Blue Runnings

A Year in Review – 2016

by Sarah J.

It’s been a month and a half since my last entry here, but it feels like an awful lot longer…I was expecting to log on and see it had been months! Saying that, just this week feels like it’s lasted about 10 days for some reason. The weekend could not come soon enough!

As Christmas fast approaches, I find myself going over 2016 and I confess to having found this year incredibly frustrating. I don’t think I’ll be the only one glad to see the back of it and hoping for a fresh start in January.

Having started the year determined not to spend as much time and money on races as I did last year (which was many £’s and nearly every weekend at one point!), the races I’d booked for this year were ones I’d really wanted to try from 2015 but for whatever reason couldn’t make it, or that I really enjoyed and wanted to do again. Looking over my calendar for this year, out of a total of 19 races booked across the year I missed 7 of them due to being either ill or just not fit enough to do them (one does not do a 10 mile race when one is struggling to do a 10k for example!). Of the 12 I did make it to, I had a DNF on one and nearly a DNF on another, and really struggled on a couple more. If this were Laser Quest, I would be losing rather badly!

I think the biggest thing I’ve learned this year is where my running limits are. My maximum running distance at peak fitness so far seems to be about 16 miles, and I shouldn’t try to run a half marathon every weekend several weeks in a row. I am however comfortable running 8-10 miles every or every-other weekend when ‘fit’. I tried to do far too much far too fast at the start of the year, and to be honest that’s over-shadowed the rest of my year.

I recovered from my post-marathon-attempt fatigue when summer was coming into full bloom – and any of you who’ve had the misfortune of being here a while will know I tend to disappear into a dark cave in the summer and don’t come out – heat and I just don’t get on and it always seems to come out on top! Something I did start doing this year was going out on the bike with one of the guys from work most Wednesday’s when work permitted – and I think this is all I can credit with me not being completely back to square one from a fitness point of view across the rest of this year, because I definitely haven’t been running frequently enough for that to have really helped! I’ve done a total of 165 miles on the bike this year, compared with 15.5 miles the year before, which is not to be sniffed at for someone who’s not really a bike fan!

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Run 2 Remember Sunderland 2016

by Sarah J.

Run 2 Remember has rolled around again raising money for 4 major military personnel supporting charities. This was high on J’s list of favourite runs last year so it had to make the calendar this year – and they had a raffle and tombola! Who doesn’t love a race where you can win things without even running?

This is the second year we’ve run this one, and it’s setting a trend for sunshine, even if there was a bit of a shower on the way there. 🙂 We also had another friendly face we recognised (we didn’t know anyone except Hippie the photographer and his family last year) in the appearance of R at the start line! J was obviously getting into the zone right from the gathering at the starting banner, and as we started off she shot off looking for ‘space’ and I don’t think actually heard me when I attempted to start a conversation with her as we set off. Ironically after a few hundred yards when I’d just decided to set my own steady pace and leave her to it, I actually had all the space around me, while J 50 yards in front was still in a pack of people. There was the most enormous buzzard overhead on the starting half-mile and J (usually a birdwatcher) was completely oblivious to it.

R caught me up as we reached the bottom of the hill and prepared to set out along the field to the lake, and given how close behind me he finished (we’ll come to that later!) presumably stayed not far behind me for the rest of the race though I was blissfully unaware of this and pootling along in my own little world. I saw The Buzzard, many gulls, swans, ducks and heard something making an odd noise at the bottom end of the lake, though I didn’t see the owner of the little voice…

J was getting an increasing lead by this point – I was waving at her from the other side of the lake as she started her second lap ahead of me – and the irony of doing the same thing the year before when I was finishing my second lap and she was starting hers was not lost upon me! I caught a glimpse of a pink-sided ninja vest as I joined the straight along the field and she was reaching the end of it, and that was it until the finishing straight at the end of the hill! Last year, it was me that was ahead and I must confess to sneaking a walk in on the long hill back up to the finish line, while J (very indignant when she found this out) had kept a steady pace up and managed to make it up the whole thing. I don’t think I’m capable of ever being quite as stubborn as J when it comes to much, but I did decide to myself that I was going to get into the J-zone and repeat her steady all-the-way-round approach of last year and make it up the hill, still pootling along.

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24th – 30th October

by Sarah J.

My midweek workouts did not go according to plan. I ended up doing Weds/Thurs rather than Tues/Weds this week. A had to dash off on Weds so we didn’t go out on the bikes and P & I instead used the time to re-fill the fridge and freezer with food (v. important). I wanted to try and do a step workout while the food was cooking, but the food had a shorter cooking time on the packet than I thought, so I figured I’d changed this for a conditioning video on Thinq Fitness which I have also previously enjoyed. Queue some technical difficulties with my laptop and actually playing the videos and in the interests of doing something before dinner, I just bammed some music on and did my own session with planks, squats, 3/4 press-ups, gym-ball sit-ups and some arm and leg work. To be honest it probably only took me 15 mins but I at least felt like I’d done something. It then turned out that the food was NOT ready by the time it was supposed to be, and by the time it was I could have done the step workout I was originally intending to do… C’est la vie I guess!

