Hearts

So after the massage, I gave it a couple of days, it seemed sensible, but I did a lovely walk at the weekend. It was mainly lovely because of the person I was with, which is another story, and actually wasn't overly strenuous. I did manage to do quite a few calf-lifts which were incidental to my recovery plan, but I'm sure they helped. I decided it was time to embrace the training plan the following week. I realised that it was going to have to be 4-5 times a week, taking cautious recovery days. I ran 4.5 miles on Monday night, and the new app, Runmeter, decided to work, and has deigned to read out comments now, which was lots of fun, and really helps motivate you. Especially when your friends have conversations with each other. Stella wrote "watch out for tornadoes", which I only learned later there was one going on 10 miles north of me. Michael said "The gentle caress" [which made me nervous], but it continued "of autumn makes running golden". I didn't go terribly fast, but it wasn't about speed, I was really happy to be running again, and that was all that mattered. It was Ian who suggested that it would have been possible to make a heart on my route.

On Tuesday, I had a work trip to Kent which I had to overnight, and I considered taking a run that afternoon, but technically, although the meeting finished early, I was really still at work, so I had to get the laptop out and sit in a hotel room for 2 hours of sunshine. I got a reasonably early night, and I intended to get up in the morning and explore the environs of Ashford (I'd located a river and what looked like a path on google earth) but six am revealed it was actually quite dark (owing to my usual waking habits, I had no idea about this) and I realised that trying to find a pathway in an unknown area in the dark wasn't going to be a brilliant move. By 6:30 I'd talked myself out of the idea - the rain combined with my love of the snooze button put me off entirely.

It kept up the rain in a consistent, British way, all day, something I could easily observe from the eerie of the 8th floor of our Ashford office. Happily the rail station is next door, so I didn't get wet as I made my way home. I did, however, have the chance to devise a new law, which I don't think I've even shared with Facebook yet, as I usually do when my Dictatorial brain devises something which I think would be good primarily for me, but also for humanity (such as shooting people who get onto trains with a cold). This law, perhaps, will meet with more understanding: it will be the law, henceforth or whenever my reign commences, that cars and motor vehicles in general, shall stop for pedestrians while it is raining. Whenever they should need to cross a road, in the rain, vehicles will give way. The reason is pretty obvious: they're in a nice warm car, and we're getting wet. The very LEAST they can do is bloody well let us across the road. I think this is a brilliant law, and should be passed immediately, even before I take over power.

I realised when I got home that if I didn't get right out there immediately, in the rain, I would talk myself out of it again - and I had training to go. "If it ain't raining, it ain't training" I thought grimly to myself (although I have many times been struck by the incorrect nature of that saying during dry weather), and geared up to get out there, including remembering a plastic bag for the phone. Despite my recent law, it appeared that not everyone had caught up, because I had to stop twice to prevent a car from running me down [sigh]. Again, my noble facebook friends stepped into the breach, in my somewhat damp hour of need, and kept me entertained with comments such as "Are you mad? It's logging your exercise as swimming" and "no need to shower after this run", and Ian, who I had primed that I was going to alter my route accordingly, filled all spare time with "Left a bit. Left a bit more" (as I was running anti-clockwise). I wondered if my other friends would get the heart, and wanted Ian to write "Can you tell what it is yet?" although obviously we can't quote poor old Rolf any more, not unless I was making a much ruder shape, I suppose. Then Ashley said "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not". I still haven't checked with him whether he had got it, but it made me smile a lot because I thought he had. Anyway, I got very wet, and I drew a heart. Because in weather like that, you've got to really love running.

Recovery starts here

There's a lot of stuff I don't know about training, and shoes and legs, and how much to do and how much not to do. But I do know that listening to your body is really important, and yet psychologically, so is belief in yourself. I will be employing both of these things to get better.

So far, this is what I have worked out, and what I've found:

1) In listening to my body, I've found that I'm addicted to running: I love doing it, and it makes me happy.

2) I often know when something is wrong - and usually I go with that. Sometimes I don't run because I'm feeling lazy, and I know I'll be "alright" on the day - alright doesn't get you PBs though. It gets you medals, and that's quite good. But doing better is exciting. Anyway, on Monday, I wasn't sure if I was listening to my body or being lazy: also, sometimes niggles go away because they need a stretch, not a couch. When I set out running on Monday, though, I got one and two mixed up. I got caught up in the love, and ended up in a destructive relationship. Come on, we've all been there.

3) I decided I can still do it.

4) I had a message from my new-found friend-of-Sally's Leeky, who asked after my calf injury and on hearing that I still intended to run the marathon, then said "You remind me of me. That's not a good thing."

