Squeezing a review of my last event in before the big A race tomorrow!
I returned to the Saturn lapped event in Durham a couple of weeks ago, after first doing it in April for the ‘Nearly But Not Quite London Marathon’ run. I only managed two laps last time (nearly nine miles), so I hoped to do at least three (a half marathon) or preferably four this time round. A few TMBR folks were doing it too so we got the train together.
I’m in much better shape than in the spring due to my spondylitis treatment and a good summer of training, so it was a much easier experience physically – but it’s still a pretty tough course, with slightly rickety bridges and quite a few ups and downs and trail sections. It was also a warm morning (the downpour didn’t arrive until I had finished and was getting my medal) so not the easiest of conditions. As such, I decided the third lap would be my last – but that did mean I got my half marathon pin for my medal, which I’d missed out on last time!
Despite the fact that I was running at what is now easy pace and took a few walk breaks, it was my fastest half marathon in three years – 2:38:12. Promising for tomorrow’s GNR and for going forward.
The Great North 10k used to be entirely in Gateshead, starting just outside Gateshead Stadium, heading out for an out-and-back along the Quayside, and finishing on the track inside it. I didn’t do it last year but I’m aware the route was changed so that it crossed one or two of the bridges and went along the Newcastle side of the Quayside for a bit, very similarly to the RunThrough Gateshead 10k that now takes place at the end of April (which I did for the first time this year). This year, they changed the route again, making it similar to the special 2021 route for the Great North Run where we all ran out halfway and then turned back. The difference was that as it was just a 10k, we turned back as soon as we got to the end of the Tyne Bridge – so we did pop into Gateshead, but only for a few seconds!
Still chasing that sub-hour 10k, I did some proper training for it this time with a couple of months of speedwork and higher mileage. Geth also offered to pace me as he was still recovering from his injury and wasn’t planning to race fast himself.
Collecting Benchies at the start! Photo from Clare at TMBR.
We set off too fast due to the downhill start. As with the GNR, this is hard to avoid. The bulk of the race after the Tyne Bridge out-and-back is a lot of twisting and turning in central Newcastle and I did start finding it a bit difficult to keep to pace at this point, especially when we went through what looked like the midway timing mats (quite a bit after 5k on my watch) in 30:08 and I knew I wouldn’t be able to match my first half. I kept up as best as I could up the hill to the Great North Road and the very tough final section along the gravel paths of the Town Moor to the finish line.
Geth paced it well but sub-hour still eludes me. I finished in 1:01:21, which was a 1 min 20 sec PB following my 1:02:41 at Sunderland in May. Getting closer. But not there yet.
Things that slowed me down on the day:
A less than easy course including the Town Moor’s notoriously tough gravel
Very strong winds, which in particular made the exposed Moor even tougher
The course measuring long on my watch (about 6.3 miles) – I know you have to allow for these things but the watch reckons I did 10k in 1:00:37! Swings and roundabouts…
As such, I know I can do it someday. Just need to find that golden combination of a fast course and good conditions.
It was lovely to be at the race with so many Benchies and to go for a pub lunch afterwards!
Post-race Benchie pub lunch! Photo from Jack at TMBR.
I’ve arranged one final crack at this distance for 2023. Geth and I are running the Leeds Abbey Dash in October. It doesn’t appear to be that flat (Yorkshire flat perhaps), so not the fastest of courses, but I am determined to give sub-hour another go.
I’ve always had a bit of a ‘mare at the Blaydon Race in the past (see my 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022 posts), largely due to not being an evening runner. Evening running has traditionally given me a stitch. However, I’ve been practising over the last ten months or so by regularly going to the Monday night TMBR run, so I hoped this would be less of an issue this time.
I’d also never managed sub-hour at the race, even in years when the course was shorter due to aforementioned stitch issues and other things. It was meant to be the same route as last year (which had been about 6.1 miles on my watch) and I’m still two or three minutes away from a sub-hour 10k, so I thought it’d be a close thing (but was hopeful).
