Stories and Rambles – I Run Free

Looking Both Ways

My first run of 2025 was a thing of pure, defiant joy. I was a month post-surgery and finally able to run again, so I set off with Chris for a frosty 2 miles just to see how it went. My Strava from that day says ‘Felt amazing!’, which is exactly how I remember it – the joy of moving again, of my body feeling strong and full of potential. It was a very conscious decision to run that morning, knowing that I was seeing the consultant that afternoon for more biopsy results. I needed to know I still had it in me, just in case the coming months were going to be even less plain sailing than I was anticipating.

Which was exactly what happened. Four weeks later I had another ‘first run back’ on Strava after another operation, and this one was harder. There would end up being two more ‘test runs’ over the next two months, as first illness then radiotherapy put running out of the question for a while. I remember feeling tired and despondent, thinking I’d lost months of fitness and worrying that it would never come back, although looking back over my training log I’m surprised to see how much activity I managed to fit in.

Back in the summer of 2024, before my cancer diagnosis and all that followed, I’d started to think seriously about how I was going to mark my 50th birthday in 2025. High on the list of options was the Gower ultra; easy logistics given how local it is, and a stunningly beautiful (if challenging) course. By the time I’d had both operations I’d fixed on Gower as my birthday run, but with less than seven months between finishing radiotherapy and lining up at Weobley Castle I was clearly going to have my work cut out to get there.

With the benefit of hindsight it’s probably fair to say that I was asking rather a lot of my body after it had already been battered by surgery and treatment. But my head really needed something positive to focus on, both a goal to aim for and some training adventures to plan. And the adventures in the coming months were fantastic. I ran in Eryri, the Peak District and the Lake District; explored the Bannau Brecheiniog on my own and as part of a women’s trail running weekend; took on a Long Distance Walkers Association challenge run in the Clwydians, and ran on the Pembrokeshire coastal path with my sister. And that list doesn’t include the myriad of local runs around Cardiff area, alone or with friends, that kept me going when the wild places were out of reach.

Those early months of 2025 loom large in my memory, colouring the rest of the year far more than I want them to. Because looking back at it now, this was very clearly a year of extremes, the depths of the early months countered by the highs (literal and otherwise) of running, and of the people I have around me. I only have to close my eyes and I can feel the knee deep moss I got lost in in the woods above Dolwyddelan, feel the gentle rain that washed my face around Llyn Elsi, or the wind that tried to push me back up hill as I came down off the Kinder plateau. Then there were all those wonderful Sunday runs that finished with coffee and a rocky road while we laughed at the state of ourselves, sopping wet, muddy, and happy. This is what I love most about running, that it strips away the pretence, the artifice, leaving us raw and open, our truest selves.

That is what I want more of this coming year, the social runs and solo adventures that lifted me out of the depths. I am hugely proud of having completed the Gower race, but I don’t need to repeat that achievement this year. I haven’t got any races booked, nor even any ‘maybes’, and I think I might keep it that way for a while. I’m starting to find a nice training rhythm based on what makes me feel better about how I’m running, with no need for the pressure of a race date to get me out there. I don’t need to train for a particular event, it is enough to know that there will be opportunities to get into the hills at times this year, and that my training is about being able to make the most of those chances when they come. I came crashing down after Gower, exhaustion and multiple colds sending my fitness plummeting again, so my real aim for this year is consistency rather than peaks and troughs.

The year is starting gently, picking my strength sessions back up at the gym, slowly easing into slightly longer runs again. With no looming race deadline I have time to focus on what my body is telling me, and the flexibility to adapt to whatever this year throws at me (and there is every chance that might include a last minute race or two). That is more than enough to be getting on with.

