When you can’t quite make it to the start line….

/ Iona / Leave a comment

This Sunday coming is the day I should be running my first marathon of the year. A race I entered almost as soon as it was open with high hopes of a distance PB and a more comfortable run that my last attempt, which was at the Loch Ness Marathon back in September last year. The Lochaber marathon is an out and back race on a relatively flat route and after the ups and downs and inbetweens of Loch Ness, I had really been looking forward to see what I was capable of. But after my rather shaky start to the year, I made the heart wrenching decision to pull out. I knew it was the right decision as I hadn’t been able to train properly, but the stubborn part of me was very reluctant to accept I wasn’t capable of doing it. In the state I was in I would have been lucky to complete the first 10k of it!

However, now that race day looms and I’m feeling much better and have a good few miles clocked in my fresh legs, I’m inwardly very jealous of everyone going up to the race. I know I’m still nowhere near marathon ready but now that I’m running well again, part of me wishes I’d still given it a go. The very silly part of me of course – I know I’d do more damage than good running on untrained legs, but still….. you know how it is.

The past few weeks have seen my return to running with a grin on my face. Not just a grin, but an elated , Cheshire cat type beam from ear to ear.

And, well whatever this is…

Black top on the right. Captions welcome...
Black top on the right. Captions welcome…

The above was taken at our club time trail on Tuesday. A 3 mile sprint around the Gartmorn dam, a beautiful – if somewhat muddy, circular loop where our club does loads of training. My splits for which were all under 8 minutes and my overall time being 22:35. I couldn’t be happier with that time, and if that’s how I’m starting my comeback I’m hoping at the next time trial I can slash at least another 30 seconds off that!

My giving it my all, Scott just having a leisurely jog. It's not fair....
My giving it my all, Scott just having a leisurely jog. It’s not fair….
Ruuuuuuuuuunn!! Pics - Richard O'Grady
Ruuuuuuuuuunn!!
Pics – Richard O’Grady

Thursdays training was one of my favourite pyramid set – 3 mins, 4 mins, 5 mins, 6 mins, 5 mins, 4 mins, 3 mins, following the old wagon way down to Tillicoultry and then, yep you guessed it, back UP again. I felt like I had so much power during this session which is something I haven’t felt since the beginning of December. I even managed a sprint up the last hill in the last minute of the last set – something I couldn’t have even dreamed of a few weeks ago!

So now the countdown is on until my next few events. Starting with sweeping the first 2 legs of the Hoka Highland Fling in 3 weeks – something that has just been finalised tonight and I couldn’t be more excited about! Then I have the Loch Leven Half at the beginning of May which is a race that I HAVE to run this year as it was my first ever DNS last year. Following that Jemma and I are running the Mull of Kintyre half at the end of May – one of the most beautiful in the U.K and then, in 10 weeks time, it’s marathon time again. The Strathearn marathon which will now be my first marathon of the year and my now ‘A’ race of the year. Training is well under way and if I manage to run it like I’m running just now, I’ll be elated and have a fantastic race.

Bring on the hours of running ahead.

Planning my return….

/ Iona / 4 Comments

It has been a very difficult start to the year for me running wise. From the very beginning of January I was dragging my legs and huffing and puffing about like a steam train, hating every minute of my running and hating myself for hating it! Mid March I got round to going for a blood test and found out I was quite anemic and was prescribed a course of iron tablets for the next wee while. After I was given my results (my ferritin level being 2!) I asked my GP, half knowing the answer and half hoping these tablets would work miracles in a matter of days, if I’d be able to run the Alloa half the following weekend. He stared at me with a furrowed brow as he tried to figure out if I was joking or not! But of course in a round about way I was told not to be so silly and just get back to training first – gently!

Another reason I had really been looking forward to running it was even though it’d be my 3rd time running the route it would have been the first time since I’d joined the club. And wow, were the WCH out in force for this race!!

This lot were awesome. I was jealous but I got to cycle to various points and cheer them on!
This lot were awesome. I was jealous but I got to cycle to various points and cheer them on!