I had pasta for breakfast in order to try and rejig my stomach clock appropriately (as the race was due to start at 7:15pm) and nothing else during the day except a small breakfast-type snack late afternoon. I then left for the race with plenty of time to spare so that I could use the baggage bus and hang around with TMBR folks before the start.
It was the usual great atmosphere at the start area, and I was able to chat to plenty of folks I knew from various running groups. Bit of a nervous wait for the start, and I was a bit confused about where the start line was as everyone started running early (so I started my watch about 12 seconds before the actual timing mat!), but once we got going it was a nice fast race and I had to be really careful not to sprint off. This is a real advantage of the new Quayside start – it avoids all the bottlenecks we used to have in the centre of town, although it is a shame it doesn’t quite match the song as well these days!
I managed to hold a slightly faster and steadier pace than I’ve been doing in my 10ks recently – 9:40 min mile average, slowing from about 9:20 min miles at the start to just under 10 min miles by the end. I don’t think this would quite have got me in under the hour if it had been a full 10k, but thankfully the course turned out to be only 5.8 miles by my watch this year (no idea why, it was the same route as last year!) and I finished in 56:24! Finally a sub-hour by some margin, and a 4 min 11 sec Blaydon PB!
I still have a lot of running demons left to slay but Blaydon was a pretty big one. I’ve been trying since 2017 and I finally had a good race.
Of course I’ll be back again next year though – the unique race atmosphere is too good to pass up, especially now I’m finally able to enjoy it properly!
TMBR group pic at the finish. Thanks to Rach from TMBR for the photo.
A few moments of déjà vu between Sunday’s race and the weekend before!
Just like the previous week, I got on the Metro to meet folks from TMBR en route to the race (thankfully half an hour later than the week before due to a later start time). We had plenty of time in Sunderland to drop bags and get ready, which also meant plenty of time to be nervous. I said last week that I’d like to shave a few seconds off the big PB I set at Gateshead, as Sunderland is the fastest 10k course I know. However, I wasn’t sure I could do it two weeks running. It felt like a big ask.
I went off far too fast. No pacers to judge by this time and my first couple of miles were closer to nine minute mile pace than ten. It was fairly congested at the start and quite difficult not to be swept along with the crowd. I settled a bit by mile three but was through the 5k marker in about 29 and a half minutes – something I really wish I could replicate at parkrun at the moment!
I did suffer for it a bit in the second half but just about managed to cling on, though I did get overtaken by the legendary Deano, who runs these things with a wheelie bin strapped to his back, with about a mile and a half to go. One day I’ll be faster than the bin! But not yet. The last mile did feel like a long one and it was a bit touch and go, but I finished in 1:02:41 – a 16-second PB following the previous week’s 1:02:57, and a 2-minute course PB exactly. My watch didn’t think it was quite as fast a 10k though – I think Gateshead measures a bit longer than Sunderland!
While I was last out of the four Benchies present, it was only by less than a minute. I am so grateful not to be finishing ages after everyone else anymore.
After three Sundays racing on the bounce I am ready for a break (and possibly the odd weekend lie-in), but I am so, so happy with the way the last few 10ks have gone. The next target is 59:59 at the Great North 10k in July. I’ve wanted a sub-hour 10k for the whole eight years I’ve been running but it’s never really felt feasible until now. Geth is going to pace me. I am hopeful.
The Gateshead Half Marathon and 10k has been going for two or three years now, I believe. Slightly confusingly, people round here often used to refer to the Great North 10k as the ‘Gateshead 10k’ – and the RunThrough-organised Gateshead 10k does follow a fairly similar route to the old Great North 10k route, starting and ending in Gateshead Stadium. It’s two laps and an extra bit for the half, but as I’m doing a lot of races on the bounce at the moment, I decided one lap was more than enough for me!
There were quite a few TMBR clubmates doing the half, so I was able to meet up with people en route to the race and hang out in the stadium beforehand. Braving the rain, we were off, along the track and out onto the road.
