Tomorrow

Tomorrow I run a marathon. Actually let me say that again as I still can’t quite believe it. Tomorrow I am going to run a marathon.

My Liverpool Race number, This definitely means it's real!

It’s something that a few years ago I couldn’t even dare contemplate. I didn’t want to think about doing things like this as I struggled to believe that they could ever happen. In my tired zombie like state getting through the days was hard enough. It felt like the M.E would never let me recover enough to play sport again. Thinking about it just hurt, reminding me of a past life, of things I thought I wouldn’t be able to do again.

There was a dream I had when I was really ill where I was running around the lanes near my home. Why I was running I don’t really know but I was running and it felt great, it felt like freedom. I woke up in that euphoric state you sometimes find yourself after a run. For a few seconds as the real and imaginary combined I was still out there, then reality took over and the high slipped from my grasp. In real life I could never run like that and experience those feelings. Dreaming was as close as I would get. The tiredness still had me in its grasp.

Well this is definitely real, the feeling in the pit of my stomach says so. The pre race nerves that started as background noise last weekend have now become deafening. If anyone mentions the word marathon my stomach turns. There is no way I’m getting any sleep tonight.

All this lot are running as well. Runners from CDF Runners and Dockside Runners pose for a pre race pic

It’s been six months of training, but what feels like a lifetime of waiting to get here, tomorrow can’t come soon enough. I’ve had it with the waiting, I just want to run, it’s what I do now.

Each week so far the plan has been a simple one to follow, run lots, run some more and then keep on running. The more I run the, stronger I get and the closer I edge towards my goal. Suddenly all this had to stop, the plan was flipped on its head.

The race was getting close and I had to start tapering, whatever the hell that was? I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it. In simple terms tapering is cutting down the amount of mileage you run before a race, in theory meaning you start it feeling energetic and fresh after months of putting yourself through hell.
This meant a complete u-turn in attitude, I had to try and cut down on the thing my life has been based around for six months. I felt like an addict being asked to cut out the substance they rely on to exist.

This is perhaps the hardest bit of the training so far, not running is really bloody tough.
Up until now running has been the solution to all of life's problems,
-If I feel tired I run
-bad day at work I run
-Feeling stressed I run
-Need time to think I run
-Need time not to think I run
In fact with pretty much everything running just seems to help.
These last couple of weeks I haven’t been running so much and I’m starting to listen to my own thoughts and take notice of the voices inside my head. This really isn't a good thing.
Doubt has started to creep in, what if I had just gone a couple of miles more on the long run or done some more double sessions? Surely I haven't done enough training, or eaten the right kinds of food. There’s so much more I should have done, maybe I should have tried to cram in that one last long run? That would have helped. 

One of the runs I did do this week

It’s been hard to shut out all of these thoughts and try to think clearly. I’ve had too much time to analyse what I have and haven’t been able to do over the last few months. Mentally these last two weeks have been the toughest part of the training and a few little injury niggles really haven’t helped. A quick trip to the physio has hopefully sorted things out but I can still feel niggles and twinges in my legs. I’ve got to the stage where I can’t work out if they are real or if it’s just all in my head. I can’t stop myself from thinking over and over about the race wondering about all things that may or may not happen on the day. It’s going to be a relief just to get on the start line knowing that all I have to do is run. In my head I’ve already run this race a thousand times.

Tomorrow though I do this for real, I’m going out for a little morning run. Tomorrow I’m going to run a marathon and I can’t wait.

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.

What are you Running from?

"What are you running from Tom?" It was only a simple light-hearted comment from a work colleague but one that got me thinking.

Finishing the Cardiff 5k. Thanks to Paul Stillman for the picture

The obvious answer is that I am running from my M.E, as with most things in life though it's not as simple as this.

That was definitely the case when I first started running, the only reason I was doing it was because of my M.E. I saw running as the cure, the antidote, the thing that I had to do to try and get better. In my mind the longer and faster I ran the more I could say I was beating the M.E, putting distance between the illness and myself. 

Racing the M.E ghost

It was like playing a racing game on the PlayStation. Once you have put in a lap a ghost appears showing you that time. Every lap after that you are racing a previous version of yourself. The M.E is that ghost, it's the former version of myself sitting there waiting to swallow me up and overtake me if I get things wrong. The further and faster I run the more I can shake it out of my slipstream. It's always there though, it never leaves the rear view mirror. It just sits their lumbering along at a constant pace following you like a zombie, waiting for you to make a mistake and slip back into its dense fog. There's a scene at the start of the film Zombieland where one of the rules to stay alive and out of the clutches of the undead is to work on your cardio. This is also one of my rules for staying ahead of my M.E. The more I improve my cardio, the further I can run and the more distance and time I can buy myself. 

