Sunday 24 July 2016

Teddy Bear

We were talking teddy bears the other day.  The house has some minor bears, but it has two Important Bears.  Those who are the same age as their owner.  Mine, with a hole in its ear, some threadbare other parts, a bit of stitching forming its face missing.  His, with a scarf to cover the mark where Action Man got him with the bayonet.  This is a story I did probe in some detail to establish if, in fact, it had really been Action Man's fault.  This aside, these bears are Important.  My mum has some important bears, a panda approximately 70 years old, and randomly she is also the care taker for her brother (still alive)'s bear, a more commonplace brown number.  Her bears will be fine.  All three of her children understand these are Bears of Weight and Significance.  They will be taken good care of, cherished, respected and never thrown out as long as a generation exists.

What will happen to my bear?  Nobody will realise that Big Ted is Important, that he's been there for me, through my first might have been boyfriend, through Pippy leaving town, through my lonely promotion to junior school separate from the rest of my year. He understood what it was like to have to share a double bed with Lou at the junior school journey.  Nobody wanted to share with Lou, she smelt.  And while I had to pretend to the world at large that it was no big deal, Big Ted knew that it was.  And he was still there for me over three decades on when my husband died and I cried on his shoulder.  I fear that his future after I die is uncertain and it troubles me.  Is there a home for Important Bears?

Monday 4 July 2016

Tour of Tameside part 3

And there it was, day 3.  The big one.  My main goal, if you will, the half marathon.

I arrived on the start line in not too bad a condition.  I mean, yes, I had three of my toes taped up, and I'd given the foam roller some serious repeat work over the past two days, but all looked well.  As you may have gathered, I am not a runner. This meant that for Saturday morning to dawn with a clean dry running top things were not looking good.  However, I do, of course, have many cycling  jerseys so a lovely delicate green Rapha jersey with a handy rear zip pocket for the van key and that was me sorted.

At the start line, we gathered once again, and hiding away at the back of the group I found myself in the company of two women who, like me, were new to this malarky.  It turned out we all had the same fear - the itinerary for the event was clear, the winners were expected through early, but then to our horror, the timing of the awards ceremony was, for all three of us, earlier than we anticipated finishing.  We compared notes.  I got my thoughts in order, and the outcome was:

Main goal: Finish
Stretch goal: Do it without walking
Believable goal: Do it in under 3 hours
Stretch goal 2: 2 hours 30.

I really wanted to believe in 2 hours 30.

And off we toddled along the Longdendale trail from Hadfield.  Unlike day 1, I was doing no overtaking.  For a while, there were people around me, and at least something else to look at, admiring running shoes, checking out who had headphones, anything really to keep my brain busy.  And then there were myriad flies.  That kept me busy too, in the attempts not to swallow any of the annoying things.  That was a failed attempt by the way.  As the route was mostly a there and back, the next entertaining moment was when you see the elite guys and gals coming back on their return leg.  At least I'd managed 5 miles before the first leaders passed me in the opposite direction.

Got to the half way point, not quite dead.  Then there was the entertainment of counting the runners who I was now passing going the other way. I think I was slightly anxious not to be last.  At about kilometre 13 I realised I was slowing up.  By this time, there was very little entertainment to be had, other than glancing at the watch.  Oh yes, now I've done 12km.  Oh look, my running pace is averaging 6.13 minutes per kilometre.  Ah yes, I've been running for 1 hour etc. etc. etc. Flat and straight is boring.  But at least if you're looking at the numbers there is empirical information about you slowing up.  One thing I'd done differently before this race was cram a gel in my pocket.  I am suspicious of gels.  I'm never entirely sure if my digestive system will cope.  But the numbers tell me that post gel I got back on pace, and all was well.

Padding, padding, padding along.  I've always got a song going in my head, and this time I had my own lyrics to it.  The more you keep running the sooner it'll be over was my refrain.  The final three km were bloody painful but I got over the finish line in a blistering 2 hours 10.  Found a quiet bit of field and lay down panting for quite some time.  Back in the van and the assessment of current injuries.  One very bloody sock revealed a toe - neighbouring toe interface had gone horribly wrong.  My left ankle was trashed, both knees were grinding, my hips were sore, and the muscles down the front of my thighs, oh my, who would have known.  And my back ached, and there was chafing in places I never knew chafing could happen.  That'll be a DNS for day 4 then ...

Sunday 3 July 2016

Tour of Tameside day 2

So, post my best ever 10km time, how was I going to function the next day?  I took stock in the morning.  Foam roller for the IT band as the knee was hinting at a desire to moan.   Taped up one of my toes on my right foot and I was good to go.

Friday night is fell race night.  Or so it would seem in this mysterious world to which I was getting an induction.  A gaggle of people on the start line, some colour coded as in for the long haul, others who were one trick ponies, just there for the fell race. And of course, everyone looked faster than me.

