What Next?

Ok, I admit it, I completely underestimated the marathon. It was just going to be another run, another race. Who was I kidding? There's a reason why we use the word marathon to describe feats of endurance. I now know why it is regarded as such a challenge and why people looked at me as if I was slightly mad when I said I would run one. In no way is it just like any other race, the marathon is so much more than that.

During the race you are living on the edge of your capabilities, pushing your physical and mental limits. It’s a wonderfully intense, exhilarating and satisfying place to be. As the race goes on your perspective of time changes and a life time of emotions are condensed into the space of a few hours. It’s like you are existing in a hyper-reality, a world where you are completely in tune with your body. Your senses are heightened, you can feel every little change of pace, raise in heart rate, every nerve ending sending data to your brain. It’s the most alive you will ever be.

And then just like that it's over, everything you have been training for, everything you have been working towards, all that you have thought about for the last six months is gone. You've finished.

So what now!? What the hell do I do next?

Trying to get back into running again at the new Cwmbran Parkrun. Photo by Sarah Debnam

I haven't really known what to do with myself these last couple of weeks, without the marathon to aim for and a goal to work towards I've felt completely lost. There's a huge marathon shaped hole in my life and I'm not quite sure how to fill it.
People said it would be like this, the marathon blues they called it. You spend so long aiming for one thing, concentrating on one event. You become so fixated and focused that nothing else matters. Then suddenly with the end of the race it all stops leaving you with an anticlimactic empty feeling. After experiencing such a high normal life just doesn’t quite cut it.
I hadn’t wanted to believe them. This was going to be a race like any other I thought. I would run, take my usual week or two to recover and then move on, ready to try another challenge and achieve some new goals.

It hasn't quite happened like that though.

I didn’t realise just how intense the Marathon experience was going to be, how much I was going to go beyond what I thought were my limits during the race and how it would affect me both mentally and physically. These past few weeks I have struggled to come to terms with what I have done and what I should do next. What can top a marathon?

The first answer to that was to run another marathon as soon as physically possible. I could just continue on with what I've done for the last six months, one training plan could slip seamlessly into another. After all the three hour goal was still there, I just needed to find a race that would be fast, flat and perfect for having another crack at it. As early as the massage table thirty minutes after the race I was thinking about the next one, already asking fellow runners which races they recommended. The buzz of the race still had me in its grip, I could just keep on running, I'd already done one Marathon, nothing could stop me now. For the first couple of weeks this thought got me through.

A month on and physically the aches and pains have gone however exhaustion still has me in its clutches. I've been stuck in this post marathon daze of tiredness, shattered, unable to concentrate, unable to get on with life. It’s like I’ve been on a six month long adrenaline high which has suddenly worn off. I've felt disconnected from the world around me, as if someone else is operating my body by remote control.
The reality of just what a marathon is has finally hit home. It's only now that I have come to realise just how much effort I put into that run. The further I get from the race the more I realise I just can't do that all over again this year. I've gone through the process of registering my interest for races and researching fast flat courses, but in reality I think I knew that it would be a struggle to start this all over again. I was just letting myself down gently, I struggled to admit to myself that maybe I couldn't do this all over again quite yet. With this realisation I have started to feel a bit helpless. The next marathon was going to drag me out of the hole, it was going to kick start the second half of the year but without that solid goal, a race to work towards, I haven't got anything to aim for and have been struggling to find the motivation to run when I am feeling all kinds of shattered.

Friends have said that it must be nice to have a bit of downtime, a bit of a rest for a few weeks. I would nod in agreement, hiding the fact that actually all I wanted to do was run again. I had enjoyed my training and despite all the effort and time put into the race I hadn’t wanted to stop, not even for a few days. Why would I stop doing something I love? I don't want to sit still, I spent way too long doing that. I'm stuck in limbo with my three hour goal hanging over me, all I want to do is have another crack at it. Trouble is, I just haven’t got the energy to do it.

The marathon was all about finding my limits and seeing how far I could push myself, at so many points in my training I went over those limits. I use running to help my M.E but this was going to far, the training left me tired, the race itself has left me exhausted. The past few weeks I’ve been struggling to summon up the motivation and find the adrenaline not only to run but to get on with my normal life.
I found my limits and ignored them, running way past them, leaving them on the pavement at mile twenty. I desperately want to run and carry on where I left off but in all truth I just can't, I just haven’t got the energy. It’s time to listen to my body and slow down for a while. It's frustrating but it's necessary. I hadn't wanted to admit to my limitations but if I don't then I will never learn from my mistakes and improve in the future. I will only make myself ill again.

