Halloween

Following on from the marathon, I took a break; it's the way. But, motivated by Chester Ironman, and encouraged and advised by Baron (because cycles were involved) I did decide to buy a road bike. After searching the whole of the internet, I found that the very best deals to be had were right here in Peterborough, and successfully bought a Giant Liv Avail 5 (M) ladies bike. It has drop handlebars, which I don't like, and is incredibly light, which initially made me feel terrified, but now I already feel zippy.

The obvious means of collecting the bike, down by Ferry Meadows, was of course, by running there, so as a kick-start back into training, 5 miles seemed like the perfect (re-)start. It was a fab run out, and a lovely ride back.

Of course, the downside is that I don't want Deadly Peddly feeling left out or anything - and I haven't got a name for the new beast yet. Although The Beast is kind of working, but I call Frank that sometimes, instead of Pudding. 

I can't exactly say yet whether or not having the beast will help me get some distance under my belt, but I definitely think I need to find this out before committing to... anything... serious. 

I can say nothing more about the rest of the day, than, well, I love Halloween!

Possibly, too much.

40-40-40

Well I do apologise for leaving you hanging. There's an old adage, however, that says that the longer I leave it before writing a blog, the more concise it will be. This is clearly rubbish, but I daresay there might be an element of vagary creeping in.

The whole event was about this man, who wanted to run his 40th Marathon with 40 people at the age of 40. Lucas. He has, as mentioned, a whole website dedicated to his passion, entitled Lucas Keeps Running, and it certainly seems like he does. He's also, helpfully, just completed a masters degree in the entertainment industry, so was immediately able to put this to good use by organising a quite phenomenal event. He put on a lovely welcome for his 40 runners and their assorted friends and helpers, in a village hall outside of Chester, making us feel welcome, and assaulting us with information about the first 40 marathons, as well as his personal life, on which we were invited to join in quizzes through the evening, including one on all of us! My question concerned which of his 40 runners had directed an Edinburgh Festival show! (Always nice to make an impression!). There was an incredible amount of pasta, tempered with healthier things like salads, and less healthy things like cheesecake, and there was birthday cake and speeches. It was a lovely opening, promising well, and we were able to meet some of our fellow runners.

I had already met one such on the train, via the magic of Facebook, I learned that a fellow passenger was aboard the same train as me, and met Russel, along with the cake, made by his wife, which was in very careful transit, and I was allowed a sneak-peak, but not a slice. I argued we could patch it up, and no one would be any the wiser, but it was dangerous to tease someone who has created a masterpiece, as I know very well myself.

I feel it's worth revisiting how I came to be involved with the whole made trip, because essentially it was via my friend Kerry (on the left), who I know primarily as the methodist minister who once wrote
a brilliant poem involving the way my MP  blocks people on twitter who disagree with him (I know I don't usually name people on here, but that's Stewart Jackson MP). This was the first time I'd been made aware of this, although subsequently I found out that my MP had also blocked a social worker and several others, as well as making a formal complaint because a junior doctor emailed him from her workplace, which he regarded as a waste of public money. Not his swimming pool in his second home, that was a good use of public money. But I digress.

Anyway, Kerry, great bloke, seemed to have noticed that I've run one or two long distances, so when Lucas was searching for runners, he got in touch. Having joined the team, I also found out that a colleague, who I didn't know at the time, was involved in the running. This was a lot of fun, and just goes to show how good running can be for expanding your social horizons.

On the morning of the run, we made our way down to the Chester Race Course, where Lucas's 40-40-40 tent and team were collecting, in our yellow-green t-shirts. Some of us (myself included) were sporting our green 40-40-40 transfers, and I also had my Cancer Research transfer on my cheek. We were all set for the start line, and 26.2 miles of Cheshire and Welsh countryside (yes, we crossed the border!)

