Last run before the Midnight Express

What a great weekend! It was three day's long (for me), a special someone's birthday, @typecat ran the Royal Parks Half Marathon, and somewhere in between all the celebrating, I actually had a decent run!

This was great because it was my last weekend before Istanbul. I really want to finish mentally strong in Istanbul. Even though it's only a small race (15km) it will be a big spiritual boost if I finish with a smile on my face, and that will really help me go into my Ultra training feeling fabulous!

I've already started my baby steps towards training, by ensuring I went out on Sunday after my 13km run and doing a 4km tear around the block.

The Freedom from Torture running shirt was beautiful to run in, and I am pleased to report that you can buy them here! They are really lovely fabric and a really flattering cut. I'll post some pics soon as these printer graphics don't do them justice, but trust me all the ladies are coveting them!

Now that the Royal Parks is out of the way, the household is in preparation for Operation Midnight Express. For anyone planning to run overseas - do it! It's a great way to see the world and an additional challenge. Try to find pasta in Asia, or work out how reliable the weather is. Or transliterate Cyrillic. Or pack a small medical station and all your English brand drinks! Sadly, I know that the country I'll be running in does not have a good reputation when it comes to torture. For diplomatic reasons, I'll be posting more about Turkey once I've returned.

Running for a reason

If you've been here before you will know that I run because "it's the challenge that you choose, rather than the challenge that chooses you." So my modest running debuts of 5km races were in memory of friends who had died of specific conditions and the charities that work to stop that happening. I've since tackled bigger running events, for bigger charities, small charities and grant giving organisations.

I'm pleased to say that my charity for the three runs that are coming up (Istanbul trans-continent 15km, the Polar Night Half Marathon in Tromso and the London Ultra) are all to raise awareness of and funds for the charity, Freedom from Torture.

I've been a supporter of the charity for about five years now and been to a range of fundraising events.

At many of these I've been able to meet their clients, people who have been victims of torture. I've never come away from one of these events with dry eyes. But I've always come away deeply impressed with the charity's work.

I've heard about the work they do, I've read the writings that come from expressive therapy, and creative writing classes. I've eaten bread made by a women's only group whose commonality is the dough they make and the pain they carry. I've smelt the tomatoes grown in their garden refuge, where stones mark tributes to fallen friends and spell out the word "Why".

I've heard from women just like me, and men who could be my father. I've met therapists and Chief Executives and stared in stunned admiration at their volunteer medical practitioners as they talk of their work. I've interrogated their communications and marketing folk and joined a local group.

I can't think of a charity that has made me feel more welcome as a supporter - imagine how they make someone feel who has been a victim of horrific torture.

So spurred on by hard working local group at Hampstead and Highgate, I'll be tackling these three events and donating all funds to the charity. My events will not incur the charity any money, other than fundraising fees set by the website, just giving.

I thought if everyone I knew could buy my a glass of wine equivalent in sponsorship and everyone I didn't bought me a pint, we'd easily hit the target. 75p of every pound donated goes to running services.

Thank you.

Donate to help someone who has survived torture.

If you'd like to ask a question before donating, please leave a comment and I will respond.

It's all in the mind

Well it feels like a long time since I've blogged and my two regular readers might be wanting updates. So, the new Ultra training plan is helping marvellous much. It feels very achievable (especially now I got the nice man from Finance to calculate my percentage increases each month in a spreadsheet). And it feels like I've cut that elephant into pieces. So that's one mental box ticked.

Then there's the other mental issues that come with just not having my fitness where I want it. So I'm reading a hippy sounding book called Running Within and have some affirmations and trigger words. Yep. Affirmations are things you say to yourself when the negativity or bad stuff creeps in. And trigger words are things you say to yourself to remind yourself to correct any bad habits. What you want to know what mine are? Cringe... Okay.

• I get fitter every day. (See what I did there, not "my fitness is crap and I have a long way to go, but a positive reinforcement of what I can do.)
• I can tackle anything I put my mind to.
• When I reset I come back stronger. (So, sometimes when I run distance, I walk, especially at aid stations. I don't call this weakness, I call this a reset. And when I have timed my running runs against my runs with resets, no overall time is lost. Because you've gathered yourself to come back stronger.
• The pain is just a reminder of how hard I am trying.
• My legs are light and dynamite. (This is for when I have really dead legs).
• I love hills

My trigger words are "glide", "tippy tappy" (a reference to raramuri running style) and my trigger action is to smile when it's hard and laugh when it hurts.

I know it sounds silly, and I am not really a natural convert but the smiling absolutely helps, as does giving permission to set reset breaks.

When the going gets tough

You know that song is on my play list. Actually quite a lot of bad confessions from the 1980s and 90s are on my play list. But that is not the point of this post. The point is that, while having my usual, eek 20 days to the race panic, it dawned on me that I haven't just lost the ability to run a marathon in the last few months, but I have lost those training weeks.

So as soon as I finish Istanbul, nay, before I start, I have to be an ultra marathoner in training. The training plan from this fabulous list of resources, will take about 20 weeks. That's quite soon really. So it's time to take oneself seriously. Not to skip meals or have beer at lunch and stuff.

The SRO was most helpful on the weekend pointing out how less stressful life is if you have fixed days for running, and not cram them in around a busy lifestyle. So I've got a spreadsheet for regular running days. It calculates my cumulative distance each week. If I can get it to calculate the % difference in cumulative distance week on week I've got it made in the land of Excel. But I am still struggling with the ABS formula function...

I need to eat like a machine. And very regularly, as I am only a slip of a thing. And I have to think ahead. For example this evening, I'm not too hungry but I am eating. Because in the morning I am running. Because at lunch I have too many meetings. Because in the evening I have an hour of pilates. See, everything is all very crowded in there.

