Racing Mo

Recovery run, recovery......run, RECOVERY RUN. No matter how many different ways I write those two words, they should not go together. I am going for a run to get over the effects of going for a run. It's the equivalent of that mate who swears by having a pint the morning after the night before. I'm an addict, I can't get away from it. I am now putting into practice the running equivalent of hair of the dog.

Running has broken me and the only way I can think to fix myself is to go running. Somewhere there has to be a village hall with people like me all satin a circle telling about how they first became addicted and applauding each other about how many days they have managed to go without a run. I've managed a day and a half. Cold turkey just isn't working. I need my fix, I tried walking earlier today but it just didn't give me a strong enough hit.
Today’s stats, sponsored by Garmin, Berocca and the pizza I really shouldn’t have eaten just before I went out, show that I dragged myself around the block for 2.54 miles of self induced torture. That I can safely say was one of the worst runs I've ever had. And the training had been going so well.

With my sister Clare (right) and my wife Bernie. The smiles hide the pre race nerves

I always knew it was going to be like this, no matter how many times I told myself the race at the weekend was just another run, another training session, it was all self delusion.
Come on, along with 12 000 others I was able to race against Mo Farah, a whole host of Kenyans and a field of elite athletes in a world championship race. How could I not give it my all? No matter how many times I told myself it was another training run, another step towards the marathon, I was always going to destroy myself and go for that PB.

I got to race this man....well I got to start in the same race.

In the week leading up to the race I hadn’t felt great. I was feeling tired and struggling to get enough sleep. To top it off I had another of those annoying winter colds, the ones that do the rounds of the office every few weeks. The night before I had passed out on the sofa and then gone to bed early. It made me think twice about how hard I should run.

Adrenaline though is a wonderful thing. Gradually throughout the morning it worked its magic and by the time I was herded into the start pen I didn’t feel too bad. Actually I felt quite up for it. Who cared if it was windy and raining, I was going for it. For (hopefully a little under) an hour and a half nothing else mattered. It was just me and the run. Screw the Marathon and the idea of taking it easy. Who cares if this race means I will struggle to walk for half a week after. 

Just a couple of people from my running club CDF Runners

The gun went and even though the first few miles were into the wind I still felt good. The nerves, the tension, the tiredness and the cold disappeared. I found my place in the pack and slipped into the hypnotic rhythm that a long run can bring. The competitive instinct took over. There was no way I was losing the group ahead, I would constantly glance at my watch to check I was on pace. That pace had suddenly been upgraded, from the 1.25 I told everyone to 1.24, a 1.23 or maybe even 1.22. This was the time I had written down on my entry to give myself a challenge. The time I had in mind before the Marathon had taken over.

Apart from keeping to my time I’m not sure what I thought about during the run. I love racing like this, the days when you feel almost detached from the world around you. To race feels like walking a tightrope, too fast and you will loose control and blow up before the end, too slow and that time, the all important time will slip away from you. It’s a constant challenge to walk this tightrope, to keep your balance. Running like this is when I feel most alive, my senses are heightened telling me every little thing my body is going through. The smallest changes in pace make a difference, occasionally I can feel my breath getting out of control and I have to back off slightly. Every now and then I see a familiar face beside the course cheering me on, bringing me back from my daze into the real world for a few seconds.

It had been going well. I hadn’t really noticed the weather people had been talking about. That all changed at mile nine when we were hit by the mother of all rain storms. If you were watching on T.V this was the one that knocked out the BBC for a few seconds. I could deal with the rain, a winter of training in Cardiff had prepared me for it. If anything the rain gave me a home advantage. Nothing could stop me….apart from the head wind when I turned the next corner. For the next mile, my Garmin didn’t like me and no matter what I tried my pace slowed. It had all been going so well.

In every half I have run those last few miles just have to be got through. From ten miles on its just not fun not matter how well the rest of the run had gone. After what seemed like a soggy eternity I came round the final corner and saw those huge neon numbers ticking over, taunting me and forcing me into a sprint. 