The run itself I didn't especially have a plan for. Obviously, I had my two "PB"s in mind, but owing to the 3.5 weeks training, I was thinking that 5 hours was optimistic. But I just decided to run how I felt, and try not to die in the second half. It seemed like a good enough plan, immediately backed by Michael who said right from the off "Just remember, that it is, quite literally, a marathon not a sprint. Stick to your plan. Even if your plan is just to put one foot in front of the other". This was, quite literally, one of the most perfect runmeter comments, making me laugh because I quite literally have a thing about people over-using the phrase "literally", and of course, Michael used it perfectly correctly, which made me smile. And I didn't have a plan, and Michael encapsulated my plan perfectly for me. Runmeter really came into its own on this race. I kind of prepped people, and told them ahead of time that comments would be welcomed, and they didn't let me down. Perversely, the Baron insisted on telling me my pace and distance, which although irritating, because it was the one thing I knew, did motivate me quite successfully. The reason was that I was running far too fast, and I knew it - I couldn't maintain a 9 minute mile. Or could I? I decided to find out. According to the Baron, who I was resenting for spending the morning in a cafe, idly watching my runmeter miles tick up, it was predicting a 4:01 marathon. This was patently absurd, and I knew it. But... I thought, I might as well see how long it lasts, because at worst (well, probably not quite "worst") I can always drop down to what I call "ultra pace", which is something faster than crawling.

At around 7 miles, my right IT band did something amazing: it tightened so hard that I swear you could have played the banjo on it. I mentally had George Formby in my ear singing "when I'm cleanin' windows". I couldn't help but feel this was a bad stage in the race to be feeling on the edge of injury, and that was why I was so pleased to have the distraction of a woman crossing the road in front of me, as we passed through a rural, picaresque village at something approaching 10am, wearing a pair of thigh length leather stilleto boots, a quite amazing pair of tights that went up to - well, shall we say a "minimalist" skirt. The tights looked as if she simply had wound two thick ribbons up her legs, and somehow they were staying up.  I did a double-take, she was trotting to get out of the way of the runners, and I sort of gasped "is she real?". I didn't really realise I'd spoken out loud, but glad I had, because the runner (male) next to me said "Thank god you said that, I thought I might have been hallucinating", and we shared a moment of enjoying the bizarre, and have both being brave enough to acknowledge it.

I further distracted myself by chatting to other runners, who were interested in the 40-40-40 tattoo, and we swapped experiences about our runs. In the meantime, Ashley was quoting Dr Seuss at me, "You're off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting - so get on your way!". The runmeter voice was surprisingly good at Dr Seuss actually. It tries very hard to put meaning into the phrases it reads out, and Dr Seuss is probably the right sort of level for it. At the time, I thought how inspirational it was of Ashley to pick "Oh the Places you'll Go" to quote from, although in hindsight, I realise it was an omen of the hill at the end of the marathon.

Some of the team 40-40-40 had ventured pretty far out to come and support us, and were anxiously looking out for the team tees trotting past, and giving great cheers when they saw us. I was chatting away to some feller when I passed them, and they made a lot of noise, cheering and clapping, waving the banner and shouting "40-40-40" until they could read my name, then cheering me on. It makes a huge difference, and I said "That's all for me, that is" to the chap, and explained about 40-40-40, magnanimously adding "but you can have some"! And I bet it helped all the people around me!

It was a little after that that I saw a couple of really tall blokes that I'd been following for a while. One was wearing a tshirt that said Pie on it, which was making me think of Ian S (who likes pies) and the other had an ironman tshirt on. I can't help it, I have a huge amount of respect, by which I mean I massively fancy, anyone who has done an ironman. So I shouted "IRONMAN" at him as I levelled with him. He looked down at me and said "You could do an ironman". "No I couldn't" I told him, obstinately, but rather pleased. "Yes you could. Everyone told me I was awful at athletics all the way through school, but I've done it, and so can you". "I can't cycle". I told him. "I can run, and I can swim, but I've never done long distance cycling".  "So, train" he told me. "You can do it". I laughed and ran on a bit, but it was bothering me. Could I?