I wanted a PB. My existing PB was 1:04:41, set at the Sunderland 10k in 2021. I had come close with a 1:05:07 at the North Tyneside 10k three weeks ago, and that’s a tougher course by all accounts so I was hopeful. The strategy was to semi-chase the one-hour pacer for a while and then just try to hang onto the pace.
The elevation was roughly one mile downhill, four miles flattish, one mile uphill. I did manage to keep the pacer in sight for some time, and was also able to try and keep up with some half marathoning friends every now and again. The worst bit was actually when we crossed into Newcastle for an out-and-back that felt like it lasted forever! Back on the Gateshead side, around about mile five, there were some more TMBR folks (Benchies) out supporting as part of their Sunday social, which was a huge mental boost.
The final mile uphill was really tough, and every corner felt like it should be the turn into the stadium but wasn’t yet! But finally I was back on the flat track. Between the rain and the crowds I couldn’t see exactly where the finish line was, and so I mistimed my sprint, but to be honest I didn’t have much of a sprint left in me. I finished in 1:02:57 – a 1 minute 44 second PB! I am gradually starting to believe that sub-hour is possible this year. I have another 10k this weekend, in Sunderland – and I’ve always found Sunderland to be a fast course so it’d be great if I could shave a few more seconds off. We’ll see!
All bundled up against the cold post-race and looking a bit anxious about ringing the PB bell, which felt like it might topple over if you tugged it too hard! Thanks to Clare at TMBR for the photo.
I really loved Gateshead 10k – well organised, great post-race experience and I do like finishing in a stadium. I will 100% be back next year – especially as they’ve just announced an extra distance, the Newcastle-Gateshead Marathon, which will be three laps of an extended version of the course! I won’t be doing the marathon next year as I’ve already got Manchester booked, but I am thrilled we’re going to have a marathon taking place in the centre of town here and am really looking forward to the atmosphere already. I’ll probably sneak in for the 10k again seeing as I enjoyed it so much this year!
Bit of a long story behind doing this event. After deciding to defer Manchester Marathon to 2024, Geth and I were looking around for a replacement spring event (as he was still planning on doing a full marathon). We selected the Saturn Running ‘Nearly But Not Quite London Marathon’ event in Durham, as it’s an eight-hour lapped event where you can do as many laps as you want. This meant that Geth could still run his marathon (six laps) and I could do as many as I was able to on the day, dependent on spondylitis flare-up level etc.
Following Geth’s injury and cessation of marathon training, it gradually became apparent that I’d be doing the event on my own (originally we’d thought that he might be able to plod round at my speed to keep me company, but it wasn’t to be). My strict rolling/stretching/S&C routine has largely kept my flare-ups away for the last month, so I was hopeful that I’d at least be able to do a slow half, even though I’d not done any long run training for the last month or two.
After a very early start to get to Durham, I was glad that bag drop was just a groundsheet at the start/finish area so I was able to keep my coat on until the last minute! It was still pretty chilly at that point. After the local junior parkrun had packed up and left the area, we were off, and I settled into practice marathon pace, which for me at the moment is a slow jog with a walk break once per mile.
The route was beautiful but not fast (a few traily/muddy sections, uneven bridges and gentle inclines) so it’s probably for the best that Geth didn’t end up attempting a sub-four marathon there – he’d have been disappointed I think. Despite the forecast rain, it ended up being a lovely sunny morning and a great day for a gentle run!
Unfortunately the spondylitis pain descended during lap two – a sharp, persistent ache in the small of my back and the gradual onset of stiffness around it. I really, really wanted to push on for a third lap to finish a half marathon, but I think I would have been crawling home and possibly risking not recovering in time for next week’s 10k. As such, I reluctantly called it after two laps and nine miles. No half marathon pin for my medal ribbon, but at least I still got the medal! You only need to do one lap to get it.
Despite the disappointment I was a lot happier than I look in this post-race photo!
