Category: Running

For posts about running

An Encounter on Ilkley Moor #poem

It was the morning of the fourth day of July, twenty twenty-three,
and I was running, alone, on Ilkley Moor.
I could not take the path that I had planned,
for it was stolen from me by the grasp of ferns,
and so, instead, I found another way to travel west –
my route, like life, a path of unexpected turns.

As I drew level with a group of trees, planted in my mental map,
I turned to head, almost a scramble, up the rock-strewn slope,
until with the ground flattening all around, I came to a stone wall
and followed a well-worn path that lay in its shadow,
east, towards the radio mast.
From there I knew my way,
down the track they call the Keighley Road,
with a view across the valley over Ilkley town
that, like the passing of a life, would slip away too fast.

As I began my descent, his profile came into view,
to my right, just off the track,
though still some distance well ahead –
a small, dark man, sitting, gazing directly across my path,
chin resting on hands,
elbows propped on knees,
his head straining forwards
as if to peer through time to seek some other space.
He remained there as I closed, his features sharpening in my sight,
and I was struck how, like so much else in life,
his presence was incongruous.
For this did not seem to be his place.

I expected him to move as I approached, if only to shift his pose,
but he sat looking west across the track, across the moor – still.
And as my eyes searched for detail in his form
I saw that he was too small, about two-thirds the size of a man,
and so dark, yet without colour.

My brain was screaming at me: ‘Something is not right here’,
and I felt a heavy weight in the air around me.
I continued on,
towards the point beside the grey stone on which he sat.
My heart was beating fast, preparing to meet another life,
but on my arrival there was no-one there.

(c) Tim O’Hare, August 2023

AN ENCOUNTER ON ILKLEY MOOR: This poem tells the true story of an encounter that I had on a morning run while staying on Ilkley Moor for a week. There was a rock on the verge by the track that I ran along as I made my descent to our holiday let. As I came down the track towards it, I saw the figure of a small, dark man sitting there, just as I describe in the poem, and I instinctively felt that I was not able to recognise all that lay before me. Even now, many months later, I cannot let go of the fact that he was there and that, just for a few moments, either he or I was not in the right place.

I Am Not Lost #poem

I’m just back in from my morning run.
Before I left, she asked me how far I was planning to go,
and I replied, “Only about 3 miles – maybe thirty minutes or so”.
I showed her my intended route on the map,
so that in an emergency she could find me in a hurry.

As soon as I was outside, my mind was transported.
There were poppies and other wildflowers in the hay fields,
faces turned to greet the morning sun.
I ran through swathes of wheat and barley waving in the breeze,
reed beds down by the fen, and woods with birds singing merrily in the trees.

But I had been far too optimistic, and so made several false turns,
finding my way blocked, not wanting to squeeze
my way through tick-infested ferns.
At one point I had to whisper my way past a group of young cattle
that barred my path, even nibbling at my shorts.
Fortunately, that encounter did not end up as a battle.

Some people might laugh at my incompetence,
but I have to disagree because
I was not lost.
And though I will reluctantly admit that I did not know exactly where I was,
I don’t think it really mattered
that I wasn’t quite where I’d expected myself to be.

Anyway, I’m back now,
and as soon as I came through the door I said “sorry”
because I didn’t want the atmosphere to sour.
You see, I had run five-point-four miles, and been out for almost an hour.
And though she didn’t say anything, if past form is anything to go by,
I expect that she had started to worry.

My run gave me a chance to think, and realise that
even though things didn’t go entirely to plan,
I am not lost.
In fact, I happily accept that I do not know exactly where I am,
because it really doesn’t matter
that I am not where I expect myself to be.

(c) Tim O’Hare, July 2023

About this poem: We moved base for the second week of our summer holiday, and after a few less than successful days in Horning in the Norfolk Broads we moved to the village of Redgrave in Suffolk. I instantly relaxed, and was happy, with walks and runs from the doorstep. For my first morning run there I decided to do a loop of Redgrave and Lopham Fen, memorized a route, or at least thought I had memorized a route, and set out. It was a very enjoyable run but, predictably, not knowing the terrain, I dropped off my planned route and had to use my instinct to find my way back to our accommodation, running further, and taking a fair bit longer, than I had planned. I was not exactly lost, but I did not know exactly where I was and as I was running the words ‘I am not lost but I do not now exactly where I am‘ began to play repeatedly in my mind and the seeds of the poem were sown. I think it’s fair to say that the poem isn’t really about being physically lost while out on a run at all…