The Ians were back online, with Ian C (my facebook sister) telling me that I'd done the first half in under 2 hours, which was worth a tenner right there, and Ian S making me snigger by saying "Run away from the Welshies" - and sure enough, the road markings had Araf, which was sure to happen sooner or later, but I thought I'd do my best to ignore for now. The marathon course looped at the halfway point, and I saw Lucas who must have been ahead of me by a few miles, in the short stretch of road where I ran towards the halfway and he had beaten it. He still (amazingly) had a 40-40-40 balloon strapped to his wrist. I saw a barefoot runner, and had a chat to him about barefoot shoes, which I still love, and then the ironman came past. "Gonna do it then? Ironman?" he called. "YES" I shouted. "Good for you!" Was I? I'm not saying it was binding, but I do feel this was a tipping point in the debate, because up till now, I've rubbished anyone - strike that, everyone - who has implied it might be on the cards.

One of my favourite moments was Summer's contributions to runmeter, which included mentioning who it was (runmeter tells me, although it struggled with her surname) and then "Also ... how does run meter pronounce this ... flibbadydibbadydoowackywoowoo?" - I can report, it gave it a jolly good go. Not long after this, the Baron complimented me on my steady pace, and reported that my estimated time was 4hours 10. Needless to say, I took great exception to this. I was NOT going at a steady pace, I was slowing down drastically. Moving suddenly from an estimated 4 hours over the first half to 4 hours 10 over the next few miles indicates that you have slowed down A LOT. In fact, I already knew this. It was only the saving grace of Michael telling me about moth-bat evolution (in point of fact, reminding me... he started off with "did you know...?" to which the answer was "yes I did, but I always found it spectacularly fascinating" that stopped me giving up altogether. 

Unfortunately at around this time, I had to put the battery booster on my phone, and it somehow managed to interfere with Runmeter, and I didn't hear any more brilliant comments. It was a crying shame because I needed them more than ever, and they were (I later learned) coming in, thick and fast. Meanwhile, the course, at around 22 miles, was mainly looking up, but I don't mean that in a good way. It seemed to be uphill. Kerry had warned me that he'd driven the last part of the course, and "there was a hill", but it seemed unlikely that he'd have come this far out of Chester, so I was worried. I took solace in picking off slow runners, and passing them, which always makes me think of Nigel, as he primed me with this strategy, oh so long ago. 

By the time I reached Chester, I was, I think, starting to get pretty deranged. There was a MASSIVE hill in Chester, and without a doubt was the one Kerry was, in fact, referring to. I was shouting at passers-by "WHO PUT THIS HILL HERE?" and openly hating people who had medals around their necks, lucky bastards. The last mile seems so long, and as we wound through back streets of Chester and I fervently hoped I wouldn't have to lap the racecourse again, I desperately hoped the finish would be soon. I somehow got some speed up (look, it's all relative) for the last stretch. My gun time was 4:19 which means it was my second best, and I was very happy with that. No training, it's the new rule.

And it was all worthwhile, because Lucas and his team survived.  And look at that smile - it's what it's all about.

Only one last thing to tell - as we retraced our steps from the lovely lunch reception that Lucas had organised, Baron and I watched the last people cross the finish line. It turned out that one of our 40-40-40 members had had a hard, but ultimately successful marathon, as she came in very last, just at 6 hours, undefeated. I skipped down the stairs of the racecourse (with an agility that surprised me, frankly) because I thought it was important that she had someone to welcome her over the finish line - it seemed to be appreciated!

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.

Bloody-mindedness gets you nowhere.

The next day, it goes without saying really, that my back wasn't really feeling better. If I'm honest, it was feeling worse. But the crevasse didn't open, it was just hot and achy. I didn't bother telling anyone why that might have been, the expression "you've only got yourself to blame" was high up in my relevant catchphrases. I had a meeting in London, and biked to the station for a 7:50 train, only to find that I'd left my bike lock at home. As close followers on Facebook will know, I don't tend to leave a lot of wiggle-room on train journeys, so having spent a whole 5 seconds debating the likelihood of my bike still being there if I left it with no lock, I watched the train pull out, turned around, and went back home to fetch my lock. I thought the cycling might be good for me, so I came back to the station, and caught the next train, and even did a little running to my meeting, which I was now late for. I really noticed the stairs in the underground on the way back that evening.