Thursday was going to be Run England day in place of Tuesday – except we got home from work a bit late. Made dinner, ate dinner, went to get changed as had about 5 mins before needing to leave for RE and it being far too close to eating time, even going up the stairs too quick made me feel rather ill. 😦 Run England will have to wait for next week. Some time after dinner I did do some exercise – the step workout I’d been intending to do the night before! We still had some technical difficulties and I think I need to have a look at my PC setup in the conservatory for working out, but we got there in the end. Absolutely plum-tuckered afterwards and straight into a hot bath! I think I’d have been less worn out if I’d taken my queasy self to Run England! That’ll teach me!

There were a couple of milestone parkrunners at Blackhill this morning, and the promise of bacon sarnies and cake on order…but with another 5k tomorrow morning in Sunderland, I confess I’m still wimping out of doing Blackhill at the moment – so I headed off to Riverside again. Still working on that routine of small exercise sessions across the week rather than going all out on one day and being a complete vegetable for the rest of the time 🙂 Riverside were doing a Halloween themed parkrun this morning and there were some great costumes running round – many of them depressingly faster than me! It’s a bit sobering when someone in a full-face wolf mask can get round quicker than you and you know you’d melt in half a mile like the Wicked Witch in a rain shower!

It was good to see C (the new runner from last week) at Riverside again – she was going round with some friends this time so I just waved on the way past – I do believe she hit the 5k this time though! I concentrated on pootling steadily round. I found miles 1 to 2.5ish a bit of a slog, but was getting back into stride again mentally for the last stretch. 🙂 I’m hoping to head out for a longer run next weekend – gotta start getting the miles up again if I want to survive 10 miles at the end of November! I deliberately didn’t look at my watch pace on the way round; my focus was on finishing and getting a few miles under my belt, but I was pleased when I got home to see I’d stuck with a steady pace the whole way round which was consistently under 11min/mile – it felt like I was nearer 12-13min/mile on my second big loop and I didn’t want to be depressed by my slowness part way round lest it slow me down further! I came in at 33:50 in the end, which I’m happy with. 🙂 Something to work from.

I’ll not be able to make parkrun next week as I am booked for shiny things, but I’m hoping to do a longer run on the Sunday to make up for it – 10k minimum, 7 miles if I’m feeling ok. 🙂 Fingers crossed. 🙂 Tomorrow, it’s Run to Remember at Sunderland with J – see you there?!

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17th – 23rd October

by Sarah J.

With a 10 mile run at Kirkley being booked in a while ago for the end of November (in an attempt to give myself a kick up the pants to get out for the longer miles again as the weather cools down), and with the Kielder 10k successfully negotiated, I’m trying to get back into a regular running routine again. P’s back on days again for a while – which helps with my getting into some sort of routine: I wasn’t even the one working the shifts but one car between us and trying to make sure we got some time together was awkward on my schedule as well as his! We’ve both been working some long hours, but I made sure this week was when I started really committing to some me-time.

I made my first reappearance at Run England for quite some time on Tuesday (despite going to the wrong carpark to start with – they’ve moved back to the sports centre for the winter), and am hoping to make this a regular feature in my week through the winter again – and beyond if the summer doesn’t melt me again! I really need to learn to run in the heat. 😦 Run England has gone back to two groups at the moment; fast and slow. Feeling very very rusty, the slow group was a definite must for me! It’s nearly impossible to do a flat route around Consett and I’d already resigned myself to hills somewhere along the line, but we did at least do about as flat as you can get; down Blackhill, up Genesis Way to Tesco and round the housing estates while doing as little of Delves Lane as possible!

I did make it up the inclines; Genesis Way is a long slow killer! But I did also do rather more walk-backs than run-backs and was very much in the middle of the group. 8’C outside and I was just in a t-shirt; it should have been perfect for me but you could still have cooked on my face by the time I got up the inclines! It’s really made me realise how much fitness I’ve lost over the summer – I would have laughed round that 4.5 miles and covered much more ground in the hour with run-backs last winter! A motivator to get it back this year and make sure I don’t lose quite so much of it next summer. 😉

The other thing I was rather aware of was how much of a pig I’ve been this summer…very aware of several months binging on chocolate and cakes when my capri waistband was rather tighter than I remember and I was feeling slightly nautious on the odd occasion as I flubbed my way around my trouser-belt! The remedy is the same – more exercise = more endorphins and less junk food craving, and takes away the side-effects of previous binges!