I did enjoy it, honest!    Thanks to Rhys Heal and www.hokumdeadfallphotography.co.uk for the pic

In the end 1 hour 23 minutes 04 seconds was everything I had and more. The adrenaline high of a new PB was worth the pain.

A few days later and the adrenaline high has worn off. The legs though are still aching and I am starting to wonder whether the race was a good idea. I knew that I would question why I had to run so hard but I also realise that I needed to give into that competitive instinct. I wanted to race, to see where I was in my training and if it was doing the right thing. The next stage of the addiction/recovery is a sports massage and yet more self induced pain. Maybe I need to wait a few days before I say if the race really was worth it.

So maybe I enjoyed it a bit more once the race was actually finished!

Here is a link to my just giving page, raising money for Action for M.E.

https://www.justgiving.com/M-e-myself-run
Please give what you can to a very worthy cause.

Diagnosis M.E

Looking back now I can remember the first time that maybe things weren't right. The first time the tiredness was starting to take control.

It was just a normal slightly damp, rainy Sunday afternoon. I’d been down at the local park indulging in my usual weekend pastime of playing football and trying to plaster myself in vast quantities of Mother Nature. I always used to measure how well a game had gone not by skill or goals scored but by just how much of my once gleaming clean kit had been coated in thick brown mud. The game had gone well, there was not much kit left showing through the dirt.

Looking remarkably clean playing football in the back garden

Normally a game of football would be a walk in the park. I would run home and think nothing of playing basketball or tennis after. I had endless amounts of energy.
Today though, was different. I felt heavy and tired. Keeping sleep at bay became impossible. Eventually I gave in, the sofa was just too inviting. Just a few minutes kip. Nothing much. Afterwards I carried on as normal, why wouldn’t I? Sleep had done its job and I felt fine again. It was nothing that unusual but maybe that afternoon was the first sign of my body not being able to keep up with the active life of a teenage boy.

A few months later the flu hit. Just a winter bug, nothing unusual. I would be back to normal after a week or so. Then I caught tonsillitis. Another week or so off school nothing too bad. It was just the winter, people always got ill in winter. Usually I avoided the worst of the bugs but maybe this was just my turn to have a bit of bad luck. Those weeks off turned into months, my once active limbs turned heavy and my mind filled with fog. While the illness went most of the side effects it brought stayed with me. They just didn’t clear. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t do the things I wanted. The tiredness consumed me and I knew I was in trouble, I just didn’t know what was causing it.

Part of the problem back then was just getting diagnosed. Half the battle was getting someone to believe me and tell me that I was actually ill. Twenty years ago the knowledge about M.E was severely lacking, the debate went on as to whether it was actually an illness.
On the rare occasions I would make it into school I would be met with the comment ‘well you don’t look ill.’ There was this overriding sense that people just didn’t understand what I had. But then, how could they? I couldn’t even understand it myself.

Me with M.E.I still looked the same but in the space of a few months everything had changed.

What's worse was that the doctors had no idea what was wrong with me. I had so many blood tests that I felt like a piece of Swiss cheese. Every time we would go through the same process. Blood tests would happen and the results would come back and show I was supposedly perfectly healthy. The doctor would then turn to my parents ignoring me completely telling them that, "as far as I can see there's nothing wrong, get him back into school he should be fine" This just confirmed to me that they thought I was lying, skiving, trying to bunk off and skip exams. It was the only logical diagnosis, the tests showed nothing was wrong. This just confused me even more.

There are only so many times you can be told that you’re lying before you start to question yourself. As a twelve year old kid I trusted those in a position of power. The doctors knew so much more than me. What if they were right? What if I wasn't ill? Maybe I was faking it? These questions would soon be answered when I tried and failed to get back to school again but it would play on my mind. Why couldn’t I do what I had done before? Why could others still do all the things I used to? Why was it just me? All these questions would spin around my sleepless brain, I would spend another night pondering them, getting no where nearer to answers.

