By Stephie, on Wednesday 14th December, 2011 at 00:20 am
Tuesday. Red ochre and white lines. Straights and bends. Mizzle sparkling in the floodlights. Full on head wind. Pushing against it. Pushing against the will to give in. Elbows on knees, eyes closed. Feeling sick, feeling the heart thumping like an industrial machine. Feeling dead and so alive, simultaneously.
Wednesday. Encouraging words and interesting conversation. Pavement jarring. Christmas lights and Christmas shoppers. Meaty smells and Madame Acora. Livestock and laughter. Skimming the outskirts of a provincial town seeking the hills. Plodding up and up, concentrating on the rhythm of my heart, listening intently, feeling for signs of working too hard. The watch governs. Numbers flicker up and down in time with the beat.
Thursday. Into the darkness at gone 11pm. Cold rain, stinging my cheeks and forehead, wakes me from my drowsy indoor world like the pricks of needles, punishing me for my tardiness. It smells quiet. Absence. The call of an owl. Up hill. Back down again. Up again. Down again. Up. Down. Up. Down. Repeat. Again and again. I am Sysiphus. And I sleep well.
Low tide
Saturday. Low tide exposes deserted beaches. The muddy cliff paths are dryer, firmer under foot, narrow and obscured by encroaching gorse. Sluggish and slow. I gradually lose the lead weight of early morning and judge my progress by the headland in the distance as it grows larger. Short sharp rain showers and biting wind. Exposure. Exposed to the rawness of nature. Exposed to the limitations of my body and the fundamental level of my thoughts. Legs burning. Unending uneven steps remind me of Peru, The Sun Gate. The anticipation of what’s at the top, and the thought of relief, drives me upwards. After 15 miles and several hours at the edge of the fight between rock and sea, my knees bore the brunt of the beating. After 16 miles I fought tooth and nail with fatigue to get me to 17 miles – and the promised luxury of sitting in my car with no further to go…today.
Sunday. Reflection: I need greater self-discipline and consistency. I worry I’m not putting in enough effort in the high intensity workouts. They exhaust me, but is it enough? Could I push harder, if I tried? I need to seriously work on my LT: it’s crap for someone that wants to run big hills. And it’s probably crap for those that don’t. I feel that I am getting stronger, but I must be more committed to going to the gym. Only did one of the three scheduled session this week and it wasn’t enough.
By Stephie, on Sunday 20th November, 2011 at 14:26 pm
Saturday 19th November. Morning. Quiet. Bright and dry with a cold wind. St Agnes (Wheal Coates) to Portreath out and back. 13 miles.
Chapel Porth, 9am (ish!)
Is it normal to question your chances of completing a 28 mile race after only three weeks of training? Today’s long coastal run was seriously hard – it took me almost 2 hours 45 mins to run 13 miles, which means that even if I complete the 28 mile distance, it will take me well over 6 hours at that appalling speed. Oh dear.
Back home, feet up and I’m already blanking out the atrophying quads, the blisters, the tense glutes and utter exhaustion. Over the last three miles I could only run downhill, my legs were just not co-operating with the up and there was barely any flat to write home about. Sometimes I was so dangerously near the cliff edge that I wondered if it wouldn’t be easier just to slip off and give swimming a go. Probably not, but it’s the sort of thing that goes through your mind when you’re a bit delirious and just want to stop. So why didn’t I?, just stop I mean. Well, I’m stubborn and won’t give in, that’s why. Forget the pain, focus on the landscape, it’s too impressive to ignore and here you are lucky enough to be in the middle of it. Awesome.
Up and down
You see that odd straight line in the photos above and below? It’s a chain link fence, cross to the wrong side and you’ll be in Ministry of Defence territory. That could be preferable to having to go up and down the steps to the side of the fence on the coastal path. On the route I took, there were two sets of steps like this, that meant going up and down them four times. Even I can add that up: 4times.
and up again.
