One step forward, two steps back

 

After several false starts, this is my first week of trying to actually train again. I've settled on a similar pattern to when I was training for Copthorne as it's what fits best around life although it does mean two or three double days of a run and strength work. I'm shattered already, but can't tell if that's because of post-covid fatigue or whether it's that normal shock to the system you get when you start structured training again after a break. I guess I'll have to see how things go and adjust what I do as needed. But three days this week I've had to go to bed before 8.30pm because I've been so horrendously tired.

A tendinopathy in my right arm has been making it really hard getting back to strength training but at long last (4 months and counting) it has eased enough to make some lifting possible although using a full range of movement in my shoulder is painful still. I've missed lifting as much as I have missed running- feeling strong has become so important to me- and in my first runs post-covid I couldn't even run with good form because of the muscle wastage. But I've returned to the exercises I did to get strong for my first Autumn 100 and although they are making me sore and feel much, much harder than I think they should, they will get me back on track eventually.

There's a LOT of life stuff happening too, much of which is not for here. But I am still very much struggling with the grieving process over the not-fella. I inadvertently stumbled on something the other day that has really knocked me back. It's not something I wanted to hear and certainly not the manner in which I'd like to have found out. Copthorne gave me the illusion of coping better than I was. In fact, I didn't need to cope when I was training for that race because it took over my life and emotional stuff just got shoved to one side as there was no time or energy spare. But when you do that, it always comes back at you- stuff needs processing and resolving before it will sit relatively peacefully in a corner of your brain and heart.

I remember reading something, an irunfar article I think, about the dangers of 'running from' and I think I've written about it too. Running can be a much needed source of respite, but it's not healthy to use it to escape things that need acknowledging. My local trails will always be full of ghosts, so many spots where I can recall specific conversations we had as we ran past, where I remember a smile or the particular rhythm of feet. Some days I can run with those ghosts and that is better than a year ago, but other days the sense of loss is still so strong that I have to stop, try to breathe, calm the horrible knots in my stomach. Sometimes the physical response to loss still overwhelms me. But at least by acknowledging it, learning to run and live with it rather than trying to erase it all, there's the chance of healing.

Amongst all of this I am trying to embrace life, to welcome new opportunities, the chance to feel loved and alive. I'm pretty bad at it so far, every step I take towards the light it feels like two steps back again and I am so tired of the struggle to keep going.  But I've never been one to quit even when every fibre of me is screaming for it all to stop. 

Anyway, we might be moving house soon. And I can't quit when, hopefully, we're about to have a house where no one can tell us to leave, and I'm finally about to get a room of my own.

A brief update

 It's been quite a while since I wrote. I never really got back into regular training after Copthorne, then Covid-19 finally got me. My symptoms weren't really serious- a razor sharp sore throat for a few days, muscles aches, a bit of a cough and deep tiredness, but it went on for 12 days and also took that long to get a negative test. I'm still not right. It's left me with some cardiac symptoms, headaches and weird fatigue.   Right now I don't know if it's safe for me to run or lift.

This isn't a great place to be and it's going to take me a while to figure out how to manage. Bear with me.

Onwards

 

The fact that it's just over a month since the Copthorne and I haven't written a follow-up post until now is probably all you need to know about recovery. The last four weeks of term were very busy and stressful, and basically I had no time to recover. It took until Christmas Day for the physical side of things to really hit, although other than a couple of persistent niggles, recovery seemed to be going well.

Mentally, recovery is proving to be a very strange and unsettling process, but more of that in a bit.

Here's what I can recall of the immediate post-race period:

Straight after the race was just odd. As I said in the race blog, I felt nothing. It also felt odd to stop moving forward. I didn't expect to want to eat and true to post-race form I couldn't face any food, just cups of tea. I remember Alan being delighted to give me the second place trophy and then waiting anxiously to see if the only other woman out on the course would finish before the cut-off. But much of it is very hazy. Lisa was a hero and removed my socks and tried to clean my feet up. I can't remember anything else really except at one point I wanted to get off the chair, and as I stood up black spots appeared, my head felt hot and huge waves of nausea washed over me. I said to Mike that I was going to pass out, some people caught me and helped me lie down. Then I was lying in an emergency cot, Lindley took my temperature and checked my blood sugar. I think I was a bit cold. 