On Tuesday, I thought, swimming is the answer, and I don't care what the question is... I decided I could damn well get back on this beast, and get that mile in that I'd been going for last Thursday, and because of this, I reckoned to go after work, so that I wasn't pushed for time. I was disgusted to note that, once again, the lane-swimmers were all going painfully slowly. I've noticed that they have a way of leaving once I get in the water though, so I didn't over-think my strategy. Sometimes I count backwards from my target, so as to help me not lose count, but I wasn't sure where the target would be tonight. I had just over an hour, as I got into the pool a little after 6:40, and the session finished at 7:45.

I was interested to notice that the slowest swimmer in our lane was actually walking up and down, which seemed very peculiar. I was trying to figure out whether she thought that anyone else actually believed she was swimming. She was pretty good at getting out of the way, though, I'll give her that. Every time she saw me coming, she simply traversed across, switched direction and carried on. It seemed odd, but she didn't annoy me unduly, and I was content to monitor her progress as I swept passed. I did, however, lose my temper with a girl who initially hung all her weight on the lane divider (which actually just makes me worried that it'll rip out of the wall). I glared at the lifeguard to see if he was going to intervene, but he appeared to be in a coma. I went passed again, and she was still doing it, but now leaning well into our lane. I made sure my crawl legs were extra-splashy. Then she decided to join our lane, swimming. She was wearing a quite lurid purple costume, and seemed to have a lot of angry black curls. She was swimming behind one of the slow blokes, who was artfully dodging me by allowing me to pass him at lane ends, the way civilised people do. She was not civil, or civilised. She overtook him, three times, as I was approaching him, head on to me. I didn't stop. The first two times, I brushed past her. The third time, the lifeguard woke up and kicked her out. I felt like an unstoppable force of nature.

I was going well and seemed to be making good pace, the back wasn't really hurting, and I felt strong. I guess that's when it went wrong really: I thought I could maybe either do two kilometres, 80 lengths, or possibly just keep going till time. I was on about 50 when a woman joined our lane. I'd got the 3 blokes quite well trained at keeping behind me, one guy was about the same speed, I could leave him behind on my front crawl lengths and he'd catch up on my breast stroke lengths. The others were straggling. Then this woman came in, and I swear that in the second I clocked her as I came up for breath on a crawl stroke, I thought "she'd better be fast!" - (like, fast enough to swim in MY lane) some sort of swimming prima donna had overtaken my body! Anyway, as it turned out, she WAS a very strong swimmer, but exceptionally annoying. She kept stopping at the lane end, and then literally starting again as I was a metre away from the end, so she always started right in front of me. It was very peculiar behaviour, and fired up something in me. I was not going to stop. I kept coming, and kept coming, thinking all the while "I'm getting pretty tired now, and my back is hot, again... but I'm not slowing down.". At one point I got such bad cramp in my toe that it curled and I couldn't move it, but I didn't want to lose any distance, so I kept going. Both my calves were shrieking at me, the one part of my body I absolutely couldn't afford to injure. I was at 74 when she stopped at the shallow end and said "Do you want to go ahead of me?" I didn't pause, but I gave her a grin. Mwah ha-ha-hah. Victory was mine. I stopped at 80, and swam over to the steps. For one thing, I deserved them. For another thing, it was the only reliable way of getting out.

The calf muscle thing would probably clear up.

With my eyes closed...

Friday came with a surprise: I wasn't in nearly as much pain as I supposed. I had taken painkillers before bed on Thursday, but nonetheless expected waking up to bring the same awful certainty that quite possibly paralysis was the next step, unless I watched very very carefully. I had been so certain of this that I'd arranged to work at home, even though that meant tying my computer onto Deadly with a bungee cord (because I couldn't carry it on my back). The sacrifices I'm willing to take.