Running Early

Yesterday, frustrated by my inability to fit various activities into my life and by my tendency to struggle to do anything if it involves me making a decision, I came (back) to the thought that I function much better when I remove the decision-making process entirely from the equation. The specific example was fitting running into my schedule – I have a vague plan of running three times per week, two shorter runs on weekdays (most commonly Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday) and then a longer run on (usually) Saturday morning. There I was, on Monday morning, knowing that I had to fit a run in over the next couple of days but not being able to decide when I would do this. Now, for me, having to make a decision like this is always problematic because, weirdly, if I am left to my own devices and am solely reliant on my own motivation to do things, the most likely outcome is that I will do nothing. Despite WANTING to do things I rarely FEEL like doing things. I have a huge amount of internal friction, or what I am now starting to think of as ‘personal viscosity‘, that resists action. All of which left me struggling to decide, struggling to plan and generally feeling frustrated with myself (as usual).

After a short period of wallowing in some kind of self-pity I was struck by the thought that it would really be a lot better if I didn’t leave myself having to decide about things and that it would be much better to decide now that I always do X at time Y. This is basically the idea of making a decision once rather than having to make similar decisions many times over. It’s not a new idea, I’ve been in this place and had this thought plenty of times in the past and, I am sure, will re-discover it again plenty of times in the future; because I know what I’m like and it would be unrealistic to think that suddenly I will make a plan, turn it into action and everything will be sweetness and light forever after.

After this re-revelation I decided that the best way for me to remove the decision-making process from my running deliberations would simply be to run everyday, if only for a mile, first thing in the morning unless there was some other specific event occurring that prevented this. The result was a ‘plan’ to run 1 mile on Mondays, ~3 miles on Tuesdays, 1 mile on Wednesdays, ~5 miles on Thursday and 1 mile on Fridays, always starting as close to 7am as possible (immediately after waking) and before I had done anything else, including eating. Then, on Saturdays, I would do a longer run (say 90-120 minutes) starting an hour after eating some breakfast which I would do first thing. My thinking was that if I didn’t have any decisions to make there would be one less barrier to me getting out and that I would have the satisfaction of always having achieved something at the start of the day. I would win a battle with myself before embarking on the war that stretched ahead of me each day. To help myself out I would have all of my running gear set up ready to put on in the morning so that again, another monster standing in the way of action would be pre-slain.

That was Monday, today is Tuesday.

It sort of worked. Actually, that’s unfair. It DID work, just not quite as smoothly as I would have liked (or imagined). I did get out for my run – a 3 mile route around local streets that I call ‘Mostly Mannamead’. It was a little slow and I was a little creaky (I’d not run for 4 days) but the run happened. What went less well is that it took me 15-20 minutes from the time I woke to overcome my viscosity and get moving and then I slipped into one of my cracks in time on my return to the house and took ages to get myself into the shower and onwards to breakfast, some writing and then into work. It’s clear that I really need to work on my transitions.

Tomorrow being Wednesday and just a 1 mile run day should be easier. I’ll set myself up in advance – running kit out etc – and I will TRY to reduce the time it takes for me to get out of the door. On my return I’ll probably go straight into breakfast mode before I have a shower. Oddly, I have no trouble eating immediately after I run (and anyway, 1 mile is hardly a run at all) and hopefully that will mean that I’ve cooled down and am ready to shower as soon as I have finished eating. Maybe, just maybe, I can get everything to fall into place – wake, run, breakfast, shower – and be able start writing (something else that I am trying to work into my schedule on a more regular and reliable basis) by 8am.

We’ll see…

Chipping Away… towards 1000 miles

Several months ago, back in the dim and distant days of late summer, when I was running lots and nothing like as busy with work as I have been this past 12 weeks, I signed myself up for a virtual challenge of completing 1000 miles in the year. This simply involved paying out £12.95 (I think) to a company who would send me a nice shiny medal once I sent in proof that I had completed 1000 miles of running during 2020. At the time it seemed pretty easy – I was well on track and completing the mileage from my (then) current position wasn’t that big a deal.

Then I got busy with work. Really busy.