By the time I got to the beach at Portreath I was ready to take a 2 minute breather. And wish I had a dog that I could watch running around, instead of having to run around myself. I’d run down a long steep hill to get to the beach, which meant only one thing…
Can you see the light house on top of the cliffs? I passed close by it on my run down.
Home. Sitting here now, trying not to fall asleep, I’m giving myself a good pep talk: a half marathon is the furthest distance you’ve ever run and today was only about the 5th time you’ve done it and you’ve never run one on terrain as severe as that. Think of it as akin to the first time you ran the Eden half; the hills on that course felt like mountains, but this year you ran it 20 minutes faster… Oh shut up, I had a year to improve on that, this time I’ve only got about 12 weeks. Bloody hell, what have I done?
If you take a look at the Garmin details (link in the box above), you’ll see a lovely graph that will probably give you an idea of the type of hills I climbed today. I’m trying to learn to run with even effort both up and down hills, so that you won’t see spikes in the heart rate. Obviously that wasn’t the case today!
The rest of the week had gone fairly well. I’d put in the 20 miles in the plan (should I be counting the 2 miles of track session by the way?) and three resistance/cross training sessions at the gym: upper body, core and legs (hamstrings, quads and glutes to be more precise). The track session was hideous: 3 x 300m, 4 x 250m and 5 x 200m, with about a minute and a half between sets. During it I thought I’d expire, afterwards I was high as a kite. The following day there was a 5 mile tempo run with my running club. Well it was a tempo run for me, everyone else in my group seemed to be taking it in their stride. So, come Saturday I was tired before I even started. And then there was the possible ‘nutrition failure’…
Pudding anyone? How could I resist!
Experiment no. 3 in the nutrition-on-the-run-experiments didn’t go too well. I forgot to buy some more gels to try, so I only had half a litre of SIS drink with me. I’d eaten a bowl of porridge before hand, a stick of chocolate and half a bottle of Lucozade Sport – enough carbs in that lot, I thought, surely? Erm, no. Now I’ve had a couple of runs using gels, I realise what an asset they are and boy was I craving a quick hit on the return leg. I decided to switch on the iPod to see if the music would compensate. Erm, no! So at least I learnt a valuable lesson – do not go on long runs on difficult terrain without a few gels in your pocket.
With that in mind I hurried into town in the afternoon and picked up a few different sorts to try. On a couple of them they say to consume two to three per hour. That makes them hideously expensive – and anyway, presumably if you’re drinking a sports drink as well you won’t need so many? I feel more experiments coming on… Probably not this coming week though, week 4 in the plan is a ‘cut back’ week, the idea being to give the body time to recover a bit before the next onslaught. Quite handy really as there’s a 5 mile race I’m running next Sunday
Packed and ready for the morning the bag sits at the end of the bed. I’m feeling apprehensive. It’s a 10 mile race around the majestic coastline of Holywell Bay in north Cornwall that awaits me tomorrow and I’ve been looking forward to it for months. People tell me it’s hard. Very hard. I don’t know how it can be, compared to a road-race. I have no doubt it’ll be physically challenging, but the rewards will be so much greater than trudging along tarmac surrounded by traffic.
But I’m anxious. I haven’t run 10 miles since the end of March. I’ve been practicing a new uphill technique and my calf muscle has been killing me. I’ve done nothing but whinge about it to anyone that’ll listen. I managed an 8 mile coastal run about 2 weeks ago but could barely walk the next day, so I’ve been taking it easy. But I’m craving this sort of running, with like-minded people that just need ‘to get out there’.
I heard whispers recently of an Ultra, not a stones throw from home. It’s probably about 15 miles away down on the Lizard Peninsular. You run from The Lizard to Lands End: 44 miles. In one day. Sat here in bed I feel some excitement welling (and no, it’s got absolutely nothing to do with a person of the opposite sex! There isn’t one in my bed anyway – something else I’m good at whinging about!!). I type it into google. I find it. And I want it.