Geth is wondering, given that I haven’t had any problems during shorter faster efforts in recent weeks, whether my form when I’m doing plod pace is part of the problem (in terms of aggravating my spondylitis). I’m not even sure where to start with my form (as it’s pretty awful at all paces) but part of the ongoing strategy for this year is to build up long runs at a faster pace, so we’ll see if that makes a difference.
Silver linings for this run: no foot pain (due to wearing my comfiest shoes), no feeling sick (as the Clif Bloks are working better for me than gels) and plenty of energy (Clif Bloks again).
I really loved the event – pretty route, well organised, nice medal and lots of chocolate goodies to take away at the end. I will absolutely be back for another Saturn event in Durham – I want that half marathon pin next time!
I’m in a bit of shock and still processing this one, really!
Bag drop for this point-to-point race has to be done and dusted a full 45 minutes before the race start, so I was up early and at the race start early in order to get my bag on the van. This meant a bit of hanging about, but gradually other folks from my running group started to arrive so there were lots of people to talk to. Last time I did the race, in October 2021, runners weren’t allowed to congregate inside the sports centre due to COVID restrictions – I’m so glad this has changed, because it was a chilly morning and I was cold after putting all my warm stuff away in the bag!
I hoped to average 10:30-minute miles, as that’s the faster end of the pace I’ve been doing with the group recently. The aim was to get well under 1:10:00 and close to my PB, as on paper that was the expected result based on my recent training. However, none of my races were as they should have been on paper last year, so I was incredibly nervous (see yesterday’s blog post). I felt a brief spondylitis twinge on my left side as we were walking to the start line, which didn’t help! But the calm side of my brain reminded me that these twinges while doing warm-up walks hadn’t continued into my runs recently.
First mile was 9:54. Too fast! I managed to settle into a more sensible pace after that, probably helped by the big hills in mile 2. One of my major worries was just not being able to find the speed on the day, but the race atmosphere was a huge motivator, as were my race shoes (Saucony Endorphin Speed; I only ever wear them for faster efforts).
That weird shoulder stitch (which tends to happen if I’ve eaten less than 12 hours before the run)
The beginnings of an actual stitch that didn’t quite develop into a full-blown one (ditto)
My standard-issue foot pain (I’ve accepted that this is inevitable in the later stages of a race when I wear my speedy race shoes, as they’re not wide enough for my mile-wide flippers; I can put up with it for distances up to 10k, as the extra speed they give me is more than enough of a tradeoff)
Issues that did not crop up during the run:
Anything spondylitis-related. Score!
Running at under 10:30-minute mile pace (10:24-minute mile average pace, to be precise) for 10k was definitely a harder effort than I’m used to at the moment, but it was manageable. I did think from my on-the-spot maths during the race that I might be on for a PB, but it wasn’t quite to be. However, I was only 26 seconds slower than my PB (1:05:07 today), and prior to the race I didn’t think I’d get anywhere near it – so I can’t be anything other than thrilled. Training has not been at all ideal for the last few months, so I’m hopeful I’ve still got a bit of room for improvement in the 10k. I still want that sub-hour one day and I still believe I can do it in the right circumstances.
A few more 10ks booked for this spring/summer. Fingers crossed I might see that improvement soon.
Not the best title. The ‘This Girl Can’ event isn’t a race, not being timed or having winners or anything. Also, it took place nearly a month ago now, on International Women’s Day on 9th March. I am really behind with my blogging (watch out for two years’ worth of gig reviews coming soon…ish…possibly). Nevertheless, I wanted to get this ‘race’ review out now, before my next race this coming Sunday. Hopefully I’ll be quicker to blog about that one!
I had heard about the annual IWD ‘This Girl Can’ 5k on the Town Moor years ago, but had never run it before. I don’t tend to do fun runs or non-timed events because I’ve traditionally been quite result-focused (I may be a slow runner but I do care about these things 🙂 ). However, a few people in my running group were doing it this year, and it seemed like a nice thing to do with friends, and it was a free event, so I decided to sign up and give it a go.
With the rest of the TMBR girls who were doing the run. Photo from Chelsea at TMBR.