The Mountains are Calling

As I sit down to write, the rain that has threatened all day is finally moving beyond a drizzle. I can see the steady fall of it out of the window, landing on the hawthorn and wild roses outside like a promise. Weeks of unseasonal dry weather are being repaired, the waterfall just behind the house we’re staying in gushing into life. It is a gentle, restful rain, not heavy enough to silence the birds, nor really heavy enough to put a stop to going out. But this is the last day of our trip to Eryri, and we’ve done enough to justify a quiet afternoon in front of the fire.

Of all the places in the world, it is the mountains, lakes and valleys of Eryri that feel like home. Surprisingly, perhaps, having never lived here. But my family came from one of the quarrying villages, and stories of this landscape have followed me throughout my life. As a child peering out of the rear windows of the car I marvelled at the peaks as they appeared out of the cloud; by my early teens, I was craning my neck to see the climbers in their lurid tights, watching in awe as they climbed the forbidding faces of the Pass. Once my own explorations began, that sense of awe was joined by a joyful sense of belonging; whether I was scrambling, climbing, walking or running, what I needed was to place myself firmly in this landscape as often as possible. This is where I ground and heal myself.

I have never needed that more than after the last six months, so this trip has been a celebration – the treatment is behind me now, it is time to look forward and get back out there. And I have been very lucky, two fantastic runs during a three day family holiday is good going indeed. I may be being slightly generous calling them both runs, but I was wearing running shoes and ran a good proportion of the routes, so I’m going to allow it. My fitness isn’t really high enough for the elevation on these routes, but it didn’t matter. This was not about times or pace, it was simply about getting back into the landscape I love, perhaps about getting a sense of myself back again.

My first run was a four mile trot up Foel Felen that turned into a mini adventure. As I climbed up out of Dolwyddelan the path shrank to nothing more than the vaguest hint that someone had trodden that way before me, weaving between small pine trees and silver birch, gorse hidden by the heather, ready to snag a passing leg. The summit itself gave no hint of anyone having been there, only me and the sheep, and the most wonderful views across to the summit of Yr Wyddfa, to Moel Siabod and down to Cnicht. In a few months time I’d be resting there and feasting on blueberries, but this early in the year it was enough just to take in the peace and solitude.

The descent looked, on paper, like a straightforward route down through some woods back to the house. But this adventure wasn’t done with me yet. I crossed the stile into the woods and the path disappeared completely, leaving me making my way through pillows of moss, crawling under trees, and working hard to keep aiming for the fence line on the map that would hopefully lead to another stile and way out. Much like the way into the woods, the way out had a clear stile and a path, yet no obvious route to connect the two that I had missed. This small section of wood was perhaps a quarter mile wide at most, yet felt like another world entirely, one with no evidence of human life. There were mosses so deep I sank in them nearly up to my knees, in an array of colours I have never seen before. In this Tolkienesque landscape the rest of the world faded away for a while, replaced by lush greens, birdsong, the whisper of the wind through the higher branches. It is only because I could look at my run data once I finished that I know I was there for minutes, that I had not lost hours or centuries wandering through the forest.

My second run was less adventurous but no less beautiful, tracking up through the Gwydir forest to Llyn Elsi above Betws y Coed then back down the Roman road, Sarn Helen, to Pont y Pant. There were no vanishing paths today, although a very overgrown section had me face-planting a branch when I didn’t look up soon enough. The rain mostly held off, just a gentle shower as I rounded the lake, the rain pattering on my shoulders as I paused to watch my breath make new little clouds over the water. The three people sharing a flask across the lake were the only people I saw during either run, not even the ghosts of the legionaries were out as I came back along the Roman Road. I had wanted – needed – solitude in the mountains, and this is exactly what I had.

Visits up here are never long enough, and this one has to end tomorrow. But that’s ok. Two wonderful runs in the place I love the most will keep me going for quite some time now. I will leave having refreshed my soul, reminded myself of what my body is capable of, and with a whole new list of ideas for future adventures in my mind. If I am to achieve my goal of a 50 mile race in October there will need to be rather more actual running on my runs going forward. To have these two glorious runs in my mental bank makes everything else more achievable.