It took quite some time before I was able to be upright without feeling extremely wobbly and faint. Did my legs and feet hurt? Honestly I can't remember other than not being able to put shoes on because my big toes were such a mess. The short drive back to Mike's once the race was all over and everything packed up was really uncomfortable- sitting was just about the last thing my body wanted to be doing! Once back at his, I was ok getting up and down the stairs although I still had to take the sideways approach to going down them.

The week after:

I was content to do no exercise at all, and in any case I was too busy. It was good, if a little strange, to be able to stay in bed until 6am. Not having to train in the evenings made the end of the day feel less frantic too which was just as well as I was often on taxi duty for one or both of my teens. My appetite was off, but I've learned to just go with it; eat what and when my body says to, and not to worry about it. However, I'd planned to continue with recovery protein drinks to aid healing if I wasn't eating much but completely forgot to do this.

By the following weekend I was mentally very much ready to start back training. My body had other ideas though so I just tried to move a bit each day for 20-30 minutes and if anything hurt or felt uncomfortable than it was time to stop or back off. A bit of rowing, a bit of yoga- I tried running but the knee pain returned. I tried lifting too but it's taken until now for picking up heavy things to feel ok.

The brain side of it all:

Possibly the hardest thing has been the mental side of recovery. I've continued to feel literally nothing about finishing that race and that is actually really upsetting. Why can't I feel good about what I achieved? Why do I have no desire to celebrate the completion of a year-long project? Why do I still feel completely numb about the whole thing? In fact I've been going over the race reflecting on what I want to do better next time, because it hasn't take that long for me to know that I need to go back and make a better go of it. But that won't be in 2023- I need to do some different things in the coming year and work with some shorter-term goals.

I think that the focus of training for Copthorne was really important for me all year. It gave me purpose; it meant I had to not just train well but actively take time to look after myself both in terms of nutrition and rest; it gave me a reason to wake up each day. The huge mental effort of training day after day, month after month kept a great deal of sadness at bay, or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I was able to pour all that pain into my training and put it to good use. When I was a musician, my best creative work was born out of dreadful bleakness, hurt and despair so it's not so ridiculous to say that this time it fuelled and inspired my training.

Something from the race is haunting me but I can't seem to put it into words. There was something about those last few loops of the Copthorne... Being utterly consumed by physical and mental pain in those last 20 or 30 miles, feeling so completely alone, overwhelmed and annihilated by the process... Honestly I don't know how to begin to describe it. Enduring that nightmare for those hours has changed me somehow, or at least left an indelible mark. I can't say that I am stronger or better for it, just, well, different. I think it's really hard not being able to describe what I mean because it makes me feel so isolated and I want so badly to share the experience with you. Perhaps it's this inability to articulate the experience that is the reason for feeling numb. 

The future:

To try to regain some feeling of control I've set myself a goal of training for a road marathon in the first half of the coming year. I've put a 10k trail time trial in the diary in January (possibly to repeat a month later), and then a 50k in March (which will mess up the training a bit but it's really just planned as a fun day out) and actually have a 4 month training plan to follow. This is all rather out of my comfort zone but doing something different feels like the right thing to do. Training to run faster might prove to be too much but it doesn't matter if it is. Shifting focus for a few months onto intensity and quality rather than volume should bring both short and longer-term gains even if I end up having to bail out of the marafun.

I guess you'll just have to watch this space to see...

My Pain Belongs to the Divine

 This is an incredibly hard post to write although it's not because I failed; it's because I feel quite numb and somehow my brain won't let me remember. It's not quite the write-up I want, but it's the best I can do for now.

