Category: Practicalities

Now I’m starting to get somewhere. I’ve hit two significant milestones this week as I slowly edge my way back to pre-injury levels of running. There’s still a very long way to go, but I’m starting to see it, poking over the horizon as I run towards it.

Milestone 1 – I made it all the way round Cardiff Bay. This is one of those runs that has always been a benchmark, harking back to my early running days working so hard to get round it. I’d been working my way up very slowly and methodically, three runs a week then up the distance by half a mile provided the runs went well. That’s fine early on, but by the time I hit four miles the constant clock watching was getting me down – is my pace ok? Will the run be far enough? What if it’s too far, will I make it home? Add to all that the sheer tedium of running the same route every time, just because I was confident I could work out the distance, and I was at serious risk of losing my running joy.

Time for a chance of tack. Surely getting back to four miles was enough to start trusting myself again? How about choosing a shorter route, but not looking at my watch and just listening to my body instead?

Every now and then, at the most unexpected moments, we just get it right. I came back after that run feeling energised and positive so a few days later, in desperate need of a proper change of scene, I laced up, hid my watch under my sleeve, and set off for 5 miles around the Bay. At last I could run over the barrage again and feel the wind (and rain!) in my face, with the scent of the sea and the views across the Channel to keep me going. It’s something special even on a drizzly day in January, and more than ever this year after waiting so long to get back there.

I may not have planned the timing, but I always knew that milestone number 1 was something I was actively working towards. Milestone number 2, on the other hand, was a completely unexpected treat. We’re still in lockdown, have been since before Christmas with no end currently in sight, so I didn’t think there was any chance of running with someone else. I’ve missed it dreadfully, the company, the chat and the camaraderie, then out of the blue today my eldest son decided to come with me, cycling next to me as I ran. I’d forgotten quite how hard running and talking can be as he chatted perfectly naturally, riding gently beside me. But I settled into it, slowly picking up the pace as I remembered how to breathe and talk, rediscovering the joy of a shared experience in the outdoors.

Recovery is a slow process, there’s no hiding from that. Even when progress is good, it takes time to build up strength and endurance again, without risking a relapse by pushing too hard, too soon. Small milestones along the way can make all the difference, achievable goals to remind us that we are moving in the right direction. Ticking off those goals and setting new ones is going to give me a focus now, a nearer focus than the big one of being back to pre-injury strength. If I’m lucky, those little goals will hide the big one for long enough to get me there without realising it.

After six long weeks with very little movement I’m back running again, and what an amazing feeling that is. So far I’ve had two very short runs, one round the local park and the other just a little way down the road and back, neither of which has topped two miles. I’m slower than I’ve been for years, I can’t even contemplate a 5K for the foreseeable, but none of that matters. I’m running again, that’s all I need right now.

There’s a ritual to going for a run that I’m learning to appreciate fully for the first time. The run doesn’t start when I step out the front door. It starts when I make the decision to go. From that point on, everything I do and think about is leading up to that first footstep – if I’m hungry, what should I eat that works with the run? When should I eat? Am I drinking enough, but not so much that I’ll need to stop when I’m out? And what about kit? Choosing it, laying it all out, changing. Wriggling my toes into my toe socks. Taming my hair. Lacing my shoes. Warming up and setting my watch to find the GPS.

None of this is technically running, but it all happens before the door opens and I step outside. And it is through all of this that I become a runner again, that I find that frame of mind that gets me outside and moving and loving it. The hardest part of being injured was losing this part of myself, so to find her again is an absolute joy. This is why speed and distance simply don’t matter at the moment. When I run I become my truest self, in a way that carries over into everything else I do. It makes the hard things easier to bear and the good stuff even better. I’ve really missed this. It is so, so good to be back.

It’s November. The days are shorter, the weather’s colder, and sunshine is in short supply. Getting motivated for a run when the world outside is grey and damp is not easy, especially when there’s a warm sofa and a good book beckoning. I could talk myself out of this very easily . . .

So why don’t I? The truth is that actually, deep inside, there is a part of me that actively enjoys going out in bad conditions. To know I’ve committed to a run in the wind and rain, when I’m going to come home looking battered and leave a puddle in the hall, gives an incredible sense of achievement. It doesn’t need to a be a long run, and it almost certainly won’t be fast, but knowing that I haven’t been beaten back by the weather is curiously empowering.

There are definitely some practical considerations here. I need to know that there’s time for a long, hot bath at the end of it, and a large mug of tea. Bad weather is not the time for running along exposed routes, with high winds more than rain playing a significant part in my route choice. This is also the time when all that techy kit comes into its own – fabrics that dry quickly are key, you don’t want to wear clothes that get so saturated they weigh you down. Unless it’s a wet day in the height of summer, a good running waterproof that is light and quiet will both keep you comfortable and get you out running for longer (I do own a very lightweight pair of running waterproof trousers, but they are very much emergency wear!). And don’t forget your feet, waterproof socks will keep your feet dry, warmer and (relatively!) cosy.