A Peak District Reset

It hasn’t come as a surprise that running has been hard going since the St Sunday race two and a half weeks ago. I came home tired and disappointed, neither of which are conducive to enjoyable running. The immediate answer, always, is to get out running with friends for chatty runs that bring me back to why I love the social aspect of running so much. But I also needed to address the knock that my mountain running received, so our family week in the Peak District couldn’t have come at a better time.

There may not be any actual mountains in the Peak, but the upland terrain, long moorland edges and high plateaux more than make up for that. After breaking ourselves in with a family walk along beautiful Derwent Edge, I took myself off the next morning to run up to Mam Tor from the house. This was my short run for the week, and it was glorious. My route took me along Rushup Edge, past the 4,500 year old Lord’s Seat Barrow, then up to Mam Tor before turning round and heading back. There is something very moving about running in places where we know our ancestors lived so many thousand of years ago, places that are peaceful and reflective for us but would likely have been very different in their time. It is a moment of connection with the world that brings some much needed perspective on our own lives.

Two days, another long walk and a climbing session later, and today was the day for my long run up Kinder Scout. I was a little slow getting going this morning, some nerves kicking in as I was contemplating my longest run this year, on my own, on entirely new trails. But there was excitement too as this is the kind of run that makes all the city runs worthwhile, a proper adventure that was going to challenge me in more ways than one. Truth be told I could probably have done without Garmin telling me I should be having a rest day just as I was about to start, but that just set off my stubborn streak as I became even more determined to make it a good one.

My route started out on the same path as my earlier run, but this time I was turning off Rushup Edge to head across the moorland to Brown Knoll. This is a desolate, isolated place, the only sign of human life being the flagged path that protects the peat underfoot. And it is magnificent, the views stretch for miles, even on a day with rain blowing in and out. We are very much visitors in places like this, there is nothing hospitable or comforting about it; it is a place that reminds us quite how small and vulnerable we are. I was quietly pleased that I’d come out with full kit and safety measures, and indeed, by the time I arrived at Kinder Low my t-shirt base layer had been replaced with long sleeves, a windproof and a waterproof.

This section was a little busier as I had joined the Pennine Way, though not for long. A quick out and back confirmed, sadly, that there was no upwards spray from Kinder Downfall today, then I left the main path again for a small track that contoured around the side of the plateau through the heather. This section was beautiful, purple hillsides giving way to grassy fields below, with a smattering of bilberries to keep me refreshed.

Eventually I was low enough to arrive at fields of livestock, which is where it all went wrong for a while. My route was through a field that was full of cows and calves, and a rather frisky bull – definitely not a field I was going to go through! Finding the detour was easy enough, but I was clearly tiring now and made a couple of errors as I got myself back on track, one of which left me wading through knee high tussocks of grass on a very steep slope to regain the path. This was very much time for a breather, so I found a sheltered spot to eat a protein bar and message my siblings asking for moral support (the message obviously didn’t go through in time, but knowing I’d hear from them eventually was remarkably uplifting).

A little while later I arrived at the Pennine Bridleway as it skirts the edge of South Head, allowing myself a moment of relief that the hard work was behind me. Although not quite all of it, the path had a final sting in the tail as it dropped down to an admittedly beautiful ford before the final climb up and along to the road, and back down the track to the house. I’d set out to do 12.7 miles and came home having done 14, with my husband and son cheering me in at the end.

Since I finished a few hours ago I have drunk gallons of tea and eaten almost non stop. Which is, of course, one of the bonuses of a long run. But this one was about so much more than that: it was a chance to go off on my own, to explore somewhere new, to prove to myself that I can take care of myself in potentially difficult environments, and to remind myself of how much I can do when I really set my mind to it. It was an adventure, in a stunningly beautiful place, and it really doesn’t get any better than that.

