The Fowlmead Challenge Ultramarathon

Thanks for all of your support since my last post. Your words and kindness have helped a huge amount, and this week I fell like I have made some more progress towards a good place. 

Made a crack at the good old new years resolution this weekend, with the first ultra marathon of the year. I was excited all week for it, so excited in fact that I could barely wait for 5.10 am on Saturday, in order to get up and begin.

Then 5.10 am arrived, and then 5.15 am, and then 5.20 am. And then I remembered. Ultra day is here! GET UP!!!! We drove to Deal in Andrew's new car, with the heated seats (heated seats!!!) cranked up to full volume, and the music up to full heat. 

Deal is in Kent, by the coast. It's quite a big deal. We arrived at Bettingshanger Country Park, and the moment I stood up off the warm comfort of the heated seat was the moment I realised quite how cold it had gotten. The race organizer did some organizing, and announced that the rain was predicted to start at about 3 pm, right about when the race would end. His speech was received well by the weather, which promptly started to chuck it down.

Fab. 

This was another timed race rather than a measured distance. 6 hours to do as many laps of just over 4 miles as you chose/ planned/ wanted/ could do before you fell over. As long as you started the last one before 6 hours, you could carry on and complete that lap. Andrew and I completed 8 laps, 35 miles. On each lap, you collected a brightly colored hair bobble, and at the end, the organizers counted them all up. I've got loads of those hair bobbles at home, which I will remember for next time. 

The Park is built on the spoil tip of the former Betteshanger Colliery - hundreds of acres of park, and it's really very nice, even in January in the cold and rain.

I was holding my breath (not literally) in anticipation of the aid station, which had been marketed as 'not having any running nonsense, just good quality real food' and which, as fortune would have it, we passed on each lap. In the name of research, I sampled a different delicacy on each lap, and have rated my top three as: Irish Cream fudge, vegan peanut butter fudge, and a type of apple/pecan/caramel baked delight which was so sweet gooey that I flew around the next two miles like a weightless bird on feathered wings.

35 miles passed with no injuries or medical emergencies. I didn't even get a blister. Or stomach ache. Or even that cold. Which is all very strange to me, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. It is really the first time that I have thought that I could have carried on and the thought of 100 miles didn't scare me senseless (although I just corrected a typo there where I wrote 10000 miles, which did more than scare me senseless, let me tell you).

Met some lovely people, as always, including Denzil who is the organizer of the last race we did. Got lots of encouragement from the organisers as we completed each lap, and a fantastically huge medal, and definitely the most indulgent goody bag ever to have landed in the arms of grateful runners:

The dietitian geek in me just couldn't help myself. I'm sorry I just could't. I spend so much time working out how much energy people need compared to how much they get, that I sometimes accidentally do it without realizing. According my watch, I burnt 2881 kcal during today's run. How does this goody bag match up.......2564 kcal! 

Although, obviously, I am not recommending this as a balanced way to replace your energy, I was merely interested to see what this stack of indulgence added up to. And it was a very nice treat to finish off the race with (excellent ratio of chocolate), so thank you to Saxons, Vikings and Normans runners for a fabulous day!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year folks! 

Been a while since my last post. Found the last couple of months a bit difficult. As some of you know, I've experienced depression in the past, and I've been visited again by it lately. I'm lucky to have supportive family, friends and boyfriend though, and that plus starting some medication has helped me take control of it again. I tend to bottle things up when feeling like that, which I know from experience makes things worse, but when in that dark place, things take a bit of a spiral, and although I know it will help, talking about it seems like a step that is a little too big to conquer. I also know from experience what other things help me, like keeping active, eating well, getting out and about doing things and meeting people, making plans and goals, and I get frustrated when I do all these things but still feel the same, like a shadow has fallen over my heart. Still, I suppose all of these things plus medication can be seen as different tools to help manage it, and by using them all together it must have a better chance of working than just using one. 

And now all together things seem to be working, and feeling a lot more back on track now, and am looking forward to the new year and the adventures I hope it will bring.

