Ribble

The thing is, you do need to know you can do a long run. It's psychological, I suppose. The back was getting better, and I'd done a long-ish run, and the swimming was doing me good, except that I might be testing myself too much. But I think back to that bit in the Horse and his Boy (look, my adult self knows they are both racist and sexist, and subliminally religious, but I loved those books as a child, and I still think that they are still great stories), to that bit where Aslan chases the horses and the children, and although they are totally exhausted, they find that actually they can run quite a bit faster. To be honest, I think this often when I'm running, because I can usually run quite a bit faster than I actually am doing, I have an amazing survival instinct for NOT actually breaking myself. Anyway, I guess in the last week or so, I've felt obliged to test it a bit further, so I can get round this marathon course without actually dying.

Of course, I'm not really busy enough, and finding a 4 hour slot has never been easier. Especially not when you're a guest in someone else's house. Good news, though, turned out Anthony was all geared up to disappoint me because he had a cycle race to be in - the Three Peaks Challenge Cyclo-cross in the Yorkshire Dales. "Oh, I can come and support you" I chirped happily. I mean, other girlfriends wave excitedly at the finish, I guess. I dunno really, I'm not that good at it (experience shows). Rather than undermine their bloke's effort by running half the distance. Anyway, point is, we got up at not too ridiculous o'clock, I mean it was definitely light, but quite ridiculous given that it was a Sunday, and got into a quite cold landrover, to drive down to the Yorkshire Dales. Ant hadn't done an event like that before, so we had to go and figure out where to register, and kind of get over the vast number of MAMILs wandering around. There seemed to be very few women.  He definitely looked the part. By which I mean, better than anyone else nearby.

There you go, there's me doing the proud girlfriend, can't you bugger off now because I've got a run to do, and it's a cracking day for it? No, I was very good, I got his number straight for him, and I pushed him off in the middle of loads of cyclists, even though he was determined he wanted to be at the back. I gave him a pep-talk about keeping focus when you were getting tired, it seemed that was going to be most relevant, because I'd heard that mainly people fall off their bikes on that race, and it seemed that was the scariest thing.  Anyway, all the cyclists vanished pretty quickly, and left me to my plan, which was: run up the B6479, which I had frankly NO IDEA whether it was going to be either sensible or even possible, but I figured, if ever there was a day when the traffic was going to be really pissed off with a load of bikes, an extra hazard wouldn't make too much difference. I thought there might be lots of marshals, although there actually weren't.

There were lots of tyres, which made me realise that all the stories people had been telling via Facebook were probably true - that punctures happen A LOT on this race. That spare tyres are just sensible. And that cyclists don't nick each others' stuff. I realised early on, whatever sort of unsupportive girlfriend I was, that I'd better have my phone available in case it was needed, which mean, owing to its already low battery, that I couldn't plug in to runmeter and get supportive comments from my pals, or listen to music. Not that there was a lot of signal for 3G (or for the emergency calls, for that matter).

The road was pretty quiet at 9:30 on a Sunday morning. The reason for this is that the cycle race started by going over the top of Ingleborough, and then down the west side, and most of the traffic who were being proper girlfriends, were driving round the other way to meet the cyclists on the descent. I was hoping to meet them on their second descent, if I could cover 7 miles fast enough.  It was a cracking day, cool but brilliant blue sky. We'd seen the Hope hot air balloon take off, and I had another wistful conversation with the guy who was responsible for finding it when it came down. They couldn't have had a better day, calm and clear. I saw it going up the valley a ways on my run. Anyway, I'm not entirely clear why it is that taking pictures of hills never works, but this was quite a nice hill that I took a picture of because I was trying to illustrate that the guy who said at the beginning "Oh, it'll be nice and flat because it follows the rail line" clearly hadn't read my blog "trains aren't water" (which followed closely after "North Wales: flatter than Peterborough") because train lines are not bound by the same conventions that water is, and actually are allowed to go up and down. In this case, it was mainly just the road. Once again, though, I had to admit that it was quite good training.