Gear note: This was the first proper outing for my new La Sportiva Prodigios. They were the perfect shoe for this run, grippy and responsive but cushioned enough for the slabby sections. Thanks for the recommendation Up and Under!

Learning to Stop

It feels strange to find any sense of pride at all in a failed run, and there is no other way to describe this morning’s attempt. Yet if I look hard enough, there is a little bit of pride trying to show its face from behind the frustration and disappointment. We talk often enough about listening to our bodies, working with them rather than against them, but actually doing so isn’t always that easy. Listening, then, and acting upon what we hear, is worth reflecting on.

I thought I felt quite good when I got up this morning: I woke up easily, had time for a quiet cup of tea and some breakfast before anyone else woke up, and happily pottered about making sure I had enough fuel and water for my planned long run. It was already a warm morning and I was conscious that I was doing this run a day earlier than I usually would due to other commitments tomorrow, but was confident that just taking it gently would more than compensate for the change in routine. As I laced my shoes and found the GPS on my watch, I was happy and excited to be heading out to run with friends on such a beautiful day.

The run to our agreed meeting point felt hard, but early miles often do until I settle into my pace and find my running head, so I wasn’t unduly worried. But I couldn’t settle, my legs just got heavier and heavier, until I found myself needing to do short walking sections just to keep going. Clearly this run was not going to plan, and I started to realise that I was not going to do the 11 mile route I’d planned for today. Oh well, I thought, I’ll run up the zig zag path to the top of the first hill, then carry on to the view point and turn back from there. Afterall, running up hills has woken me up on many a run in the past, the change in stride length, pace and effort reminding my body of what it’s supposed to be doing.

No such joy today. I barely made it to the top of the zigzags, then had to walk the last stretch to the road. Time to accept that the only real option at this point was to go home. Not being alone at this point really helped, having two experienced runners kindly reassure me I was making the right choice is probably a large part of why I’m not too disappointed with myself right now. What really struck me, though, was how everything got even harder once I’d made that decision, my pace dropping and dropping until I came to a stop and told them to go on ahead, that I’d take the quickest route back home once I’d walked a bit more.

I surprised myself by running again towards the end, setting tiny goals of the next junction or bus stop, then extending it as I went. Until the gradient of a bridge was too much and I hit stop on my watch, very slowly walking the last few hundred meters. I arrived home utterly exhausted, too tired even for tears. I’d been out of the house for less than an hour and a half.

Could I have changed anything that might have made a difference? Perhaps. I suspect that yesterday’s weights session had tired my legs more than I realised, and running the day after a session is curiously harder than running on the same day. I went to bed a little late, but got up later too, so that shouldn’t have had too big an impact. I may have been a little dehydrated after a hot day yesterday, but not significantly so, and I think I had that in hand with water and electrolytes as I ran. The biggest single issue is likely to have been a difficult week catching up on me, not something I have much control over, and a very big part of why I need to run, so not an unusual situation.

The simple truth is that sometimes, those myriad threads that weave together to make for a good run just don’t connect with each other, and the whole thing unravels. Not for any one reason, but for many, all combining to pull apart even the best laid plans.

Once upon a time I would have tried to keep going anyway, angry with myself for seemingly failing. I know better now. There are times when pushing is the right thing do, but pushing at the wrong time causes far more problems than it solves: injury; debilitating exhaustion; anger and frustration at oneself to name just a few. At these times, cutting it short is not a failure but a positive act of self-care, of self-preservation; a statement of intent, that normal service will be resumed shortly, once my body has had the recovery time it clearly needed today. A day or two is all it is likely to need to ride out this little storm.

I would far rather have done the run I’d planned today, enjoying the sunshine and the company of friends. I am disappointed that it didn’t go to plan, and frustrated to have a ‘lost’ an opportunity for what could have been a great run. But I can choose not to dwell on it, to simply take today for what it is and look forward to the next run instead. Not berating myself feels unexpectedly empowering. And this is definitely something to be a little bit proud of.