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This is my race – and I am equal to it

by Sarah J.

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Followers of my Facebook page will know that I have been somewhat absent for several weeks – since the end of August in fact. This has mainly been because I have not been up to much. There would have been several weeks of alternating ‘cycled route 1’ and ‘ran short route 2’ over and over again, combined with me still moaning about the heat and lamenting that the cooler months weren’t here yet. And that gets boring very fast. For me and you both. I also spent the second half of September playing host to a lovely cold bug which still insists on being my constant companion even now – but at least I don’t need to carry around his sidekick Bodyweight-in-Tissues, I just frequently hack and cough in the beautifully elegant way with which I do all things I undertake.

Knowing the Kielder 10k was coming up, about 3 weeks ago I wanted to make sure I was getting comfortable with the 10k distance again, so I headed out hoping to repeat the 7 miles J and I had done from my house down towards Swalwell on the Derwent Walk. I had a nice steady pace of about 10:30-11 min miles I was quite happy with right up until the 5 mile mark when it dropped right off as my shoes started to rub. I don’t know if this is summer adding injury to insult – I’ve had blisters in the same place with three different pairs of trainers and three different styles of socks if I do more than a couple of miles. Guess I just get glamorously sweaty feet! I did make the 10k in an ok-ish summer time so I made my peace with that, and then Mr Cold moved in and I did absolutely nothing at all for the 2 weeks coming up to the race in the deseparate hope he would move out and find a new friend. He seems to have sent all his brothers and sisters out to visit all my friends, but he’s staying for now.

I’ve missed running while I’ve been hosting, and it’s shown in how tetchy I’ve been getting about things at work – it’s been a lot harder to keep things in their boxes and not take things personally. Working at Tesco’s or Starbucks has been looking very tempting sometimes! Or, you know, just being a full-time bum! I think I’m fully qualified already for this position but P says no because blah blah mortgage blah blah money blah blah sensible grown-up boring stuff.

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Gateshead Trail 10k 2016

by Sarah J.

The Gateshead Trail 10k turned three this year, and I was lucky enough to get wind of it the first year it was running (this was before I went on a race-booking bender in 2015 and booked every race under the half-marathon within a 200 mile radius), and have made sure I’ve been booked in every year since. It’s a relatively flat trail race within 10 miles of my house, and covering ground that I do on various routes through the rest of the year. With 2 short-ish hills and good quality mixed paths it’s a good intro to trail running without the need for fancy shoes or a degree of multi-terrain balance!

I’ve been doing my usual anti-social summer running where I hide away from all social running sessions and sneak out at mega-early times or in bad weather hunting for cool and having a mental strop at how slow I am when it’s hot 🙂 It was therefore really nice to catch up with several of my running friends from Run England and the Blackhill Bounders who were also running this one – I haven’t seen some of them in ages and it was good to see some familiar faces.

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F and I parked up at the Cricket Club this time – there’s a lot of parking at Blaydon Rugby Club for race participants, but there’s also a lot of people who use it and last year I got there early enough to make sure I got parked and took a book – for both the wait at the start and the end – there’s normally a massive queue to leave and it takes a while to get out. The parking at the Cricket Club still had spaces even when we left – without having to wait to get out, and was only 10 mins up the road at a walk – a good warm-up/cooldown and opportunity for a chat so I’ll definitely be doing this again next year!

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Butterwick 10k 2016

by Sarah J.

Today was a repeat run of one of last year’s – my third repeat of the year – which considering how many races I did last year by now is almost impressive in itself! J and I went to the Butterwick Hospice 10k last year, and enjoyed it despite finding the route very challenging – those hills! – so it was one the definitely made the calendar for this year.

We had quite a few walk breaks last year as there were some rather serious hills, particularly at the start. They’d changed the start and finish points this year, which slightly modified the route. It felt like the starting hill was longer, but not actually steeper – the elevation graph shows different and we netted out at the same height, but the difference is that this time we made it all the way up without stopping! We came back down the hill and crossed the ford at the bottom – which we’d both forgotten about – WITHOUT getting wet shoes! Hurrah!

It was around this point that I discovered my shoes were starting to rub…maybe 3-4km in? I’ve worn my Cascadia’s several times before – they’ve done nearly 150 miles with me without this problem, through sand, mud and sunshine, so having them rub was a bit frustrating. Maybe it was my socks? I don’t know. Annoyingly I’d nearly put my road-runners on but decided that no, I’d paid good money for trail shoes for exactly this sort of race so I should wear them. No point stopping to check, such things don’t get better being looked at and we had a race to finish!

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Flummoxed by Fauna

by Sarah J.

Firstly, ‘flummoxed’ is an excellent word.

