I know I say it every time, but time is passing so quickly
right now, and I really can’t believe that in less than 2 weeks it’ll be
mid-summers eve!
It’s been a strange year so far and I have spent
pretty much 90% of the time home alone with just me and the pups. Andy has been
away so much that it feels like I’m living the single life and whilst I am
perfectly happy with my own company, I do miss that human interaction when he’s
away for so long, especially with working from home and not getting to see my
colleagues!
Despite Andy’s absence, me and the pups have
managed to keep ourselves busy and we’ve had plenty of walks at the local dog
parks and elsewhere. My running is also keeping me occupied although this past
couple of weeks I have started to question whether it is time to retire from
competitive running – the stress and pressure of feeling the need to perform at
every single race has been difficult to cope with, and with nobody here to
express my anxieties, things have just built up and I’ve been wanting to hide
away and avoid racing.
But as a good friend of mine keeps on saying, running
has been and always will be a huge part of my life, and retiring would mean giving
up on who I am and what I enjoy.
At the beginning of May, I headed over to Canmore
for the weekend as I had entered a Canicross event with the pups. Andy was away
again, so I travelled alone and stayed at the Rundle Cabins at Harvie Heights
just outside of town. We’d had some decent weather in the days before the 4km
trail event, but on the Saturday, the snow moved in and by the evening, we had
about a foot of snow outside the cabin and it was still coming down thickly
when we went to bed.
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| Rundle Cabins and early May snow |
Thankfully come Sunday morning, the snow had stopped,
the roads had been cleared, and the event still went ahead as planned. It was
great to see good friends Glady and Michelle who had travelled from Calgary to
meet us in town for the run. Unfortunately, Michelle couldn’t run as we had planned,
so I had the pleasure of racing with Wilson whilst Glady was led by our little
girl Tillie.
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| Glady and Michelle and two little pups that adore them :-) |
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| Racing with Wilson :-) |
Meanwhile Tillie did extremely well with Glady. She
loves running with Wilson but on her own with a stranger, she does get quite
timid. She ran all the way with Glady, but a huge poo mid-run meant that they
too dropped out of the placings, but I was still so proud of her and to see Tillie’s
tail high in the air as she crossed the finish line made me so happy 😊
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| Proud Mom moment :-) |
Glady and Michelle had to head off home pretty much
straight afterwards, but I hung around in Canmore for a little while longer and
we had an awesome walk at the off-leash dog park. The part has been extended to
include a loop though the tress and past the lake, so Tillie and Wilson were very
happy to run around and have a good play whilst I admired the views of the snow-covered
mountains.
The following week, it was the MEC road race and
this time I had opted to do the half marathon. Andy was still away so I went to
the race on my own again which I didn’t mind so much with it being in Edmonton.
I had been hoping to do another sub 90-minute half,
but I knew the course was going to be a hilly one so readjusted my goal to
around 95 mins instead. It was a good race and I felt strong and ran well, but
the hills got to me in the closing stages and I finished in around 1.38. I
couldn’t really complain as I still came away with the win in the ladies’ race
and it gave me the confidence I needed going into the Blackfoot Ultra which
followed two weeks later.
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| 1st Lady at MEC Half Marathon :-) |
Unfortunately, Blackfoot Ultra didn’t quite go to
plan. Having prepped meticulously for the race and felt confident of a sub 10-hour
finish, the week leading up to the race wasn’t exactly ideal. Andy returned
home on the Saturday having been working away for well over a month, and the
plan was that he would be crewing me at Blackfoot. Sadly, the lack of respect from
his employer for his personal life and family plans arose once again and his
services were demanded in Sweden just 2 days later. I was extremely
disappointed, very frustrated and angry, and I wasted far too much adrenalin and
energy getting wound up about the situation when I should have been saving it
for race day. I made the decision not do the race as I now didn’t have a pet
sitter either to look after the pups all day, but then a good friend stepped in
and her family offered to swing whilst I was racing – the race was a go again.
But then I got hit by two lots of sad news. A
former work colleague and a very good friend from the UK had passed away and it
came as a shock and greatly saddened me – she had always been such a happy,
positive force, thinking of other people’s needs before her own, and she did a
hell of a lot of good work over the years in the substance misuse field and voluntary
sector across Staffordshire.
The following day, we were informed at work that a colleague
in Phoenix had been involved in a murder suicide – this was greatly distressing
and probably affected me more than the news about Sue, simply because he had died
in such tragic circumstances. The impact this news had on our close-knit work
team was huge and it put us all on a downer for the rest of the week.
It was a very surreal couple of days, and my focus
certainly wasn’t on the race but then running usually helps in these situations,
so I half-heartedly continued with my plans.
I awoke at 2.30am on race day – the race began at
5am and it was an hour’s drive to the start. It wasn’t ideal, but I woke
feeling pretty good and was able to down some breakfast even at this ungodly
hour. Driving along the rural roads on my own in the dark at that time of day
had me on high alert – I’m sure if a car had started following me, I would have
panicked and done a huge detour, but thankfully all I saw was the sun rising in
the east, the mist hovering in the fields, and an owl out hunting that just
barely missed the car as I drove along.
Arriving at the start, I was calm when normally I
would have a nervous excitement about running. It was a beautiful morning with
the mist hovering over the pools and lakes, the damp grass and the coolness in
the air, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Physically I felt fine, but there was an
element of apathy there, a lack of engagement with the race, a feeling of just
going through the motions.
