Life has a habit of throwing us curve balls and
over the years, I’ve certainly learnt to adapt and to maintain my optimistic
outlook on things. This generally happens when I’m in control, not that I’m a
control freak by a long shot, but I do like things to be orderly and to be
completed within a reasonable time frame.
As soon as I arrived home from Javelina at the end
of October, I knew that I needed to renew my passport as it wouldn’t have the
full 6 months before expiry that is required to access the USA again in
December for Desert Solstice. It was one of those things that I should have
done during the summer months when travel plans hadn’t been confirmed, but with
Andy being away so much and with having to deal with Brandy and Wilson’s
regular visits to the vets along with a whole multitude of other things, I
never got around to it.
I applied to renew online which was meant to reduce
errors and speed up the process – the average time quoted for renewal of a
British passport from overseas said 6 weeks but it was usually around 4 weeks –
from my perspective, I had plenty of time and was convinced it would return in
time for our next flight to Phoenix on December 6th.
It was quite interesting tracking my humble little
passport on its travels across Canada and then it’s journey over the Atlantic
Ocean, but on its arrival in the UK, it stalled. It was stuck in customs
awaiting clearance for 9 days and I was so frustrated and angry but there was
no way I could speed up the process. It eventually arrived at the passport office
in Durham where it was once again sitting in a queue awaiting further action.
Believe it or not, I’m not stupid and I am well
aware that there are thousands of others applying to renew passports every day
but having seen my poor little red passport again just waiting for the past 5
days, the frustration once again started to build. It still needed to be approved,
then printed, then prepared for posting, and then it had to travel 4,500 miles
to eventually land on my doormat here in Leduc. I am meant to be travelling to
Phoenix in 2 weeks and whilst it has now passed to the printing stage, I am
started to think that my ambitious plans for Desert Solstice will not come into
fruition, simply because my passport will not arrive in time. I investigated
the requirements for obtaining an emergency travel document and whilst this
would involve a trip to Vancouver, I was happy to do it if it meant I could
still race. But then I cannot apply for an ESTA on the ETD, I needed a visa. I
already have a visa, but this too is stuck in England in my old passport - US
immigration needs to see the actual visa despite everything being electronic so
I couldn’t even use a colour photocopy, and they won’t issue duplicates – I
would need to apply for a new visa and cancel the old one.
Needless to say, it’s been pretty stressful for the
past 3 weeks have been which I could have done without given that I have a big
race on the horizon.
As the old wartime British posters used to say, I’ve
tried to keep calm and carry on, and I have still been following my training
plan in the hope that the fitness I am feeling will be put to good use in a
little over 2 weeks.
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| Post run pizza with Dennene - that was a great session :-) |
The following day, I joined a webinar with the GB
24 hour squad and it was great to see old and new friends on the screen and to
chat about the World Champs along with motivation techniques during training
and racing. Talking to such an amazing group of athletes certainly made me feel
even more motivated and determined to make that British team standard, and I
put the thoughts of a delayed passport to the back of my mind.
Despite the treacherous conditions on the pavements,
I have been doing some outside running and have joined the Wild Rose Runners on
a couple of runs this past week or two, as well as completing some slower, easy
solo runs around roads and trails in Leduc. These too have gone extremely well,
and with the track sessions, I felt like my prep for Desert Solstice really
couldn’t be going any better.
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| Trail run with a few of the Wild Rose Runners |
But then the next curveball got thrown at me.
Last Wednesday I once again went to the indoor
track, this time for a 6-mile tempo run, and I was really looking forward to seeing
what I could do and how it would feel.
I arrived before 6pm and it was so quiet that it made
me even happier and I started the run feeling fantastic, knocking out what felt
like a comfortable 6.35 minute-miling pace. As the hands on the clock signaled the
hour, a group of about 20 young children joined me on the track and they wanted
to sprint past me and cut in front of me to prevent me overtaking them, despite
me having far longer legs and running much faster for longer. I lost count of
the amount of times I had to dodge them and after 10 minutes I was getting so
annoyed that I stopped to help me to refocus.
Cue the next two groups, both consisting of about
10 to 15 teenage lads who were all trying to impress each other my doing pull
ups from the low ceiling whilst in the middle of the track. Yet again, I found
myself swerving and weaving and dodging, getting even more frustrated at the
older group as they did their warm up and wandered on to the track without checking
for others, then jumping out of the way at the last minute as I tried to pass
by.
It was inevitable that with so many people using a
195-metre track, there would be a collision at some point and about 4 miles
into my tempo run (which had now become more of a rep session due to all the
stopping!), I collided with the older lads as they were doing their warmup and walked
straight in front of me without looking. I stumbled, punched one in the stomach
as I was running fast, and kicked another as I tried to avoid an embarrassing
fall – I was so pissed off!
I’m usually quite tolerant of others using the
track and expect the younger kids to be unaware of track etiquette, but these
lads were so ignorant. I tried extremely hard not to yell at them, but I was
fuming!
Following that collision, I noticed a tightness in
my glute and my calf started to get sore, and whilst I completed the session at
a good pace, I literally limped the last couple of laps as the soreness in both
legs got gradually worse.
Since that session I have ran and I did do another
12 miles at the track last weekend, but my left glute and my right calf are
still not happy. This week I have some faster paced sessions scheduled in, but
I am trying desperately to be disciplined and trying not to run for the next
couple of days to give things time to settle down, concentrating instead on
stretching, icing and massage. I’m meant to be joining Dennene in St Albert
again on Saturday, this time for 20 miles, but I need to see how the next
couple of days pan out as I don’t want to make things worse.
I’m trying not to take the delayed passport and the
niggles as negatives. Along with my DNF at the recent Javelina Jundred, I’d like
to think that things can only improve from here onwards and I will do all I can
to ensure that if I do make it to Desert Solstice, I will do the best I can to
qualify for the British Team, given the added stress and worries this past
month.
On a positive note, Andy will hopefully be joining
us in Leduc next week and he will be here for the whole of December – whoo hoo!
I’ve also started to plan my races out for next year and have already registered
for the Blackfoot Ultra 100km in May which will be one of my goal races. In addition,
I hoping to register for the Canadian Death Race (125km) in August, and then
fingers crossed, the World 24 hour Championships in October which will take
place in France. If the latter doesn’t happen, provisional plans are to return
to the desert for the Javelina Jundred where I will once again target that sub
19 hours that I know for sure I am capable of.
For now, I’m taking things a day at a time and maintaining
that positive focus on December 8th. If things change, rest assured
you’ll be the first to know 😉
Happy trails and happy running to you all!
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