Looking Backwards and Forwards - The Ups and Downs of a Running Year

We are getting to the end of the running year, and I have been looking back on what was, in the end, not a very successful season. I have many happy and proud memories, but also regrets and disappointments.  I find myself looking back over a year of ups and downs (physical and emotional), shaking myself down, and looking forwards to next year, pondering how I can do it better.

Here are my thoughts....

Clarendon, with Pete, 2015

At this time last year I had an exciting emerging plan. A goal, around which all my training would be focused, coming to a climax in the height of the summer.  I would run Race to the Stones, a 100km two day race along the Ridgeway, ending at the iconic Avebury stone circle.  That would be a bigger thing than I had ever done and a real challenge.

The idea had occurred to me before, but I was inspired by my good friend G, who was committed to running it, and who would be my training partner and co-conspirator for many long runs through the winter, up to and including the event itself. As autumn rolled on and turned to winter I ran the Clarendon Marathon, and then the OMM with my brother Pete (I wrote about it here). G and I worked up a training plan of longer and longer runs, merging into long back to back runs on consecutive days.

January came round and February. Portsmouth Coastal Half and Larmer Tree 20, run alongside Alice. G and I we ran through rain and sun and mud and snow, further and further each weekend. Whether running alone or with G, I could feel myself getting stronger, and it was perfect to have a partner to share my pains and exhaustion, as well as the joy of achieving the longer distances.

G, on our first training run
on the Ridgeway

We were doing well.  It was going according to plan.


But then it all went wrong.

A couple of weeks before the Stroud Marathon in May I unexpectedly strained my calf, in the middle of a gentle run. With all the training we had been doing, I had forgotten about the tendency of my calves to give out (see here!). With hindsight, that was the start of a decline from which I didn't recover. With the help of Michaela's magic hands and lots of tape I ran the blistering hot and brutally hilly Stroud Trail Marathon, but I lost all energy at about 16 miles and was nursed and encouraged round by G, who was in great form. Just a bad day? Maybe. Two weeks later, I felt pain in the other calf, and that ended up putting paid to months of planned training.

Finishing the Portsmouth Coastal Half
with Alice and Patrick

I missed the Dorset Maverick, both because of injury and family events, but decided that my calf was strong enough to manage the inaugural Hampshire Hoppit, a delightful trail marathon on the hills south of Newbury. I was wrong.  It started well enough, and I was feeling strong, but at about 4 miles the calf pain cut in, and I reluctantly pulled out and limped back to the start, leaving G to run a blazing race.

I tried to keep up my fitness with cycling, but I didn't recover enough to train properly for  Race to the Stones. I turned up for the event,along with G and Pete, hoping that the residual effect of a long winter and spring of long runs would give me the endurance I needed, but it wasn't enough. I ended up walking over half of the first day, and a lot of the second day.  I was truly grateful to G for running (and walking) with me on day 2, when she could have run on and beaten me by hours.  It was a great event and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but amongst the elation of finishing a 62 mile race (two ultras in two days!) I was left with the bittersweet aftertaste of disappointment. I just hadn't managed the performance that had been driving me through a year of training.

Finishing the Stroud Marathon
with G, May 2016

For a while I felt pretty down about my running. I felt that hadn't achieved what I had wanted to achieve, or what I should have been able to achieve. A disappointment with myself.  A feeling that I have let others down, especially G. Was it just bad luck, with injury and family events hitting me at a crucial moment just as we were going into the final stages of our plan? Was it me not training hard enough or assiduously enough? Had I just aimed too high for my 58 year old body?

But....I find myself climbing out of that trough.

Friends reminded me that I did amazing things in the year, and I was being over-pessimistic about what I'd achieved. And, of course, they are right. I did, after all, finish many long distance training runs, half marathons and marathons. I completed Race to the Stones, which looked like an impossible challenge at this time last year.  I didn't run as much of RttS as I had hoped and planned, but I still finished it! While there is still an annoyance at myself lurking in the back of my mind, I now find myself looking forward to new challenges and working out how to drag my endurance and performance back up.

With G on the Hampshire Hoppit,
before my calf gave out

So what now?

Over the past few weeks I have been pondering the coming year. We compiled a list of interesting runs. Off road marathons, half marathons, ultras. There is RttS's sister race, Race to the King, 52 miles along the South Downs Way to Winchester, in one day. Or maybe Cotswold 100 - four days of running through the Cotswolds,

But there was still something missing.  It's not that I can't face the training (although G has moved away, so more would be on my own). It's more that I need a vision that pulls me on. RttS did that for me last year, but it has lost its zing, and I don't fancy doing it again.

In the back of my mind there is lurking the Big Wales Thing, my 200+ mile solo run/walk along the length of Wales. I can feel the wanderlust growing, and the feeling of achievement that I got from that trip. Those feelings of "Calm. Peace. Freedom. Achievement. Self." I know that I want to do something like that again.

Pondering while out running in the woods and tracks of Hampshire, a plan has been slowly coalescing.

• Getting my Fitness Back: I'm planning a winter of long slow runs, Maffetone style, to build my endurance back up. 
• A Long Running Trip: The Big Wales Thing was a wonderful challenge, and I crave the mountains and wilderness and the feelings of solitude and self reliance. I've been looking at other long distance routes, including a long run through Scotland (Cape Wrath to Fort William maybe), or (my current favourite) the 150km Alta Via high level route through the Dolomite Mountains in Italy.
• An Ultra Challenge:  After looking at a lot of potential events, I am settling on Snowdon 50, a 58 mile tour of Snowdonia in 24 hours. That is even harder than RttS, so a proper target to achieve. It's not until September, and would mark the end of the season.

In amongst that lot, as last year, will be a number of off road marathons and other events, run with friends, done not for position or speed, but just for the fun of it and to move the training forward.  (Maverick and White Star events will no doubt feature, as the both run brilliant, friendly runs :-) )

2015/6 didn't go quite like I planned. It had ups and downs, but it's time to learn from that and start a new year of running. 

I'm running the Clarendon Marathon tomorrow. Calf injuries mean that I haven't trained enough for it, and my calf may even stop me finishing. But I am not worried. I'll start with G, but she is way fitter than me now, and I expect her to leave me trailing in the dust!  I'll do what I can, and will hopefully finish, even if I have to walk a lot. It is a lovely route, and an amazingly friendly and well managed event. (And my wife, Kathy, is running one of the drink stations with the scouts :-) ) 

Then the OMM at the end of October.  This is (I think) the seventh OMM I have run with my bruv, Pete, and I'm looking forward to it another two days in the remote mountains of Scotland.

And then I'm looking forward to another season of running on tracks and woods, on  hills and mountains, alone and with friends.

The running Jell is back!

Finishing RttS with G

PS - 2 October 2016

I ran the Clarendon Marathon today and got home in 5h10m. Not fast and not pretty, but I made it and was relaxed and happy with my runwalking over the last few miles. Stayed with G until about half way, and then she went on to finish in 4h37m. Go G, go!!