5) I downloaded NHS advice on calf muscles. It seemed pretty sensible actually, (you can read it HERE) although I was disappointed to note that they said allow at least 8 weeks before returning to exercise. Overcautious. In other news, however, they do recommend wearing heals! I'd better go and buy some shoes immediately. I wonder if you can get them on prescription. It relieves the tension on your calf muscle you see. Also they recommended swimming, cycling and walking. See! Listening to your body - that's exactly what I'd prescribed myself. They also gave useful advice on doing exercises, and describing how much pain is good and recovering (a little discomfort) but not overdoing ( not moving into "pain"). Moving it and doing the exercises is really an important part of speedy recovery. 8 weeks. Pah.

6) I got in touch with my hairdresser, Laura. Oh no, wait, that was coincidental to my recovery. I got in touch with my sports masseur, Stuart (I did actually get in touch with Laura and Stuart within 5 minutes of each other). I suggested that I wait till the end of the week so my leg could get a bit better, but he said a rest day would be fine - and in effect, it had two rest days, because he came today, Wednesday evening.

7) OK, I don't think this list is really working for me. 

Stuart's brilliant. In my opinion, he's the reason why my legs are perfect. Oh, you didn't know? Officially, yes, my legs are perfect. I had that from a physio after I took my running shoes back, and the shop wouldn't exchange them until a physio checked over my legs and ruled out other possible causes. Most people have something going on with tight IT bands, or hamstrings or the like, and I reckon it's an easy way the shop can avoid taking the cop. The physio gave me a really thorough check-over and could find NOTHING WRONG with my legs. This was months ago, back with the shoe-saga. But the words "Your legs are perfect" did pass his lips, and that alone was worth the cash I gave him. Of course, it was rapidly backed up by Poet Pete (AKA the Flyer Fairy) - who enjoys nothing more than making lewd comments about my legs, who said he could have told me that . Anyway, because of his general brilliance (that's Stuart, not Pete), and also because his wife is brilliant (that was not relevant to the story, but I thought I'd mention her anyway, because she's a mate and she works with me) I checked my NHS facts with him. "Well they have to say that, because people take different amounts of time to recover, they're going to be over-cautious" he said, as if scripted, by me. "Also, fit people get better quicker than unfit people" (see, brilliant). I didn't actually give him the schedule I was working to. There was no point in making him an accessory after the fact. He kind of ruined it by adding "although ironically fit people are more likely to injure themselves."

Tragically, Stuart has just left the area, and is moving up to Cumbria - you lucky, lucky people. His website still says Stamford, but trust me, if you're in the wider Kendal area and you need a masseur, drop him a line, you can contact him via his old website - THIS ONE.

Anyway, Stuart is in charge of the fine-tuning that keeps my IT band how it needs to be. But this is the kind of selfless masochist he is - today, when kneading my calf muscle, he actually said 'I'm going to stop there. The only reason to go on would be to make you go "Ow"!' - how thoughtful is that? 

Of course it could be because I'd just kicked him in the face.

Not running

It's hard to imagine that once upon a time, not so very long ago, the idea of not running would have had no impact on me whatsoever. I didn't know anything about, or like, running, then. Now, when I've literally imagined doing a marathon on the morning of my wedding in specially designed bridal gear (look, women have fantasies about their weddings, OK. It's normal. I mean, admittedly they often already have a partner at that time. And don't combine running with the fantasy.) I can no longer imagine not running. But this year, not for the first time, as I sit on my sofa with a bag of frozen peas, I'm imagining not running (right: the after-use of frozen peas: ham pea and mint soup). It scares me and it makes me very upset. The deepest fear came with the unexplained knee problem. But since that hasn't got worse, and has gone away more or less by itself (unless the glucosamine supplements actually work), this fundamentally most likely problem has eased into the back of my head. 

But now the calf muscle tears have made me feel old and broken, in what is surely ahead of my time. Losing training time in crucial weeks before a race that you are determined not to drop out of is a very disconcerting feeling. And even though I'd already resigned to not getting my sub 4h on this race, I was still hoping to not bag another PW. I had a lot of leeway on my Personal Worst, from the Portland marathon, which I cleared in 4h43 - but as I tell anyone who'll listen, there were mitigating circumstances there: it was really hot. Like, 29 degrees, on the 5 October. Not even the Portlandians believed it; they, like us, are more used to discussing the rain. I have joked since that having a good margin on your personal worst at least means that you'll be able to beat it in future. I'm not so sure about that.

Last week I decided I wouldn't run again until my calf had stopped niggling. I got to the point where I could go up and down stairs, but that swim on Thursday had hurt. Friday still hurt, just now and again really, not a constant pain, but when I pushed the pedals on the bike up a slope, I could feel it. I'd wanted to get in ten miles at least - I thought I might run to Park Run, and back, which would be a half marathon - in a nice gentle lope - but my leg woke me up on Saturday morning. Resting was definitely more sensible. I did some gardening, and didn't feel any exacerbation. On Sunday, I walked around town, and in the evening took my bike round to Summer's. I didn't have any pain. This was good!

