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| Running up a mountain! |
You know, when you were a kid, and you pretended to be your
favourite football player when you were on the park with your mates kicking a
ball about#? Like that,
except I was being one of the runners from this epic endurance race. Granted it was only a few of the mountains in
Brecon, and I only covered what would equate to a fraction of the distance from
one stage of the race, but even so, as I ran along the ridges, through fields
(chatting to the sheep on the way), up steep paths and then back down them with
a map in my hand, I felt epic! I felt
like I was taking part in that race and winning it##!!
OK, so why am I telling you this?
Well, this little run was my first real venture off road on
a run by myself. Normally, I’m a tarmac
type runner, at my most adventurous maybe run around a country park on nice,
well maintained footpaths, with help a few yards away.
But lately I’ve started feeling, well, a bit different about
myself and my running.
Some of you may be aware that I picked up an injury last
year that prevented me from running. At
the time I had been trying to train for the Robin Hood Marathon (yes, yes it
was another stress fracture. Yes, I know I got a stress fracture the last time I was training for the Robin
Hood Marathon. No, it wasn’t the same leg) and had been increasing my
mileage steadily over the weeks. But it
was still a struggle. All the typical
runners thoughts and excuses going through my head all the time, sometimes
dreading going out, and skipping the odd session……we’ve all done it, and we all
complain about it, so I just accepted it as normal. And as a result I was still thinking that
finally completing a marathon was about the pinnacle of my distance
running. Which had always been the
plan. Run Robin Hood Marathon and then
maybe a few others, collect the medals, make a nice display of them, feel good
inside!
I mean why would you want to run any further? And how
would you train to run any further?
I was quite content with this little goal. I mean not many people run a marathon in
their lifetime and it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to keep running afterwards, so
it seemed OK. Then a couple of things
happened that made me shift how I think about myself and running. I know I always go on about how people
inspire and motivate me, but it’s pretty hard, and very unfair, not to. So, I always try to acknowledge that I am who
I am because of the people I have met, and interacted with. Because of how I’ve been brought up, and the
experiences I have had.
And this change is no different.
I’ve never been that adventurous. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to think about going on adventures and
doing exciting, daring things. But the
reality is I’d end up thinking about the possible consequences, what people
would think, being too worried to take a risk…..basically, anything I did think
of would become a pipe dream. Then
someone I know, a lady by the name of Sophie Rooney, said that she had a
challenge planned that was pretty big and exciting. She was going to be the 1st woman
to run the length of Scandinavia. With
all her stuff on her back (all the details of her adventure can be found https://daringmightythings.wordpress.com/author/thesophierooney/
). I was in awe. Not only was she talking about running a huge
distance, day after day, but it was carrying all her kit, navigating herself
and sourcing anything she needed while she was out there###. I followed her progress, as many others did,
I pledged some money to help support such an amazing adventure (and a bit more
when she nearly killed herself without realising it!!) and I felt
inspired. Inspired with a want to be able
to do something as awesome as this. I
mean how amazing was what she was doing?
How exhilarating would it be to complete such an amazing feat?
And that’s what sat in my head as I went back to work every
day and got on with, well, nothing at the time as I was injured still! I mean, come on, even if I was able to do
something like that, what would I do?
Then the next thing happened (please bear in mind that these
things I talk about, in this blog and any other, don’t always happen
linearly. In fact I can’t always
remember when things happen in relation to each other because it just becomes
one big thing in my head! And you don’t
want to go delving in there!!!).
I went camping in North Wales. I’d only ever been to North Wales when I was
in primary school, and when it was suggested that I go camping there, I thought
it was a great idea. Now, I don’t know
if you are aware, but there is an official Welsh Coastal Path. Now, I used to* rant about how
much money the Welsh Assembly had spent on it, so I insisted that, while there,
I wanted to walk some of it to at least utilise what the money had been spent
on! It was while walking on some of the
paths that I thought “How cool would it be to walk the whole Coastal Path?”. Yes, that would be cool! Then, out of nowhere, Sophie’s voice pops
into my head (to clarify, she wasn’t actually there, it was just her voice in
amongst all the other ones in my head!) shouting “Walk? Walk it?
Suck it up man and Run it!”! And
that was the next thing that happened.
Why not run the Welsh Coastal Path?
So I did a bit of research and found that it is 870 miles. So a quick calculation, using 20 miles a day
as a guide, and I worked out that it would take 44 days. Oh.