Getting out on the mountain bike at Cwmcarn, something I didn't have time for during training.

And so the marathon limbo will continue, until I find the next challenge or sign up for the next race. It may take a bit longer than I thought but I need to be patient. The next few months are going to be about the smaller goals, I'm going to enjoy the local races, run in new places, explore some new trails and maybe have a crack at my 5k and 10k times. No longer do I have to obey the all important training plan. I'm now free, I can take the time to enjoy my running. I'm aching to do the next marathon but I don't want to run the next one because I feel I have to, I need to do it because I want to. It may take a while for me to get over the first Marathon but it sure as hell isn't going to be my last.

The Marathon

It's there, it's finally there. The black banner rising high above the crowds in the distance signals the finish. In my delirious state I can't quite take it in, it's got to be a mirage in the running desert, a figment of my imagination. I can't believe I'm going to do this, I'm going to run a marathon. 

There's just one problem. That banner doesn't seem to be getting any closer. Every time I look up from the ground and away from my lumbering feet it’s stuck there on the horizon, just out of reach in the far distance, refusing to get any nearer.
I’m broken, I have been since about four miles ago. If this were a film (anyone interested in buying the rights please get in contact) now would be the montage moment. Six months of training and seventeen years of illness would be wrapped up in a three minute Rocky style moment of cinematic epicness. Real life is rarely like the movies. I have thought about this moment for a long time, about what it would be like, the emotions I may feel, but right now I can’t think of anything, I’ve got no energy left for emotion. I feel empty, shut off from the outside world, in my own marathon bubble of pain. It's just me and that damn banner. It will not defeat me.

From out of nowhere a figure runs towards me, it takes me a few seconds to register it's my wife, running in with me, guiding me home. She’s my link back into the real world after hours of running in a tunnel, thinking only of getting this far. I try to talk to her but I can hardly get the words out. After three hours with only me and my mind for company, I can't quite take in something from the real world. “Is that the line” I whisper, the voice seemingly not coming from me. “Yes” she says “Go for it you’re almost there.” I stumble forward, trying my best to look with it for the cameras. I'm here, I've made it, after all this, after everything I'm a marathon runner. I celebrate by trying not to collapse whilst chugging a much needed Lucozade. 

I've done it. At this point I was still in a bit of a daze. 

This is all I've been thinking about for the last six months, I've done it, but I can't feel a thing, I'm not sure what I expected but it's a massive anticlimax. All my concentration is now taken up with trying to stay standing. Slowly the real world is coming back into view. It's like someone has turned on the light after you have been sleeping. For a while everything is bleached out, over exposed, people are talking at me but it's not making much sense. Slowly the world starts to filter back into view. It's been hot, damn hot today. It's the one thing I was worried about before the race. Well ok, there were plenty of other things I was fretting about, but I don't get on well with heat, it’s what worried me the most.

Three hours and ten minutes ago I was stood waiting impatiently on the start line not quite sure what was ahead of me. The previous few days had been lost to a sea of nerves. It had become unbearable but I was here waiting to go, ready to do my running thing. Even then standing in the crowd it was too hot, that heat scared me but I had done all I could to prepare. I had plastered myself in three layers of sun cream and drunk as much water as I could stomach. Do your worst sunshine.

With the CDF, Dockside and GLA Runners before the start of the marathon

So we set off on that mad dash into the fist corner where it always seems like the race is a hundred meter sprint. Keep calm I kept on telling myself, stick to the plan. It’s just a run, a long training run in the sun, a tour of a city I don’t know. As we wound our way through the parks and past the football stadiums I stuck to my target pace, I felt comfortable. I enjoyed being the tourist, taking in the views, chatting to marshals on their bikes and high fiving people in the crowd. Marathons weren’t meant to be fun, they were meant to be full of pain, toil and suffering. Maybe this would be different? Maybe I could outrun the pain?