On Bank Holiday Monday, in denial about the very very slight niggle, I couldn't hold back. I decided I'd run on grass, and for that reason, took the car out to the rowing lake, to avoid a couple of miles of road; and I ran up the river. I won't lie, the calf muscle started hurting immediately. It obligingly stopped every time I walked, and I thought I'd slow down, and slow down, and slow down, until I could find a pace where it didn't. I didn't find that pace, but the pain wasn't increasing. Really.

And here's where I got stupid. I was just very very happy to be running, you see. I thought, perhaps if I maintained the slow pace, and as long as it didn't hurt any more, I'd push on a bit. I ran up the river, past Ferry Meadows, and up the river, and past the rail line. I ran to a place I'd never got to before. I was on a foot path, and it was lovely, and I was happy. I ran 6 miles. Out. Brilliantly, my phone app worked for the first time - it seemingly needs for the app to be on, ie the phone not asleep, to read out comments from my beloved mates - I'd checked it for some reason, and a stream of messages made me grin, especially Jeanette and Michael arguing whether I should stop and walk or not, and Emma P telling me I was flying like a horse that wanted more polo mints or something! I did some walking, because I wanted to, not admitting that my calf was now in constant pain.

I got back as far as Ferry Meadows, and knew that I was about 3 miles away from the car. Funnily enough, when I planned to go out, I was going to run around and around the rowing lake, precisely because I was worried about my calf, and wanted to be near to my jumper if I injured it. And here I was, in the evening of a cool, damp, last day in August (British summer), lightly covered in sweat, walking. My feet were soaked, because of the grass, and already cold. My fingers were too. And my calf muscle hurt. There was no denying it: a lot.

I thought some more about my injuries, and wondered how I'd get help if I needed it - my phone was dying, and I wasn't that close to a road. I remembered the man in Thornbury driving me to Rebecca's when i got off the bus at the wrong place. I could probably find someone. I remembered fondly how my leg hadn't hurt while walking just a few hours ago. I gave it a reassuring pat, and decided that this race was going to be run. Hadn't I got over a calf injury quite rapidly? Hadn't I just proved that I could happily run (all things being equal) at a slow, ultra-pace, for some distance? What I needed to do was (1) get back to the car without getting hypothermia and (2) maintain a level of fitness without running. In a few days, I'd be able to swim again, and that is clearly good, especially if I focus on the front crawl; and if I can walk without pain, I should probably speed walk. Everywhere. In fact, given the point 1 of the plan, that might be a good idea to start now. I reasoned that having walked earlier without pain, it was likely that walking wasn't going to make the pain a lot worse, even if I could feel it. I picked up my pace, and with music in my ears, I boogied my hips and swung my arms, anything to keep some warmth. I certainly looked ridiculous, but there weren't many spectators around, it was later than I'd intended; and it worked, I got at least some core heat, even if my fingers couldn't really move.

The thing is, I reasoned, I know I can do this. I can do much more than that distance. I can train to 40 miles in less than 5 weeks, and get a respectable Ultra time. OK, I've got about 5 weeks left before this marathon, but if I can get my calf muscle better in the next fortnight, while maintaining core fitness, I can do this marathon. I know I can. And that's what's going to make the difference.

The 40-40-40 Challenge - and the Problem

So this year hasn't been brilliant, in terms of my running progress. There was the aborted Connemara Marathon, which I must try to stick in my head is actually deferred, not aborted. That means I'm going to have to run it next year, and I've seen that hill now. Also, Summer will probably want to make us walk up a mountain 2 days later, in some sort of revenge.

Then obviously the success of the K2B2, which you know, was brilliant, but felt a bit rushed, what with training for it in 5 weeks and everything. So when I entered the Chester Marathon in October (see sponsorship link, that's new that is, top right hand of the blog. Yes that one. You can click it. It works. Mind you, bookmark me, because it doesn't open in a new window) I really thought that I'd get the training programme sorted, and nail this sub 4 hours. I recalled that I'd have a problem with even attempting to do my sub 4 hour training programme for Connemara because when I opened my training plan 12 weeks before the marathon, it said "you should be able to run a 9 minute mile for 2 hours", which as far as I was concerned, meant that I was already ready for the marathon. However, it obviously turned into a moot point for Connemara, but it didn't have to be for Chester.

Let me tell you about Chester: on the wonderful Social Networking site, you can find out about new people, right? It's amazing. And you can stay in touch with old ones who do awkward things like moving away. That was what Kerry did, who was one of my favourite poetry people, he up and left for the Derbyshire Dales. Then out of the blue, he contacted me. I'm a good go-to person if you're looking for someone who likes running, and is well-into hair-brained schemes. Anyway, Kerry told me about a friend of his who likes running. A lot. So much so that he has a website called LucasKeepsRunning, and he does! (Check it out - HERE). Anyway, Lucas wants to run his 40th Marathon on his 40th birthday, with 40 friends. He's calling it 40-40-40, in a sort of Ronseal thing. Well, always a sucker for hairbrained schemes, this one especially appealed to me because I loved my 40th birthday. I mean, I really did. I don't remember ever enjoying a childhood birthday so much, I know they were a long time ago, but there was a lot of stress about them. There was always the birthday rivalries, would your party be thought of as a "good one" in the playground, would your friends come? I don't remember worrying about presents I got that much, but I did worry about going to other people's parties and whether my present would be good enough. But my 40th had none of that. Furthermore, I wasn't expecting presents, and I got hundreds! I felt a lot of love, and it was wonderful. I also made an important new rule, which everyone is invited to follow if they wish, which is basically that for a decadal birthday, you get to celebrate it all year. It makes a lot of sense. Lots of people apologise and feel bad that they didn't make it, so you just have another meal out with them, which is a great excuse.