That’s a long time. OK, OK, how
about if I were to do it in week or 2 week chunks over the course of a year or
two? That would be good. And still have the sense of achievement. And there it was. Planted firmly in my head. A manageable adventure, of sorts.
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| My left shin after flare up |
So I did some research about it, I carried on going to the
hospital to see my physio about my leg, I started climbing again, and worked on
the bits of me that weren’t broken. And
that’s where it all sat for a while.
Some things happened, I took a few steps back, and the excitement of a
potential adventure that I might actually
do, started to fade.
I got the all clear to run again in January 2017, and resolved
to take my time and ease myself back into it properly. I had deferred my entry to the Robin Hood Marathon and had
that as my goal in September. Plenty of
time. Then I had a flare up after 3 or 4
weeks of walk/running. I was gutted. Really gutted. Luckily, my physio got me in to see a
consultant, I got checked over (seemed to be a soft tissue reaction to me
starting training again), he scheduled me for an MRI to finally find out why I
have had stress fractures, and I rested for a bit.
And then the next thing happened. I had a chance meeting with an amazing woman
called Nicola Love. She ran a lot. She also knew a lot about running. She’d also been on quite a few
adventures. And was planning some
more. The things she had done amazed
me. The things she was going to do,
amazed me. The way she spoke about them
was in a way that I hadn’t really heard a runner talk about things before. The more I listened to her the more inspired
I was. And she listened back. She listened to me when I mentioned, rather
coyly, my idea for, what seemed by this time, my rather lame adventure. And she smiled and told me how awesome that
sounded and made me feel excited about it again! I told her that I was planning on doing it in
stages as I couldn’t do it all in one go.
And then she asked me why not?
And that was that.
The change started to happen in full force. Why not?
Such a simple question and I always had answers for it. Aside from what I talked about in my last
post (100%
Midlife Crisis) I could always back it up with reasons. So while the question itself wasn’t new, it
was how I thought about it that changed.
The way Nicola made me feel and think somehow allowed me to still ask
myself the questions, but view the answers from a different way! And it came crashing in on me like an
avalanche!
Everything I’d thought about running started to change over
the course of a week or so. I started
back walk/running again and felt invigorated.
I thought about how my body felt in a different way. I addressed any pain differently. The excuses started to stop. Every event I saw or read about suddenly
looked like something I thought I could eventually do. I wanted to run. Wanted to.
Not “oh I’d better go out as I need to run if I want to do <INSERT RUNNING
EVENT HERE>”. Wanted to. And suddenly I felt I wasn’t training for an
event, I was training to run. Just
run. Nothing specific.
And I was loving it!
(Can I just spend a second to provide a bit of a “reign it
in there Sharif” note here: At this stage I was only just back from injury, and
I still am effectively, so please don’t think I’m out running dozens of miles
every day! I’m just trying to explain
how the shift in my thought process happened and how big a shift this was for
me. You’ll all find out soon enough if
this continues, as I am pretty sure it will, as I have a few things coming up
to tell you about!)
I started to listen to my body. I ran the Spring
Wolf Run**. Then a 5 mile
race, with the intention of walking every other mile. I ran the whole way because I felt
great. I started running regularly with
no adverse effect. I was running with a
smile on my face as well. Then I
completed the Dirty Weekend***. Then another 5 mile race. Then my 1st real off road run in
the Peak District****. I just
kept going. All the time listening to my
body. Making sure everything was in
check, being sensible but pushing myself.
And that is something that is important for me to stress. I was, and am, being sensible. I know the issues I have had and I have no
intention of rediscovering them, or new ones.
I have things planned (yes, I know I keep saying this, but you will find
out, I promise) so do not want to put myself in a position where I can’t do
them.
And that brings us nicely back to me pretending to be a
Dragons Back Runner on the last Bank Holiday in May.
You see this wasn’t the sort of thing I’d normally do. And certainly not on my own. I mean, I was running up and down mountains,
breathing hard, sweating, aching, hurting, knowing that I had to finish the
whole 11 miles in order to get back to my car, making sure I wasn’t getting
lost, avoiding attack sheep and killer cows+, not falling off the edges
of mountains….I honestly don’t think I’d have ever done this before++. I was enjoying myself. I wasn’t making excuses. I barely touched the food I’d brought (my
backpack was packed very sensibly to cover several eventualities!!). I wasn’t complaining. I just kept going. It felt, well, normal! Then at some point about 7 miles in, as I ran
along a ridge after ascending a stupidly steep slope, I had a moment where I
realised everything had changed. All the
stuff I’ve mentioned above? That’s what
I realised. I was pushing myself further
than I had before and not questioning it.