Still, working at home is always relaxing, and it gave me opportunity to walk around a lot and to undertake pelvic tilts, which were now possible. I decided that swimming had certainly been the cure, because it's the only think I definitely did differently from other times I've had back problems. I decided to go again on Friday, and this time I did 30 reasonably pain free lengths, and I made myself stop for fear of overdoing it, rather than having the stopping forced on me, like Thursday. I felt pretty strong, and took some pain killers to celebrate. I rested over the weekend, although found opportunity to practice the pelvic tilts (which are important). I might have even got my spine up to a bridge at one point. I did some mental calculations though and realised that doing a long run, foolish as it sounds, was going to be psychologically important now. I tried to figure out where "stupid" lay in the calculation of how long this long run should be. I'd done two 4.5 mile runs. I thought 12 might be workable.

I set off on the route up the river that finished my calves off last time, because I'd been so excited by it, and wanted to see a bit further. That time would have been 12 miles, if I had been able to finish it all without walking the last 4 miles. I was pretty late starting tonight, but for some reason I decided it wouldn't matter because the route home would be lit up. Frankly, I don't know where I get these ideas from. Anyway, the plan was to park at the Boat House, and run up the river, past Ferry Meadows, and up the Nene River path. It's really nice, and it was also a cracking good evening. I saw this little guy who coolly stayed where he was, unlike most of my feathered models.

There's a nice little bridge across the river which is steep enough that they put slats on to stop you slipping backwards, and an old mill building.  A little beyond that, where there's a bit of road, and then back onto the fields, are some rather gorgeous horses in a field who seem to be curious about the passers by, and then a style, where I took opportunity for refreshment, as the height enabled me to reach the perfect blackberries at the top of the hedge. Ashley posted a comment from "Oh the Places you'll Go", another favourite Dr Seuss story, "You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you choose", which made me grin again, it was so appropriate! Thank you Ashley. This was followed up by a pithy "Go Go Power Rangers" from Emma P, in response to cycling-Chris' earlier "Go Go Goldberg" comment.

I dropped down to the river again, and wondered how wet this stretch gets in a month or two's time - often the river overtops its banks (as doubtless you'll recall from older posts - it certainly doesn't break the banks, anyway) and one year the Hereward Relay race was cancelled because half the course was closer to swimming. Who doesn't like a bit of wading in November, anyway? However, today all was calm, and the evening was beautiful. Although coming on rather fast. I checked my time. It was 7:40pm, and I'd run close to 7 miles. I reasoned again at this point that I'd take a faster route back, through Ferry Meadows park, which surely had those lit-up cats-eyes in the pathways, didn't it? I'd be fine. I just really wanted to know what happened next on this path. I got as far as this weir, which happened at 7 miles, and decided it was time to go back. It was already gloomy (although the photo was pointing west, so it seems bright enough).

I turned back, and took a straighter path, avoiding the meanders of the river, past some cows which I didn't see on the way, and the horses, back past the road with the apple trees, and the old mill. It was getting quite dark when Anthony called me to check I was home, because it was, after all, dark now. I promised him that I was half a mile away from the lit up area, and then I'd be fine. "You are OK, though, Em?" "Yes, I could do this route with my eyes closed" I told him. I came off the phone, and realised that the brightly lit screen had buggered my night vision. Let's see about that then, I thought. I now couldn't tell what the vegetation was at the sides of the path, and got nettled a few times. I could see undulations, but not really what was underfoot. I could see the river, and the trees overhead, but the pathway was closing over in gloom. I thought about Suzanne Vega's Night Vision song, when the darkness takes you with her hand across your face - don't give in too easily, find the things she's erased. I was almost at the bridge where the railtrack crosses, and the pathway was lighter, but quite steep and stony, and as I got to the top of it, I lost my footing and fell. "Yes I'm fine" I thought, rubbing my smarting knee "because that's exactly what I needed". I basically didn't have time to be injured, just as I didn't have time to have a sore back. Yes, it was hurting a bit, now you come to mention it, after 10 miles. Probably under normal circs I would have slowed down. Not tonight.