In the back of my mind the three hour goal loomed. I felt good. Despite the hills, the heat and the last minute injury niggles I felt like I might actually do it. For the first 13.1 miles the plan worked perfectly. Things were now starting to get tough but I was still on pace. I was using every bit of shade I could, running in the shadows of buildings and under the canopy of the trees. It was not enough though and despite gulping down as much water as I could at the aid stations I was starting to feel the effects of the heat. The world was closing in around me. A tunnel was forming and I was starting to blank out the sights of the city. The crowds that had once seemed so near and so loud drifted further and further away from me. I was now alone with my thoughts. My marathon had just begun.

At mile 18 on Penny Lane it all started to go wrong. I awoke from my running daze to the blaring tones of the Beetles. “You got this” A woman with a microphone yells. “Have I?” I thought. “Do you really know what it's like?” “Nearly there” she yelled at the next runner behind still eight miles from the finish. “You have no idea what you’re talking about” I think. “You have been employed because you are loud and have a super human ability to endure listening to the Beatles on a loop for seven hours.” Normally I love any kind of encouragement however the noise and loud over enthusiasm had proved too much. I realised then with these incoherent thoughts I was starting to struggle, the heat was sapping rational thought from me. More importantly it was sucking out the energy I had felt for the first half of the race. The goal of three hours was disappearing behind the shimmering heat haze that had now surrounded me.

Keep going, I must keep going.

I stumbled through the last park, and hit the seafront. Now there was no escape from the heat. No buildings to hide behind, no trees to filter it out. It was just wide open space, blazing sun and a headwind, a damn head wind. I could see the tall skyscrapers of the city centre that surrounded the finish line in the distance, never had four miles looked so far.

In a world of my own a few miles away from the finish. Thanks to Gareth Everett for the picture

At this point the run turned from a chase, into survival, the heat had got me. The stagger to the distant banner had begun. I now just had to make it to the finish, it was all I could do. The run turned had turned into a plod and then in places a walk. It was just a few paces here and there and then I would stagger on but it felt pathetic, it felt like I was on a treadmill going backwards. Apparently I ran past a friend in those last few miles, he later told me he was screaming at me, yelling encouragement as I passed within feet of him. I didn’t hear a thing, I could only think of the finish. Nothing else existed.

A week on and I still can’t quite believe I’ve done it. The pain that still sits in my legs reminds me that it did actually happen. During those last few miles I ran headfirst into the wall that runners talk about so much. They were the hardest miles I’ve ever run. 

The Finish! The point that felt so far away only a few minutes earlier

I’ve struggled with my thoughts about the race this week and I think that’s because of the conflicting emotions I feel about my run. On the one hand I’m proud to have finished a marathon on a tough hilly course. On the other I’m disappointed to have missed the time goal I had set myself.

I used to look upon the marathon as an unattainable goal. Marathons were run by people who were far fitter, stronger and tougher than I was. They were run by people who didn’t have M.E. By finishing I have done something I never thought possible a few years ago. I have proved myself wrong. Running has helped me tackle the illness and accomplish challenges I thought were out of reach.

I’ve always said though I never wanted to be defined by the M.E. I didn’t want to just get through this race. That was why I set the goal of three hours and I why was initially disappointed that I missed it. It didn’t matter about the heat and the hilly course. Club mates have since told me it was probably the toughest marathon they have done. In the coming weeks I think I will become happier with my time but I always want to run quicker and race better. As a runner I am never satisfied, it’s what pushes me on and drives me to the next challenge.

I know now why it felt like an anticlimax when I crossed the finish line. It was because I was expecting an ending, a conclusion for my story. The reality is that that it won’t end, I will keep on running, it’s what I do now. I was never going to stop after just one marathon. The three hour goal is still there looming large and I’m already thinking of what marathon to tackle next.

At the very start of this blog I introduced myself as Tom Martin, M.E sufferer. Now I am Tom Martin, Marathon runner.

With my wife Bernie showing off our race medals, at this point it was just starting to sink in what I had done.

I just want to thank you all for the support. Here is a link to my just giving page, raising money for Action for M.E, it's you last chance to donate people.

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

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.

Run Free

The sun is just coming up, its rich orange hues warming the earth around me and waking the world from its slumber. As I run down the trail I pass by a fence, the low light creating a strobe effect as I move past it like running through a giant barcode.
The path is nothing special, just one of my regular routes by the river but at this moment in time there is nowhere I would rather be and nothing else I would rather be doing. I feel alive, brimming with energy, I feel free.

How did I ever manage without running?