The half marathon I’d done at the beginning of February had been a real knock both mentally and physically, and in early March I was still struggling with the same spondylitis flare-up. I’d only been running short distances in the intervening time, and I knew it would just be a jog round on this occasion (I was quite pleased with 34:08 in the circumstances, even if the course was a bit short!). Still, it was lovely to be running in an event again and to feel part of something.
They were giving out a choice of either a cotton t-shirt or a tote bag at the start, which was nice for a free event! Our group managed to snag the last few t-shirts, and then at the end they were trying to get rid of the tote bags as they had some left over so I ended up coming away with both – win.
It was a lovely atmosphere and I would absolutely run the event again. I’ll probably be back next year.
I’ve been having a lot of ankylosing spondylitis flare-ups recently, and they’ve been really scuppering my long runs (and sometimes my shorter runs). It’s not just the pain; it’s also the seized-up stiffness that means my legs won’t move properly and running becomes impossible – or at least not possible without the kind of limp and imbalance that will cause inevitable further damage in the long term.
I’ve been managing this for the last few weeks by taking a lot of extended walk breaks on my long runs (e.g. run a mile, walk a mile – or do this for alternating half miles). I’ve been able to maintain a steady speed doing this and I’ve felt quite good, so even though I was a bit nervous about the distance, I didn’t have any doubts about starting the Winter Warmer half this last Saturday.
The half distance for this race is four and a bit laps of the Town Moor, rather like when I did the Town Moor half in 2018, although the lap route is different. The half starts an hour before the 5k and 10k, and it was a fairly small field, the rest of whom hared off at what looked like eight or nine minute miles in the first hundred yards! As such, it wasn’t long before I couldn’t see anyone else.
I let this get into my head a bit during the first lap. I’d planned to take the usual walk breaks but I was nervous about getting further behind. I ran the whole of the first lap, but by the end of it, I was limping really badly due to my stiff, painful hip. At that point I felt like I wouldn’t be able to finish the whole distance, but I decided to powerwalk the second lap and see if I could ease things up a bit.
I felt a lot better on the second lap – I was able to keep a good brisk pace up and there were a lot more people out on the course once the 5k and 10k races got underway, so there were lots of lovely supportive comments. By the halfway point I was in a really good mood, but I still felt stiff so lap three needed to be a powerwalk lap too.
Unfortunately everyone had disappeared from the course on the third lap, so it was a bit lonely again! I wasn’t sure if they would let me go out for a fourth, but Geth appeared at the end of the lap, having long finished (along with everyone else) and also having confirmed with the race director that they would wait for me. I was determined to get the distance done by that point, so with Geth accompanying me for support, I headed out again for the final lap, vowing that I would actually run bits of this one (as apart from anything else, I was feeling really bad about keeping the race volunteers out for so long).
I took up a strategy of running to one marshal point, then walking to the next, then running to the next, etc. I got about two-thirds of the way through the lap before it became too painful to run, and I had to walk the rest of the way before limping over the finish line at a slow jog. All the volunteers were there to cheer me in, along with the Benchies in attendance that day who had all waited for me, and I got fairly emotional. My time was 3:27:51, which was the second half in a row (after last year’s disastrous GNR) where I’d ended up over an hour slower than my PB. I am hugely grateful to the race organisers and everyone who waited, but I do not want to be in this situation again.
Some decisions made since the race and some general feelings:
Geth and I have deferred our places for the Manchester Marathon to 2024. I am absolutely gutted about this, but I simply cannot guarantee that this series of spondylitis flare-ups will go away in the next couple of months. I’m really grateful that Geth offered to defer as well, as I would have found it incredibly hard if he’d done the race without me.
We will still go to Manchester that weekend. Our hotel is booked and it will be nice to take in the atmosphere, do some reconnaissance for when we run the race next year, and finally get my sub-40 at South Manchester parkrun (six years after I last ran it!).