So, the race I had been looking forward to for a whole year was out. Our local half, the one in which I smashed my p.b by 5 minutes in last year and what was to be my first ‘A’ race of the year turned into my second ever DNS, but for the first time through not being able to run and having to stand on the sidelines and watch everyone else get hyped up for and run so well in! In my mind, and many others, a DNS (did not start) is ten times worse than a DNF (did not finish) or even a DLF (dead last finish) but this time the situation was outwith my control. Racing was physically not possible and my legs would definitely not thank me for even trying. I had to get over it and realise I was being silly – there were plenty more races and many more years of racing to get through. I’m only 30, so that’s pretty young for a runner and I can only plan to get better in the future.

I wasn’t ruling the day out though, so I took my bike and cycled the course to cheer them on and take pictures at various points. I lost count of the amount of p.b’s or course p.b’s set that day – every single runner did so amazingly well! Not the easiest course when they stick in Menstrie Brae (a hill lasting half a mile or so) at 10 miles into the race. At the end of the day we all regrouped and went for an Indian meal and few drinks at a local restaurant – I know I didn’t run, but who said I couldn’t celebrate everyone else’s success! Jemma also ran amazingly well coming in about 20 seconds outside her p.b. She’s now joined the Wee County Harriers until her and my little brother go traveling later this year, so look out for more orange and navy in that direction!!

I am two weeks into my course of iron tablets and I noticed a difference after a week. I was sleeping better, feeling better when I woke up in the morning and I wasn’t out of breath after the simplest of tasks or passing out on the couch as soon as I got in from work. Yes my job is very demanding and I’m always on the go, but getting home at 6:30pm and needing a nap by 7:30pm was very out of character for me! After a few weeks of avoiding training I decided to make my return to a hill reps session and I couldn’t have felt better or enjoyed it more! My mile splits are right back down and running up hills no longer makes me feel like every last molecule of oxygen is being sucked out of my lungs or that my quads are being hit with a hammer. I know it’ll take a bit longer, but I feel almost normal again!

What a difference some iron tablets have made! I know I have been screaming it from the hill tops, but I can’t advise it more – if you start to feel low for no apparent reason, your quads feel like your worst enemies and you suddenly feel out of breath like you should if you smoke 40 a day, then get your iron levels checked. I could have plodded on for months had my physio not told me that she had felt this way and that iron tablets made her bounce back within weeks!

I may have had to pull out of my first 2 favourite races of the year but I’m bouncing back and I’m ready to to take on the next one with gusto. Before that I will be helping out at the Highland Fling at the end of April and cheering on my club mates that are brave enough to race that distance. I’ll hopefully be joining them next year, but we’ll see how this goes first.

My running colours leave little to the imagination!
My running colours leave little to the imagination!
I'll be back. It's a slow return, but I'll get there...
I’ll be back. It’s a slow return, but I’ll get there…

And finally there is a solution to the problem…

/ Iona / 3 Comments

Apologies once again for the lack of activity around these parts recently. My running has been basically non existent since the beginning of the year and any running I have done has been met with pain, fatigue or just no motivation what so ever and it has left me baffled as I was doing so well right up until mid December. Then I just seemed to hit a brick wall and I’ve been dragging my heels ever since. My training was going down hill, I was unbelievably empty and I came home from countless training sessions in tears. I just couldn’t run any more and I felt I was watching all my hard work from the last year slip away from me. Just over 4 months ago I had completed a marathon and an ultra marathon 6 weeks apart and I was feeling stronger than ever and now, nothing. No drive, no push, no energy. Nothing.

But there is a light at the end of the hugely long, dark and damp tunnel.