So I was all in for helping this crazy guy with his challenge, and I also thought I'll get in with the training plenty early. I did a few 10k races, and started really getting my pace up. I didn't fall into that trap of letting my body believe it was an ultra runner, and didn't really have to run fast or anything. Then I did some interval training with moustachioed Chris. I'm not blaming him or anything, but my knee started hurting. I took 2 weeks off, I went back to the barefoot trainers (Chris and I don't see eye to eye on this subject!) I took glucosamine (definitely clutching at straws). The knee eased back into normality but still didn't feel massively right. I just about got over it when I started my 12 week countdown, I think I lost the first week. Almost immediately, my calf muscle on my other leg (right - it's worth making a note of this, actually) gave way, on a short run from the office. Not badly, but bad enough. I took a week off. One that I definitely didn't have at this point. Somewhat to my surprise, it got better really fast. Faster than I thought it should. I didn't push it, just made sure I was running. Speed now wasn't a concern. Then I went up to Edinburgh, having not really done enough training - I ran 9 miles the week before I left, I should have been up to 14 or so on my long runs. It was hard getting the training time, between shows, but I ran around Arthurs Seat, and felt pretty good about it. The star of my show, Jeremy Kyle, joined me, and so did lovely Steph. The next day I swam a mile, which made my legs feel like jelly, but surely all the walking up and down hills during the day was also doing me the power of good. The following day, when I had my biggest gap in my schedule, I had jotted down "hills" optimistically. I should have stuck to doing a proper hill exercise, but I prefer glory to structure, and I instead opted to go for a hilly run. I ran up the bottom of Salisbury Crags, and then I ran into Holyrood Park, and up the top of Salisbury Crags. Then i ran through the middle of the park, and up Arthur's Seat. I hadn't intended to go to the top, and that bit was more "slow motion" running, but I made it up there, which is always lovely. Then I ran back around the the back of Arthurs Seat, and all the way along the bottom, coming up the final hill to pass Pollark Halls and back home. It was a nice, nearly 8 mile run, and I felt exhilarated and happy. In short, I felt exactly like how Oatmeal describes in the Terrible and Wonderful Reasons. This was why I run.

Then, at the end of another long Festival day, I ran down a flight of stairs to get someone. That was when my left calf muscle pinged. Not in a bad way, but just so I noticed. I didn't run in Edinburgh again. I came home and 2 days later (5 days after injury) I went for a 6 mile run. My leg ached. I went swimming the following day, instead, calculating that as the Lido is, after all, a 50 yard pool, and not a 50m pool (like the Royal Commonwealth, which felt considerably longer!), that I had to swim 36 lengths to clear a mile. My leg ached, but not as much as when I ran on it. Every time I was on my bicycle, my leg ached.

I stopped. Each day I stopped made me feel like I was wasting time. And not doing what I wanted to be doing.

I met Lucas for the first time. Jon came up from deepest darkest Bury, and Lucas came down from Hull. He was enthusiastic, and not as crazy as you might think (it's all relative, after all). He told us about people dropping out through injury, and how hard it was going to be to replace them, but not to worry, because he had some ideas. And did I still have that chap's name, Lee, because he might be needed? I didn't tell him that I might need Lee myself. There was no point in worrying him. The other calf muscle fixed really quickly, after all. All I needed was patience. And I'm great at that...

Trotting along

Anyway, I did that Ultra. And again, playing catch-up you lose the moment, but on the plus side, think how much shorter it's going to be :)  (NB I forgot I had half drafted the race, so this can catch up with that, and then finish up...)

Here are the highlights then.

I had a kind of guilty feeling that I wasn't sure Jon really knew what he'd let himself in for, and he forgot some stuff, I think his backpack, so had problems carrying stuff, he was going to run bits, and walk bits. But he knew I was set on running, and he waved me off. And it was wonderful in its familiarity this time, and the farmer where we'd stayed told us that it was the wettest part of Cumbria, and it always rained there, and that it would surely be not raining immediately outside. And, as for last year, so it proved. It didn't rain VERY hard, anyway, but even through the rain, the atmosphere was beautiful. Ghosts of last year's runners popped into my head.