Our replacement race for Manchester this spring will either be The Nearly But Not Quite London Marathon (Team North edition) or the Gateshead Half Marathon and 10k. The choice will depend on Geth’s soon-to-be-decided work schedule. If we do the former, Geth will go for the full marathon distance and I will do as many laps as I feel I can; if we do the latter, Geth will try for a speedy half and I will do the 10k.
The above replacement race will be Geth’s spring goal race, but not mine. My plan is to train properly for the 10k distance and try and get a PB this spring/summer. As such, I’ll be running several 10k races, starting with the North Tyneside 10k on 9th April. Training for this will give me a break from the longer distances and hopefully get some speed back into my legs.
However, given that I can’t currently run more than three or four miles nonstop without pain, I need to go back to the hospital consultants looking after my condition and see if we can change strategy. I phoned up today and was able to get my next checkup moved forwards, so fingers crossed we’ll soon be able to find something that works a bit better.
I also need to be absolutely religious with strength training, foam rolling etc. I’ve been gradually getting back into these habits over the last few weeks and need to prioritise them. Regular physio visits feel like they’re helping too.
Lastly, this is a chronic condition, not an injury, so at the end of the day there’s only so much I can control. But I had a great few years from roughly 2017 to 2020 when the spondylitis basically left me in peace to get on with my running. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that I was close to target weight during that time, putting a lot less pressure on my joints. Losing the weight again is proving really hard, but I have to keep trying.
I feel like I keep saying the same things and making all the same resolutions after these bad race experiences. I don’t know if any of it will work this time. We’ll see.
I’ve been conscious recently that ‘race review’ is probably a bad title for these posts, because I’m not really doing much reviewing of the race itself – more reflecting on my own race and what went well and what went badly. As such, I’ll start with a few thoughts on the GNR 2022. It was a very different atmosphere at the start with all the reflection and observance of the national mourning period, but once we were underway – down to South Shields on the traditional route for the first time in three years – it felt like it had never been away. I did miss the Red Arrows, but I’m sure they’ll be back next year when – hopefully – we can finally have a totally normal GNR again.
Semi-hopeful on the start line.
My training had mostly gone well. I missed a few weeks early in the plan, as I realised I had started training again too soon after the Edinburgh Marathon and needed a bit more time to recover, but I had really pulled it back over the last six weeks or so – I did all my long runs and developed a good speedwork routine by getting some initial miles done in my new pair of speed shoes, joining the local social run group on Fridays (their easy pace is a fairly good lick for me!) and attempting some faster parkrun times. I also started medication for my ankylosing spondylitis, which was working really well and meant that my lower back, hips, glutes and sciatic nerves didn’t seem to be stiff and sore anymore. Best of all, I found a new and promising fuelling strategy that didn’t make me feel sick (Clif Shot Blokz instead of gels). Unfortunately my strength training routine did suffer as I was so busy with travelling and other things over the summer, and it became really difficult to find that half hour to fit it in.
It was really only the last week of the taper that I started to become nervous about possible niggles that might affect the race. My back pain had been a little bit twingy on some of my long runs during training, but not to the extent that it was affecting my running – it was just a bit of background annoyance that I could ignore. However, I really felt it properly seize up just after I sprinted for the line at Pendle parkrun, eight days before GNR day. I was worried, but it returned to its vague background level for my six-miler along the canal the following morning, so I assumed it would be fine for the race.
That afternoon, I got in the car to drive back from Lancashire to Newcastle. A few hours later, I climbed out of the driver’s seat to find myself with killer runner’s knee out of absolutely nowhere! No idea whether it was the sprint at Pendle parkrun, the dodgy camber along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal towpath or just straining a bit too hard to keep the clutch in the right place during the drive, but I’ve never had it just appear like that before! Panic stations that evening, but as usual with runner’s knee for me, I found during my next few days of short runs that it didn’t actually hurt during running – just when I sat down and stiffened up. However, my back pain was noticeable all week, probably because my form was thrown out by unconsciously compensating for my knee. I did a lot of extra strength training and massage gun work during the week, focusing on my knee and back – and I found that race pace was comfortable and unproblematic on my short runs – but while the knee pain had dissipated by Friday, the back pain clearly wasn’t going away. I just had to hope that it would remain a background-level pain and wouldn’t cause any stiffening during the weekend.