I bombed across the railway, and now the path was clearly visible because nothing else was, and it was tarmac. The trees were still overshadowing my route. Not long till I got to Ferry Meadows. I reached my usual route, which I was pretty sure I could do with my eyes shut, and just as well, because whatever part of my mind had installed the blue lights along the pathway, it certainly wasn't the Council. It remained black. I ran a bit faster. I got to the new boathouse on the lake, and it was lit up like a beacon, throwing light over the road and carpark. I made a mental note of the new cycle hire place. Again, running past lights meant running out into the black. I saw some people walking with torch light and decided to not feel intimidated. Is there anything more terrifying than seeing a runner in pitch black, going at full pelt with no light at all because she's so hard? I don't think so. Pah. The evening light started doing weird things at this point, including getting lighter. However, I am attributing this to the additional light being thrown upwards from the lakes I was passing. It's the only thing that made sense. I was concerned about the final strip of pathway between the lake and the edge of the rail line, which cuts along the river edge again briefly. I knew there weren't any lights on this bit because it's a stoned track, not tarmac - and I was back among the trees. But it's a wide, sandy path, and was easily visible. People probably make too much fuss about darkness, I thought. It's quite easy to see really. After I crossed the rail line, and was along the tarmac path, which I was SURE had cats eyes - it was really quite dark. This was in fact a point that I had previously practiced running with my eyes closed while holding Summer, and it was quite scary- I kept veering away from her and she had to call me back. I definitely couldn't run this with my eyes closed. The last vestiges of light were making it possible to see where I was, and I kept picking my feet up so I didn't trip on rucks in the tarmac where roots had pushed it up. Finally I got to the weir at Orton Mere. HERE were the blue cats eyes. I crossed back over the railway line, and followed bright blue cats eyes all the way back to the car, the final stretch looking just like a run way. Not that I was in any danger of take-off.

My runmeter recorded 13.85 miles. It seemed like a reasonable stab at a long run.

Over half way.

When life gives you lemons...

So, having made a flying re-start into my desperately late and hugely condensed marathon training programme, I planned to do some swimming which I thought would be a good strengthy thing that I'm also good at and enjoy. Another 64 lengths (which is a mile) should kick-start this training. I took my swimming stuff into work on Deadly, as per (I can't recall if I've introduced Deadly - she's my bicycle. Deadly Peddly, or just Deadly for short, named by my Australian colleague, Big Jim).

I sat around (as you do in an office) for half the morning, and then, needing to check something, I got up. It was a mistake. It's one I usually make first thing in the morning, where getting out of bed has seemed overly-risky ever since I was hospitalised for it; I hadn't seen the risk in simply getting out of my chair. I knew straight away something was wrong with my spine, but pushed it away. I went to the filing cabinet, and almost couldn't pull a lever-arch file (I know - NO ONE has them any more!) off the shelf without yelping. I pulled it off anyway, because I was in denial, but my eyes were almost watering. I hobbled back to my desk. I decided that the obvious thing to do was some roll-downs to see how much pain I was in. I got about half way down, and realised I was quite comfortable there. Also, that I couldn't get back up. I clearly needed to lie on the floor and do pelvic tilts. I somehow got down onto the floor, an unusually difficult maneuver, but was more or less unable to do pelvic tilts when I arrived there. Several colleagues stopped to ask if I was OK. I realised the futility of it, and got back up and wedged myself into my chair. It was Thursday, which meant that I had so far achieved 9 miles of running and a bad back, and had 2 weeks and 3 days to go.

I took a deep breath. What needed to happen was for me not to have a bad back. I didn't even bother with NHS direct. My parents have had bad backs for my whole entire life, and I've had a couple of problems over the years myself. I knew the exercises, and I knew how long they take to get better. About 3 weeks. The last time it happened to me, I'd bent sideways to reach under my bicycled in order to carry it down a flight of stairs, when I realised I couldn't stand up again. This was the same. I knew, with unflinching certainty (flinching was out of the question), that although I was not in crippling pain, I could be, at any moment, if I did the wrong thing. It was like tightrope-walking above a crevasse of pure pain.