I chatted to a few people, and was talking to a young lad when I overtook some of his team on Dunmail Rise. Again, I failed to see my crew, but this time, I had everything I wanted in my pack. As we descended, I started talking to the fellow that I'd passed at Dunmail Rise, who wanted to know how I knew his teammate. We had a chat, and then passed on. Around Grassmere, I remember talking to an elderly chap who had an odd gait, and I wondered (aloud) if he was in fact a speed walker. He considered this, and then said, "No, I reckon this is the Ultra-shuffle", which I took on with good heart.

Again, the green-mac guy caught up with me, and we engaged in chat, pretty much for the rest of the way. I didn't think we would, but there you have it. It was clearly a strategy he'd adopted before, and while I quite like the coming and going of different people, he certainly could talk (and we know I don't struggle in that department), so we got off to a flying conversation about politics and religion, and other subjects you aren't to mention at dinner parties. But this definitely wasn't a dinner party. I also told him about my running exploits, and various running themes, ideas and chums were mulled over, not least Chris' legendary comment about finding a nice arse, and following it. I got a few compliments at this juncture!

I did lose him for a while, when he went off to see his "crew", I remember after joining the Coniston lot, seeing a girl wearing a rain coat I had bought years ago, it looked very nice on her, so I told her what good taste she had. I also was following a chap wearing my fluorescent yellow cycle jacket, he was less engaging about stealing my coat, but I did feel that my wardrobe had been rifled before coming out. Along the Coniston Lake, realising that I wasn't going to meet Heather, I changed my tops (now safely in my backpack, in a ziplock bag) and once again, the dry clothes did good things to my psyche. As did the chocolate croissant that Jon had purchased for me. It was also around this point that I met Stew on his bicycle, on the lookout for Chan.

Ben caught up with me, and we kept going, although he'd calculated a brilliant time for me on the basis of my first half (I've always been bad at this, but he'd run 7, or 8 times, and was also seemingly good at it. However, I knew the second half would be a slog, and it was. It seemed hillier than I remembered it, and Ben was clear that he didn't want to run up the hills. I could have gone on, of course, but I was pretty tired too, and it seemed ungrateful to abandon him. And so much easier not to. But as we neared Dalton, I realised that it was going to take everything in me to keep going. I recalled exactly every bit of this route, so I wasn't fooled into thinking I was nearly anywhere, when I bloody wasn't. But the mile markers said I was 3 miles away, and on the one hand, that meant I'd run 37, but on the other, at the speed I was going, that was a lot over half an hour. And when you've run for 37 miles, another half an hour seems like an eternity, not "nearly there". I realised that I had no energy to run at someone else's pace. I was going to get into a 12 minute mile plod, and that would get me over the finish line. I didn't explain, but I didn't wait for Ben either, and it was quite a surprise 2 and half miles later to find him just behind me. I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't have made that time without the push of not falling behind, but I didn't voice it. We still had that hill to get up, and I would take any encouragement I could get. He gave it.

I finished in 7h43 minutes, or thereabouts. Chan came in after me, but it turned out that she'd been delayed getting to the start, so her time was 7h 27, which was amazing. She's already talking about taking another half hour off for next year. I kind of think I could get another 20 minutes off my time too... but I think we'll struggle to get another team together next time!  Jon and I stayed in the Queen's Arms in Biggar, which is really the most charismatic place you could stay, and enjoyed our team breakfast in the morning, although disappointingly not many of the team made it. Running Dave has sworn never to do that stupid race again, after spending the last 15 miles with cramp, and Nigel and his misses went off to catch up with other friends in a not very team-like fashion!

Still a bloody incredible thing to do. I don't have pictures this year, as I didn't have a pal (or a camera), but did get a couple of shots from the "experts" where I'm looking surprisingly fresh. They posted the pics on the facebook page, which is absolutely brilliant, and makes quite a change from most race-photos. You do kind of feel like you deserve your picture though!

Here's my favourite picture - clearly need to try harder, as I am at about 28 miles, and don't look like I'm really struggling:

Ultras. It's what I do.

Part of the preceding days were swept up in my logistics nightmare. I appear to live by the philosophy "why do things simply if you can massively confuse yourself and everyone else?", and I definitely did that. For reasons best known to themselves, the rest of my team opted to stay in Barrow, again, while I thought it would be more sensible to stay near Keswick, that being where the race starts and all. That said, last year I had a wonderful support crew in Irish Heather, and this year I had fellow runner and compadre, Jon, who opted to stay with me, because I booked the accommodation and didn't give him a choice. Come on, seriously, there is nothing "Happy" about a bus that leaves at 4 in the morning. That's the way I look at it. Anyway, I had a 2 day meeting in Cumbria on Wednesday and Thursday, which meant that on Thursday evening, I was car-less in Cockermouth. Sounds like the name of a film. You can have that one. Not, however, friendless, and I had a very enjoyable evening with friends, before making my way by bus and train to Barrow. Needless to say, this took approximately the same time as it did for Jon to drive up from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. There was a simple reason why I wanted to go to Barrow. Last year, I spent an uneasy half hour, out of telecommunications, at the start of the race with no tag. That wasn't happening again. However, the next part of the logistics were equally fun: we parked Jon's car (when he arrived) near the finish line, and got Chan, our fearless team-captain, to drive us to our B&B. We'd not gone more than 15 minutes when I realised I'd left my phone in Jon's car. So specially downloading an app that allows your facebook chums' comments to be read out to you, and spending hours choosing a suitably distracting playlist, and ordering a spare battery pack for the phone - that all turned out not to matter too much.