I've documented my training over the last 11 months and I think I've made it clear how hard it has been at times. It has felt like having a second job: the constant focus on sticking to my plan, all the early morning sessions, the evenings doing a second training session, the focus on nutrition and recovery, the planning and preparation... It took over my life. It had to take over if I was ever to be worthy of standing on the starting line.

Race HQ photo by me

 

    But finally, at silly o'clock on Saturday 26th November,  I was at  Mickleham village hall, sick with nerves and my stomach tied into knots. Registration was quick and efficient, with all my mandatory kit checked. Then it was just waiting around until 8am. It was lovely to see some friends again including Eros and his guide Sarah, who I met for the first time at Two Towers; and Andy from Ultra Magazine who I've not seen for a few years. I already can't remember who else I talked to- I was so nervous!

We had the pre-race briefing, went outside and apparently there was a countdown to the race start but somehow I didn't hear it. And then everyone was off.

Loop the first

It was a beautiful day for a race; mild for November, and sunny at times. I felt calm, and a quiet confidence that I had it in me to finish. My goals (other than finishing) were to keep on top of nutrition and hydration- getting that right at least for the first half of the race would stand me in good stead for later miles- and to keep my head in the right place, accepting whatever happened but not dwelling on it. 

My right leg felt a little tight on the first loop but I assumed it was just because I'd thoroughly tapered leading up to the race so it was just a little protest about running again; it would ease off after a while and was nothing to worry about. I ate everything I planned to and drank all my energy drink, as I proudly announced to Mike when I saw him manning the road-crossing at the foot of Satan's Staircase. Up those steps for the first time taking care to pace myself, a smile and wave to Lenny who was race photographer, and then safely down Goodnight Sweetheart into the main CP. End of loop 1.

photo by Lenny Martin

Loop the second

A quick turnaround to dump rubbish, grab the next food bag and refill my bottle, then out onto Loop 2. From here onwards I have very few clear memories, just the odd moment, and even then I mostly can't say which point in the race I was at. The weather remained good during the day, there were lovely views from the Box Hill trig point. I remember seeing Lenny there too, and explained to him that I couldn't touch the trig point until my last loop (I always have to run to the trig and give it a hug or a pat, but there really wasn't time to do that every loop).

photo by Lenny Martin

Loop the third

By this point something was wrong. I had a blind panic when I picked up my nutrition bag for the loop because there was no Mountain Fuel drink powder in it. How was that possible? I had meticulously packed and checked each bag. It wasn't until later I realised I simply hadn't recognised the packaging-  most of the powder had been measured into clear plastic bags but there were a few Veloforte energy drinks thrown in for variety. Not a good sign if my brain was uncooperative already. In addition to this, the niggle in my hip flexor hadn't settled. It had got worse. I was scared now, it brought back memories of my horrendous time on Autumn 100 in 2019 (read about that here) when the same thing happened in the same leg, and by 60 miles I couldn't lift my leg enough to even walk. But I knew the worst thing would be to dwell on that, so I kept telling myself "It'll be ok, it'll all be ok" and repeating Rev Bem's mantra:

My pain belongs to the Divine. It is like air, it is like water.

Passers by must have thought I was very odd, muttering to myself all the time, but I had to keep focussed on finishing the race. Paying attention to what was going wrong would spell disaster for sure. Anyway, pain is literally in the mind- distract the neurons and those pain messages won't reach the brain. 

Loop the fourth

I had more daylight than anticipated on this loop- I' made excellent progress so far and was feeling strong other than that nagging hip pain. Nutrition wasn't going quite so well as my usual not-being-able-to-face-eating-anything had started, but I had the Mountain Fuel drinks and I'd promised myself that if necessary I'd have a longer interloopal pause after 40 miles to eat some hot food if I needed to. Satay noodles should do the trick. 

