.  Huh.  I'd have been more spirited if my legs hadn't felt like I had concrete blocks tied to them.  But never mind.  I'm a wannabe ultra runner and I can toughly whinge my way through just about anything.

So I taped up my calf and shuffled out the door.  There was some intermittent tightness in the first couple of miles but nothing major and as my legs warmed up, my calf completely settled down.  I felt like I was running sooooo slowly but a later perusal of my Garmin stats showed threshold paces not that far off what I was managing during marathon training.  It was hard, but I did it.  And almost seven hours post-run, the calf is still pretty much okay. 

It looks like this ultra actually might happen.

Never in a million bazillion years...

would I have thought that I could do what I did last weekend.  My running schedule called for two hours on Saturday, followed by three hours on Sunday (and this after running on Tuesday and Wednesday as well).  I felt incredibly nervous but, as Ben says, I can complain about it but I still have to do it.  So I did it.

I ran the two hours on Saturday on the road just for something different.  This was the longest run yet in my Saucony Rides and they felt great - no blisters, cushy, and my calves really seem to like being back in a slightly lower heel-toe drop shoe - and I am hopeful that I have found my new marathon distance road shoes.  I did a big loop from the house that took in views across the Cromarty Firth to the snow-covered hills beyond, and then ran out-and-back along the Cromarty Road itself with more views of water and hills.  My legs felt strong and I had to remind myself to keep it at an easy pace because I HAD THREE MORE HOURS TO DO ON SUNDAY.

I was out the door at 7.30am on Sunday because I needed to fit this run in before flying to Shetland later that afternoon.  I wasn't sure what to expect from my legs, and I was pleased that they felt okay...well, they did until I actually started to run.  And then I got a huge 'WTF?' message from them.  Already tired legs + a steady incline for the first two miles + enough snow to cover the stones (making me mince my way along the path) = cursing, whingeing, sniveling, and threatening myself with turning around and going home.  Fortunately, I am getting much better at ignoring my inner toddler (although I still didn't see how I was going to drag such uncooperative legs around a three-hour route) and just carried on.

I was utterly surprised when, after the first walking break at 25 minutes, everything kind of clicked into place.  My mood lifted, my legs relaxed, and the rest of the run was most enjoyable.  My task had been to use a 25 minute run/5 minute walk strategy and I mostly stuck to that aside from when I briefly and briskly walked up parts of some of the steeper hills.  (According to Ben, this is 'working with the terrain,' which sounds much nicer than 'too lazy to push myself.')  My legs went through the occasional tired patch but nothing too horrible and, at the end of the three hours, I could have happily carried on. Within a couple of hours, the worst of the post-run aching had disappeared and by the next day, all that was left was some residual tightness in my calves.

I am feeling a sense of bemusement as I write this.  This is not something that I ever expected to be able to do and it still doesn't feel quite real, but I'm trying to enjoy every step.  Even the ones that hurt.