So, over the last couple of months, have kept up with the running, even if maybe with a little less mojo than usual. At the end of November Andrew and I took a trip for some winter sun and running in Lanzarote. My favourite run was up the volcano we could see from our house. Absolutely worth getting up early to get to the top for the sunrise over the sea (and back in time for breakfast)!

 

Things were a bit quiet on the race front at the end of the year, until the Sunrise to Sunset Challenge near Telford, on the day after Boxing Day. Brilliant race organised by the excellent How Hard Can It Be Events, had an amazing day, and it definitely helped get my running mojo back! The idea is to start running at sunrise (8.20am) and run as many laps of a 0.85 mile loop that you can before sunset (4.01pm). Here we all are at the start......

Love lap races, you get to meet many more people as you see each other on different laps. Met some lovely people, including Bill Mitchel who at 71 is the oldest person to be doing the Marathon de Sables this year (he is 8 months older than Ranulph Fiennes), and also holds the record for the oldest person to run his first marathon (at 65) and reach 100 marathons. One of my heros! Also met a guy who has done several of How Hard Can It Be's events here over the years, and who has estimated he must have run this 0.85 mile loop about 700 times. 700!!!

Laps are also good from a food point of view (never far from my mind), because you get to pass the aid station on each lap. We completed 47 laps, so that's 47 aid stations, or, aka 47 snack stops! After the first few laps has passed I tried eating a little bit most times time we passed (e.g. a couple of sweets [fried eggs!], a jaffa cake, or some squash), and got on OK with that, no stomach aches this time, hurrah! Also fuelled by some Christmas cake, which really hit the spot, and which I think can be attributed to the generous portion (plus a bit) of whiskey in the recipe, which I had forgotten about until afterwards. Hic. Running never seemed so easy.

It was Andrew's first official ultra marathon, and we completed 39.4 miles in 7 hours 33 mins - good job done! Especially excited that at mile 35 we could really speed up and get in a couple of cheeky extra laps before sunset. Got a cracking medal, and it was a brilliant race - thanks Denzil and How Hard Can It Be - will definitely be back for another!

So, I don't really believe in New Years Resolutions, because I think you should make the most of every day, not just a new years day, but as I've been struggling a bit lately and because I know that setting goals helps me, here goes...

1. Try my first 100 mile event - I have a place on the LDWA Dorset 100 at the end of May -yikes!

2. Get marathon/ultras total up to 50 (19 to go)

Happy New Year one and all - hope 2016 is a good one for us all.

x

New blog!

New Year = New Blog!

I have finally moved from:

amy13in2013.blogspot.co.uk

the blog I set up back in 2013 when I ran the '13 in 2013' fundraising challenge. 

Although this was the challenge that properly got me into all this marathon/ ultra malarkey, the name isn't all too relevant anymore, and people kept giving me strange looks when I was telling them this address in 2015. Back in 2013, I didn't think I would keep up with running lots of marathons, but times change, and so I felt it was time for a bit of a blog-over. 

Those of you savvy with marathon/ ultra training schedules will be au fait and perhaps slightly anxious of the term 'time on your feet', but for those not inducted into the painful joys of training for long distance races, it's a term bandied about in training schedules and means simply that the time on your feet (i.e. lots) is more important than the actual miles covered in a long run. Plus, I actually do spend a lot of time on my feet running, so it seems pretty appropriate. 

So my new blog address is:

timeonyourfeet.blogspot.co.uk

So check back here for updates from now on! 

I plan on re-directing my old page here, but so far all I've managed to do is waste a few hours making a mess of everything. I think I might have managed to import all the posts from my old blog onto here though, so they are still here. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

The Autumn Shakespeare Marathon

It doesn't seem OK to go writing a post about something so trivial as running when there is so much horror going on in the world right now, without acknowledging these things. So, to reflect for a moment. The people striking terror into the world are but a few, and yet so few cause so much pain to so many. We can but continue to live our lives in the way that we wish, and not in the way we will be bullied and frightened into. And so, whilst reflecting on those who have been stolen from the world, let us be strengthened, and strive to bring goodness into the world, to far outweigh those horrors which have taken place.