Now, I'm not a fell runner.  As I write this a little bit of me is protesting over whether  I'm any kind of runner at all.  But as a complete novice to this kind of thing, racing, big numbers of people and this mysterious discipline that is fell running, I felt out of my depth.  Other people were in shorts and vests.  I was in 3/4 length pants, a T-shirt and ... get this ... a waterproof.  The skies were black, it looked horrific, and the walker and mountain biker in me refused to go up on a hill without having the wherewithal to look after myself.  A ridiculous thing given the heavily marshalled nature of the event and the short distance.  But that's me, I'm afraid.

I admit I was a bit disappointed at first with this fell run.  The bulk of the early climbing was on road not on anything trail like, but then as we got to Hobson Moor, off road we went.  The off road climb was interesting, in the way that I learned that when I struck out with a fast walk I overtook people running, and held nobody up behind.  And then, we hit the downhill.  A rocky, rutted, single track kind of a descent.  It was kind of glorious, except for the other runners.  I found myself behind a queue of slow movers, and at first, because they were using a gait which looked like running, I did a gentle run.  Then I realised I could walk down and still be on their heels.  Decided that to enjoy it, I was going to need to do some odd little sprint sections whenever the track widened, and that worked surprisingly well and I bounded down like a gazelle.  Or, as in my adrenaline fuelled after race high, I said on twitter, like a force of nature.

That surprised me, my ability to descend rapidly on a technical trail.  I am definitely not a mountain goat by any means, my clumsiness and inability to sort my footwork out seemed to me a given.  Yet, the last few months of running on my own, descending from Chinley Churn down New Allotments in a joyous lolloping style has, it seems, suited me well to descending.  Peak District meets Tameside and the Peak District won, it seems.  That feeling, that glorious happy feeling of running like a child who has an unexpected day off school and runs for the sheer wonder of it, that feeling stays with me. Ah, and there is some kind of photographic evidence.  Me before the race.  I'm the one on the right.


Saturday 2 July 2016

Tour of Tameside part 1

Feeling a need to write.

The Tour of Tameside is a local running event.  It takes place over four days, and each day is from a different location.  The first day is a 10km trail run after work on a Thursday evening, the second a 6 mile (I did not make up the units) fell run Friday evening, the third day a half marathon off road  on Saturday morning and the final day a 7 mile city style run around Hyde on the Sunday.

My friend Glyn, on hearing that I'm aiming at a half marathon in October said something to the effect of "hey, are you doing any of the Tour of Tameside events?  I'm doing the 10km".  Before I knew it, I'd checked it out online and booked on the whole lot.  I think he was taken aback by what he'd started.

Having booked on just ten days before, by way of preparation, the previous weekend I thought I'd better see if I had the wherewithal to run on two consecutive days.    That didn't go too badly.  10km a day seemed do-able.  By way of further preparation I thought I'd better buy some suitable trail shoes. The Tuesday of the week of the event I was the proud owner of new trail shoes.  On the Wednesday I got off the train two stops early and ran home in them.  They seemed fine.

Thursday night I collected my number from a trestle table set up in a local rugby club HQ.  Carefully pinned it on, as per instructions, four pins and made my way to the start line.  Read the instructions, had a moment of total horror as I realised that they were expecting the race winners to finish just 30 minutes in.  That about equals my best ever 5km time.  Then discovered that the award ceremony had potential to take place before I'd finished running. Hmm, I thought, what have I done?

So, made my way to the start line, with the confidence of someone who has never even done a 5km park run but has somehow entered something which includes the word "race".  There they were.  The other runners.  They looked like they knew what they were doing.  Their clothing yelled out, I know what I'm doing, their warm ups betrayed their less than casual approach.  Some of them had their names on their numbers.  Things were not looking good for me.  Very wisely, I aimed for somewhere near to the back of the pack so I didn't get in the way of the fast people.  I didn't warm up.  I am used to spending the first 2km of the run warming up.  There was an announcement and a gun and we shuffled towards the start line, and strava at the ready, off we went.  Having never run in a group before, it was improbably confusing trying to figure out what my normal pace actually was.  Other people upset my rhythm, and as I overtook people, I was worried; had I set off too fast?  I hadn't expected to have to go round anyone after all.  As things went on, we seemed to settle down, by about 4km I found myself staring at the same rear views, admiring the vest top race back of the woman in front with the swishing dark brown ponytail and wondering what the odd harness thing was on the guy in front.  Being an out and back, we were relieved of any running boredom by being able to see the elite guys and gals coming back past us.  Briefly.  Then there was more running, more and more running.  Eventually we had some bounding down through woodland trails, up and down steps, alongside canals and general change of scenery.  Then round a corner was a mahoosive descent and there ahead, the finish line.  Bounded down trying to look like none of it had been any trouble at all, whooshed past the finish line with the nice touch of the announcer welcoming me in by name.  Turned out I'd actually made it through just under the 60 minute mark, and there right on my tail was my friend Glyn.  Go us.