I was pushed around from doctor to doctor, most of them performing the same tests and getting the same non existent answers. They would scratch their head and then perform more tests. One doctor tried to prescribe me antidepressants. I think it was more for their piece of mind, just to say they had done something.

The thing was I wasn’t depressed. Nowhere near. Yes my world had changed beyond all recognition but I tried to stay positive and enjoy the things I could do. My Formula One obsession only got worse and rather than playing sport I decided to watch it. And I mean all of it. Snooker, darts, golf even indoor bowls became interesting to me. That’s how bad things had got. My life was about getting the most out of the limited range of things that I could do rather than longing after the things I couldn’t. I couldn’t dwell on the things I had lost. So I stayed positive and I would go into the doctors with a joke and a smile. This just confused them further. Surely he must be depressed, he must be covering it up.


After nine long months it finally happened, someone told me I was ill and told me what I had. M.E had been mentioned before but not in much detail. I was convinced most of the doctors thought of it as a non illness. An excuse made up by lazy people to justify their lack of participation in life. That day things changed, someone believed me. My parents had been pushing for a second opinion and for the first time I saw a doctor who had done some research on the illness. He had worked with people who had M.E and read the latest research that was being conducted in the U.S. Finally someone had knowledge and experience about what I had rather than just looking at test results and telling me that there was nothing wrong. The consultant reeled off a list of symptoms, I nodded my head to pretty much all of them and he said “Well it's obvious you have M.E then.” 

Finally I was officially ill. I can’t tell you the relief it was to hear those words and to find out that it wasn’t just me who had this strange thing called M.E. After all the months of self doubt I finally had some answers to all the questions I had been asking. Now I had piece of mind I could try and work out how to get myself better. The first stage in my recovery was actually being told that I was Ill.

Here is a link to my just giving page, raising money for Action for M.E.

https://www.justgiving.com/M-e-myself-run
Please give what you can to a very worthy cause.

In the Long Run

Monday AM

A Marathon is a really long way. It's not that I've only just found out that it's 26.2 miles it's more that I'm just starting to realise just how far that really is. I'm sure everyone gets this at some point in their training but I’m starting to discover what the word marathon really means and what I've let myself in for. 

A few months ago, Marathon was just a word. I had heard about its origins, about the Greek soldier who had run miles from the battlefield to deliver a message before collapsing and dying on the spot. To be honest I tried not to think to hard about it, it was only myth, a legend, it couldn’t be true? A marathon couldn’t be that hard, Could it?
When my training started, it remained just a word, used to describe a day watching Netflix or tales of endurance that other people subjected themselves to. In physical form it was a crusty old chocolate bar of the 1980s. It was all of these things as well as a race I was going to run, I was just in denial about that bit.

It remained that way for the first few weeks. I continued on with my training and would occasionally (ok maybe quite a lot) drop into conversations that I was running a marathon. Most would look at me as if I was slightly mad suck in a deep breath and say something along the lines of "you would never catch me doing that" I would convince them that it would be, “Awesome fun” still blinded by blissful ignorance about what I was actually trying to do.

That’s all changed these last couple of weeks. The longer runs have jolted me from my daze, flashing up in big neon lights the reality of what I am about to do.

A MARATHON IS REALLY BLOODY FAR!

I was meant to start this blog at the beginning of my training but owing to production dramas (a little term I’ve used to cover up the fact I re-wrote that first post god knows how many times) I have missed documenting the blissful ignorance stage of my training. You join me in the ‘Oh holy shit what have I let myself in for’ stage.