After feeling rotten for far too long and dropping way back in the pack at training, due to not even being able to lift my legs and feeling tired after the first mile, I decided to go to the doctors. He recommended I get a blood test to check my iron levels and low and behold – I’m highly anaemic! I’d read a lot about anaemia before I went for my blood tests as when I went for a sports massage in February my therapist, being a keen hill runner herself, mentioned it was quite a common occurrence in female long distance runners. I went home and googled it all and realised suffered from ever single symptom. So when my test results came back and my theory was confirmed I was quite relived that now I had an answer and with a course of iron tablets to take for the next however long, I’d hopefully be back to my best.

However this was all found out after I had performed terribly at the ‘sabotaged’ Devilla 15k. I knew from the start I wasn’t going to run well and yet my stubbornness made me go along and do it anyway. Big mistake. From 2 miles in I was huffing and puffing and my legs didn’t want to go on. Had I been on my own I would definitely have pulled out about then as I was just not enjoying it, but as I was running with a few club mates who were pushing me on, I decided to stick with it.

Before all the glorious mud. Shiny just washed shoes!!
Before all the glorious mud. Shiny just washed shoes!!
No matter how bad a race, I'll somehow always find smile when necessary. This smile masks the pain!
No matter how bad a race, I’ll somehow always find smile when necessary. This smile masks the pain!

Jemma did a fabby race report so I won’t go into detail, but feeling the way I did on the day I was quite glad that the course had somehow been shortened. When I passed the 10k marker and my watch only said I’d ran 5.3 miles I was confused but when I ran past the spray painted 13k sign on the ground, I was secretly overjoyed. I was done in and the finish line couldn’t come soon enough. All the way through the race my club mate Karen had stuck with me and pushed me on, which she didn’t have to do as this was her race as well, but I was so thankful she was with me. At a race in the future it will be my turn to return the support to someone else and I will gladly do it. It really spurs you on when you are feeling at your lowest and that you have no more push in you muscles.

Soaked to the core and failing through fatigue, but I'll still smile for you Mr camera man!
Soaked to the core and failing through fatigue, but I’ll still smile for you Mr camera man!
Wee County runers turned out en masse for the Devilla run. And we kicked butt :)
Wee County runers turned out en masse for the Devilla run. And we kicked butt 🙂

So now I have a diagnosis I guess I just have to bide my time and inhale iron. I’ve had to pull out of 2 of my favourite races so far this year – the Alloa half which I had high hoped for a pb in and also the scenic Loch Katrine half. My next big run after that is at the end of April when I should be sweeping the Highland Fling. No matter how rubbish I’m feeling I’ll be doing that. Can’t wait to meet up with all my Ultra buddies at the end and celebrate with them!

Anaemia – you suck.

Enthusiasm level = 0 (and a Devil’s Burden race report)

/ Iona / 1 Comment

Hello February, you’re here already?

My training for January never really did pick up. I felt sluggish and unmotivated for the majority of the month, so I decided to have a change from running and try various classes instead, as well as getting back into my gym routine. I work with a bunch of people who are pretty gym obsessed, so it’s hard not to be inspired when they are bouncing off the walls full of endorphins! So cx works, metafit, body combat and spin have all been mixed into my weekly routine, as well as still trying to clock a few miles here and there. Last week I decided to take a break from running for the whole week and when I returned to training on Tuesday and was met with a speed session on the track, I didn’t even grumble. I actually really enjoyed it, snow and all!

My body still feels tired. Much better than I did this time a month ago, but my ability to run for long periods of time has decreased along with my speed. I’m just so annoyed that I ran an ultra and a marathon just 6 weeks apart at the end of last year and now I’m struggle to finish a 10k without feeling sick! Gutted isn’t the word but I know I just have to bide my time and eventually I’ll get back to how I was….

Anyway, the main point of this post is the rather long overdue race report for the awesomely wet, windy and cold Devil’s Burden relay race at the end of January. The race is an annual event held by Fife Athletic Club and pulls in the hardcore hill runners from all over the country and also people like me, who just enjoys a day out in the hills! Initially I wasn’t going to sign up for this as I was focusing on making the Devilla 15k my first race of the year, but with some arm twisting from my club mates I decided to give it a go as all I’d heard about it was how fun it was and what an amazing club day out it could be. So at stupid o’clock on the 25th of January some team mates and I met at the local sports centre to work out car shares to get to Falkland in Fife. Our club had 3 teams running and as the first teams started at 9.30am we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get prepared!