Could this be a goal, a challenge for next year? A series of coastal marathons in preparation for a 44 mile ultra… Seriously, should a middle-aged woman that took up running (rather than jogging) a mere 6 months ago, who hasn’t yet run more than 13 miles, even consider such a challenge? Is a year enough time to train for this coastal trail series, and maybe end with an ultra?
For now though, I should get some sleep. It’s almost 2am and I’ve got a race tomorrow…
By Stephie, on Thursday 4th November, 2010 at 03:55 am
Fluorescent pink and yellow. A sea of it. And I stood in the middle of it feeling right at home. Decisions were being made: who would go with who; where and how far. I felt unsure as to where I would fit in best, so decided on the Foundation Group. For now. Test the waters so to speak, or more accurately test the road. I joined my local running club and became a paid up member last week, my third visit.
My knees are aching and my right foot is killing me. I know I should rest it, but I can’t. I just can’t. This is too important and I’ve only just begun. It’s 26 days until my first race as a member of the club. I didn’t have to enter of course. There’s no pressure to race at all. Ever, if you don’t want to. But already I feel like I’ve got something to prove. I have to prove to myself that I can improve, that I can run a 5 mile race at a ‘reasonable pace’. Whatever that is. I haven’t determined that detail yet. I just know it’s got to be faster than the 12 minute miles I did in the half marathons. A lot faster. Something that’s not embarrassing and feels respectable for someone of my advancing age and decrepitness. That’s probably not true. It should be something that would feel respectable for someone at least 20 years my junior. I picture myself taking long, confident strides, looking relaxed and comfortable, lean and healthy. The reality is that I look like I need an ambulance. I sweat buckets, my face is as fluorescent pink as my jacket (always was, is and will be); my pace varies and I falter, not knowing how to go faster (do I take longer strides, or shorter quicker ones?); I worry that my legs aren’t strong enough to get me up the hills, that my thighs are wearing the equivalent of a snow jacket in excess fat; I worry about my foot, pretty sure it’s got something to do with my shoes, and not being able to afford to replace them, worrying that I’ll cause irreparable damage if I carry on. Worrying that if I stop, I’ll cease to be.
Run outside and look around
My last two runs (8.3 miles on Sunday and 5.5 yesterday) were along the coastal path at Falmouth, a minute section of the South West Coast Path national trail. The lure of this route is the off-road section of course; the mud, tree stumps and rocky paths make it interesting underfoot and then there’s the smell of the sea, the wind (plenty), the rain (plenty) and the autumn colours. Everything people that run on trails rave about, everything that reminds me I’m alive I guess. I mean, you can’t forget that fact when your feet are killing you and you’re gasping for breath against the relentless head wind. Running the streets just isn’t the same. That said, the 5 mile race I’ve entered on the 28th November is on the road, in Falmouth. So part of the route I ran at the weekend included a bit of the course, just to see what it’s like. I lived in Falmouth for years, so I already know really. Pretty hilly sums it up. Still, there’s always the beach cafe to sojourn to (collapse in) once the race is run. I’m in training again then, for a few weeks at least. I’m trying to cover around 30 miles a week, but this time round I’m doing lots of intervals and hill training (if you don’t know what these are, just think torture) to try and increase my speed and endurance. Covering the distance at my half marathon pace feels easy now, so I’m trying to see what I can do to up the pain. Yes that’s right, in my book speed = pain. Big time.
I don’t know what it is that’s got me so focussed on running again lately, but it does remind me a lot of the challenging walking/hiking I’ve done (long distances, altitude). It’s being outside and in the landscape that’s important, I couldn’t be doing with running on a treadmill (BORING!). Seeing new things every time you go outside the front door is an incredible motivator. You never know when you’re going to be attacked by a buzzard or chased by bullocks, see an incredible sunset or thunderstorm. There’s always something to notice, whether it’s the tiny fleck of shining quartz in the granite rocks, the emerald green colour of the sea or the sound of your feet running through mud. At the moment it’s this hope for something new that’s keeping me sane.
By Stephie, on Monday 1st November, 2010 at 02:32 am
Towards Falmouth - and the clouds drift by...
