Make friends with your fear

I have always been lucky to be surrounded by fabulous friends (and family, who are also friends too), and lately I have been reminded by just how amazing they are. As the saying goes, and indeed why bother making a new one up when you can borrow someone else's, a true friend is a friend who is there in the difficult times too.

I have tried also to make another friend recently, on Andrew's advice, which was:

"Make friends with your fear"

I ignored this initially. I don't like fear. That's the whole point. I hate it. And I don't see what the point would be, in being friends with something I hate. 

Then I thought about it a bit more, as, annoyingly, certain people are often right (although not always).

And I started to try to switch things around in my head. Last week I had loads of stuff on at work that I was quite particularly anxious about. And as I've been anxious about most things work wise and it has pretty much taken over my life for the last 5 months (and two years of training), I realised that if I could feel good about those things instead of feeling fear (which for me is a very negative experience, as I'm sure it is for most people come to think of it), then that would massively improve things.

So instead of doing what I usually do and allowing myself to get more and more anxious and negative, I told myself I was looking forward to it, and that I was going to enjoy it. To be honest, I didn't believe myself when I was telling myself all this, it all felt a bit daft. But I kept at it, in the hope that my brain might start to believe it if I told myself it enough, or just get bored and accept it in order to stop hearing me say it over and over.

You know, the week actually turned out to be great. Sure, I was way out of my comfort zone for a lot of it, and did a lot of things I've never done before or ever thought I could do, but it turned out they went pretty well, and I really enjoyed them. When I think of it, often the things that you are scared of, actually end up being totally different to what you expect, and usually are some of the best things you will do. So, what was the point in worrying about them in the first place?

The same happens with running. When I first started marathons, I did one per year for the first few. I never  thought I could do more than that, or run further, even though it was something that I wanted to do. I just thought it was something that other, better people did, and I would never be able to. It took someone close to me passing away suddenly to push me to do some fundraising by doing something I'd not done before, i.e. running 13 marathons in one year, because I realised that life was too short to put off doing things that you want to do, because you are scared of them for whatever reason. I remember the month before being terrified of the challenge, especially after I'd started telling people about it. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do it, and the little voice in my head that told me I was no good would turn out to be right, and then everyone would know I was a failure. But genuinely it turned out to be one of the best things I ever did. The year was brilliant. Sure there were ups and downs, but when aren't there? I did it, and never looked back, and have continued to consciously push my comfort zone in running. And if I can do it there, then surely I should apply that to the rest of life too.

So, although the friendship is in it's early stages, and is still a little shaky, here's to making friends with my fears (excluding spiders, obviously), and expanding my comfort zones. At the end of the day, if you try something you're not sure about and it turns out to be rubbish, you can always stop it, or try another way, I suppose. And if you never try it, then you'll never know. 

A New Years lesson

The last week was a bit of a slog running wise, I suppose the first time in the new year (i.e. the second week) when your commitment to your new years resolutions really get tested.

I have a routine where I hang around at work on a Wednesday, so that I don't have to go home before running club training at the track. I've missed the last few weeks what with life happening and what-not, and last week was the first week I was planning to go back. I stayed a bit late and finished some of those tasks that never get done, but quickly lost all enthusiasm, which is what usually happens when you get round to doing something you have been putting off, and remember why it was that you had been putting it off in the first place. I made furtive glances towards the window, which was becoming ominously darker and wetter as the evening ticked on. Then I remembered I had forgotten my waterproof jacket, and all of a sudden all my motivation went, and all I wanted was to be at home in my dressing gown, woolly socks, in front of the fire with a warm mug of coca and an episode of Miss Marple (secretly, I am about 90). So I logged off, did a sprint across the car park, hopped into my car, and scooted off back to Chorley.

I had driven approximately to the end of the road (which sounds like it would be quite quick, but remember, this is Preston, and all traffic lights are red at all times, there are three billion cars, and everywhere takes an age to get to), before I felt horrible disappointment in myself, and wracked with guilt at missing a session because of some bad weather. If I use this as an excuse, I may as well give up entirely until at least June. Actually, I might as well give up running altogether, as I'm obviously not that committed, and if I'm not even serious enough to sick to my training plan, then how do I expect to be able to run 100 miles all at once in just a few months? Call myself a runner? I'm a fraud. That's all. I don't deserve to call myself a runner. I'm rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. Rubbish!

This is how my thoughts often run (run! Ha ha!)

So, I got home, found my elusive waterproof, and kitted up for a run before I could change my mind. I ran 5 km, and every step was honestly awful. It was raining so hard that I almost lost a contact lens, and the rain was so hard it was like being pierced in the face by a thousand tiny arrows. I spent some time deliberating how I might be able to fit my bandanna simultaneously around my head to keep my ears warm, but also around my face to stop it from hurting, but also leaving my eyes free to see (not that I could very well, due to previous contact lens issue). By then I also had brain freeze, and was unable to come up with a solution, and so gave up and decided just to be miserable for the next 20 minutes. 

I got home and felt quite dejected about the whole evening. It's all very well to set yourself goals in training, but if you don't meet them it can be quite demotivating. From this experience, I have concluded three lessons:

1) I am always harping on about how useful action plans are, so it is time I used this advice myself. A key point of an action plan is that it should be achievable, and to make sure it is, you should send some time identifying potential barriers to you meeting your goal, and how you might deal with these. Then you should re-set your original goal, so that it is more realistic, and your confidence in achieving it is greater (you should feel at least 7/10 confident that you can do it). So from this conclusion, I have concluded (in conclusion) that I need to make a new action plan RE Wednesday evenings, so that I stop feeling like I have failed every time I don't manage to do something that isn't really realistic.
2) Have sensible thoughts. I have re-read what I wrote for my thoughts (which is genuinely what I thought) above when I missed one session, and see how ridiculous it looks when you say it out loud. One set back is not the end!
3) Even if a step is rubbish and feels hard, and awful, and cold, I am still lucky to be able to take the step. Speaking with someone I met today put this into context; many people would give anything to be able to walk with no problems.

And that is enough lessons to be learned from one week. 

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!