"How far that little candle throws his beam! So shines a good deed."

- William Shakespeare

Winter running is essentially like winter motoring (or driving, as it's the 21st century now). In theory a good idea, but practically, several issues befall those in the driving seat. The trouble of seeing in the dark (although, obviously I suppose, legally in a car there are lights to assist with this conundrum), a puzzle which has taken much time trying to solve, all to no avail. I have tried running at 5.30 am before work, after work, before tea, after tea, but all times seem to be dark now. The most exciting route I have come up with is a 10 km straight out and back route along the main road, where cars, and especially buses, splash through puddles at 50 miles an hour making sure that if you weren't totally soaked through from the rain, you sure are now. It's a totally enjoyable experience which I look forward to on running days. 

Then there's the weather, which I can't even speak of as it's so upsetting to think of the cold and rain, and anyway I expect you're completely bored of listening to me rant about northern English winter weather, and it's only half way through November. Then there's the ground which is slippery. On last weeks long run, I chose to run to Blackburn along the canal in the rain (a decision I'm unable to justify on reflection) and ended up face down in the mud after slipping on a rock, hidden by treacherous autumn leaves. And there was still 10 miles to run home, and I used up the rest of my water trying to clean up my cut knee, and then I felt faint from lack of hydration, and then I ran out of food, and my watch packed it in, and, and, and...

And I will stop there, as I can't remember where I was going with this theme, and I expect that for those looking to read something motivating are about to chuck this out the window in disgust, if you didn't already give up. I will change topic. 

On Saturday I ran the Autumn Shakespeare Marathon with Andrew, at the Shakespeare County Raceway at Long Marston Airfield. Although this seems like disused airfield (and I don't mean that in a rude way, it just has a look of desolateness about it, with even a couple of abandoned RAF planes thrown in), I know from my Dad that it is not. It has one functioning runway, which my Dad has never managed to land on in his microlight as the weather has always been against him. So, I guess this is the only airfield in the country I have stood next to the runway at that my Dad hasn't. Although I'm with him on the weather. Dreadful. But we won't start on that.

I was looking forward to the race, of course, as I am member of the OMA group (Obsessed Marathoners Anonymous), but wasn't overly prepared. I found out the address of the hotel we were staying in while turning on the satnav in the car before I left the night before, and the address of the race even later at about 11 pm. I somehow remembered all my kit, and there was a over-enthusiastic buying of porridge by Andrew's Mum, my Mum, and me. Today's lesson: never let yourself be caught short of porridge the night before a run.

If I had been better prepared I would have read the route description before entering and noticed that it was 8 x 5 km laps around a disused airfield, rather than a scenic 26.2 jaunt around Stratford-upon-Avon in the shadow of a Shakespeare. No matter. I was in a bad mood for the first couple of laps, due to being cold and wet, being told off by a marshal for being late (which was incorrect in itself, there was good 4 minutes before the race started) and that this was irresponsible as I would miss the race briefing and fall into a pothole and break my ankle (like I ever fall over). As with all things, I eventually got over it, somewhere around lap 3. I remember, as I looked at my wrist and noticed that the elastic bands I was using to keep count of the laps were starting to look more manageable, and 15 km of running is about the time it takes for me to start feeling less angry about something.

It was great to run with Andrew again! After he came back from abandoning me for a whole month to go to New York. He ran a PB today, 3:48:24 - congrats! And without him I wouldn't have managed such a time by myself as despite feeling better in mood after a few laps, I found it a tough race. If I may mention one more tiny point about the weather, it's that 8 laps around an exposed airfield means that for approximately 1/4 of the time the wind is blowing directly in your face, and you have a greater appreciation for how the orange windsock which is blowing at a 90 degree angle to the floor must be feeling.

Other things of note from the race. I accidentally ate a banana flavor energy gel for the first time, and after a few seconds of taste confusion and panic, found that it was actually alright. I put blister plasters on for the first time at the start of the race, and these did stop me from getting blisters in the usual place, but instead I got blisters where the plasters had rubbed. But they were less bad than the ones I usually get, so overall, I think this was a better outcome. 