I'm making my bulgar wheat lunch in advance - if I am not eating, then I'm cooking. Or washing run kit. Never ending isn't it?! I've got every superfood you can think of in the cupboard. Amaranth, quinoa, chia seeds. It's a lifestyle choice this distance running malarkey. I bet some people just eat hamburger, run when they feel like it and balance a big job.

But then they wouldn't have an excuse to put Billy Ocean on their play list. "Tough tough, tt-tt--tough."

Entered!

So I bought my entry to the London Ultra last night. It was very exciting, and the SRO gave me a cheer as I handed over my £40, looked up Grove Park and Perivale on the map and answered such questions on the registration form as "what is your expected finish time" (Sunday), and "what is the name of your running club" (I don't have one).

It's very exciting because it's a week later than I planned so that's one more week of training. It's only 20 weeks away so the pressure is on from well, now really. Also the start and finish have moved so the finish isn't just outside my house. And it means the whole field won't know where they are going! Eek.

I'm not sure about the navigation part. The helpful @canteenrun and lovely Baxter Hound said they got lost in a field in Harrow! And when the SRO and I went to watch the finish, the chap who came in third entered from a completely different direction to everyone else. So the potential to misplace oneself is very much there. The Recommended Kit List says one should take both a compass and a map holder. Useful if I knew how to use them to find and correct myself.

Anyway, it's only 20 weeks away but then it's still 20 weeks away so let's keep focussed on Istanbul and staying healthy and positive. And imagine what the nice Ultra medal might look like.

BIG SHOUT OUT: to Andrew Johnstone who finished his first marathon last weekend! The Lochness Marathon medal looks very cool! And he may have been initially helped by a training plan by Yours Truly!

Doing Big and Scary

With apologies to Andy Mouncey

So I was caught in the office extolling to some of my team, the reasons why I run and probably sounding like a bit of a tosser, but hey I am ten year’s older than my audience which I think gives me the right to sound like a pompous git.

Anyway, I run 1) because I can. Because I’m alive and I have a body that’s functional. It’s not athletic, or gifted or strong. But it’s a tool that you can learn to use and I don’t think many of us do enough with what we have other thsn hunch over a screen, a tv or a dinner table. 2) I like to use this body to create pain because actually it’s not that big a deal. I mean yes the training is hard and feels like a sacrifice and there are times when you cry, or hurt or puke. But you know it’s not cancer, or death or losing a loved one or anything major like that you can’t have control of. Or as the incredibly inspiring Andy Mouncey says: “it’s the challenge you choose as opposed to the challenge that chooses you”. Good eh?!

This makes sense to me because I started trying to wear lycra with authority after annus horiibilis when I had been to too many funerals, when I had failed to say goodbye, when I had wrestled with my conscience over my ability to watch someone slowly deteriorate, when I had accepted that death leaves us only with our own guilt and unease because the dead are dead and don’t care or feel.

I plodded through 5km for cancer, for heart disease, and I ran with my friend’s suicide, depression and long slow deaths at my heels. When I felt bonked at 35km in Berlin I cursed the dead for the guilt they leave behind. When I finished a 5km with my friend’s name on my back, it was all I could do not to cry at the finish line, and then enter another race when I saw my memorial run had been photographed for the next event’s leaflet. I run for my friends who have nursed and buried friends and family and who live in the shadow of cancer.

So today when my calf was burning with injury, I massaged it and swallowed some ibuprofen and told myself it wasn’t heart disease or brain cancer. And I dismissed my nausea as nowt compared to chemo. And my pain was temporary, you can insert whether you’d like death or glory to be forever. And then as I psyched myself up to keep going, I realised I was crying because actually it’s a bit bloody grim having these reasons to run, like keeping your ghosts fresh. So if you’d like a more positive take on that, then do check out Andy Mouncey who expresses everything far better than I.

But the point of this is: 1) Every can run, every can do it. Even big fat people or people built really unaerodynamically. I mean look at the bumblebee. Science says it’s not the right shape to fly. 2) it’s never the distance alone that will kill you (thanks again Andy). If you think about it, you can put one foot in front of the other indefinitely, it’s all the other things that make if challenging. 3) it’s really not that hard when you think about all the things in life that is really hard.

So I know that even though my health has been shit, my training hasn’t been as much as I had liked, I will be ok in Istanbul and go forward for four months of proper training for London Ultra.

Lessons learned

Some well informed person at the Kenya Experience told me that the Kenyan philosophy is that there is no such thing as a bad run, only learning runs.

So this morning I had a very learning run.

This is what I learned:

You should never ever change your pre run routine on whatever you consider a long run to be. I know this but I wasn’t really thinking at 6am when I poured myself a fizzy cola hydration drink. I rarely drink carbonated drinks so I was burping with nausea all run.

You should never try out a new piece of kit on whatever you consider a long run to be. I know this but also wasn’t thinking properly. It’s hot outside today and the thought of running without a drink seemed silly, more silly than running with a new hip belt. But actually I could have bought drinks along the way because the new hip belt didn’t sit on my hips without jumping 10cms every stride and so had to sit on my stomach. Combine a constricted stomach with the fizzy drink above for a recipe for disaster.

You should not shove homemade bread in the toaster then walk off, as homemade bread has contours, will catch on the toaster, catch fire and you will spend a good deal of time ensuring the fire alarm goes off and not realise that the smoke will affect your asthma.

When you get up early to run, you should get out there and run – not clean the house. The air was cool at 6am. It was sticky at 9am. Sticky nausea and asthma does not a good run make.

But there, look how much smarter I am as a result.