The B&B was on the A591, about 2 miles south of the start line. They were totally awesome people, when I'd emailed to ask if they knew the number of a local taxi company, she simply emailed me back and said that as they were working farmers, they'd be up at 4am anyway, and would happily drive us to the start of the race. HOW LOVELY!

This year on the team, we had me definitely running, Chan probably running, Ginny possibly running, Jon wishing he could run, and Dave, Nigel and Suzanne definitely not running. Dave and I were hoping to beat our times, and Chan was pretty confident of beating hers: she had stuck with her walking friends last year, and came in close on 15 hours. I set off on the 5:30 start, determined not to start behind a pack of several hundred walkers this year. I realised quite early on that it was a dangerous strategy: the fact was, those runners were going to easily outstrip me, and then I'd have no one to talk to. Now I also had no music, this seemed more of a threat.

The night before, the rain poured down. Jon and I tried to reassure ourselves that it would probably have rained out by morning, but I was fresh from a meeting where someone had made the comment "Sometimes when it starts to rain in Cumbria, it forgets to stop" and neither of us were optimistic. I also convinced myself that I'd left the lost phone in the pub, and despite there being nothing I could do about it, it was hard to focus on sleeping. 4am came around faster than was reasonable. It wasn't pouring with rain, but it was definitely raining. The traffic was miraculously non-existent, despite my qualms, and although the farmer dropped us off on the wrong side of the road, we escaped being shouted at by the marshals. I wished Jon best of luck, and went to take my place among the runners.

I think having the route in my head, and knowing what to expect, was both a blessing and a curse. In the run-up, it seemed awful to be doing it again, but now, as I saw and remembered, I knew what to expect, and I could plan out in my head how I'd be doing at different points. Again, with no phone, I had no camera, but I was struck once again by the ravaging, rugged beauty of my surroundings.

It was raining, but it didn't matter: I had my cagool on, and I had a peaked hat to keep the water from my eyes. Optimistically, I had my sunnies on top of the
hat. Well, there's no point in not being ready, is there! The running felt comfortable, and I quickly fell in with a young lad called Will who was in the Atkins team. I wittered away to him, and he didn't seem to mind too much. I told him about the flooded roads, and running through ankle height water, as I was pah-ing at the small amount of water we had to traipse through. I can't imagine it made much of an impact, not unless you'd run through it. Duncan Cooke, one of the photographers on the course, took some great pictures of the water from last year, I attach a modest example but if you want to see more (and they are quite funny), check out his flickr stream here. We had no such entertainment, and had to make do with a modest toe-wetting at most.

Will looked as though he didn't know how to let me down, so I released him and his youthful energy bounded off. However, on Dunmail Rise, I found him walking up the hill, chatting away to his team mate. "Come on, lad!" I muttered softly as I passed him. He apologised to the guy he was talking to and said "I'll never hear the end!" and caught me up. Made me giggle, I thought, I don't know him that well. His team-mate called "Is that Lizzie with you?" and I shouted back "No, I'm just a stranger!" I was glad to pass the support crew (a) before most of them had arrived, and (b) before they blimmin'-well started frying bacon, which is what they were doing last year. Let me tell you, Dunmail Rise happens at about 8 miles, so you've left at silly o'clock in the morning on a pitiful breakfast (well, it's pitiful if you share my view of porridge), you run for an hour, and then have to pass people cooking bacon. It's not right, and there should be rules about it! (Maybe there are - maybe that's why they weren't - but I think I was quite a bit later last year).

I was still feeling confident as I approached Grassmere, even though I knew about the Hill, and started trying to pass a guy in front of me, who had an annoyingly heavy tread, and had sped past me earlier but now seemed to be going much slower, even though he had embraced the run-walk method, he still seemed to be slowing up dangerously early on the course (to my, now obviously expert, eye). Despite my concerns about him, I was having difficulties passing him, because although he was walking at more frequent intervals, every time I neared him, he started running again. (He was plugged into some music, and I don't suppose he realised his impact on me). It was starting to irritate me, when an old guy leveled with me. One look at him told me I was dealing with a K2B pro here, notwithstanding his extremely uneven gait. I asked if he was speed-walking, because frankly, I couldn't really tell. He said, no, he had "an ulra-shuffle". Brilliant. He basically said he didn't pick his feet up at all. The unevenness was down to a pulled ligament, he didn't say whether that was a result of years of Ultras - I guess I was left to draw my own conclusions! I passed him at Grassmere, but I had no doubt which of us would be passing the finish-line first.