Although I'd never done a dark loop in training, I wasn't too worried when the sun set and darkness fell. I wasn't even worried that I'd mostly been completely on my own, actually it was helpful not to feel pressured to keep up with another runner. Anyway, I knew I'd probably see a few people on the Box Hill Steps section where you come out halfway down, go down to the river, do a little loopback and then climb up all the way to the top. I really did enjoy that section, seeing people and exchanging a smile and encouraging words.

photo by Lenny Martin

As I headed up to the Box Hill trig I could see lights and hear the boom of music. Climbing to the road crossing there I could see cars, motorbikes and some guys standing around. A man had parked right across the gap for crossing the road and this unsettled me; he sat in his car staring at me. I was rattled enough to take the wrong line across Donkey Field not helped by the fact that the arrow with reflective markings on the far side had been stolen (missing markers became a theme overnight). I found myself at the edge of a carpark where a man was standing by his car, staring and waiting. By this point I was feeling scared- why were all these guys hanging around in the dark? Where the heck was the trail I was supposed to be on? I got out my phone and opened up OS maps to try to figure out how far off the trail I'd gone and eventually reoriented myself to get across the field and onto the hugely mis-named Happy Valley Trail. I arrived back at the main CP like a startled rabbit, saying I was too scared to go back out on my own.

Writing about this now it seems like a huge overreaction, but I'm not used to encountering that kind of thing when running in the dark. Given that some nasty things have happened to lone female runners in the recent past, perhaps it's not an unreasonable reaction. Anyway, Mike found a lovely guy called Danny to run with me for at least the next loop so I didn't get scared. As an aside, Canary Trail Events support SheRaces and endeavour to buddy up anyone who is nervous about running in the dark on their own. In fact I've volunteered to be a buddy for their Steeplechase event next summer.

Loop fifth

I felt a little awkward at first running with a complete stranger and was worried about being too slow. By this point I was beginning to experience waves of nausea and some knee pain too, and running for extended periods was not something my legs were happy about. Danny was quick running the downhills whereas my usual overly-cautious pace had now become something more akin to old lady tottering. I felt really bad that he had to stop and wait for me so many times. We got chatting as we ran through the woods before the Box Hill check point; that helped to take my mind off the bits of me that were starting to hurt a lot and it was oddly comforting to find that we had quite a few unusual things in common. 

Was it on this loop or loop 6 that my new headtorch failed after an hour? Either way it was another incident that reignited the fear that I was in for a repeat of my 2019 Autumn 100 experience. It took a great deal of strength to try to refocus my mind and not waste energy worrying about the past repeating itself. By now I knew the hip pain was here to stay but I fervently hoped that my knee wouldn't give up as it did at that race 3 years ago. Another disaster like that was simply not an option.

Anyway, the scary people at Box Hill had gone and Danny got me through loop 5 for which I am extremely grateful. I got back to the CP a bit quicker than the 50 miles I ran on the course back in July (mostly due to efficient turnarounds) so it was still very much game on. Maybe even a sub-30 hours finish.

Loops 6, 7 and 8

My pain belongs to the Divine. It is like air, it is like water. My pain belongs to the Divine. It is like air, it is like water. My pain belongs to the Divine...

The night is mostly a confusion of pain and rain, mud and fog, interspersed with waves of nausea and dizziness. Rain had set in once it was dark and it didn't really stop, just got a bit lighter or heavier turning parts of the trails into treacherous skating rinks of that special mud you get on top of chalk and flint. It was all I could do to stay on my feet in some places, and even if my hip and knee had been fine there would not have been much running going on. Fog had suddenly settled around Box Hill Village reducing visibility to just a metre or two. That initial stretch of the NDW after the checkpoint was awful- not only was it incredibly difficult to stay upright in the mud, but it was almost impossible to see the trail too. 