So there you are. Marathon #31. My years and marathons are now equal, and from now on I will be younger than my marathons, which seems a good situation to find yourself in.

Minion wisdom

The weather this week has been wonderful. Only kidding. 

I always find that the day called 'the end of British summer time' on the calendar is a bittersweet moment. The morning generally goes quite well. That extra hour a day that everyone is always going on about, well, here's your chance! Today that actually happens! Then as the day goes on, and it becomes apparent that even with the extra hour in the day you are still incapable of managing to do everything that you were supposed to do (i.e. you stayed in bed for the hour), your good mood dips a little lower, and by 3 pm, along with daylight, it goes out.

Wow, this blog is turning into a lovely little ray of sunshine. Oh no, that can't be; there will be no more rays of sunshine now until at least March.

Well, I think I've pretty much included enough negative thoughts there to send everyone running for a duvet to hide under until spring. So see you then.....

                                      

Ha ha! This means I don't have to come out at all, unless I move to the equator, in summer.

And now, this endless complaining is coming to the point....I promise.....

Once, a few years ago, whilst I was laid up with an injury to my knee (caused by tripping over a tree root during an evening run in the dark in Harringay, for those interested), I lay on the physio's table, whilst she pummeled me to a bruised and weeping heap for half an hour. All for £35 a pop. What I got from this particular £35, as well as a lot of pain and feeling quite sweary, was a nugget of information that has stuck with me since (oh, and she did fix my knee too).

I was complaining about the weather (imagine!) as it was winter, and that the London marathon is in Spring. Why can't it be an Autumn marathon, I bemoaned, then I wouldn't have to be out training all these nights in the dark and the cold and the rain. And I would have seen the tree root, and not fallen over it. Oh, how rubbish everything is.

She fixed me with a look that conveyed I that I would do well to stop complaining right there and then. You can think of it that way, she said. Or, you can get over the fact that it's winter, because you can't do anything about that (short of moving to the equator - see above). You should feel lucky that you have something to aim for to motivate you to get out there on dark nights and train. If you didn't have a spring marathon to aim for, then would you go out? Me - no. She - would you loose fitness? Me - yes. She - when it got to spring, would you then have to start again and build back up, and would that be very difficult? Me - yes.

In short, I think the message here is this. It's winter. Get over it. Get some warm and fluorescent running clothes (Hurrah! An excuse to buy more 80's style running things!). Find something to aim for (something particularly tough, so no slacking). Find a friend/ a club/ yourself. Find an appropriate selection of night time running routes (where you won't get stabbed/ trip over tree routes/ get scared/ lost). And go for a run.

OK, so that message wasn't so short, but anyway. Even the minions have come out!

Rowbotham's Round Rotherham 50 mile race

Well, as last week went on, I got simultaneously more apprehensive and excited about what Saturday would bring. Well, I knew it would bring 50 miles, but I was unsure what I would bring to the situation. This was to be my third ultra, and I'd enjoyed the first two. But the last few weeks have all been a bit of a disaster training wise. My Granny passing away, a new job and relocating, catching a cold (so bad, it was definitely man-flu), the approach of dark dark nights (although this happens every year, I am still utterly unable to cope with winter).

So, Friday night, my Mum and I set off East. To Yorkshire! We bedded down in a Travel Lodge near the start of the race, for a few short hours before it was time to be up and off. Ready or not....Round Rotherham day is here!

After a sight mishap where I misplaced my phone (the only thing the race instructions said you definitely must have to carry with you at all times) through using it as a torch in the car on the way here, as it was so early it was still dark, I met up with Beth, who I'd met on the race Facebook group, as we were planning on doing the race in about the same time. 

At 7 am we all gathered in the car park and off we went. I will say one thing for getting up before dawn has even cracked, and that is seeing the sun rise, even through the rain and cloud, it's nice to be out running and have a few miles under your belt as the new day starts. 