But there has to be more to it than just some practicalities that make running in the rain less awful. The first step is simple – I live in Wales, if I don’t run in the rain I’ll lose half the year, so either I embrace the weather or spend half my running life miserable. I run to make me happy, so there is no real option other than to embrace it, to open my arms and my eyes and understand that the sting of driving rain on my face is utterly exhilarating, that the downpour running off my nose and chin refreshes me better than any shower, that a steady drizzle awakens all my senses, and that the soft mizzle as I run through the mist is like a gentle kiss to remind me I’m alive.

When I think of it like that, I can feel myself smiling at the thought of the fantastic few months of winter running ahead of me. Bring on the rain!

Being injured is, to put it very mildly, rubbish. From the little niggle that makes you think you should miss a run to be on the safe side, to the stress fracture that leaves you out for months, it’s all immensely frustrating and depressing. As I write this I am recovering from what we think is a stress fracture (no one seems to be 100% sure, but as everything else has been ruled out that’s about the only diagnosis left). In many ways the timing has been as good as it could possibly be, we’ve just had another lockdown, my husband has been at home throughout, and for over two weeks I haven’t left the house and have rarely left the sofa.

So I’ve been a very good girl. I’ve rested, I’m looking after myself, and as people who aren’t runners keep telling me, at least it isn’t anything worse. I’m still healthy.

Healthy?! The less I’ve done the more tired I’ve become as I’ve veered between wanting to scream in frustration at my lack of movement, and the next minute being overwhelmed by complete lethargy. Rarely has there been a time in my life when I so desperately needed to run, as we all try and find our ways to cope in this pandemic, and I can’t do it. I’m having to face up to quite how reliant I am on running. I use it to control my anxiety levels, to keep my mental health on an even keel, and over the last few years it’s become a crucial aspect of my social life. All gone. I should probably be using this time to find alternative strategies, but to do that would suggest that I might have to curtail my running, or even stop, and neither of those are even close to being options.

Perhaps it’s that last thought that has kept me on the straight and narrow throughout this period. I had always thought that I’d really struggle to stop if I found myself properly injured, but I’ve been lucky enough to have an amazing physio who was prepared to be blunt with me. He told me that if I didn’t listen to my body now I ran the risk of reaching a point where recovery became increasingly difficult, with a worst case scenario of having to stop running entirely. That prospect was such a terrifying thought that it simply hasn’t occurred to me to do anything that might risk this recovery.

I’m going to leave the house later, for the first time in 17 days. And later this week I can try a very short walk around the park at the end of our street. I can’t think too far ahead, that’s when the fear starts to overwhelm again, so one day at a time and slowly, very slowly, I will make my way back to running.

With over five years of running under my belt I thought I had it all worked out. Running was something to do alone most of the time, a chance to tune out and reset myself, in my own way and at my own pace. Running clubs were for ‘serious’ runners, not people like me. The few occasions the thought of joining one flitted across my mind I very quickly batted it away. Social running was definitely not my thing.

I have never been more wrong.

My local running group is called Run Grangetown, a social running group set up after the World Half Marathon Championship was held in Cardiff in 2016. They’d been going for just a few months when I got chatting to the founders, Dafydd and Jemma, at a community event in our local park, and decided that I would give it a go. I’d never joined a sporting group in my life, never run with anyone I didn’t know, and my heart was racing with nerves as I walked the few minutes down the road to meet them outside the leisure centre. They remembered me, which set me at ease immediately, and there weren’t too many people, maybe 12 at most that evening as we set out onto the playing fields to warm up and start a pyramid session.

I had never done anything other than just run before, this was completely uncharted territory for me. And I loved it! I went home buzzing, determined to keep this new avenue open, and next week I was back again. And again. And again, until very quickly this was my new Tuesday routine. Less than 12 months after that first session I was a qualified run leader and taking some of the sessions myself.

There is no question in my mind that joining Run Grangetown was one of the best things I have ever done. By starting to run with other people, starting to actually train rather than just running, my running has changed beyond recognition. I’ve learnt about pushing myself safely, hugely reducing my old fear of breaking myself, and by doing so I have pushed both my speed and distance far beyond what I thought possible before I joined.

But the real benefit of social running is not the improvement to my running, as wonderful as that is. I have become part of a community of runners, friends who run together not just on club night but whenever else we can get together, whether that be all of us, two of us, or anything in between. It is a community that is unfailingly supportive and encouraging, managing the balancing act of pushing everyone in it to be the best runner they can be without any aggressive competitiveness between us.

I have learnt that being out for a run with someone else can be the best possible way to talk things through, that that run (maybe with coffee and cake at the end!) will always make the world a better place, and that friendships formed while running in the wind and rain and loving every second of it are powerful things. It has been a support network like no other during these dark days of lockdown, ensuring that no one was left to feel alone and isolated. As we tentatively began to run together again there was a shared sense of joy that running could be a shared activity once more.

Writing this now, in lockdown part 2, we’re back to running alone. But I know it won’t be for long, and knowing that there are others just like me, champing at the bit to get back out together, makes all of this a little easier to bear. That, and the expectation of ending a run with cake once more!