I think I felt, for the first time, that I was leaving everything out
there+++.
When I finished I felt pretty awesome. Sweaty, hot and tired, but fricking
awesome! So, what I’m trying to say, I
think (I’ve done that thing again where I can’t remember where I had originally
intended going with this post and ended up, well, possibly where I wanted to be
but maybe not!!), is that I’m enjoying running.
I would say “again”, but I think this is another level and not the same
as when I used to enjoy it. I’m also
thinking differently about what I can do and what I can achieve. I’m pushing myself, safely, past where I was
before. I feel great. I feel energised. And I really hope I can help inspire and
motivate others as well J
Oh, wait! One more
thing. Mark Harber. You’re probably wondering why I was
pretending to be him! He’s a pretty
awesome runner who loves adventure and raises a lot of money for charity. So, why not have him as my adventure role
model!! And, who knows, I may bump into him at the start of a race one day…. https://youtu.be/g8ouB83hXz4
#Well, I didn’t really. I got to be Neville Southall or Bruce
Grobbelaar, or some other keeper because I was rubbish at football so always
got stuck in goal!!
##Just like when “Ian Rush” would step up to take a penalty
against me, “Neville Southall”, in the last minute of the “FA Cup final” and I
would save it and feel the adoration of the fans and team mates… (OK fact of
the matter is I never saved them but that’s what I imagined it would feel like!!!)
### I should add here that Sophie is one of those annoying
people who is amazing, like elite amazing, at a particular sport [in this case
kayaking], but then is also amazing, like life goal amazing for us normal folk,
at any other sport she tries! I think
she still tries to maintain that she isn’t a runner...Twitter: @THEsophierooney Instagram: sophie.rooney
*I say “used to” because I do admit I may have said some
derogatory things about the Welsh Assembly with regard to their money spending
on the Coastal Path. However, I now
think it may have been pretty good money spent to make it more of a thing. This does not mean that I am retracting all
the other derogatory things I’ve said about the Assembly (or failed MPs and
trumped up councillors as I see them)
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| Spring Wolf Run |
** I’d booked this when I thought I’d be fit. I wasn’t going to miss it! The Pack put up with me and my walk
jogging…and wearing a Baywatch outfit probably helped, as people clearly
thought I wasn’t being serious!
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| Dirty Weekend 2017 |
***20 miles and 200 obstacles. Yeah, that’s what I thought when I got duped
into signing up to it last year! I
didn’t mention it to my consultant the week before the event. I don’t think he’d have thought it was “taking
it easy”. I had an amazing time and was
very pleased with myself when I finished it.
Can’t wait until bigger things next year J
****I was lucky enough to be taken to the Peak District and
run ragged around some fields, and up some hills, in all sorts of weather for
about 15 miles. And then the next day
around Carsington Water for 8 miles.
Need to learn to double up my long days, she said. You’ll be fine, she said. You’ll love it, she said. She was right about everything.
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| Peak District, with Killer Cows in background |
+I think I need to explain my reference to killer cows. Picture the scene. A beautiful field in the Peak District, some
cows lazily chewing the cud. Two runners
and a dog slowly enter the field. Said
cows turn to face the new arrivals and slowly make a move towards them. The fearless leader of the group insists on
going into the next field, running out of their way and trying to jump a barbed
wire fence all in order to avoid the killer cows, who got shooed off by a bunch
of DofE walkers!!! (FYI – I wasn’t the leader of the group!!)
++ And I am very sure I wouldn’t have ever done this, or
thought about doing the things I plan on doing in the future, if I hadn’t met
Nicola. She really is an
inspiration. And not just to me. It’s what she does, whether she means to or
not. Her attitude, her actions, her
enthusiasm, her drive will not fail to motivate you. She really is an amazing woman and if you
want to be inspired by what she does check out her social media outlets. And keep an eye out for her next adventure #63in63. And if you want to run a marathon, I suggest
you pick up her book, “Chasing Extraordinary” that is being released very soon.
Instagram: nikkilovefitlife
FB: Nicola Love
Strava: Nikki Love
+++Also in that moment, I made a voice recording. I was a bit emotional. Hey, I was tired and having some sort of epiphany! Anyway, I haven’t actually listened to
it. And don’t think I will. Or let anyone else listen to it. Think there were some words to back up what
I’ve said in ++ and don’t want to cause embarrassment to anyone!!
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