Be kind to yourself

Ok let's get it out of the way nice and early, I have been absent for some time and really there is no excuse. Ok maybe one excuse I haven't found anything interesting to write about, shock I know.

My running mojo had taken a nose dive(again), I've been going out but it wasn't as fun as it use to be,  my pace had dropped considerably and I was constantly comparing myself to be previous form and ability. Beating myself up for how unfit and and lazy I had become; which is madness and if any of my friends had said this to me I would have told them to stop being so my hard on themselves, so why one rule for them and one for me?

Reflecting back on my year it really hasn't been too bad, I ran a couple of new races, I ran the Virgin Money London Marathon, took part in Thunder Run, ran my first trail

half, coached and ran with friends in the potteries marathon relay  and ran another international half marathon in Lisbon.  All in all a good year and I should be proud of my achievements and be thankful that

a)I have the physical ability to run 
b) it is safe for me to run 
c) made some amazing running buddies.  

Wait I forgot,  I also became a UKA running for fitness coach!! A very good year really

So why do I still feel sad, perhaps it is because I have recently changed jobs, which although it was through choice, something I was looking forward to and I knew things would change. But perhaps I hadn't mentally prepared properly for how much I  miss my home life and running with my club mates and friends.  I now work in London 5 days a week and stop down there for the most of the week, which means I miss out on club night and my weekends get compressed to trying to spend some quality time with loved ones, washing, shopping, ironing and trying to get some relaxing in. This means my desire to go out to xc or weekend races this year has really waived this year and staying home closest to nearest and dearest has won out. 

I think because I now identify myself as a not only a runner but a member of a club  of runners that although I can still (and do) run in London I have lost a little of the joy of running. I also don't think it helps the time of year I have started this new job but hopefully after December the night will start getting lighter and I will be able to see a little more of the city. All is not lost I still have parkrun  and I get to see most of them at the start and finish and if I am lucky one or two take pity on me and slow down to run with me.

I know I need to pull up my big girl pants and get on with it and start thinking about

what I can do and not focus on what I can't!  I also need to be nicer to myself, become my own best friend and start acknowledging my achievements and the occasional pat in the back 

BHAG

Well as another year starts our minds turn to the goals we want to set ourselves for the up and coming year.  As I realized last year, I didn't actually commit any of mine to paper, so it is understandable that they fell by the wayside.  Having said that I did achieve a number of things and took myself out of my comfort zone, thanks to a last minute Thunder Run entry and the XC season.  But  I didn't pushed myself, in terms of pace, which is why I have been spending some time putting together my marathon training plan for London.

Last year a local marathon legend developed me a marathon plan which saw my achieve a goal of getting the qualifying time for London however, I seriously disliked the long rep's (5 minutes) and I started to loose a bit of my running mojo; I was just going through the motions which is never good. 

So this time I have decided to create my one plan, using some of the excellent sessions from last years  plan and adding some of the things I like to do as well to keep me engaged. I am going to be my own experiment and lets see what is going to happen!! 

As for my goals, they are here , they do scare me a little but you need to do things that scare you at times, so here goes......

Recycle or start a fresh ?

As December roles around, I'm already thinking about next year's goals and what should they be. This got me reflecting on those goals I had set for this year and I can't actually find any! 

I was convinced I had set some but it looks like I never committed them to blog paper.  So, is this like the tree that falls in the forest if no one see's it does it make a sound?  As I didn't write them down, was I really committed to them?? 

Ok so my unofficial targets were:

1. Set a new PB for the Marathon
2. Get a qualifying time for automatic entry in to London (GFA), 
3. Silver medal at the Potters arf, which means finishing under 1:45 on a very very hilly course
4. Go under 23 minutes for Hanley parkrun 
5. Set a shiny new half marathon personal best

Did I achieve all or any of these? 

Well, I set a new marathon PB of 3:43:28 ( goal 1) which gained automatic entry to Virgin Money London Marathon 2015 (goal 2).  Read all about it here

The rest sort of fell by the wayside, but perhaps we have unearthed the reasons why I didn’t achieve them because I did commit them to my blog, which meant I had nothing to prove and no-one to hold me accountable!

So my the big question is do I a) recycle these goals for 2015 or b) set these to one side and think of some new ones? It is clear I need goals but perhaps it would be an idea to stage them, rather than setting them all out in one go, use them to build on and improve my running??