I can't say whether it's Yorkshire people who are friendly, or cyclists, but there was a definite air of support (maybe Yorkshire cyclists). A few of the racers were being supported by friends on bikes, or maybe it was just a nice day for biking; but one lad called out to me "I saw you passing Orton" (it was about two hours later that I realised he meant Horton), and then looked over his shoulder and said, puzzled, "where are you going?" It was a bit hard to explain, and "That way" seemed a little trite, so I shouted "Just up to Ribble Head and back". Another lady saw me, and said "Didn't I see you at the start?" It seemed somewhat out of context, as that had been an hour and a half earlier, but somehow the words sank in, and I was able to shout "Yep" "Good effort" she sang out, before disappearing. It was mainly pretty quiet, but it dawned on me that there was no way I could or should have been listening to music on that run - not so that I could better appreciate the rugged beauty about me, but simply out of basic health and safety. I essentially had to be listening out for cars all the time. If one was coming towards me, I had to know if there was also one coming from behind, because I would then know that the oncoming car couldn't overtake me safetly, and I should get out of its way - generally by leaping into thistles. Actually, it was mainly OK, although that did happen once or twice.

It was way hotter than I thought it would be, and my two little water hip-flasks were empty by the time I got to the top of the road. I'd got to around 8 miles, and I thought that a total of 18 would make me feel OK about my long run (which is now apparently how I'm referring to my marathon), so I turned left, and headed up the road a bit further, stopping at the Station Inn to ask if I could get some water (given how many people there already were milling about, I think it was quite decent of them to agree). I also realised that the Station that the Inn was marking was one that I've always wanted to get out at and have a walk, on the Settle to Carlisle line! And here I was. The traffic volume was much higher here, as the supporters were all vying for the least safe place to park, and there were billions of bicycles, presumably not involved in the race, but supporting it, all piling around. Running up that stretch of road was definitely more stupid, and as soon as the garmin cleared 9 miles, I headed back.

I waited with the lyrca people, and a guy on a megaphone, who assured us that the first cyclists would be there soon, to see the lead cyclists pass by, and was with some surprise that I heard megaphone-guy exclaim "there's a girl with a bikini on! That's fair made my day, that has". I looked around, but I couldn't see her, and I vaguely wondered if it was some sort of joke, such as my Scottish friends make, meaning a fleece... then I saw several people smiling at me, and suddenly realised he was talking about ME! I just had my stripy running top on, it's lycra, but it's definitely, you know, covering me. And I had leggings on. I knew I should've worn the running skirt, best buy I ever made. I asked them, "is he talking about me", and they nodded, laughing. I realised it was pretty cold, despite the sun, and most people were wearing a bit more than me. He called out "Don't worry love, I'm blind in one eye and I can't see out of the other". I decided at this juncture that I'd head back, although I'd been quite tempted by a cup of tea.

Once I'd seen the lead runners through, I thought my best bet was probably to run back, because if I waited for Ant there, I'd never get back to the finish line before he did. (Also there was the small matter of my train home, later that night, I didn't want to delay things too much). As I headed back, I crossed over the bridge passing over the train track, and by now there were motor-bike marshals parked up to stop cars passing over the bridge, which was single-lane, while there were oncoming bicycles, as it was pretty blind. It was a quiet moment when I arrived, with no bikes in sight, so they had plenty of time to clock me. "Hang on - IS THERE ROOM FOR A RUNNER?" the front one called. "YES! Send her on over" They made a big show of holding their hands up and waving me past. "I don't know, all this, especially for you!" the guy at the bridge said. I considered asking him where he was when I went over in the other direction, but I stuck with just coquettishly grinning instead, "why, thank you!".

