I’ve just been out for my last run of the year, dodgy the rain (mostly) on a short loop down the side of the river Taff and back up along the Ely, my tired body happy to just achieve moving for today. 2023 is going out with a whimper. Which feels appropriate for a year that started with covid and has been peppered with illness and injury.
As I look back over the year (studying my Strava data, going through my photos), what emerges looks like a giant game of snakes and ladders. I can picture myself as a counter on a board, desperately trying to move forward but repeatedly being thrown back down the board by one problem or another. The snakes rear their heads with no warning and take you down fast; climbing back up the ladders again is another matter entirely, frustratingly slow and ponderous, with no guarantee of getting back to where I started. Whether I can win this game or not remains to be seen.
What would ‘winning’ even look like? Running further? Faster? Or just more consistently? My sister reminded me recently that we are in this for the long haul; that if we expect to be running into our 70s and beyond, intelligent recovery is absolutely key. I turned 48 this year, and I know that my body is not behaving in the way it was even just a couple of years ago. To keep going means looking after myself a little more than I have been doing, really focusing on what my body needs, perhaps being a little more accepting of the days when moving at all is enough. Maybe this is what ‘winning’ actually looks like: keeping going and enjoying it, without breaking myself in the process.
If that is winning, then I failed quite spectacularly this year. Coming back from a sprained ankle to run my second ultra just three weeks later should really have been the high point of the running year. But an invitation to join a friend in Norway some six weeks after the ultra was not something I could turn down, so instead of recovering properly I worked through some foot niggles and got on a plane to Trondheim and my first ever sky race. It was everything I could have hoped for: technical, stunningly beautiful, peaceful and a proper adventure (I got lost, I got stuck in a bog, I scrambled, and I fell over a lot). I ran nearly all of it on my own. It was also significantly harder than anything I’d done before, so much so that getting timed out on the second summit was not a disappointment so much as a relief that I could carry on enjoying the rest of the day without worrying about how I was going to get up the final peak in time.
It was also the final straw as far as my body was concerned. I’d randomly fainted a few days before the race, which was probably a sign that I was pushing things, then a few days after getting home I came out in hives. Everywhere. For over a week. There was no obvious cause that I or the GP could identify, so I concluded that my body was giving up on the subtle hints and had started shouting at me ‘you need to stop! Now!’ Not listening was no longer an option. I stopped, rested, and started to really think about what I had done this year, and what was going on behind the scenes. So much of what influences our running is entirely outside of our control. Very sadly, I’ve learnt that that includes my children’s mental health, and long periods with both of them too unwell for school this year has left its mark on all of us. There is no doubt that running is a key part of how I manage my own mental health, but I’m forced to acknowledge that it is not without risk.
So what will 2024 have in store? I have a vague memory of making a decision, probably about this time last year, to be active every day in 2023. The vagueness of my memory pretty much sums up how well that went, so there seems little to be gained in making concrete plans at this time of year. Afterall, if I never commit to training plans because I know life will get in the way, why would I think that making a plan for a whole year could work?
The answer seems to lie not in working harder, but in working wisely. Weekly strength training is already helping me feel stronger, so twice weekly would be better. Running consistently, even if it means shorter runs, will pay dividends down the line. Even more importantly, I need to find running goals that inspire without pressurising. Two of my best runs this year were training runs in the Lakes, taking myself off into the hills alone, finding my way, trusting myself. These two runs encapsulated everything that I love about running. They are precisely what I need more of this coming year.
As for the rest, there will no doubt be a curve ball or two to come my way. I cannot possibly plan what they’ll be or when they’ll come, and I know I need to learn to accept that limitation. There’s only so much that can be ploughed through before something starts shouting ‘stop!’ Ideally, 2024 will see me learning to listen to that shout a little earlier, stop sooner, and recover faster. If I can achieve that then 2024 will be a success. Well, provided there are some mountain runs in there too.
I Run Free 