As I approached the Hill, I saw young Will again, and his team-mate, who I'd apparently passed on Dunmail Rise - "Hello Stranger" he said. I fell in talking with him, and I liked his style. No messing about on the Hill, he was walking it. "Everyone makes such a fuss of this one" he told me, "but it's not long. There's no point in running it - you can't go fast, and you burn too much energy". I, of course, knew this from my endless research last year, of course, (largely interviewing squaddies - look, someone's got to do it), but I didn't let on. He was enjoying imparting information, and I was enjoying not talking going up a hill, so everyone was a winner. We started running again as the steepness broke, but it was too much for my Peterborough physique (it was not entirely pointlessly that Chan had entitled our team "Flatlands #2") and I was panting and gasping like a fish out of water. "I don't think I can do this," I told my new-found sparring-partner. His response was instant. "Well, you know you can - you've already done it. But if you don't think you can run up this hill - that's simple. Don't. Make a decision, and do it." He seemed reasonably relaxed about his own pace, and walked for a bit longer with me. It made a lot of sense. Making a decision about it meant that I hadn't just failed to run up a hill - I'd simply decided to walk a bit further. It was altogether more positive.

I ascertained that Ben had done K2B 7 times previously, and although he'd done various different times, he'd vowed never to repeat his first experience. It emerged that he'd overdone it early on, and seized up towards the end - but not nearly near enough - he'd had 15 bitter miles of limping pain. "There may have been tears" he told me. (He didn't say whose). I was impressed he'd gone back for more, but here I was. He'd enjoyed it since then, but although he'd beaten his own time, he'd never pushed himself so hard again, and he had no desire to do so.

We talked a bit about our running experience, and he asked me if I was a road-girl or preferred off-road. "Oh no, I'm a road girl" I told him. "Me too" he said, then, laughing at himself, "definitely a road girl, me". He asked if I had deliberately chosen matching gear, which kind of made me laugh, because nothing I own matches, but I was sporting some 3/4 length shorts, a recent acquisition, that have a pink edge on them (I got them because of the pockets!). Now, if you were a girl, you'd have noticed that the pink edge on my running skirt was a totally different shade of pink, and the edge on my baseball cap was in fact, red, but obviously boys don't do shades of colour. I explained about the skirt being as a direct result of paranoia of wearing lycra around my colleagues in the office, and frankly preferring to keep my ass to myself. Although I also mentioned that my dad's take on this, and really, as a psychiatrist, you'd have thought he'd know better than to feed paranoia, was to comment "I think the pink border frames your bum rather nicely". In hindsight, I was inviting comment, although it hadn't been deliberate. "He's got a point" Ben said, then hastily "Not that I was looking".

We started up another hill, which I remembered, although again we walked up it, where I remember running. At about this point, we got onto politics. I was kind of nervous, because like most of us, I'm on safe ground among my own friends, and my left-wing views don't turn any heads, and I just didn't want to start defending my views while running 40 miles. I had, by this stage, divined an ex-army presence, and he clearly worked for a big corporation, so it could go any way really. Somewhat to my surprise, however, he hadn't voted Tory, although his Tory incumbent had retained his seat. He did respect his MP, and thought he did a good job, so he was pretty appalled when he heard of some of the antics of mine. He gave an in-depth analysis of all the reasons why one might vote Tory, followed by all his own for not having done so, during which I gathered he may be slightly more right-wing than me but not enough to matter. All-in-all, it was like tuning into the Politics Show, as I remarked to a marshal we passed. "It's brilliant!" I told him, "just like radio 4!". It took us nearly all the way to the 18 miles checkpoint. Just time to check out his homophobia ratings, I thought, and told him about the incident where my MP had ridiculously replied, rudely, to one of his constituents' letters about equal rights marriages. Again, he passed (my companion, not my MP) with flying colours, being completely appalled that someone in public office could be (a) so offensive and (b) so stupid.

Gang-ing agley

Ah, I should have kept this up. I'll give it another shot. I feel like I've let you all down, you've been and missed some of my key races. But some people said nice things about my write-ups and I thought I should put fingertip to keypad once again.

So, as if it weren't bad enough last time, I signed up for Keswick to Barrow again! Why? WHY?!! I couldn't work out en route last time why so many people had apparently voluntarily done it again, but the very next day, I looked at my splits on the old iphone, and I thought "I can do better than that". This was about something that a number of people told me I would probably die, and I couldn't disagree with them. This was something I mapped out, planned, and stuck to the plan, and a number of other people were incredulous (rightly so, in fact: I have no idea how I managed to stick to the race plan). But, and here's the nub: I felt superhuman for months after. Literally, there was no task you could throw at me that I didn't think was going to be a walk in the park compared to MY achievements. If I'm honest - I wanted that back.