Best get my thinking cap on

Can you fool yourself in to being positive

So it has been a while since my last blog; NO I have not fallen off the face of the earth, NO to a life changing lottery win and NO I have not found my fame and fortune on Britain’s Got Voice Factor. The past couple of months have been a little be meh’ when it comes to running and finding things to blog about.  I normally come up with my blog titles and themes during my runs, but I have been drawing a blank recently. 

At last tonight’s running club post run 'chippy tea' a fellow runner asked me if I have been injured as they had not seen in a while, I thought about this for a minute; said no the physical injury but yes to a MOJO injury!  Can you injure your MOJO? I am not sure if it is burn out, fatigue or just simply a bit of a slump but when I’m not running I think about how great it would be running but then when I’m running I just want to stop and crawl under a rock. Strange but true, having said that I have just recently run the Great North Run and the Nottingham Half marathon, so although my MOJO is telling me to stop, my iron will is keeping me moving forward! 

Something positive

can you see us ?

I really enjoyed the Great North Run (GNR) this year; this wasn't a target run for me, that was Nottingham, so I had offered to pace Emily to a personal best, Sharon who was also running GNR had said that she would jump on the pace bus for fun.  Everything was going well and we were hitting the splits, but it was getting hotter and hotter, unfortunately this was not suiting Emily and she was struggling.  So we decided to change tack and we slowed down a little and made sure that we catered to her every need, raced off to water /refreshments stops and making sure she was hydrated, keeping up her spirits with lots of positive re-enforcement and generally enjoying our run with those around us! It was fab, we all crossed the finish line holding hands and with smiles on our faces. I have to say that I was one race I thoroughly enjoyed for the 1st time in a long time! 

Something else positive

Nottingham was going to be my target, but my training had not gone well with self-sabotaging thoughts. I reassessed my goals and went out for a  personal best this year, but the mojo deserted me 3 miles in and my mind started to go off on one about how crap I was and why didn't I give up!  Well I didn't I carried on a ticked off the miles, the splits were not what I was after but, hey I was moving forward which was good.  

It was a good job I carried on as I helped a distressed runner; between 9/10 miles, saw this chappy running and he was running very strangely, leaning back and looping very slowly, so I stopped and went back to have a chat with him.  He assured me he was fine and for me to carry on, so I asked him “if he always ran like this”, “no” came the reply, “well you are not fine then”, then two other runners came to my aid and we escorted him over to the side of the road.  I shouted for the runners going past to send back a marshal and a lady got him a chair to sit on.  Fortunately but the time we left him he was looking a bit brighter and I hope that he got the medical attention he needed. Then I carried on my run, my goal had gone out of the window but you know I didn't care, I helped someone out in need and that was more important!

Something productive

With all my negative thoughts I am trying to do something’s to put the spring back in my running step;

1. Tackling cross country never done it before, hated it at school but hoping the club and team environment will help me get my MOJO back
2. Reading (or listening to) Chimp Paradox by Prof Steven Peters, if it is good enjoy for the GB cycling team it is good enough for me
3. Scaling back the running during the last few months of the year
4. Contrary to point 3 looking to take part in Go-Vember again trying to run at least a mile every day during November 

Something to look forward to

• I have got my good for age place at London, this time I want to enjoy it a little more. My first London, I was so in awe and focused on getting a good time it took all the fun out of it.  So next year it is all about enjoying it and the time is irrelevant.

• I have booked my races for Feb, March and May and I am looking to do some different ones that in the past, so we are off to Blackpool half and a 20 miler, Milton Keynes half and I am hoping to do Ashby 20 as well.

• I am part of the Team behind bringing back the Potteries Marathon, which is fun, exciting and exhausting all the same times…not sure what the Potteries Marathon is all about click here.

• I;m doing the Thunder Run again next year with a large number of my club mates which is going to be awesome, fortunately not the 5 laps like this year (I don’t think that it helped at all).

Well that is my lot, again apologies for the lack of posts over the last couple of months, fingers crossed normal service aka bad grammar, spelling and general confused posts will resume soon!