Enjoying the run at Swansea Half Marathon Last year

It’s something that has taken over my life, dominating my thoughts and actions but as a kid I was never really interested. I never saw running as a sport in its own right. In my rather short sighted view it was a training method, body conditioning that allowed you to improve your ability and endurance when playing proper sports such as tennis, football and cricket. A proper sport involved not only physical ability and athleticism but hand eye coordination and skill. Running lacked the hand eye coordination so in my mind it was downgraded to a training tool.

It’s not that I didn’t run, I spent most of my life doing it, but it was always to chase a ball of some sort. Running was just an element of the sports that I enjoyed so much. To run on your own just for the sake of running seemed a bit boring and pointless if there wasn’t a ball at the final destination.

I did go to a couple of races and run for the school, I remember one race, a cross country scramble up and down a local hillside where I finished fourth, just off the podium and so close to the lemonade that was masquerading as Champagne. Cross country wasn’t so bad, we had set up a club at school and I enjoyed the jaunt through the fields and around the country lanes but I think the chance to get covered in mud was probably my main motivation for doing it. Running and the few races I entered were just sideshows to my favourite sports, run on days when there was no football/rugby/cricket/tennis/basketball to be played. It was something different to fill the gap, to keep me active in-between playing real sports.

School sports day, a rare day of running without a ball involved. I am second on the left of the picture behind my childhood nemesis Gareth Hill

I had no idea how bigger part running would play later on in my life.

Years later I needed the sport, It was my last resort in the ongoing fight against the M.E. I still didn’t see running as a fully fledged sport though. To me it was a process, a tool that I could use to try and help get myself out of the slump I was in and try to regain some sort of control. It was me vs the M.E and running was my chosen weapon.

There were so many reasons why it had to be running

To start with it was the easiest way to get fit. In the same beautifully simple way that to play football you just need a ball or even just a tin can, to run all I needed was a pair of trainers. I could do it anywhere and any time, fitting the sport around my life and my illness. There was no expensive kit to buy, no facilities I had to travel to or pay for. There was no team expecting me to play each and every week. No one to let down if I was too tired and couldn’t make it. It was just me and the shoes. I could go out on my own doing things in my time, letting only myself down if things went wrong. I was in control.

In fact the more I think about it the more running is the perfect sport for me and my M.E.

If I'm feeling bad the run can be shorter, or slower. On better days I can go further and faster, it all depends on how I feel at that moment in time and what my body can manage.
What I have come to realise is that I was really wrong in my early views about running. It is one of the most natural and pure sports that we have. If you so wish there are no rules and regulations, just you, your feet and a desire to do what ever you want. It’s the best game in the world, one that changes every time I go out, providing me with new feelings and experiences. Each run gives me new ways to find out more about myself and what I can do. 

When I run, I can play with the ground beneath me, challenging the continually changing vistas that appear from over the horizon. I skip from surface to surface, running on tarmac, grass, sand, gravel, each of them offering different experiences and challenges. No run is ever the same. Sometimes I dance round puddles other days I drive straight through them, sometimes (although it’s rare in Wales) those puddles aren’t even there. It's one big constantly varying game with the whole world as my pitch and where there are no rules or referee. I can use whichever part of the pitch I please and do whatever I want. I am the controller of the world around me.

It took time to see running like this though to see it as this game, as this wonderfully free sport. To start with it really did feel like taking medicine. It was not a pleasant process, but I had to get through it to try and beat the M.E.
Six months in and I started to feel a bit of the magic of what running could offer. I was enjoying the sensations it gave me.

So now I run most days and you know what it feels pretty damn good. There's an energy it gives me, a high, an adrenaline rush that keeps me going, it gives me just enough to lift the fog of tiredness and escape it's clutches for a few hours at least. I guess you could say I'm trying to outrun the illness, in my mind the more I run the further it takes me away from the M.E and those days where I could barley even speak without it being an effort. Sometimes I look back at where I was, and the sofa that had become my world. I managed to escape and run free, leaving that isolated life behind. Now each time I run I feel like the luckiest man alive. Whilst I am out running I no longer have M.E, I am just me again.

Todays playground of choice - Caerphilly Castle

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.

And now for something completely different

We are going the wrong way. No matter what we try we can't get this kayak to turn left and go around the supposedly simple course set up on the lake. We've definitely got a faulty kayak, it’s the equivalent of a dodgy supermarket trolley, the one that looks ok outside the store but spends the whole of your shop trying to drive you into the neatly stacked pyramids of cut price baked beans.
Yes that's it this kayak is definitely broken, it's been set up to only turn right. At best we are probably going to beach it on the island that is coming up to meet us faster than we would like.