I figured Ant'd overtake me on my way back, because he had a final peak to do, Pen-y-ghent. I kept eyeballing the cyclists on the way back, but I didn't see him, and I started imagining all the horrible things that were happening on top of those hills. Come to think of it, the cyclists themselves were pretty friendly - several of them also shouted "Good effort" to me as they passed, even though technically I was there supporting one of their number, I clearly wasn't doing a very good job, as I got more support from them than vice versa! When I arrived at the Pen-y-ghent turn-off, I hung about for a while, watching other cyclists go off up it, and saw the lead cyclists come down, but by then I wasn't sure if he mightn't have passed me without my spying him, in one of the larger groups of competitors, so I headed down to the finish line. When I was nearly back, I was overtaken by an ambulance, and that made my stomach turn a bit. I plodded on - I didn't feel too bad in myself, with only pretty minor aches going on. My watch said I was averaging 11:45 minute miles, but I hadn't turned it off while I waited at the Ribble head, so I couldn't really count on that. I started doing calculations on what I thought my achievable time could be, in my head. It's never worked, I just don't have the brain to figure it out, but it does keep me busy for a pretty long time. I'm pretty sure that the fastest I can do it in is 4 h 22, while 4h 40 seems quite likely, and 5 hours would still be pretty amazing. I did also realise that the reason why most of my calculations go wrong is that I forget to take the seconds back into base 10. Special.

Anyway, the boy did it, and he was pretty pleased - he didn't fall off. I saw some pretty wounded shins while I was waiting for him to get back. I told him I was proud of his PB, and he gave me that look that suggested he realised I was patronising him. He did it in 5h 05, so frankly I think it would be rude if I attempted my marathon in anything less.

18 miles. Pretty good day. I think I've nailed this.

Pain

The problem with the swimming, aside from the obvious “overdoing it” thing, was the additional amount of pain I found myself in. So far, this rushed training thing seemed to be condensing injuries into my training programme as well as actual training, in a most unsatisfactory way. While my back was still perfectly noticeable, I now found I’d developed a pain in my metatarsals in my right foot. I put this down to swimming a length of the pool while suffering from such extreme cramp that one of my toes was sticking out at an odd angle. My back was also gently humming to itself. What with the bruise on my knee from falling over, the threat that at any point my calves might cave, I was starting to feel like a crock. Still, there’s an old saying that says you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and injuring every part of your body, including areas you didn’t know you could injure. I think that’s how it goes, anyway.

I met Nicola on my way out to run, and informed her of the novelty ailments I now seemed to be suffering. She speaks my language: she told me about her t-shirt that reads “I run. I run slower than a tortoise swimming through peanut butter, but I run”. With these fine words, I set off. I felt that longer than 4 miles was in order, so I ran up the river to Ferry meadows. Along the way, Facebook Ian (known thus because it’s the only sphere I know him in, never having actually verified that he’s a genuine person – but it seems likely because he’s a friend of Sally’s) spoke to me via the magic of runmeter, saying “That’s not a heart”. It was nice that my little heart adventure made an impact. I wondered what I could do about this lack of heart in my run, and realised that I was nearly at the golf course. Maybe I could freestyle a heart? I thought that as long as I anchored the point, the rest should be OK. I worried that I’d get shouted at by golfers for running across the green, and that the satnav would be too vague to pick it out. I didn’t do too badly though, although in this case, I’m not sure it showed up unless you zoomed in on it.

When I went for tea that afternoon, I found a couple of colleagues in the kitchen. “I see from the way you’re holding your back that you’re still suffering, Emma” Naomi observed “How’s that marathon looking?”. “Oh I think it’s doable” I told her breezily, maybe more so than I felt. And apparently I wasn’t fooling anybody. Jonathan the Rock watched me massage the small of my back and suggested that I could perhaps do the race in a wheelchair. “I think that might be more effort on my back than running it” I said. “Oh, I didn’t think you should operate the wheelchair yourself” he said swiftly “I was assuming someone would be pushing you”. This take was an interesting one! He was holding my sponsorship form. “I finished reading your email today” he informed me gravely, somehow managing to imply without explicitly saying so, that the email had been far too long “and I’ve got your sponsorship form here.” At this point he proffered a tenner in my direction. “And here: you can put this away now. But if you aren’t strong enough, don’t do it, Emma”. I nodded, without meaning it. “I see my words have sunk in.“ (Jonathan seems to have an uncanny ability to accurately tell what I’m thinking – I must be more careful)  “But there’s no point in injuring yourself for this, it simply isn’t worth it. Running when injured is just going to make you worse, for longer – who knows how long. It’s how I injured myself. You can keep the sponsorship money, and run a different race later on if you want to.”

Because that's going to happen.