The Man in the Arena

I saw this posted on my friend Conrad's facebook page today, after he had to pull out of the SVP100 race.  It's a passage referred to as "The Man in the Arena" from the "Citizen in a Republic" speech by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 (according to Wiki).

I just love it!

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Apparently this passage is really famous, and I can't believe I've never come across it before, but it really struck a cord. It could have been written for ultra-runners! Obviously though, it wasn't, and if you're interested in the whole speech, it's here: http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/speeches/maninthearena.pdf

Marathon 34 & marshalling at SVP100

It’s been quite a while since my last blog post, but having been told by a new follower on twitter that they've been reading my blog (woohoo!) I felt I should post an update about what I've been up to, this last month.

On Friday 16^th August, for no apparent reason, I decided that the next day would be a good day to run a marathon, and so managed to wheedle a place out of Foxy for the Enigma Gold marathon which was being run on Saturday 17^th August. I knew I wasn’t prepared but wanted to give it a go, get a gauge of my fitness, and to see my Enigma friends J It’s no surprise that it wasn’t the most intelligent decision I've ever made and it didn't go too well.

The marathon was very, very hard work, and my dodgy ankle was troublesome towards the end of the race - I found myself walking much more than I ever usually would to try and minimise the damage I felt I was doing and realised that the longest run I should have attempted on it was probably about 20 miles. So, it wasn’t pretty, and I finished in 04:54, which it’s fair to say I was very disappointed with. I shouldn't have been surprised, given the lack of training I've done since the 10in10, and the ankle, but still, I didn't realise I’d got quite that unfit. I got an awesome medal though, and that went some way to cheering me up!!

A smile because I'm finishing!

Catching up

The following Thursday, I had another great session with Essex Bootcamp session, although, despite it being 5 days after the marathon, I was still totally unable to run as my ankle was still terribly painful L

Things started looking up though, as on Saturday 24^th August, Francis and I jetted off on holiday for a 2.5 week roadtrip in the US. We flew into Las Vegas for a friend’s wedding, then drove Route 66, went to the Grand Canyon (where I ran - an experience which is going to have a blog post of it’s own), drove down to Palm Springs, and Los Angeles, and then drove up Highway 1 to San Francisco. It was an incredible holiday and we had a absolutely fantastic time.

We got back on Thursday morning, 12^th September, and although the jet-lag has been crippling, on Saturday, I found myself crewing at the Stour Valley Path 100km inaugural race…an event I had been due to run but obviously had to pull out of due to my chronic lack of fitness and the infamous ankle. 

Food at our check point!

I was at check point 6, which was at 57 miles into the 62 mile race, the last check point before the finish, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I arrived to find that there weren't any jaffa cakes, peanuts or flapjacks amongst the mountains of food, so went for a drive to find a shop to stock up on these essentials (well, they are in my mind anyway!) before heading back to wait for the first runners to come through. The race was tougher than I think anyone expected (not helped by the torrential rain the night before which turned the ploughed fields into muddy pits of hell) and the runners took much longer to arrive at the check point than we’d expected, but by the time they got there, I was very impressed at how strong they were all still looking and how cheerful most of them were. I really enjoyed the experience of marshalling a race – I've never done it before – but now have a new appreciation for the volunteers who make the races that I do possible, and would recommend it to other runners. It’s very rewarding, helping people achieve their goals and trying to make it just a little easier, and the general feedback for the event from the runners was very positive. As I volunteered for this year’s race, I get a place in the 2014 event – I can’t wait!! :D 

So…here we are, six weeks before my next scheduled race, the Stort 30…the race where I finished as 1^st lady in 2012. I’m certainly not going to be anywhere near that end of the field this year, but I would really like to at least be able to take part! Now the jet-lag has pretty much gone, I am planning to try a run this evening, and then get back to normal and start following my training plan, as my fitness has definitely hit a real low and I really can't spend any more time not exercising. None of my clothes fit me anymore!! I’ll take it very slowly, will try and be sensible and hopefully my ankle has had enough rest to let me start upping my mileage – I’ll do it gradually, and just hope that I can get myself ready to run 30 miles on 27^th October.

Essex Boot Camp

Yesterday, I had my first ever boot camp experience, put on by Essex Boot Camp. I had been considering driving down to Salisbury and running the 5-4-3-2-1 marathon which I'd entered, but I realised before it was too late that I'm just not ready for racing 26.2 yet and that wouldn't be a sensible thing to do! 