The word marathon is starting to develop a meaning to me now. My longest run of 16 miles was over three weeks ago, training since then has felt like a bit of a slog. Life seems to have got in the way. Work has been busy, I’ve picked up the inevitable winter cold and when I have got out of the door my legs have felt stiff and heavy. I’ve felt tired. Each run seems to come accompanied with a different pain, a little reminder that all the miles and extra hours are starting to take their toll. These little frustrations are starting to play on my mind, making that finish line seem just a little bit further off in the distance. But then who said it was going to be easy. I’m starting to have a new found respect for my friends who have completed a Marathon.

The high of the early training has worn off and I'm back down to earth starting to find out just how much of a marathon a marathon really is. I’m sure that everyone goes through this stage of doubt and questions what they are doing and if they can actually do it. It’s just a natural part of the training, something that I have got to get over.

Time then to get back out running. I’ve got a day off today and there’s another long run just waiting for me. Who knows when I make it back, 26.2 miles may have just got that bit closer.

Monday PM

So that was this morning. To be honest with you I was nervous about heading out for the long run today. The more time that passed since the 16 mile run the more I listened to the aches, pains, tiredness and self doubt. The more I started to wonder if I could do it.

As I write this the endorphins are still flowing and the high from today’s run has yet to wear off. My left calf feels like someone is jabbing scissors into it and I've got a slight headache nausea feeling going on but I don't care because I've cracked twenty miles.
I was never meant to go that far, it was just going to be another long run. It's been one of those days though. One of those spring days when the air is still cold but you can feel the first distant rays of summer reaching out, reminding you that there is something other than the wind, rain and sometimes sleet that you have been accustomed to. It was a day where you just had to be outside, to turn back home and head indoors felt like a crime. 

So I ran, then ran some more and kept on running. I took in my favourite trails, parks and views. I ran on tarmac, gravel and grass skipping over puddles and sliding through the mud. I got half lost, then very lost. I found new unexplored paths, scrambled up banks and turned down lanes that I was only half sure were in the right direction. It felt like an adventure. I didn’t care if I got lost, I could just spend more time outside, more time running. I had started off apprehensive, wondering about how far I could go how I would feel. As I went on I relaxed, I felt in control, comfortable in my pace. I started to forget everything I had said at the top of this page.

It’s amazing what one run can do. The finish line that this morning seemed off in the distance had suddenly come into view. I can now imagine those last few meters, the banner across the road, the bag of free stuff, the post race burger. Twenty miles was a big barrier, suddenly it now seems possible again. The words I wrote this morning seem like they are from a different person. Let's be honest, one who was a bit of a drama queen. I guess that's just the ebb and flow of training for a race like this, there will be good runs and bad. On those bad days I just have to remember why I run, I have to remember days like today.

On the finishing straight in my first 10k. I'm hoping I feel like this at the end of the Marathon. If I feel less knackered it would be a bonus!

Here is a link to my just giving page, raising money for Action for M.E.

https://www.justgiving.com/M-e-myself-run
Please give what you can to a very worthy cause.

The Fork in the Road

Deep breath. I push open the door, my eyes adjust to the bright daylight but I don't stop to look at anything. I'm in my own bubble, determined not to see the expressions of people looking at me, wondering what the hell I'm doing and why my pain contorted face is so red. I don't look like a runner, I don’t feel like a runner. In fact I'm definitely not a runner but God damn I'm going to get through this mile. What feels like hours later I’m back at the door fumbling around for the key whilst trying not to faint on the street. It’s over, thank god it’s over.

I only came to running a few years ago, as a last ditch effort to try and get on top of the tiredness. It was an all in moment, either this was going to work or it would exhaust me and I would be back to square one.
That winter had been a particularly bad one. I'm not sure why but it's always worse in winter. I wouldn't say I suffer from SAD but bad weather and dark days don't help. Maybe some day we will find out that humans were always meant to hibernate over the winter months, seeing out the cold in our caves. Who knows?
The ostrich tactic wasn't working and carrying on as normal was taking its toll. I was exhausted both mentally and physically. I was struggling with my work and the Christmas festivities and social occasions it brought were just making things worse. I was trying to do what everyone else was doing, eating, drinking, staying out late then working the next day. It was all too much for me. It felt like I was on a treadmill and someone had upped the pace without me looking. At first I didn’t really notice anything but soon I was way out of my comfort zone, feeling like I was at my limit just trying to keep up.