Looking Forward

After my year of peaks and troughs in 2023, I started this year with a new approach: nothing planned, no race commitments, simply a determination to do more and to do it wisely. As we approach mid March, I think it’s going fairly well. I’ve consistently managed to do two strength sessions in the gym each week, and my running mileage is building up slowly and steadily. A minor ankle twist this week has been frustrating, but nothing worse than that. All in all, a fairly positive start to the year.

Is this what it has actually felt like while I’ve been running? Sometimes. I’ve done short runs that felt stronger than I expected, and long runs in beautiful landscapes that made my heart sing. Running without a race to train for has been liberating; I’ve pushed myself gently, without any time pressure whispering in the background, and my body has responded willingly. These early months of the year have felt like a space to breathe, to take stock and assess exactly what it is I want to get out of this year.

In years to come (that mythical period when my time might be my own again), I will be quite happy to avoid races entirely, to make my own adventures, both solo and with company. But right now, at this point in my life, managing time is more challenging. As both a parent and a carer, periods when I am not on call have to be negotiated, fitted in around other needs, arranged so that I can confidently change my focus. For a little while at least. Planning more than a few days ahead is full of variables and fraught with challenges, so I rarely lift my head above the parapet to look too far down the line. But an empty calendar is frightening too, all that time that can so easily slip away, unused and easily forgotten.

So a couple of weeks ago I forced myself to look ahead and make a commitment. I’ve found a race that works logistically, and which ticks all the boxes I wanted to tick this year: mountains, scrambling, a good distance (but not too far), and not too many entrants. An 18 mile/2000m of ascent sky race in the Lake District in July. It makes me happy just thinking about it.

The year ahead, so full of variables and unknowns, now has a fixed point, a moment of certainty to anchor the coming months. That fixed point then tracks backwards, creating more fixed points as I start to thinking about increasing mileage and fitting in some mountain runs. And so the year in front of me now has a structure. Admittedly it’s a loose structure – my horror of training plans certainly hasn’t lessened over the years – but one which gives me an outward focus when I need it, and a reason to keep pushing on.

There is no justifiable reason why ‘I have a race to train for’ should be any more compelling than ‘I need to run’ as an explanation for why I run. But when life throws endless demands at us, turning our own needs into demands sometimes makes prioritising them feel easier. I remain ambivalent about actually racing, but for the time being, if that’s what it takes to push me into committing to a route and a date then so be it. I have a fixed point now, guiding me forward and upward. St Sunday Mountain Race, here I come.

Snakes and Ladders

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.

Binge Reading

Before there was running in my life, there was reading. I was the child with her nose stuck in a book, progressing to the teenager who hid books under her schoolwork, far too engrossed in tales of Middle Earth or Arthur and Morgaine to do much more than pretend to be studying. I read to hide from the world and to make sense of it all at once, to meet characters who would stay with me and show me new ways of seeing. That need to suspend my disbelief and become immersed in another world has never left me, but the opportunity to do more than snatch a couple of chapters in the evening is rare these days.

I read for the same reason that I run: I need to. And just as there are different ways to run, so there are different ways to read, many of which are dictated by the time pressures or mental capacity life allows me. The season of coughs and colds is rarely the time for a challenging read, when staying warm and not coughing all night is challenge enough. But there is a silver lining to the grey time of year, certainly now the children are old enough to not need constant attention: the perfect excuse to shut the bedroom door, cwtch up on my bed, and lose a whole afternoon to a book that I can read in one sitting. My son has named this ‘binge reading’.

There is an art to choosing the right book for a binge. The wonderful world building novels are usually too long, and those where every word needs to be savoured require more time and thought than a binge allows for. But neither can it be something throw away, a careless novel that leaves me cold and uninterested. The answer, very often, lies in crime fiction. Formulaic enough not to be too challenging, full of cliffhangers and red herrings to keep me reading, with the satisfaction of having solved a mystery at the end.