The route turned out to be quite tricky to navigate. By quite tricky, I mean difficult. And by difficult, I mean that if, like me, navigation is never described as one of your strengths, it was a complete nightmare. I may be exaggerating, but I was glad to have Beth to consult with at all times, for sure. The first few miles were OK, as everyone was still close together. My first test came at about 10 km when we were running through Elsecar Woods, and I ended up (accidentally) at the front of our group, and ended up leading us through the woods. What's that saying about leading someone through the woods without trees? I don't remember, in fact there may not even be a saying, but that doesn't matter, because here's the important thing, one wrong turn in the woods on a 50 miler, and you'll end up doing 60. Fortunately, a friendly Round Rotherham veteran and his posse took control, and we emerged in one piece (one piece each, not attached) at the first checkpoint at 10 miles. Snacks (yes Becka, I had some cake, despite it being not even 9 am yet) and a top up of water were welcomed, and some words of encouragement from my Mum (ta!) sent us on our way for the next leg. 

Sadly, after the cake stop, we seemed to have lost the nice Round Rotherham expert, so we were on our own, which went well, for approximately 2 minutes, when another helpful Round Rotherham expert stepped in. The race organizers provide an impressive array of options to help navigate. I went for some great strip style maps, plus written instructions. Unfortunately, I hadn't practiced much with the maps beforehand, and hadn't realised the orientation of them was a bit different to a normal OS map, so some interesting moments occurred, before we go the hang of it. Then all was fine, and we didn't need rescuing again, which was handy, as the further on you get, the less helpful people there are sauntering around the countryside. There were 16 strips of map to get round the whole race. I got into a little system of moving them from one pocket to another once we'd finished that section. Many people tell me I am mental to run long distances. I would argue that although I don't necessarily agree with this statement, a lot of running is mental. You've got your fitness through training, then you mustn't think to yourself you are about to run 50 miles. It's such a long way! I was going to run along 16 little bits of paper. Sounds much better. As my left pocket got fuller and my right pocket emptied, and the little stick person crossing the finish line on page 16 got closer, I knew we could do it.

Well, it's funny where you run (literally) into people. A few hours in and running through a field, and I saw Tanya and Nigel - I met them on the Woldsman in 2013, and it's thanks to their recommendation that I looked into doing this very race. Despite not seeing each other for 18 months, and only having met once then, we all recognized each other, and it was great to see them again.

We kept on chipping away at the distance. I kept a track of the things in my body that seemed to be going wrong, which is always an interesting little exercise on a long run. First a got a nerve trapped in my knee, but that didn't last long. Then I felt blisters starting to come. Then at checkpoint 4 I tripped over a sleeping policeman whilst I was talking to my Mum, and jarred my dodgy hip, which then niggled for the rest of the race. Then towards the end Beth's knee started playing up. Then, I started having stomach ache. I mention this only for interest, if you're interested. I was utterly unimpressed. Having taken no less than 6 years to crack what to eat and drink in a marathon, it seems that you can't just keep doing that for a longer race, you have to eat proper food and do things differently. I'll save this discussion for another rainy day. Now there's something for you to look forward to. 

Back to the race. There was some truly beautiful parts of the route. One of my favorites was Roche Abbey, a beautiful Gothic ruin, which wasn't originally a ruin, of course, but quite happy being an abbey until the lovely Henry VIII in his best tyranty-self pillaged the lotl. 

Some miles were spent choosing some posh houses in some pretty villages that we would buy if we won the lottery. There sure are some big houses around here. 

We arrived at the second to last checkpoint to see my Mum again, who had been helpfully, although slightly ominously, standing at the gate to a graveyard, and pointing 'this way' to runners. Fortunately, all made it through the graveyard to the checkpoint where there were cheese straws to be had, which reminded me of my Gran, and remained me that she is always here. Not in the form of a cheese straw, but because she has created so many happy memories that keep popping up. 

After leaving this checkpoint, a relay runner who had just finished off his leg, carried on running with us for a while, to help us through a tricky navigational bit. A mile or so later, we saw him again, after he'd driven his car up to another bit he was worried we might find difficult. And then another mile later, he popped up again to help us out! What a nice man! 