I deliberately took my last shakeout run (en route to parkrun volunteering) very slowly. However, I found that I was stiff and slow during the walk around the Jesmond Dene course and back home – and even more stiff and slow on the walk from home to the GNR start area the following morning. It wasn’t promising, but I always see races through, so I set off in the hope that I would at least be able to stay steady.
The first couple of miles were fine. I started off a bit fast, but settled into my pace by the second mile, and if I’d been able to keep going like that it would have been a great day. However, by mile three everything between mid-back and mid-thigh had seized up into one giant inflexible piece, which was causing a lot of other issues further down, especially with my feet. I had no choice but to switch to a run-walk strategy to mitigate the pain. I was determined to keep running sometimes, as I hadn’t mentally managed to do that during the second half of the Edinburgh Marathon, but the race for me between miles three and twelve was about a 2:1 walk-run ratio. I couldn’t walk briskly either, and I had a lot of concerned comments during my walk periods, as I must have looked really strange trying to walk in my seized-up state. Running was an awkward shufflejog, but at least there were a few other people doing that too.
Following this strategy, I was able to stay steady-ish (if extremely slow) – and I did manage to shufflejog the whole last mile along the seafront – but I was in a lot of pain and went to a lot of dark places during the many hours it took me to complete the course. I was seriously questioning if I should continue with running, and to be honest I am still having those thoughts three days later. It just felt so fruitless. I had trained for this race and yet I might as well have not trained at all – I would have been no slower, and possibly faster as I wouldn’t have aggravated my back pain in the last few weeks of the plan. I had desperately wanted to get close to my PB again, and I ended up well over an hour outside it. I had two A races this year – both of which were really important to me – and my medical issues ruined both of them.
Mentally, I was looking forward to the post-GNR period as I had decided a long time ago that it would be my last race of 2022 – I wanted a good long rest in the autumn before starting marathon training again in the new year – but I’ve just felt horrible this week. I don’t feel like I properly ended my season, my medal and t-shirt don’t feel earned, and I desperately want another chance to get the result I feel I should have had – but I just don’t think it would be sensible, mentally or physically, to sign up for another race this year.
I’m also really quite worried about next year’s goal races – spring marathon and then GNR again. It was mostly the back pain that did me in at Edinburgh this year, but there were a lot of other issues with that race – injuries during training, nausea caused by fuelling – that contributed to the wheels coming off. At the GNR, it was the spondylitis alone. I can do everything I can to try and mitigate it, but I can never guarantee that I won’t suffer from it on the day of a race. I suppose I’ll always have that worry now, and a lot of it really is down to luck.
Three things I can do and will continue to do to try and mitigate the spondylitis:
Keep taking the medication, as it does work 95% of the time
Prioritise my strength training, which means not booking as much travel as I have this year (travelling is the number one cause of training interference for me)
Lose weight (as when I was at my target weight I barely suffered with this issue at all) – it’s a slow process but I am determined
Three things to take away from this race and training block:
Spring marathon needs to be early May at the latest as I need time to recover in between training blocks – Edinburgh and GNR were too close together for proper recovery
I will continue running with the social group as it’s both great speed training and a good source of motivation due to the friendly people there
No sprint finishes at parkrun in the fortnight before the race! (I just really wanted that Pendle PB…)
I’m in the Pyrenees this week, where there are no such things as flat roads. Walking and running on the hills is hard with my back issues, and I think I would have been able to enjoy the trip more if I hadn’t gone straight after the GNR. As such, not going on travels straight after a race is probably a good lesson to learn as well. Nevertheless, it is a calm and beautiful place for reflecting on things.
I’m not quitting running just yet. Apart from anything else, it’s only twelve days until my ‘comma day’ – the thousandth day of my daily run streak – and I want to continue post-1,000 as it’s another good source of motivation. But there are a few things I need to think about this winter, and a few changes I need to make.