I did what I believe is the obvious thing: I went swimming. Swimming is well-known for being brilliant at backs. Only, I couldn't really walk, so I cycled there. Look, it was fine, it just made me cry when I went over bumps, but otherwise it was absolutely fine. I somehow managed to get clothes off and costume on, can't really remember that bit. I was mentally scaling down how many fewer than 64 lengths I would do. I started to swim, and people did their customary "getting out of the way of the swimmer with goggles on" because I look terrifyingly fast, only this time, I really wasn't. I had to swim in the unlaned area, because of some forthcoming lessons which hadn't started yet but may imminently do so (I hate that. I know it's not just about me, and clearing everyone out would take ages, but I hate seeing empty lanes that I could get a few laps in while they were - anyway, never mind). They had bizarrely laned off a single lane on the other side of the pool, which was marked as "private", but frankly, I had other things to think about, like not drowning, to worry about this.

Front crawl hurt a bit, and breast stroke hurt if I wasn't thinking about it. I found I needed to stop frequently and curve my back forward because it was getting quite a bit of head-lifting backwards. I enjoyed the back crawl on the first length I did, but then not so much. I alternated everything, even tried side stroke (both sides). I managed to knock out 20 lengths before I decided that I'd had enough. I couldn't afford to make it worse, after all. I felt I was pushing unknown cures to the limits, out of pure desperation. I ignored the "private lane" because I needed the steps to get out, and no one shouted at me.

In the dressing room, I was aware of 3 or 4 ladies having a good chat, and as part of it was about depression, I almost chipped in with information about a play that I thought they might like, but I didn't. They got ready at pretty much the same speed as I did (and I should have twigged that that meant it was rather slow), and as I was spinning my costume, two were brushing their hair in the area. I noticed that one was holding the arm of another, but again, didn't really catch on to what sort of carer she was.

I came down the stairs and found that I needed to take opportunity to sit down in order to text Peter who I was meeting up with, because texting from my bicycle was going to be less possible than usual. As I did so, I realised that the 4 ladies were now approaching for their after-swim coffee, and the nature of their disability became apparent. "There's a sign right in front of you, just step to your left. That's it". They were blind. They were three smiling, up-beat ladies with a seeing-eyed friend or carer, who had gone swimming. I grinned at the carer, who smiled back as she got drinks in for the girls, and they happily chatted away. I suddenly felt a bit stupid, feeling so sorry for myself over a bit of back ache. Look what these ladies were getting around! They reminded me of a germinating plan in the back of my mind. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I thought, and pulled my chair forward.

"Excuse me, ladies, I wonder if I might ask you something," I said. They smiled, curious, interested, a little bit knowingly. Maybe they thought I was going to ask them how blind people swim. I wished I'd watched. "I'm a runner," I said, "and I was thinking of running a half marathon blindfolded." Whatever they thought I was going to say, it wasn't that. They were still interested. "Are you mad?" one of them said, joking. "Funny you should say that", I told her "I get that alot". I explained that I'd been interested in raising money for a blind charity, and I wondered what they thought. I told them I'd be running with a guide, that you get a rope and hold it, and that i wondered especially from the carer, if it was difficult to give the right information. They were very interested, and gave me the names of two charities, and also the name of someone who could perhaps let me walk with a guide-dog while blindfolded, to see what it was like. They asked me for my name, so they could listen out for it. I explained that it was still conceptual, so it was likely to be next year's Peterborough Great Eastern Run that I attempted it. They seemed to like the idea though, and that was my main concern.

I know that when you're gloomy or worried about something, it doesn't necessarily help to see someone who's in a worse position than you (although I've long suspected that this must be the appeal of soap-operas), but somehow, seeing a group of people dealing with adversity in such a very positive manner was especially uplifting. I hobbled out and got back on my bicycle.

Anything's possible.