The last few miles were a bit more built up and gritty as we got back to Swinton. As we were about 0.5 miles from the end of completing our circle, a man asked us where we had run from. We pointed and said 0.5 miles in that direction....or......49.5 miles in the other...

...and 0.5 miles later we finished (although in one final navigational hiccup we almost ran through the car park and carried on for another lap) in a time of 9:46:35. 1 hour and 26 minutes faster than my last 50 race. Pleased with that. And made a new running pal, met lots of lovely people, spent time with my Mum, and saw some nice places on the way. Good times! Very enjoyable race. Thank you to Beth for running with me, my Mum for supporting us, everyone who made it happen, and all the nice people at the checkpoints who gave up their Saturday to stand in the cold and cheer tired muddy people on their way.

Well, there we go. Having a little rest for a few days now.

P.S. Bored.....have entered next years LDWA 100 miler in May.

P.P.S. I've remembered that saying. Can't see the woods for the trees. That has nothing to do with anything here. Never mind.

Life is like a box of chocolates

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Well. Chocolate you'd hope. If you pulled out an orange, I'm not sure how you'd feel about that. Unless it was a chocolate orange, I guess. That would be alright.

Life is more like a washing machine. You put a neat little pile of stuff in, all in your own nice little order, then it gets mixed up, turned upside down, pummeled, and every so often, you loose a sock. The favourite sock I lost recently was my Granny, who passed away after a fight with cancer. 

She left instructions that we weren't to be too sad. For the first few days, this advice seems pretty daft. How can you not be sad! But then grieving someone involves thinking about them a lot, and when thinking a lot about someone who was fabulous, you can't help but be uplifted by it, as if simply the force of the thought of their energy is enough for it to still feel like they are here.

My Granny was a very inspirational person. In the last few years, she had a rough time with different bits and pieces going wrong. She said that she didn't mind dying. She said she had done all of the things that she wanted to do in her life, she had had a great time, and now she was happy to sit and enjoy all her memories, but as there was nothing left that she wished she'd done, if her time was up, then she was fine with that. 

Which I think is pretty amazing, to be able to say that.

I would like to be able to say the same one day. Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure my Granny didn't just wake up one day when she was 86 and have it occur to her that somehow she'd managed to do everything she wanted. I expect she put a lot of time and energy into working out what it was that she wanted and valued in life, and then going about making it happen, probably involving a lot of hard work and sacrifices on her part. So, in order to keep her energy going, I have been attempting to start this for myself. 

I haven't kept up running every day since 100 days finished. For a number of reasons, but mostly because I felt like I wasn't getting anything out of running every day any more, and was running for no reason, and not always enjoying it. Am still running several times a week, but trying to run with purpose and get something out of each run. So to help with that, I've joined Preston Harriers running club and am, for the first time in 5 years or so, doing interval training on a track. This is way out of my comfort zone in that it is both terrifying being on a track with people taking running seriously, and also in that I am not used to trying to run fast, and it hurts. But even so, I like it. 

In other news since finishing 100 Days:

• I've run a 5km PB at Preston Parkrun, beating my previous best time from 10 years ago. Ha! Who says getting older is rubbish!
• Have done two marathons (Thames Meander - where for the first time in three attempts at this race, I didn't fall over and injure myself for the next few months) and the Loch Ness Marathon (my 30th marathon), which took a wee jump to the top of my favourite marathon list, especially because my Granny loved Scotland, and it was a beautiful sunny day, and I enjoyed running around thinking about her being there having fun too.
• Am training for a 50 mile race on Saturday. Quite nervous now. Saturday only seems to be 5 days away, and 50 miles seems to be quite a long way.

But the BIGGEST most exciting and important news is that......my Aunty has gone into remission! I am so proud of her, and so happy to hear the news! She is just amazing! Wow. 

Thank you again everyone for all your support and donations to 100 days. There have been a couple of donations from people who I've not been able to contact to say thank you...so if you are reading this.....

THANK YOU!!!!