Cardio: Rule number 1 for staying ahead of the M.E Zombie

Of course I can't stay ahead every lap, on the bad days it's like I’ve spun off into the gravel. I can only sit there helplessly trying to get going again as the hazy M.E version of myself looms into view on the horizon, gradually hunting me down. This happens every few weeks. I get to the stage where the tiredness builds up and I can no longer control it. The inevitable crash happens and the M.E once again catches up with me. On these days I just have to admit failure. After some rest the only way to deal with this is to dust myself off, start a new lap and try to buy myself some time again.

This was how it was in the beginning. I was racing the M.E, desperately trying to use running to keep ahead of it. The pleasure I gained from the sport was not from the actual running itself, it was from outrunning the M.E. I could start to see it fade into the background, feel the faint shoots of progress and begin to realise I could have control over my illness.

Gradually things started to change. I stopped looking over my shoulder and started looking ahead. I found myself going for a run because I wanted to, not because it was something I had to do to combat the M.E. I had started to enjoy the sensations and feelings that running gave me.

I would give myself times, goals for certain races, eighteen minutes for 5k, a thirty eight minute 10k or in the case of the marathon three hours. My training runs have become about working towards these, about looking to the future, trying to better myself, trying to beat a new ghost, one that is a future, faster version of me. I can see that ghost standing at the finish line, I can see what I want to become and what I want to achieve. It gives me something to work towards, something to attain.

This weeks training included a run along Bournemouth beach and around Sandbanks with my sister Clare 

I still can’t completely forget about the M.E though. Lizzie Hawker writes in her book Runner about being scared of falling back into the comfort zone. I have the same fear. I'm terrified that if I stop I will fall back into the tiredness and it will take over again, ruling my life. By running I continue away from that, no matter how hard it is to get out of the door, no matter how tired I feel, I have to keep moving, I must keep on running. I think this will always remain as one of my motivations for running. It will always be the process that can help me fight the tiredness.

Is there a finish line to my race with M.E? Probably not. It's taken me many years to accept this, that one day I won't just wake up and miraculously have banished those tired demons. No I think I will always probably have an element of tiredness in my life but I can cope with it. Running has helped me cope. It has given me the disciplines and structures in place to deal with the fatigue but I have to keep on moving as I know what will happen when I stop.

The M.E is the reason I started to run, it is one of the reasons I am still running but by setting myself goals and targets I have changed the main objective for my running. No longer is the primary focus to keep the M.E at bay, it is to work towards the times I’ve put up there in big shiny lights. It is to achieve those goals and to see how far I can push myself as a runner.

These targets have either been achieved or in the case of trying to get a 1.30 half just missed by 10 seconds. The misses have just made me more determined, the successes mean that new goals are set and a new version of myself has to be built to try and achieve them. With each success new targets are set and the cycle goes on, I try to challenge myself with times I'm not sure are possible.

That's how I've gone into this marathon, I’m looking ahead to what I want to achieve. That's why I've set the 3 hour goal. To just run the marathon and get through it feels like looking back, like I’m running from the M.E, doing it just to prove that the illness is no longer in control of me. I’m entering this marathon to see what I can do as a runner, to see how far I can push myself. It is about looking to the future and seeing the ghost that I want to become. Running has helped to stop my life from being dominated by M.E. I can now run for me.

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.

Runners World

I’ve been meaning to write a new post for a while now but life and to be more specific running has taken over. Actually running has most definitely taken over life. It’s all I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks, it’s all I’ve had the energy to do. Don’t get me wrong training has been going well, but with all the long runs, speed session, races, double sessions and the inevitable stretching, strength training, foam rolling, and recovery there hasn’t been time left for anything else, even for the small every day things like shaving. Fifteen minutes extra in bed is much more important, besides more sleep helps my recovery and helps with my next run, Shaving doesn’t. So that explains why I am currently sporting a very scraggly ginger beard and also the lack of a blog post for the last couple of weeks.

This week has been the last full week of intense training. One more long run and I can try and get my head around the mysterious beast that is the taper. Hopefully it’ll mean a bit more time for writing and also maybe a shave. Anyway on with the blog.

The CDF Runners having collected their numbers before the Madrid half and full Marathons

Headphones on, hood up, I’m ready to go. Where shall we run today brain? That’s easy you run the same place you ran yesterday, the same place you run everyday.

It's dark, rainy, cold and damp but it doesn’t matter, I can shut myself off from the outside world and do the same route I always run. Down the end of the road turn right, up the slight hill and then keep turning right all the way back home again.
It's a boring, nothing to see here route through the greyer area of Cardiff. But I do it because it's my running route, I know exactly where I am, how long it will take me and I can never get lost, it cuts down on the unexpected, on the variables. It's a route I don't have to think about, I can just get it done. But it's so dull, if this route was a colour it would be magnolia, something to cover the walls before you can decide on the more daring colour you really want.

So hood up, headphones on, goodbye world I'm going for a run. For the next thirty minutes I may as well be I may as well be running on a treadmill. In fact that would be much easier, no rain or cold, just endless air conditioned miles that can be churned out in the safety of indoors. No variables, no weather, no darkness, no cars, no city, no getting lost, no outside world, no soul.