The race is run in 4 legs with the 1st and 3rd leg being run by single runners and leg 2 and 4 being run in pairs. The first leg begins in Falkland and heads over to Strathmiglo, the second leg goes from Strathmiglo up and over the West Lomond hill and zig zags its way back down to Kinnesswood. Leg 3 then goes straight back up the hill from Kinnesswood to West Balgothrie and then the last leg from West Balgothrie up and over East Lomond back to Falkland. All in it’s a 31km race and it’s definitely a toughie!

WCH ready!
WCH ready!

I was running leg 2 with the awesome Caroline Strain who is a seasoned hill runner. I didn’t realise that even though it was only 6 miles it was to be probably the toughest 6 miles I have ever run! We set off along a dirt track that led on to a tarmac path for just over a mile. Stopping briefly at our first check point to stamp our card I clocked the hill in the distance and the countless high-vis dots bobbing their way up to the top – very few of which were actually running which made me think we were in for a hard slog! The route goes up to the top of West Lomond and back down the other side and just as we reached the summit we had a lovely little flurry of skin piercing hail stones. Perfect for trying out my new jacket (which is awesome by the way, unlike the one I wore for the ultra – GO33 2014 here I come!) and I now realised why the race oraginsers had insisted on full body coverage – it was FREEZING! There was a photographer on top of the hill who must have been freezing and as we weren’t taking the race too seriously, we stopped to pose for some photos!

Caroline and I at the summit of West Lomond. Hail, wind and rain all at once, just lovely!
Caroline and I at the summit of West Lomond. Hail, wind and rain all at once, just lovely!
The WCH sign for "I'm clearly loving this!"
The WCH sign for “I’m clearly loving this!”

Our next few miles were on boggy terrain and this is where I wished I’d invested in some gaiters as my poor ankles were freezing. On the way down I tripped over a root in some heather and face planted into some mud. No damage done so we had a little laugh about it and then onward up the next hill! Fingers numb, feet soaking but upper body totally dry, we plodded on towards our last check point. Our last half a mile or so was a near vertical descent into Kinnesswood and I was so greatful for my trail shoes. I think I only slipped once but luckily out of the sight of the crowds who had gathered at the bottom of the hill to shout us in! We passed our check card over to Scott who was running leg 3 on his own and then with no time to rest, had a mad dash back to the car to drive over to the next check point to meet him.

Waiting at check point 3. Just how many layers can we wear?!
Waiting at check point 3. Just how many layers can we wear?!

Liz and Anne were our final leg runners and as we watched them disappear out of sight, we finally caught up with our other team mates who had been in the 10.30am start. With the last leg runners all on their way, we made our way back to Falkland to meet up with them at the finish line and enjoy the fabulous spread of soup, cakes and sandwiches put on by Fife AC. Even though I’d had a complete change of clothes and was wearing gloves, I still could’t warm up so I left my team mates to prop up the bar in the pub and headed home to wear my duvet for the rest of the day!

This was a fabulous event and I’ll definitely enter again next year, but maybe I’ll try something other than leg 2….

Happy New Year!!!

/ Iona / 1 Comment

I hope you all had a good one. Ours was quiet and homely – just the way I’ve always preferred them.

And here we are in 2014! I kick started the year with a club run up Dumyat – a fairy small (418 metres high) but pretty hard going hill, on the 2nd of January. I met a few club mates and ran the 5 miles from Alloa down to Logie Kirk in Blairlogie, where we were meeting the rest of the club. My run down started off very uncomfortably and I struggled to keep up with the others but I put it down to lack of sleep and a bit too much Christmas pudding. I would shake it off quickly enough…. wouldn’t I? After meeting up with the others we started our ascent up to the summit, some running the whole way like the mountain goats they are, others taking their time and running bits, walking others. The path starts off on a very, very steep hill up through a forest and straight away I was exhausted. This wasn’t like me and I was starting to get a bit concerned! I made it up and we posed for some photos on the very windy summit before starting the heart stopping descent back down to the car park. I think nearly everyone had a least a little slip, some much worse than others as we found ourselves running down a river back to the bottom of the hill!