When binge reading works the rest of the world stops; the million and one thoughts clamouring for attention go silent and all that matters are the words on the page. Re-emerging into the world afterwards feels awkward, as if I’m waking up from a long sleep at the wrong time of day. But it is a good feeling. My brain is calmer, ready to focus again, and ready to face whatever the day throws at me. In fact, I feel like I do after a run.

All good books do this, they open up the world and give us a space in which to stop and breathe. They have been my lifeblood for as long as I can remember, my escape mechanism that makes the world more real. Reading and running sound so different, one requiring stillness and the other, movement. Yet in my mind they are inextricably linked, two necessary acts that provide a balance to the chaos, a means to understand it and to carry on. I run better when I have a book that has caught me, waking me up and making me feel more alert. And I read more thoroughly when I’m running well, my body ready for a rest but my mind active and interested. I intend to feed both these needs this winter, as often and as fully as I can.

Giving myself a push

Last night, at my usual Tuesday evening running group, I did something I haven’t done in a surprisingly long time. I pushed myself. Hard.

At the top of the zigzags earlier this year.

It wasn’t a new session, although it was one of my favourites: hill training on the zigzags. The difference was all in me, driven by having left the house full of pent up frustration at life in general, and in desperate need of an outlet. Again, this isn’t new. I have known from the moment I first started to run that my primary driver is my own sanity; that I need to run in order to keep myself on an even keel. This was linked to speed when I first started running, mainly because I didn’t have much time to run, and needed to squeeze in as much distance as possible. In recent years, however, I have interpreted this need as a need for movement, for a change of scene, for an escape. And that interpretation has had a dramatic impact on how I train.

This change very clearly began in lockdown, when running was the only way to fulfill my need to escape the city. I still watched my pace, but distance steadily took over as the more important statistic. Then, perhaps inevitably, came injury, a stress fracture that put paid to all my planned escapes. Recovery was slow, yet somewhere along the line recovery quietly slid into training again as I prepared for my first ultra marathon. Everything was about distance and endurance, pushing myself hard to keep going, and then keep going some more.

In many ways, endurance training was ideal. I had the perfect reason to go on long, beautiful runs where I told myself I needed to learn how to take it slowly, how to stop and refuel, how to walk when I needed to yet still be able to turn the walk back into a run. What I realised last night is that whilst all of that was true, it was also an excellent cover story to hide the fact I was taking the pressure off. If I had to learn to push myself to keep going all day, then clearly I had to focus on not breaking myself by pushing too hard.

I have a deeply ingrained fear of breaking myself. The mental list of responsibilities combined with the ‘what if I can’t . . . ‘ narrative pulls me up short every time. I’ve known this from day one of starting to run, and told myself it was part of adult life: compromise, cutting corners, being content with good enough. Every now and then, with enough safety measures in place (husband at home with the kids, running friends around me if something went wrong, not too far from home), I could give pushing myself a go, and it always felt amazing. But as life has become more complicated, I tell myself I’m too tired to push; just take it easy and enjoy the run, it’ll do you good, and you can’t risk another stress fracture. And it does do me good. Up to a point.

What I had forgotten is that pushing towards our limits doesn’t mean we get close to them. It means that those limits get pushed further and further back. The things I’ve been scared of were still there last night, but I stopped listening to them, and listened instead to what my body could actually do. I let myself push hard, let my mind empty of everything except the physical sensation of running as hard as I could. And I wasn’t broken at the end, I was fizzing with life and strength.

It’s early days still. Yesterday I had my security net tight around me: close to home, knowing the boys were looked after, and with the awesome Run Grangetown team for company. But I’ve started to realise that pushing myself hard doesn’t have to leave me broken; done right, it leaves me with my limits pushed further back and my world of possibilities widened. After months of worrying that I was going backwards in my training, it seems that all I needed to do was give myself a good, hard push. That is incredibly empowering, and is exactly the motivation I needed as these dark evenings start to draw in.