I am fortunate enough to live a stone’s throw from the countryside, and I decided today instead of always following the road routes that usually tie-in with bits I’ve done with Run England or join onto driven bits, I’d try mapping a route over the fields and go for more of a trail route and hopefully find a new short-ish multi-terrain route to train over without having to drive somewhere. Seems a bit of a waste of fuel driving somewhere when you’ve got fields and woods visible from the house and yet I never go there!

I had a look on the Ordnance Survey website – check out all these lovely paths to choose from over the fields!

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I picked a nice circular route, which when I put it on MapMyRun (which doesn’t show the paths on the maps but you can see them in aerial view) was a nice 3 miles from start to finish and had plenty of options for extending it in the future if I wanted to.

I was feeling all prepped for the slightly muggy day – I’d printed my maps out just incase I got a lost in the maze of tiny paths – there’s a few parallel ones etc. (not that it would have really mattered – I was never going to be hugely far from home). My parents got me a breathable fancy waterproof jacket for my birthday which I hadn’t really had opportunity to wear yet, so with risk of showers and not wanting to risk a cold I thought I’d wear that and a hat 🙂 All set and ready to go! Or so we thought…

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Washington Bottoms Up Cup 2016

by Sarah J.

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I was originally down to do the Durham Coastal Half Marathon today, and looking at the photos I am definitely going to be doing this next year as it looks right up my street. This year however I decided I was not fit enough right now to be trying to do a tough terrain half marathon (320 steps and no flat bits!) right now and entered myself in for the Bottoms Up Cup at Washington, which I did in its inaugural year last year and quite enjoyed. It’s a club-run organised by Washington RC, and was well attended this year, with I think 80-ish runners present.

It’s been cold in the mornings all week, and often foggy, so of course today while it started off cloudy it burned off before the race start to a ridiculously sunny day in much the same way it did for the Washington Trail 10k a few weeks ago. I was a little more prepared this morning having actually bothered to check the weather forecast before getting dressed, and determining very rapidly that shorts would be a sensible idea even if I needed a jumper in the morning before the race start.

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I woke up rather earlier than I would have liked this morning dreaming of Dun Niffelem and ice giants (don’t ask) so had my tired head on when I set off with as many trainers in the car as J normally takes when she’s racing! I was wearing my Cascadia trail shoes, having removed all the bits of grit and sand which were stuck in the holes in the insoles and I found last time I wore them for a run with J last week after they gave me a blister from bits of rock rubbing against my feet! I hadn’t completely committed to wearing them so also threw in my other road-running shoes, and a pair of shoes for afterwards. As it happens, I did wear them and they were fine 🙂 Checking my insoles has become a regular part of my pre-run prep…particularly if I’m going more than 10k – I’m always checking for balls of cat hair, cotton buds (presents from said cat) and build-ups of grit and sand which you don’t notice when you first put them on but boy do they start to rub after a mile or two! I don’t normally actually have to check IN the insole though – these were embedded in the little drilled through holes.

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Pondering Wandering

by Sarah J.

I took all my kit with me this morning so that I could go to the gym after work as P’s on dayshift and finishes several hours after me, and the gym always seems to be quieter and therefore cooler on a Friday as most people don’t seem to start their weekend with a workout! I got to the end of the workday and decided I couldn’t be bothered as I will be running both days this weekend, and I would go for a nice gentle walk along the river and kill some time before I had to pick P up. Many things occurred to me on my wander, and I will share a few of them here.

When J and I went to Hadrian’s wall on Monday, I noticed one of the walkers wearing exercise capris, which is probably a very comfortable option but one that never occurs to me. My running has snuck into many aspects of my life, but wearing running bottoms for anything other than exercise sessions just doesn’t fit in my brain for some reason. I took some of my running t-shirts with me to Ireland when I went on a hiking holiday with S hoping they’d help keep me cool, but I took light weight hiking trousers with roll-ups or zip-offs to keep my legs cool. They’re also what I default to for general day-to-day wear if it’s too warm for jeans or I’m feeling too ‘loungy’ for jeans. I see people walking in what I think of as ‘running trousers/capris’ and trainers all the time, but I’ve just never done it myself – I always have hiking boots and loose trousers. Today, I ventured out in my capris…I wasn’t going to wear my heavy-duty work trousers with their weight-laden pockets and steelie boots!

I left the car, started walking off thinking it was nice and cool, then ended up going back to the car to get a jacket – while it probably still would have been just a touch on the warm side for running, it was going to be cool for walking. Dressing for walking requires conscious thought now evidently! I had my GPS watch on, a hand-grip bottle from a race, my retired running trainers which I use for general wear and gym stuff, my bracelet with mini pouch with change incase I wanted to pop into the Boathouse for a lemonade…pretty much the same stuff I wear when out for a run.

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