Edinburgh Marathon done and dusted

This is the short story…

So after all my worry about my fitness before Edinburgh Marathon and my resetting of my goals, I only went and got a new marathon personal best and a London Good for Age (GFA) and Boston Qualifying (BQ) time.

This is the long version – stop and grab a cuppa before you start.

In all honesty my training in between Manchester and Edinburgh had felt like an uphill struggle, I felt very disappointed that I had not bounced back as well as I had last year between London and Edinburgh.  I had such high hopes of achieving a London Good for Age (GFA) time, but each time I laced up my trainers my stepped out, it turned out to be another disappointing run and it was really knocking my confidence.

So the morning of Edinburgh came around all too soon, I had reassessed my goals and said that I was happy with a sub 4 hour marathon, well sort of happy! It is safe to say that the weather matched both my mood and prospects, the rain has started to fall and it steadily got worse.  Sean was happy and looking forward to his half marathon, he told me to go off and find somewhere warm to wait until the start of my race ( I think I was killing is pre-race buzz)

Firstly I found shelter in a bus shelter, but soon got bored and thought I may as well  head to my starting pen and then there glimmer of light in the distance “Starbucks” sign shone out like a beacon. As I pushed through the door, the warmth hit me and the queue was small and free WIFI RESULT. Twenty minutes later after a couple of trips to the facilities and a full fat tall latte with a caramel shot I felt ready to tackle to walk to my pen and bonus the rain had stopped!

My plan was to set out and run 8:30 for the entire race, this should get me a 3:44:30 marathon time and a London GFA  – what is that I was meant to be going to a sub 4 hours, well yes but you know how it goes…… the 1^st couple of miles would be the determining factor.

As it was the I found my pace which was around 8:15 which was well ahead of my required pace, now here is the problem the rule of thumb with marathons is start slow and get quicker (this by the way had been my strategy at Manchester).  The worry with going to fast at the start is that you can blow up in the last few miles, really fall apart and up losing your race goal.

However I felt good and I decided I was not going to over think it, just go on feel and see how things pan out. As it was I was having  a really good run, feeling surprisingly strong and focused.  Before I knew it we were heading passed Musslebourgh Race course and off up to the BIG Stately Home, it was at this point I saw Sean coming back long towards his finish and I gave him a shout out and carried on.

Now this is a LONG stretch not a particularly bad part it is just a little long, the only hope on the horizon is that you often get to see the race leaders coming back the other way, which helps to take your mind off things. 

Head down and concentrated on each mile I was in, trying hard not to over think about my pace, how much further I had to go or if I would run out of energy. 

Before I knew it we were running in to the Gosford House grounds and I focused and made sure that I didn't drop the pace (which happened last year), so my plan was to work on catching the people in front of me to keep me going.  Passed the home and now back out on to the road and the end was really in sight and all I had to do was keep going.

As the final miles ticked by my pace did start to fall off to around 8:30 ish, which was the pace that I should have been running all along, so all was good. There was time banked and this was my safety cushion just in case my pace really fell away, in the later miles.

It was around mile 23 that I decided it was time to break out the emergency jelly babies, I slowed to a walk and crammed in jelly babies like a woman possessed and washed them all down. Using visualization technique I imagined the release of sugar being turned into energy and making it was down to my legs and powering them along. 

Mile 25 and unlike Manchester nothing hurt, I was tired but nothing really hurt, the crowds started to get thicker and then the heavens opened and the rain started, but I didn't care I was on target to finish under 3:45 and I just needed to keep going and if possible speed up.

My only grumble is that my garmin and the mile markers didn't seem to want to sync up, so as my watch clicked over to 26.2 miles I was still 0.24 miles away from the finish…….GFA was still on the cards but there was no taking my foot off the gas, I  had to keep going as we turned on the to the grass I could see the finish gantry and clock, time was clicking down and my legs where feeling really heavy but there was no stopping… my mantra “just keep going” “keep going!”

With a small raise of my hand I made it over the finish and my official time 3:43:28! Looking at my photos on the home stretch it’s easy to see how tired I was, tired but elated. As I made my way out of the finishers enclosure Sean was there waiting for me, a little soggy around the edges but a very welcome sight, he congratulated on my time and my finish.

My words to him “now I have achieved a London GFA and Boston Qualifier, I never want to run a marathon again!!” Oh yes and I did remember my bra ;o)

Stats