On one loop I missed a turn in the woods on the edge of Headley Heath and wasted time and energy retracing my steps and having a panic. It was stupid, I know the trail so well that I could tell I'd gone wrong just by how the ground felt under my feet, but I didn't stop to check until I'd gone maybe a quarter of a mile. It's odd what fatigue does to you- you make poor judgements and talk yourself out of things you know to be true.

On the subject of fatigue I think it was loop 7 or 8 when the hallucinations and sleep monsters struck. I've never had the sleep monsters before, or at least not so that I was falling asleep on my feet. I remember fighting the urge to lie down in the cold and wet on the trail and close my eyes- there was enough sense in me to realise that was the beginning of pre-hypothermia. I'd planned not to stop at the halfway checkpoint at all as it was only a water stop and it would waste precious minutes, but at this point I realised I was a danger to myself and knew I had to get into the warm and dry so that I could put on an extra layer and close my eyes for a few minutes. After getting too cold, hallucinating blue sea dragons at Lakes in a Day back in 2016 (?), and not being allowed to continue the race, I'm much more aware of what being cold and tired does to me and despite the pain and my inability to run by this stage, I was still determined to finish. In fact I never at any point thought about giving up, even when it all felt pointless. 

I did feel a bit better as I set off to complete the loop, but I was still hallucinating. Just hang on for the morning- seeing the light creep into the sky will help. It always does.

On loop 8 I remember seeing Drew Sheffield just before Box Hill Steps. He was looking so fresh and strong on his last loop. We had a conversation about how nasty parts of the North Downs Way had got, and how good it was to see the darkness lifting- it somehow makes you feel lighter- and then he was off. He went on the smash the course record with a sub-24 hour time!

Loops 9 and 10

the start of the last loop

Daylight brought no relief. 

By now all I knew was pain. My knee hurt so much and I could feel how inflamed all the tendons were; I had to go sideways down all the steps and descents in order to keep the pain vaguely bearable. It was miserably slow going. 

My pain belong to the Divine. It is like air, it is like water. My pain belongs to the Divine. It is like air, it is like water. My pain belongs to the Divine... Pain...

Yet even though I was consumed by the pain it never occurred to me to quit. There was no doubt in my mind- there was never any doubt. I had to keep going. I'd turned into a robot- a miserable one at that- and moving forward had become automatic, it was the only thing I was programmed to do.

The hallucinations were now relentless. There were faces and strange markings on every single stone, the mud was covered in writing that was half-familiar and it pulled my head down as I felt compelled to try to decipher it. I saw a huge yellow honey bear sitting on a fallen tree, and a 7 foot tall Pippi Longstocking with green legs. A grey-green Stormtrooper stared up at me from the ground and I recall thinking that was a much more sensible colour for a Stormtrooper than white. The woods were full of witches waving flags at me, and I saw lots of tiny, hooded hi-viz jackets hung on posts along the side of the trails.

Something on loop 9 that I know was real: on Headley Heath a huge dog bounded up to me and seized my left arm in its jaws. The dog's head was as high as my chest and I was terrified. The owner said the dog was fine, I should just stand still, but I was crying and trying to explain that I was in a race and had run over 80 miles. Probably I didn't make any sense. The situation left me with enough adrenaline that I was able to run for a few minutes to put some distance between me and Cerberus. I think that was the last bit of running I did.

It was either loop 9 or the last loop that I began to feel the faces in the stones closing in on me, my head was filled with the sight of them and their silent noise, and I think it was on the final loop that I stumbled through the gate leaving the heath crying, talking out loud, pleading with an invisible person to make the hallucinations stop. I can't explain how much this scared me- it was truly frightening to feel so invaded by the weirdness my brain was inventing. I was utterly overwhelmed, drowning in a sea of madness.