Oh me oh my. It’s been almost three weeks. Three very long weeks without a computer. I felt like I’d lost my right arm…
I don’t know where to begin today, except to say hello and that I’ve missed you all very much. My beloved Macbook had a funny turn and needed a new hard-drive. The third one in its relatively short life. Unusual for a Mac, but despite the traumas I still wouldn’t go back to a PC. No, instead I’m going to spend what for me is a small fortune on an upgrade to the latest OS, iWork and iLife, and at a later date another gig of RAM. I just hope this new hard-drive can keep it together until then…
I wonder what you’ve been up to over the last few weeks? I can barely remember what I’ve been doing, though I recollect a lot of ruminating and soul searching. And depression. Depression that isn’t Mac related I have to point out. It’s the other sort that’s been dragging me down. Again. Walking in treacle they say. More like drowning in it if you ask me. I’ve been trying to do things, keep moving, keep getting out of bed, but I look back and I can’t see anything that I’ve actually done, achieved, completed. The house is a tip, the garden is overgrown, the allotment is undug, onions not planted, gloves knitted and unknitted, a quilt unfinished, ignoring the pain in my knees and ankles just to keep running, keep going, keep alive. Look for the beauty I tell myself, stay in the moment. But moments pass, fleeting and misty. But I still look. Hoping.
I think I’ll try and get back into the blogging groove by showing you some of the things I’ve looked at over the last couple of weeks. They’re significant to me, but generally it’s not the looking that’s kept me going, it’s the people; the close and supportive friends, the ones that give you a hug for no reason, other than they seem to know you need one, and the new friends from afar that you feel you know already
Out for a run. Looking at the textures.
And contrasts.
Remembering the sheep in the snow.
Grateful for the escape. And knowing they're loved.
By Stephie, on Friday 3rd September, 2010 at 01:18 am
I saw the grand
The Palladian mansion Holkham Hall
and the dilapidated.
Quayside workshop
The idyllic
A peacful morning in Old Hunstanton
and the bleak.
Flat, flat, flat!
And I know where my heart lies.
I spent several hours one afternoon walking along the North Norfolk Coast Path. It’s a long distance path along windswept shores and I picked a section going west between Holkham and Brancaster. It was just about 10 and a half miles. The first stretch was through miles of sand dunes, which can change shape overnight in strong winds. Walking through the dunes you don’t see much except sky and the blue sea thistle. And the odd naked man. As you approach Burnham Overy the dunes fall away behind you and you find yourself walking along the top of the raised sea defences. The land is flat here; there are no majestic cliffs to break the skyline and all you see are salt marshes stretching for miles. This part of the coast is famous for it’s bird watching. Egrets, gulls, swans and curlews were two a penny, but I didn’t see anything more unusual. (Note to self: take a pair of binoculars next time.) In places, you walk along narrow board walks across the marsh with towering grasses on the seaward side and neatly clipped gardens on the other. Walkers were rude. At home everyone says hello, but here I’d step off the path to let people pass and not receive so much as a nod in thanks. So I found myself singing a sarcastic “thank you” at the top of my voice as I stepped back on to the boards. Nothing. Not a murmur. Heads down, eyes fixed they trudged along like a defeated army. These people, I thought, were as grey as the leaden skies.
I find it hard to describe my feelings about this landscape. It was wonderful, elemental, but so bleak and exposed. So, so different from home. There was nowhere to shelter, nowhere to sit and take in the sky without also taking a battering from the winds. It felt desolate, and at times the desolation felt like it would go on forever. I would love to be there at dawn. I can imagine the mist rising from the marshes in a watery light and the silence being broken by the dawn chorus. I’d sit there on the grassy path atop the sea defences, wrapped up in a blanket and a thick woollen scarf, breathing the sharp air. My eyes would be closed and I’d be listening intently to the curlews. I’d ignore any passer by that broke my reverie with a “good morning” and I wouldn’t care if they too thought me as grey as the leaden skies.