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| All smiles before the race at 5am but my mind was elsewhere :-( |
I started the race well. I felt relaxed and
comfortable, but I knew something wasn’t quite right. I didn’t feel my usual
cheerful self – I felt down, and I started to worry about what the hell was
wrong with me. About 5km into the race, I was overcome with a terrible stomach
ache and by 10km I had to dive into one of the outhouses only to discover that
I had started my period. My stomach continued to ache for the next hour or so
before it settled down, but I felt lethargic and drained.
I think I was perhaps leading the ladies’ race, but
I wasn’t 100% certain. Then we hit the mud. The hills at Blackfoot aren’t
exactly tough, but with the thick, slippery, sticky mud, they were hard work
and it was difficult to get a grip. The mud clung to the shoes, I was now 6 ft
tall, but my legs were flaying all over the place as the mud caused me to go
off-balance, twisting my foot and ankle and causing a dull ache. I stopped a
couple of times to get the mud off as it really was making life difficult, and
a couple of ladies passed me, only for me to pass them again shortly
afterwards.
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| That mud!!! |
Before I had even completed lap 1, the negative
thoughts were creeping in and I started to think far too much about what had
happened this week which had me sobbing as I tried to run along. I had been on
my own for too long, I wasn’t engaged in the race, and my mind was wandering to
places it really shouldn’t have been doing.
Coming into the start/finish area, I think I was
still leading by just a couple of minutes and poor Gary made the mistake of
asking how it was going, only for me to breakdown and cry again. He tried to
cheer me up and it worked, but after a couple of miles on lap 2, I was back to
feeling down again and started to cry about the whole situation.
The frustrating thing was that I had been eating
and drinking well, and when I was running, I was running smoothly and strongly,
but I was still feeling emotionally drained. I started to catch the 50-mile
runners and it was good to finally have some company, but by then, in all
honesty, I think I had already subconsciously made the decision not to
continue. After this loop, I still had 2 to go. The mud was getting on my
nerves and my foot and ankle were both aching far more than they should have
been. I started to think about being half way at the end of this loop which
cheered me up, and when I took the lead again starting out on lap 3, I was
starting to feel a little more determined.
But a mile or so later, out of nowhere I was
vomiting at the side of the trail and I was there for a good 5 minutes throwing
up all that good food and drink I’d taken onboard. I was overtaken again, but
this time I didn’t have the fight or inclination to fight back. I just plodded
for the next couple of miles, but when I hit the muddy section once again, that
was it – I made the decision to DNF.
By now the sun had come out and the mud had started
to dry out somewhat, but it was still sticky, and it really wasn’t helping my
foot and ankle. Every time I tried to run, my ankle would feel like an electric
shock was going through it and then my back started to ache. I made the
decision to walk it in – 15km of walking to the “finish” which would take me
another 2 to 3 hours.
Everybody who passed me in that last 15km was
awesome! They asked if I was ok, offered me drinks and food, offered to walk
with me, encouraged me to run, but when my minds made up, nobody can really
talk me round. It has its benefits being so stubborn when I’m having a good
day, but one a bad day it really frustrates me that I am so mentally strong! I
saw friends who all gave me reassuring hugs and said all the right things, they
saw me crying, heard me sobbing, and I had strangers talking and walking with
me who I now consider to be friends.
The walk to the finish was long but not so bad. I
was able to look at the scenery around me, I spotted rabbits and squirrels,
listened to the birds singing and the frogs croaking. Yet all I wanted to do
was get home to Wilson and Tillie and just snuggle up with them on the sofa
with a huge mug of tea and a block of chocolate.
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| Gorgeous day and the views were beautiful :-) |
I eventually made it to the almost finish – 75km
done in around about 8 and a half hours, 2 hours of which was walking – I know
that sub 10 hours was mine, but I really didn’t care today. I waited around the
finish area for an hour or so, had a smokie and an ice cream, and chatted with
a couple of other folks who had DNF’d. These folks were relative newbies to the
ultra-running world and they felt disappointed about not finishing their races
– fortunately I’ve been here before and knew that all of us would bounce back
over the coming weeks despite a dent in our pride and confidence.
I took the next few days easy and didn’t put
pressure on myself to run or run fast. I relaxed with the dogs and ran how and
when I felt like it, but the following weekend, I had a good couple of runs and
felt like I was back on track.
My next big race is the Canadian Death Race at the
beginning of August and I must finish that one as it’s my Western States
qualifier. I really need to do more trail running and certainly more hills for
that one, so I have a couple of shorter trail races lined up as well as a hilly
half marathon. Whilst I haven’t exactly dwelled on Blackfoot too much, there is
a bit of dent in my confidence right now and I started to question whether I
can still do this long stuff. As I mentioned earlier, I sometimes feel the
pressure and expectation of others to always perform well which can sometimes
take away the enjoyment of running for myself. Even when I say I don’t feel
100%, I always get the comments that I’ll do well anyways and whilst I know
that folks mean well, also adds pressure for me to perform all the time. I know
what I am capable of and I am always very open and realistic about my goals,
and usually I’m spot on as I’m also very honest with myself. I’m not the young
and speedy 30 something that I used to be – I’m 46 years old and although I
still like to be competitive, I’ve had a good innings with this running for 35+
years and don’t feel like I have anything to prove. I’m happy doing what I do
and never go into a race thinking I will win or podium or whatever – but I also
know that if I run to the best of my ability at this point in my life, and
depending who else turns up on the day, then maybe I can make that podium!
Gosh, reading that back I sound like such an
ungrateful grump, but hopefully you understand what I am trying to say.
I’ve got another half marathon this weekend and
then a 50k trail race in a couple of weeks – so much for my near retirement
eh?!
Until next time my friends, happy trails!