But the strangest thing of all throughout these last two loops, is that at no point did I feel elated knowing that I was actually going to finish. I had imagined that on loop 10 I would be filled with emotion, that heady mixture of joy and relief when you know you're going to achieve your goal and finish. I'd imagined feeling pride in finishing the most brutal race I'd ever run, satisfaction in getting it done in spite of having a truly horrible time of it. But I felt nothing. Perhaps the battle of having to deal with the physical and mental pain for so much of the race left me detached from myself. Perhaps it was simply fatigue from having run the furthest I'd ever run, and been running for longer than I'd ever run before. I don't know. But that numbness fills me even now, a week on from when the race began.

On loop 10 Mike met me at the top of Satan's; he'd been given permission to run me in to the finish. I don't remember any of that last stretch other than the pain in my knee. I walked across the finish line feeling utterly empty. No joy, no pride, not even any tears. It wasn't how I thought it would be. 

I felt nothing.

I don't know who took this photo

Alan, the RD, presented me with the trophy for second lady. He said he'd never doubted that I would finish. I think he was delighted that not only did the race see the first ever female finisher, it also saw the second AND the third! Out of the 32 runners who started the 100 mile race, just 7 people finished. And out of those 7 finishers, 3 were women. 

After receiving my trophy I just sat. I had nothing left. Barely the energy to drink a mug of tea. Is this what it's supposed to feel like? The biggest achievement of my life and all I can do is sit and feel nothing? Maybe that's what passing through the ten circles of Copthorne is supposed to feel like.

 

105 miles, 

6,616m of elevation

31 hours and 4 minutes

2nd female to finish the Copthorne 100

Countdown

No more training sessions. 

Kit sorted and boxed.

Race food bagged up and packed.

Pre-race hypochondria/ultramaranoia has begun- there's a lot of illness at work, including Covid, and my right leg feels weird despite a massage on Monday.

I'm trying not to look at the weather forecast as it keeps changing and there is so much variation between different weather services. In any case, weather is a variable I can't influence so there's no point worrying about it. If it stays wet then likely the Mole will stay flooded and there'll be a diversion with an extra little loop somewhere and although I want to run the course exactly as I know it, it might not work out that way on the day.

Up until this morning I was feeling fairly calm about it all. Now the butterflies have taken up residence in my stomach and I'm really jittery. But I've done all I could do in training and all that's left is to stay healthy and safe, and to eat and rest. The race is the victory lap- a celebration of all the hard work and sacrifices I've made this year to be in the best shape ever, a celebration of all the preparation and focus. 

I'm ready for this.

Race ready?

 

It's been a challenging 3 weeks since the last post. Training hasn't gone to (the adapted) plan, the heeby-jeebies have set in rather early, I'm losing weight and insomnia is back. It all feels overwhelming.

Last week the plan was to split my long run- 20 miles in the morning then another 10 on the course after dark. The morning run was really hard. It was wet underfoot so I was slipping around on the chalk and this made me anxious about falling and breaking bones. I also found it really hard to regulate my temperature- far too hot one minute, chilly the next. It was very uncomfortable with a waterproof on, but I got quite cold in damp clothes and didn't want to get wet through. Whilst I was out there I had a really strong feeling that I was on the wrong side of that very fine line of pushing hard with training and being over-cooked.

I headed to Mike's after the morning run and wasn't in a good way. I fell asleep on the sofa in the afternoon and when I woke up had a huge meltdown about going out on the night loop. My brain was screaming at me not to do it, and all my body wanted was to curl up on the sofa. The tears wouldn't stop. Knowing I was being irrational and freaking Mike out only made it worse. In the end I didn't go. But I felt so guilty, and worried about whether missing that run will come back to bite me on race day. Was I being stupid or were brain and body trying to protect me? I don't know, I can only accept the decision made at the time and leave it at that.

This week has been a bit better- I managed to fit in my last hill reps session as well as two strength workouts and this week has been a good one for vert. I even managed 2 loops of Wendover Woods by myself and only went properly wrong once! 

Wendover was beautiful. I was marshalling there yesterday at the Centurion Running 50 mile race and was back there in the early morning mist for my long run. It felt as though I was running with the ghosts of everyone who raced yesterday, following their footprints in the trails. The air still whispered with their voices and it was as though I was running with friends. 