The last 12 weeks are by far my busiest period of the academic year and on top of lots of lectures, marking and general (virtual) interactions with students I’ve had the pleasure of ongoing work sorting out the timetable for February onwards – something which is usually done in the summer. So my running suffered a bit – not to the extent that I crashed out of it altogether – but enough that about 6 weeks ago I realised that if I wanted that 1000 mile medal I had better start putting on my running shoes and getting out a bit more often. Since then, I have been working on an average daily mileage of close to 3 miles and that has meant grabbing every opportunity to pound the streets that I can. No, what I mean is that it has meant me dragging myself out of the house a lot more than my naturally lazy-arsed instinct would want. But it has worked. I now find myself with 17 days to go needing to run about 2.6 miles per day and the final target is very much within reach. I think only a bad cold will scupper things now although it should be acknowledged that a bad cold is exactly what I usually get the moment that this particular term finishes (so it’s scheduled for Friday later this week…). I’ve also upped the ante by forking out for another rather nice wooden ‘medal’ which I will award myself for running at least a kilometre every day in the 24 days running up to Christmas Day itself. No pressure (well, only self-inflicted pressure I guess).

Today, I had a plan to work through to about now and then go out for a pleasant 4-5 miles but here I am writing this and putting it off. I look out of the window and it’s completely dark (at 4:50pm). I can feel that it’s cold – not freezing cold but cold enough to make the prospect of going outside not entirely pleasant. At least it is not currently raining, although there are some pretty dark clouds out there and there have been some heavy showers. So I sit here typing instead.

No, no, NO. IT WON’T DO… Stop writing, switch off the computer, get off the chair, get changed and get out there. There are miles to be run and they won’t run themselves. You just have to keep chipping away. Always.

The Best Tasting Fruit Ever… Ultramarathon Fruit

At lunchtime today I was talking about fruit to my wife and elder daughter (I have been working at home checking and approving Module Delivery Sheets – the forms that Module Leaders have to complete to request the teaching sessions and rooms that they need for the 2018-19 academic year). There was a difference of opinion about whether the satsumas that they were eating tasted ‘really nice’ or ‘a bit sour’ (for the record I had my regulation lunchtime apple and banana). This set me thinking about the best fruit I have ever tasted and brought me to the realisation that ALL of the best fruit I have tasted was (any of) the fruit that I have eaten while running ultramarathons.

When I ran the Dartmoor Discovery in June 2016 (my first ultra) I found myself absolutely, and as I then thought inexplicably, craving oranges at about the 26 mile mark, and so it was rather remarkable when I passed a supporter of the runners with her car boot open full of goodies who asked me if there was anything I wanted and, when I said ‘oranges’, grabbed a plate of orange segments and offered them to me. Those oranges were the best ever, the juice literally exploding into my taste buds as I crushed them in my mouth.

And then last year, on the Somerset Flat 50 Miler and Mendip Marauder 30 Miler I found that at pretty much every aid station I was drawn first to the fruit pieces – oranges, melon, pineapple, strawberries, water melon. My oh my, just thinking about it makes me start to salivate and feel a tingling sensation in my mouth. The strawberries at Mile 32 of the Somerset Ultra were incredible – popped in whole, crushed in my mouth, juice exploding, unforgettable.

So, for anyone who likes fruit but wants to taste really good fruit or for anyone who doesn’t like fruit and can’t see what all the fuss is about I have one piece of advice – get some fruit, chop it up into bite size chunks, stick it on a plate and go out and run 25-30 miles before sampling it. You might think this is a bit of an extreme way to get more enjoyment out of some of your ‘5 a day’ (or is it supposed to be 7 a day now, I have lost track?) but believe me, you really need to try it. Honestly.

Long Run = Very Tired!

This afternoon I completed my longest run since early September. I was aiming for 18 miles, mostly down and flat for 4 miles to Coypool then up the Plym Valley Trail for 5 miles to Leighbeer Tunnel before turning around and retracing my steps. The problem with this route is that the last 2-3 miles are uphill all the way which is exactly what you don’t want for the final section of a long run. The other issue with this run today was that in an attempt to catch the best weather (clear, reasonably warm and even a little sunny) I was setting out at 2:30pm which is not a time that I normally start a longer run. In fact, on some previous occasions when I have done this I have found I have struggled a lot. And it turned out that today fitted that pattern.

I was in pretty good shape to the halfway point, which was disappointingly a couple of tenths of a mile short of 9 miles and was expecting to find the long downhill stretch between 9 and 14 miles to be quite a lot easier and faster. It didn’t really turn out that way. I was a bit quicker than on the way up but not as much as I expected and by the time I was back at Coypool (14 miles) I was feeling pretty tired. I decided to split the last 4 miles into 4 sections and then deployed a variety of techniques to get myself through them. First, I spent a whole mile focussing only on my breath, essentially completing my mindfulness meditation practice while I ran. Then, I decided to count my steps for a mile, reaching 1900 in total. For the penultimate mile I went through the alphabet, first trying to think of a film title beginning with each letter (I succeeded apart from X – later on my wife suggested the somewhat obvious X-Men) and then the name of a classical composer (failing only on Q). That left me with just the last mile to get myself through but by then I was really, really tired and just plodded home, taking a slight shortcut such that, in the end, I completed 17.4 miles.