While we tried to build our team up, I sent my blog to a couple of people so they could see what to expect. One of them dropped out immediately. (The other one later confessed that he hadn't read it.) I also read it myself. Frankly, it terrified me, but I tried not to think about it. My plan for training was that I'd signed up for a marathon a month earlier. All being well, I would have trained hard for that and bagged a pb on it - I'm seriously trying for a sub 4 hour, I've got to reverse last year's Year of the Personal Worst. I mean, personal worsts are not entirely bad, they give you something to beat, but actually, every race I ran was a PW last year. I also found out that now I'm officially old, I need a 3h50 to qualify for an automatic place in the London Marathon. I thought that was stepping it up a bit from my PB of 4h13, so I'd go for an intermediate step of sub 4h first. Anyway, back to the plan - I'd have done a good marathon, be in fully trained up condition, and I'd have a month to get in one or two long runs. I'd have run this marathon in 9m/m or thereabouts, so really, I'd be in full fighting form for this Ultra.

The world did not go according to plan, however. In January, I bought a new pair of shoes, in readiness for the new training schedule, and also joined the Nene Valley Harriers. This is a very fast running club in Peterborough. Sally said she didn't know who I was any more. I signed up for her 4 hour marathon training pack. Unfortunately, right off the bat, I realised I was stuffed, because I was supposed to already be able to run at 9 m/m, which I was a long way from. I still blame last year's personal worsts on the K2B, which mentally slowed me into a torpor. But anyway, there it is. I started running short, fast runs, and my knees started really hurting. Both of them. Moustachioed Chris gave me some advice, which I didn't take immediately: change the shoes. But after a couple of weeks, when people in the office were commenting on my hobbling gait, I cracked under the strain, and took the shoes back. The shop said they could look at replacing them, but they'd have to be sure it was the shoes that were the problem, after all, every runner gets knee problems from time to time. I booked into their physio, who spent an hour examining the bendiness of my knees, and finally professed that he couldn't find anything wrong with my knees, and my legs were, and I quote, "perfect". Needless to say, this made me extremely happy, and I told everyone, multiple times, including people I didn't know and had never met before, that I had perfect legs, in the professional opinion of a physiotherapist. One of my friends accused me of placing too much faith in this professional opinion, just because of this statement, but I don't think that's fair. Can there be "too much faith" in such a statement?

Well, the long and the short of it was that the shoe company replaced my trainers, back to the Brooks that I'd worn out, and I started running again. It was a slow process, and I followed advice that I read from a guy that Sally seemed to rate (in a passing comment she made once) called Matt Fitzgerald, who said if you had runner's knee, a good way to deal with it was to run slowly right up to the point that it hurt, and then stop immediately. Each time you run, you should be able to build on this. I got from 0.8 mile to 2.5 miles in this fashion, it took a while. I realised that I wasn't going to run the marathon I was booked into in a personal best. I wasn't going to run it at all, at least not injury-free. I deferred.

This meant that a week before the Connemara marathon took place, I realised I had 5 weeks to get up to 40 miles, from pretty much a 2 mile start. It  wasn't the position I wanted to be in. The best laid plans of Mice and Men aft gang agley, so I've heard, but I wasn't ganging anywhere. I stepped up to 6 miles, then a week later ran about 16 (at this juncture, my runkeeper went slightly bananas, so all distances were estimates), and got hugely bad groin strain (clearly from increasing my distance too quickly). Once again, terrified that a la Sally, I would stress-fracture my pelvis, which I really didn't want to happen. Notwithstanding the fear, I stepped up to 23 miles the following week. This time, it involved quite a bit of walking, but as I said at the time, I felt pretty strongly that stopping and starting had to be an integral part of my training. Furthermore, the longer I was on my feet was advantageous in training terms, for spending time on my feet on the course. Conversely, the faster I did it was also good training for speed, so I literally could not lose (unless I injured myself). The following week, I had a huge dilemma. Technically, a runner tapers for a fortnight, but I did feel quite strongly that you have to taper FROM something, and I was on poor ground there. I hadn't done enough training to taper. Also, I had gotten groin strain, but a bit less, from the 23 miles, and I thought I might be able to nail it on one more training run. Against advice, I did it. I ran 20 miles the weekend before K2B and I didn't stop and walk (hardly), and I didn't get groin strain, and furthermore, even more impressively, I didn't even feel the need to collapse on the sofa and not move for the next 5 hours (which is a not infrequent event post-running). I was READY!

Or not. I mean,  I'd failed to order any more gels, my phone was on its last legs in battery terms, I'd lost the lead to the battery pack/mobile charger, I hadn't planned my logistics, I wasn't sure about music or not, I didn't have comfortable headphones, and furthermore, I was terrified. I remembered pain, predominantly. I saw running Dave in the office, and he was in pretty much the same state - somewhere between denial and terror. Why? I mean, really, why?