Surely running can be so much more than this.

Things started to change around my first race. Before the start we were told headphones would be banned as the roads would not be fully closed. How would I be able to run without closing myself off from the outside world? That little personal bubble I created, the songs and the beat they provided were surely the only thing getting me through the monotony of the run. The danger was without my headphones I would realise what I was doing and would fall to pieces, running was boring and running over an hour without music was unthinkable.

In fact the opposite happened, ditching the headphones opened up the world around me. From the sound of runners steps off the line to the cheers of spectators the race provided a host of new sensations. I chatted to fellow runners, waved at spectators, took in the new sights and a bit of the world I hadn't seen before, it was the best run most enjoyable run of my life.
Far from shutting the world out, I realised I could use running to explore more of the world around me. My usual route was abandoned and I started to become a tourist in my own city. I would plan routes around places I had never been to and take turns down streets just to see what was at the end of them. I would get a little lost just for the excuse to stay out a little longer and see a bit more. All the while the headphones stayed at home.
This was when the world started to turn into a big playground, running became the catalyst for seeing new sights and exploring new places. I started to pack my kit everyday for work just in case I had a job somewhere new and had a bit of time to explore.

Laugharne Castle on a run after a job in the town

I still didn't really run on holiday though. Holidays were an excuse to get away from it all to put life on hold for a few days, running included. I remember a colleague at work saying I could still train whilst I went away to Prague for a few days. Immediately my brain started to think of excuses, what if I got lost or injured in a place where I couldn't speak the language? I had no idea about the city, I didn't know where was best to run. And anyway with all we wanted to see there was no way I had the time to fit in a run. The excuses won, my shoes and the rest of the kit stayed at home. Running was forgotten for a few days.

All this changed we went to New Zealand at the beginning of the year. It had to change, four weeks without running just wasn't going to happen. The shoes were packed along with some basic kit and then a bit more kit for good measure. In fact normal clothes were left at home so running kit could take up precious space in the wheelie case.
That first morning in Christchurch I was horribly jet lagged but I was on the other side of the world, how could I not go and have an exploration run even if it was just to make Strava friends jealous of the profile. So I would make my way through town past the cathedral so horribly crippled in the earthquake and round the local park. The run followed a pattern, run stop look take pictures then run again. Normally I hated stopping out on a run, I would wait impatiently at traffic lights cursing as the cars and busses blocked my way, ruining my carefully thought out training plan. This type of run was different. It wasn’t a form of training, it was exploration. Time, distance and calories burnt could be forgotten about. Running was simply the transportation method I could use to take in the environment around me and see the sights. I realised I could use the run to make the most of my holiday.

That profile from my first jet lagged run in Christchurch

The rest of the holiday followed a similar pattern. We were in a campervan so would wake up with the sun. As I lay there I couldn't help but wonder what was outside, what places I could discover, what things I could see that I may never be able to see again. It became impossible to stay in bed no matter how tired I was. Each morning I would discover a completely new place and running was the best way to see it. Armed with my shoes and my phone I could see so much more than I would at my normal meandering tourist pace.

A photo from a run around the lake in Queenstown

So I’m now in Madrid, standing in the sun amid the chaos of the starting pen with forty thousand others waiting to sprint up the first hill. The whole point of this holiday has been to run.

Ok so I’m not taking the race that seriously, if I was then the sea food paella would definitely not have been my first choice for the pre race carb load the night before. No this is a race to enjoy, take in the atmosphere and explore a new city. It’s a training session in the sun after months of slogging it out through the rain, hail and wind of a British winter.

The CDF guys before the start in Madrid

These past few days away have been filled with running, after all when you go on holiday with your run club you expect to do it quite a lot, but it hasn’t been the collapse in a pool of sweat speed sessions we have been used to. It’s been a different type of running, tourist running. The have been the getting lost early morning runs, where you stumble across parks and landmarks. The group runs where we met up with a local run who guided us through the city and back to a bar where we were greeted with Bagels and Mimosas. There was also this race. 

Out on a run with the Lactic Acid Junkies a local club in Madrid. Thanks to Mikhael Puar for the picture and Robert Shultz for being our guide

So despite the seafood paella I had one of my most enjoyable races ever. Rather than blocking out the outside world I took it all in using the run to see the areas of the city I hadn’t got to yet. Once we had finished we could get back to the real business of sightseeing and eating way too much tapas.
This was what running can be. It’s given me a holiday with a group of people I never would have met if I kept the hood up and headphones on. I would still be on that same route pounding the same pavements day in, day out in my own little world.

I ran my original route the other day just to remind myself of how things used to be, to remember how small my running world once was. Running can be so much more than just running. It’s enabled me to make new friends and see places I would have never visited. Back home my shoes are now always in the car and on holiday they are now the first thing that gets packed. The only problem I have is choosing where to run next.

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.