So instead, at 9:45am, I ran the mile down to our local park, Lake Meadows, and joined the group of people in Essex Boot Camp t-shirts, who were congregating by the park gates. The instructor, Aaron, ran through with me where I was with my fitness and what my background was - I told him I was a runner but had got injured in May and was just trying to rebuild my fitness. He asked me how I got injured …his face was a picture when I told him it was by running 10 marathons in 10 days ;)

When everyone had arrived, Aaron, walked us out to the field. There were about 15 of us - a mixture of guys and girls, and all shapes and sizes - and pretty immediately, without much introduction, we were suddenly in the middle of the hardest workout I’ve ever done.

There was running, press-ups, sit ups, planks, squats, more press ups, burpees, sprinting, lunges, more of everything….running around carrying stretchers with one of the team laying on it, more press ups, running, stretching, all continuous and under time pressure.  We were only able to stop for drinks and a rest twice in the hour, and only very briefly.

The time went quickly, and in a bit of a blur, and by the end, I was a bit disappointed it was all over, but there’s no way I could have carried on at that intensity for much longer!   

I ran home afterwards, and my legs were ok, but my arms were absolutely dead. I was really tired too and spent much of the rest of the day either asleep or moaning about how much I ached! This morning, I woke up in near-agony…well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but my arms, my abs, obliques,and my glutes are all exhausted and killing me. After just one hour of exercise! Although my legs feel ok, it’s a real wake-up call as to just how much fitness I’ve lost, and how weak my upper body is.

It’s definitely something I’m going to continue – I'm going to try to make the 6am session on Thursday morning – if I’m serious about this 100 miler next year, I absolutely have to be stronger than I am now, and just getting back to running isn’t going to be enough to achieve that. I need resistance work, and intensity, and that’s just what the boot camp achieves!

I can still run a marathon

 I've been slowly trying to come back from the ankle injury I picked up at the 10in10, but got totally impatient, and decided I was losing sight of myself as a marathon runner as the furthest I've run in months is 12 miles. So, this weekend, I decided I was going to have a go at a marathon - not at a race, but just go out for the afternoon and see how I got on. I also bought myself a new UltrAspire Revolution vest as a birthday present to myself and needed an opportunity to properly try it out!

 So, I ran up to Stock, a local village about 4 miles away, and then, using a mixture of following the sign posts and the route description I printed off from the Challenge Running website, I followed the St Peter's Way path for my run.

It was beautiful today, but because of the time of year, it was incredibly different to last time I ran this route when I did the St Peter's Way ultra in February - rather than running over empty ploughed fields I was running through fields of corn, and the obvious pathways had become overgrown by grasses which in some places were thigh high and I had to fight my way through!

There's a path through there!

Thigh high!

I was pretty pleased with how I wsa getting on, although when I suddenly realised I must have dropped my route description, was a bit worried! I ended up getting lost quite a few times, but I had a map of the route too, and using that and my mobile GPS to confirm where I actually way, I managed to find my way back to the right path.

I stopped at the half-way point & had some lunch!

I'd been having gels as I was going, but stopped at 14 miles and had a bit of lunch, before heading back, hoping that the return journey would involve fewer "getting lost" detours! 

It turned out the return journey was harder than expected, as although my legs and body felt alright, I just got really tired and found myself walking quite a lot. It was pretty warm out there, and I found myself drinking quite a bit too - I ran out of water so ended up refilling from an outside tap. My ankle started to play up a bit too, from about 20 miles, and it's pretty sore now I'm home so I've been icing, but fingers crossed it'll be ok.

I loved being out there though, despite it being hard work. Just to know that I was actually still able to run that sort of distance was a boost even though I was terribly slow and had to walk so much.  I'm really tired now too - much more than normal, but I suppose it's inevitable that it's going to take me a while to get back to proper marathon fitness. I think this is a pretty good start though.

 
Here are a few other photos from my day out :)

 

See where my socks were.....

Birthday run!

Today's my 31st birthday and I've taken the day off work. The weather's awesome at the moment, so I got up early and headed out for a run before it got too hot, which was a good job as I forgot to take a drink with me!

How I ever preferred road running to trails is totally beyond me...this was the best training run I've had in a long time - it was brilliant through the woods. A few times I turned off the main path and to discover new routes and found myself having to jump over fallen trees and make my way across muddy sections which were streams before the weather dried everything up!

I only did about 12 miles as I don't want to push my ankle too much, but I absolutely loved it :D