Summit of Dumyat. Windy and cold and a perfect way to start 2014!
Summit of Dumyat. Windy and cold and a perfect way to start 2014!
Picking things out of my sock after a rather muddy slide down the hill. All part of the experience!
Picking things out of my sock after a rather muddy slide down the hill. All part of the experience!

A few days after my Dumyat hill run I went out for a run on my own to try and get the miles back up again. I’d tried to participate in the Marcothon but half way through December I got the cold and was far too shattered to carry on. I got back to my running about a week later but I was still running really slowly and my mileage was really low. At the time I put it down to just being really tired as it was the end of term, I was really busy running courses and I hadn’t really given my body time to recover at all post Ultra. I thought all of these factors had lead to my body just refusing to do very much so I didn’t think much more about it and thought I would get better as the weeks went on.

The next few days passed and I was still overly, uncharacteristically tired. I knew something wasn’t right and I was trying to think what I had done differently and that’s when I realised it must be the tablets I had been taking for an infection in my toenails. Sorry if talk of feet grosses anyone out, but I feel this is quite an important thing to bring up, especially as none of the side effects were explained to me by my GP. For the past month or so I’ve been taking Terbinafine tablets and when I went to the doctors to pick up my prescription I was in and out in 2 minutes, him telling me this would be the best option as the medication would be in my system (as opposed to a paint you apply to your nails daily) and would get to work a lot quicker than any other option. When I look back at my Garmin splits for December I can see exactly where I started to slow down and it just happened to be a week or so after I started taking the tablets. I looked up the side effects on line and the first things that cropped up were “chronic fatigue” and “breathlessness” – exactly how I’d been feeling when I was running and I had also noticed I was finding it harder to get up in the mornings, but again I just put it down to being the end of term and my body having just had enough! I couldn’t believe my Doctor hadn’t told me about any of these side effects and the more I looked into it the angrier I got. People in my running club had also had the same problem but they had been warned of the side effects (liver damage and change in taste also being common ones) and had all opted for the paint.

Terbinafine. I'm sure not everyone will suffer the same side effects I did, but just to warn anyone who might take it - it feels like you're running in glue!
Terbinafine. I’m sure not everyone will suffer the same side effects I did, but just to warn anyone who might take it – it feels like you’re running in glue!

At least I knew why I was running so terribly after having such a successful year, but I was so annoyed and disheartened that all my training had basically been taken away and I was starting from scratch.

Last weekend I joined the club for another hill run in the Ochils. I’d stopped taking the tablets but I knew it would still be in system for the next few weeks, so I thought I’d go along and do what I could. It was amazing and tough and absolutely freezing, but one of the most enjoyable runs I’ve done in a long time. I’m so lucky to have all these routes on my doorstep, I just have to become good friends with hill running and not see it as a chore!

Karen and I running in the snow up the Ochils. Of course I'm wearing shorts, what else?!
Karen and I running in the snow up the Ochils. Of course I’m wearing shorts, what else?!
Half way up our first steep climb. There were many, many more!
Half way up our first steep climb. There were many, many more!

 

My first race of the year is just over a month away (the Devilla 15k) and I’m hoping to be back in tip top condition for it. I did my first long(ish) run of the year today, a mere 12.5 miles, but we managed to keep our pace to around 8:30 minute miles which considering how I’ve been feeling the past few weeks was a big push. I’m following the Hal Higdon Intermediate 2 training plan in advance of my next marathon, which will be at Lochaber in April, and so far so good. I’ll see how the long miles feel next weekend and then I’ll know for sure if it was the tablets that made me feel like that or not. I can’t think of anything else it could have been though!

Here’s to happy running in 2014…. 😀