After much splashing, shouting and stabbing at the water with paddles, we realise that it's us who is faulty, the kayak is in perfect working order. We discover that while it will go left, keeping it straight is another matter entirely. The Strava map of this paddle is going to look like a three year olds drawing of a dinosaur.

To be honest I'm just quite happy we haven't taken a cold plunge in the lake yet. I didn't tell my team mate this but kayaking and me don't seem to get on, it was the part of the race that was always going to go a bit wrong. Last time I was in a kayak, I was still going round in right hand circles but it was in the much more pleasant climate of Crete and crystal clear waters that almost invited you to fall in. That day after a bit of paddling around I started to feel sea sick, on a kayak, that's how much the sport didn't agree with me. It was a sunny calm day as well, hardly The Perfect Storm. Margam on this rainy morning was trying its best to recreate the elements that George Clooney and his mates battled through in the film but on a small boating lake, we weren't in any danger, from the conditions at least. The biggest danger came from ourselves.

At least we are now going in the right direction, it's hardly the university boat race but we have now got out paddling stokes in time, maybe we could be alright at this... That illusion is shattered when we have to make a right hand turn and the kayak now only wants to turn left. Like a stubborn puppy it just does the opposite of what we want.

After the Half Marathon last week and the (self imposed) pressure of going for a PB this race is a bit of light relief, it's something new, an adventure racing taster. It’s never going to test the limits of my stamina and endurance but that’s not the point of today. It’s just a bit of fun. I can let my inner kid out, the one who judge’s sport by how much mud is involved. Today in the wind and the rain, this race has to rank pretty highly, even getting out the transition area means a wade through what is quickly becoming a bog. My ten year old self would quickly declare this the best sport ever, my twenty nine and three quarter year old self is really kind of enjoying it too.

So much mud. This is the race HQ.

Eventually we make it round the two laps of the really not that big lake, one of the instructors takes pity on us and wades out to intercept our rather drunken looking trajectory and drag us back to the bank. It’s a helpless feeling being pulled those last few feet but at least it means we avoided hitting the end of the jetty.

Off to the bikes, I know how to mountain bike, we will be much safer on the bikes. I spoke to soon. The freedom of being back on dry land has gone to our heads and we pedal like men possessed down the hill into the first corner. What we forgot is that the water logged course now resembles the boating lake and the kayak would now probably be the preferred mode of transport. Predictably we almost skid straight on and into the town of Port Talbot. It is more down to luck that we stay upright. No it seems that we (and possibly and others within range) are definitely not safer on the bikes.

The bikes dry off in the sun which decided to come out once we were finished

The Garmin training plan, the one I have been loosely sticking too when it suits me says today called for two runs, a recovery run the morning and a hill session in the afternoon. This though is much more fun, after the seriousness of last week I needed a bit of light relief, a break from the relentless miles of the marathon training. This week was always going to be a rest week. I needed to take a bit of time and recharge the batteries ready for the final two months of slog before Liverpool. Since the start of January all I've been thinking about is the marathon. Pace, mileage, cadence, heart rates and other serious running matters have dominated my thoughts. For a couple of hours on a rainy morning in Wales I can forget all that. All of my concentration is now taken up with trying to stop my face meeting the ground as I speed down paths that resemble riverbeds.

So I haven’t been able to completely get away from running, the start of the race was a short trail run around the park before the kayaking but it felt good running without thinking about the plan and the endless timing and stats that it brings.
Eventually after many more near crashes, a few wrong turns and the discovery that contact lenses, mud and mountain biking don't mix we make the finish in one piece.

Tomorrow I've got a long run in the schedule as the training picks up before the Marathon but this has been the break I needed. We also ended up with a big shiny trophy after winning our category. Lets face it any day is good if you end up with some silverware. The thing I probably shouldn't mention it that we only had to beat one other entry in our category. It's a shame that so few people entered as the day was an absolute blast. My adventure race taste buds have been well and truly wetted. I may even come back and try the event that is planned for Cardiff in September. As long as there is lots of mud and we get a kayak that works this time then I’m there.

We Won!!! Thanks to my team mate Stewart Harding for telling me about the race

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.

If anyone is interested in similar races here's the Burn series website

http://www.burnseries.co.uk/