Today's run felt good- for the first time in a while I smiled as I ran. At the end of it I knew I had many more miles in my legs. That's something to hold on to and keep close, ready for the race and ready to combat all the doubts that keep pouring into my head. 

It's now time to do my best to sleep enough, eat enough, stay healthy and keep my head in a good place. There's also the huge task of sorting out everything needed for the race weekend and packing it up, and working out head torch logistics- there will be an awful lot of dark and so I need to work out a rotation for head torches- one to wear, one spare, one charging- and make sure that each one gets adequately charged when not in use. That's the bit that worries me most, especially having had that disaster at A100 3 years ago. Oh, and I need to work out how to manage the HRT during the race. Usually I put the gel on my legs as it's a decent surface area but that's not going to be practical in a race as you can't put clothes over the top for at least 5 minutes. If the weather is mild enough I could try gel on my arms as that'd work with a short-sleeved top. I don't want to miss a dose though as sometimes I really do notice a skipped dose; I don't want to be dealing with extra hormone imbalance on top of the usual post-ultra mess!

So, although it's taper time there's plenty still to be doing and thinking about.

Stay calm, get sleep, eat, and trust in the training.

Keep on plodding

 After recent setbacks I'm doing my best to get back on track for the last few weeks of training. I ended up taking most of a week off work because of something that had happened; my attempts to go back like normal, to brush it off and just get on with things resulted in a real, physical reaction. High stress levels are definitely a trigger for worsening many of my menopausal symptoms (especially palpitations and GI stuff), so the last week has been quite a struggle one way or another. But despite all that I managed a fairly consistent week of training last week although neither of my structured runs went to plan. Ideally I'd like to stick to the plan of two structured speed/hills runs a week plus 1 easy and 2 long runs but if life and stuff are getting in the way I'll settle for consistency. Fretting about missing an intervals session or a decent set of hill reps is counter-productive; it won't undo everything that's come before but it will waste energy.            

Nutrition is proving tricky again. High stress really messes up my gut and at the moment it's not easy finding nutritious food my stomach will tolerate. I've lost around a kg and if I'm honest, although some of my clothes might look better on me for less weight, I need that kg for race reserves. I'm still playing around with race day food too. At the weekend I tried an apple and cinnamon Mountain Fuel gel but spat out the first mouthful as it really wasn't to my taste. So now, rather than throw any more money at gels, bars, chews or whatever, I'm going to get some very small freezer bags and make little portions of rice pudding 'gel'. Might not be quite as tidy to eat on the go as a gel, but I'm all out of ideas now. Hopefully I'll get to try this out at the weekend.

The one thing I haven't done that I really need to, is get out on the race loop in the dark. Realistically that will probably only happen once, and for one loop, but I just want to know that I can safely navigate it in the dark. The last couple of miles I've done as it's the last part of the Two Towers, but I'm a little apprehensive about several stretches earlier on. About 3 miles in there are several  turnings it could be easy to miss in the dark, and around 6 or 7 miles in there's a stretch where the trail itself isn't clear and even in daylight I've found myself wandering off course slightly. It's funny, in a race situation being on my own in the dark doesn't worry me but I do get fretful if it's on a training run and I worry if I 'ought' to be out in the dark 'just' for a training run. 

What else? Nothing much. I don't do or achieve anything spectacular or out of the ordinary, just plod along trying to make the best of things. I've found keeping up the training and trying to focus on eating well hard work this year, and I'm mindful of the countless sacrifices made along the way to this race. Not just sacrifices where I've got up and trained even though I wanted to stay in bed, or not had biscuits when I really wanted some, but all the times training has impacted on my family. I feel guilty putting a race above everything else. It's been hard, really hard and once this is done I need a long break.

For now though, it's onwards and upwards. Keep plodding.

Mike refusing to be defeated by Satan's staircase