There was also something much scarier that had reared its head. I was starting to feel the onset of depression. I had never experienced it before. Even when I was at my worst during my teens I had been able to stay positive and keep my sense of humour. This felt different though, like I had nothing left. Each night I dreaded going to sleep because it meant I would wake up quicker. The morning would come and I would look forward to going to sleep because the day would be over. It was like the tiredness had sucked everything from me. First it had my energy now it had my feelings, leaving me with just this black hole of nothingness. I had no energy left to feel happy, I felt close to a breakdown. I remember saying the words "I think I may be getting ill again"
Saying that sentence out loud shocked me. It was the first time I had admitted something like that in over 10 years. It wasn't quite the truth, I wasn't getting ill again, the truth was I had never been completely better. I was going through a bad patch, a relapse. But it was the start of me admitting everything was not ok. I had to get rid of the ostrich and a new tactic and coping strategy had to be invented. 

I had to run.

It was a big deal getting out of the door for the first time. Behind it lay a new attitude to life, one that involved dealing with problems rather than running away from them (pun definitely intended). What if people saw me? What if I was crap at running, unfit and unable to go around the block? It would just confirm that I was still ill, a shadow of the sportsman I had been when I was a kid. These were the issues I had been trying to avoid all along, it's the ostrich syndrome. By not doing any exercise, in my head I could still be good at it. Maybe I could just go out and run 10 miles. Not trying to participate in a sport meant I could avoid the bigger issue of whether I could actually do it. The real scare would be if I tried it and failed, that would be a difficult mental battle to overcome.

I needed running, I was just frightened that I couldn't do it, that it wouldn't be the answer and I would continue sliding back into the clutches of the M.E again.

Desperation had forced my hand. It felt like running was the only thing I had left, my last resort.

Those first few runs were a tortuous affair. I wouldn't have even classified myself as a runner. I was a jogger at best and in reality a plodder. My legs felt like they were made out of lead and I was sure my chest was about to re-enact that famous scene from Alien. I could barely get a mile around the park before I would start struggling, sometimes having to walk back home. Gradually though, street by street, an extra 10th of a mile here and there, I started being able to go further. The plod was definitely becoming a consistent jog. 

It wasn't some sort of miracle cure, what I was doing was replacing one form of tiredness with another. My muscles would ache and cramp up, but the stressed, dirty, heavy and oppressive tiredness would go. It was replaced by something I hadn't felt since before my teens, the satisfaction of physical fatigue. Mental strain had for a short while been replaced by aching muscles. My body hurt but it felt like it was doing what it was designed for, it had meaning again. I could now go to sleep with the satisfaction I had achieved something. I had outrun the M.E for another day.

The running was still a struggle though. I would puff and wheeze around the park, feeling heavy and laboured. It was definitely helping, making me feel better but dear God it was hard work. Most of my thoughts would be about the pain it was causing me and how long it would be before I could collapse back onto the sofa at home again.

The moment it turned from a jog into a run is a vivid memory. I was on my usual route back home when I suddenly realised I didn't want to get back there any time soon. The sofa could wait. I felt lighter, moved more efficiently and wanted to see how far I could go. Three miles became four and eventually I worked my way up to almost six. In the space of one run everything had changed. Running was starting to become a passion rather than just a process. It was now becoming a major part of my life. I was still running because of the way it helped my M.E but I was now enjoying the feelings it brought me. I was running because I wanted to run.

The shoes that started it all.

Here is a link to my just giving page, raising money for Action for M.E.

https://www.justgiving.com/M-e-myself-run