Tonight I feel much more tired than I hoped I would and can really feel that my legs have been working hard. I guess that is to be expected but it would be nice to be a bit further advanced in my training. The Grizzly is going to be tough next weekend…

One good thing was that I passed the 25 mile mark for the week (actually reaching 32.4 miles) so I have got that streak going again. I’ve hit this target 9 times in the 10 weeks of 2018 so far and will easily hit the target again next week assuming that I do complete The Grizzly on Sunday.

Broken Streak

Earlier this week (Tuesday) I thought I was going to ditch my target of trying to write an entry for this blog every day. I found myself wondering why I was putting myself under artificial pressure to do something which had little obvious purpose. It has turned out that I have kept going – at least for another 5 days (including this one). But it has also turned out that one of my streaks HAS now been broken. After 8 successful weeks I have not managed to run 25 miles this week. In fact I haven’t even got close.

I knew that my 25 mile per week streak was under threat right at the start of the week. On Monday, out of the blue, I quite suddenly felt achey and ill, like I was in the midst of a nasty flu-ey cold, which was odd because I wasn’t. Consequently, despite feeling much better on Tuesday I decided it would be sensible to forego the short run (4 miles) that was on my training plan for that day. Then, much of the rest of the week was taken out by the cold, windy and snowy weather that came our way from the ‘Beast from the East’ and Storm Emma. it was obvious by Thursday that I was not going to be running 18 miles on Saturday and with no miles in the bag from Wednesday or Thursday (when the bad weather led my running club to cancel its meet for the first time in the 4.5 years I have been a member). I did get out today for 4.1 miles. The snow and ice had all melted and the sun even came out so it was surprisingly warm and fairly nice conditions for running. But one 4.1 mile run does not amount to a 25 mile week, my streak has gone and so the entry in my streak page now shows:

|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|_| [0]

representing 8 weeks when the target was achieved (|*|) and a single week when it wasn’t (|_|).

I’m not beating myself up about things – breaking a streak was bound to happen at some point, and now I just need to get back to it and try again.

The Run That Ran Itself

Thursday night is club night at my running club (Plymouth Musketeers) and so tonight I took myself along and joined the 10 minute/mile group on a new route (Honicknowle). At the outset the group leaders were rather concerned that they wouldn’t remember the directions but in the end everything went smoothly and we discovered that the route was a relatively un-hilly and quick one compared to most of the club routes.

Before starting the run and for the first half mile or so I felt tired and wasn’t expecting to particularly enjoy myself, but as the run unfolded I fell in with a few of the regulars and we just ticked along, chatting (mostly) about Plymouth Argyle’s recent upturn in form and football more generally. The combination of a relatively easy route, a whole bunch of runners who were completely comfortable with the pace and the good company and chit-chat on the way round meant that the run went incredibly smoothly, seemed fairly effort free and was just generally thoroughly enjoyable. When we got back to the club base I had clocked 5.4 miles at 9:41 pace so we’d got along at a decent lick and not really noticed it. It was a nice surprise.

The best way that I can describe the run, as I have titled this post, is that it was a run that ran itself. It doesn’t really get a lot better than that (well perhaps it would if it had been light so that we could actually see where we were going and then been running somewhere with good views… but that’s just being picky). I’d be quite content if all runs were a bit like this evening’s.

Back to Back Runs

This weekend, for the first time in ages (months) I have run on both Saturday and Sunday – so-called ‘back to back’ runs. This was partly because going into the weekend I was still quite well short of my 25 mile weekly target, but also because having now decided on my race events for the first half of the year I have finally settled on a training plan.