A Stinky Celebration

There’s no getting away from it, running kit reeks. Those once shiny shoes that have carried our sweaty feet for hundreds of miles, the race t-shirts we wear so proudly, they all develop a pungent aroma that screams ‘runner’, sometimes as soon as we put them on. There is a whole industry dedicated to helping us eradicate these smells, and there’s no doubt that regular washing with technical products will help for a time. But really, it’s just delaying the inevitable. There will come a point where we take a deep breath in and realise that what comes with it is the unmistakable scent of runner.

As a society, we seem to be obsessed with the performance of cleanliness; it is not enough to look clean, we have to smell clean too, saturating our clothes and bodies in an array of chemicals to prove to the world that we have indeed washed and made ourselves acceptable for the public space. And as a 46 year old mother of two boys, I fall into a category for whom this performance is twofold: I should present my children to the world in just as clean a state as myself.

There is a little bit of leeway there. Boys are still permitted to be mucky, and coming back from a trail run splashed with mud is almost a badge of honour. But ‘mucky’, with its connotations of fun, sport, and childhood, is a world away from ‘dirty’ and the unpleasantness that comes with it; unclean, unsanitary, bordering on disgusting. Yet dirty is the word that springs to mind when faced with a damp pile of stinking running kit.

So do I feel dirty and disgusting when I catch a whiff of myself during a run, or pick my leggings off the floor after I’ve peeled them off? No. Not one bit of it. What I feel is liberated, even a little subversive. When I’m in my kit, red faced and sweating, my face decorated with salt crystals, I am almost certainly going to end up stinking, and I do so because I use my clothes and shoes time and again, out in all weathers, alone or in company, running to keep myself sane. My head needs me to run; my body needs me to run. Smelly kit is a testament to all those miles, a reminder that I can do this, that I can push myself and my limits and put all other cares aside, even if only for a little while. It is a quiet but forceful refusal to consistently perform at least one aspect of ‘adult woman and mother’. The dirt and the smells prove to me that my running self has pushed all other selves aside and taken centre stage. I like that self, and I am very happy to spend more time with her, stinky kit and all.

Washing It All Away

2022 has not started well. Life has become complicated, and time consuming, and my running has dwindled away to snatched, short runs here and there. Runs that may or may not be interrupted and cut short. Some of this is deliberate – I’m taking my own advice here, and listening to my body when it craves rest – but much of it is circumstances that I can’t avoid. January and February can be bleak months at the best of times, so getting through them without the escape of a good, long run is proving quite a challenge.

This morning, however, I was reminded that those soul cleansing runs don’t have to be long, or even take me out of the city. I put my head above the parapet yesterday, put out a call on our running WhatsApp group to see if anyone fancied a soggy run this morning, and to my delight I found myself back by the park at 9 a.m., all set for a run round the bay with a couple of friends from the running club. This is a run I’ve done so many times I could run it blindfold, or so I thought, until they took me somewhere new! And it was a new hill!

Little changes like that seem to open up the world again, when it has felt so closed. Pushing up hill, rain dripping off my nose, still just about able to talk, followed by the joyful release of a downhill section; these are the moments where I feel most alive, and nothing can keep the smile off my face.

Running conversations ebb and flow, fleeting thoughts sparked by what we run past as much as by the worries and interests that usually occupy our thoughts. Silences are normal, and comfortable, coming and going as we run, and in those silences the other sounds creep in: the masts on the sailing ships ringing in the wind; waves slapping the shore; the rain pattering on my jacket. I love the sound of the rain, from the thud of large drops to the gentle tapping of light rain. It finds its way into me, the sound washing away the tumble of thoughts that go round and round my head, cleansing me as the rain itself washes over my skin.

The mental stillness brought by running in the rain, and by running with friends, is such a gift. One to hold onto, and remember, as these bleak, winter months slowly, finally, come to an end.