First, the race events. I have The Grizzly coming up in March, 19-20 miles of very varied off-road terrain including two lengthy stretches on shingle beaches, coastal footpaths, woody tracks with roots and stones to trip you up, lots of up (including one section on the coast path where the local mountain rescue team stand on guard in case anyone gets vertigo), lots of down, lots and lots of mud (potentially thigh deep in places) etc. Then, for April I have now finally gotten round to entering the Southampton Marathon, a race that I got my best ever marathon time in last year involving two laps including a back-and-forth run across the Itchen Bridge, a section through Southampton FC’s ground at St Mary’s and some other nice sections (although they have changed and reversed the route this year which has annoyed me a little). And then for June I have entered the 30 mile version of the Conquest of Avalon, an off-road ultramarathon in Somerset. All of which means that some proper training is needed…

Last year, when I ran a 50 mile route in May I followed a training plan from a website called ‘Ultraladies’. The plan seemed to me to be realistic and doable and, given that I got myself around a 52 mile route in under 12 hours, obviously worked. So, I am now following their 50km training plan. The key aspects of this plan are that I need to push the number of runs I do each week up to 5 (rest on Monday and Friday) and, most importantly, I need to start doing back-to-back runs on Saturday and Sunday. Everything I have read about distance training emphasises the importance of back-to-backs and so, this morning, I found myself constantly reminding myself that yes, of course I was tired, but that was the whole point and that this (the second run of the weekend) was where most of the training value comes from.

I ran 16 miles yesterday (Saturday) as per the training plan and was supposed to do 8 today but my other target of 25 miles minimum per week left me actually only needing to complete 3.4 miles. This meant that when I set out I had two numbers, 3.4 and 8, in mind and, for obvious reasons, quite a psychological pull towards the smaller one. And so I was absolutely delighted with myself when I steamed through the 3.4 mile point and just kept going. Training for long events is ALL about putting in the miles and now I am sitting here finally thinking that I am properly on my way, not just running quite a lot but running quite a lot with a purpose.

Running Through a Cold

Since last Tuesday I have been feeling decidedly like I am fighting off some kind of cold. It started with an irritating cough and rapidly became a general overall achey body feeling and tiredness. What I didn’t know was whether, how and/or when these symptoms would mutate into something more serious, but I certainly didn’t want to let them cause a break in my streak of running 25+ miles each week, a streak that I had managed to maintain for the first five weeks of 2018. The problem was that I had only run 4.1 miles on Tuesday leaving me with about 21 still to do – if I ended up out of action for a few days that would be curtains for the streak. So I was worried (and also not particularly wanting to feel worse than I already did). So…

On Thursday evening, despite the fact that I had had a busy day at work and it was dark and raining by the time I got home, I bit the bullet, grabbed my running kit and pushed myself out for a run, hoping to do 7-8 miles but realising that my body might protest and I might only manage 3 or 4. If I hit my target then I’d hopefully be well enough to get to 25 in one go over the weekend and if I only managed the latter then I’d have to consider running little bits on Friday, Saturday and Sunday if I could manage it. The nightmare scenario was that I’d make myself worse and be out of action completely.

Fortunately, things went pretty well. I completed my 7.8 mile circuit and although it loosened my cold up a bit and the coughing and spluttering increased somewhat I didn’t tire especially quickly on the run itself and I didn’t seem to have made myself much worse. My gamble had paid off and my weekly target was still in reach.

Then, this morning (Saturday), not feeling any better and with pretty foul weather (wet and blustery), I decided to chance my luck again. I need to complete just over 13 miles and figured that I was better going for it on one run such that if the effort knocked me out for a few days at least I would have my completed target to comfort me. I also felt that there was an outside chance that keeping active might actually make me stronger and keep the cold at bay. I planned my route so that if I got to 6-7 miles and felt to rough to continue I could cut back towards home for a total of around 9 miles but if I was still going okay I would press on. It was quite a tough run. As I headed west along Plymouth’s waterfront at around the 8 mile mark I found myself battling a strong headwind and squally rain. I nearly lost my cap a couple of times and ended up running bent forwards to reduce the impact of the wind and with one hand on the brim of my cap to ward off the wind gusts. Fortunately, the later part of the run saw me in more sheltered streets and the rain eased off a bit. But the problem with most of my runs is that the last couple of miles are invariably uphill because, you’ve guessed it, I live on a hill… The result of this today was that I rather plodded my way home and once I was about a mile from the end my brain started to shut me down a bit in an attempt to persuade my body that it was done. Still, I made it, 13.5 miles at an average pace of 10:10 per mile which isn’t too shabby all things considered.

I’ve been tired today since I got in and I think my cold has developed a bit. My throat is more sore and there have been a few spectacular sneezes but I suspect this development might have happened anyway; hopefully my gamble hasn’t made things worse. So far, I feel like my decision to keep going has been a good one and, best of all, my 25 miles per week streak has made it to six weeks. I’ve got a couple of days rest now and then hopefully I’ll be back out on the pavements on Tuesday, looking to push in towards seven weeks in a row, cold permitting of course.