Getting back

Motivation zero, I need to remind myself that it’s less than a year since my last Great North Run. This year, post-covid, I’ve completely lost my confidence for outdoor running. Its solitude and rhythm was my headspace, my thinking time. I miss it, and need to find my way back into the habit. It’s not the same, but I’ve joined the gym again. It’s where my running began, two decades ago. It’s where I convinced myself that, if I could manage twenty minutes on a cross-trainer, I could easily run a half marathon. I soon discovered it wasn’t easy, but it was addictive.

Getting back to the gym has had other benefits too. With a carefully planned route and newly acquired panniers to carry my kit, I’ve blown the cobwebs off my bike. It’s been exhilarating, but I’ll always be a fair weather cyclist. I’m probably a fair weather swimmer too. On a sunny August evening, with the tide coming in over warm sand, conditions were perfect for my annual North Sea dip with daughter. Her access to the beach and sea is enviable. This far from the coast, a pool’s the easiest option. That’s what enticed me back to the gym, so I was sad to get a text reporting that the pool is closed this week. I’ll be back as soon as it re-opens.

‘Will you be doing a triathlon next?’ asked a friend, who’s never observed my head out of the water swimming style. With a recent yougov survey suggesting that a whopping 27% of us reckon we could qualify for the 2028 Olympics if we began training today, it might be a dream for some. Thisgranny has no such ambition. It’s a very definite no. I know my limits, I might get back to parkrun, but I won’t be training for a triathlon.

The Gap

We stayed at Twice Brewed on the wall. A family gathering, inspired by the serious runner in our midst. We saw him briefly as he passed. His effort was our excuse to revisit Hadrian’s Wall. High on our agenda, and just around the corner, the solitary tree at Sycamore Gap. It was still standing when we booked. We knew the tree was down, we could hardly have missed that news. We couldn’t anticipate the shock of its absence. The emptiness of the space. How much worse to have been the ones to find it felled on that bleak September morning. Just why?

Our runner finished in good time and fine fettle. The week since our return was marked by coughs, colds and infection. It’s been the story of the last few weeks. I returned from my May retreat, thankfully well rested and very much on top of my coursework, to a time of simply being granny.

My solitary break energised me. I travelled to Grasmere by train and bus; ran and wrote each morning, walked in Wordsworth’s footsteps in the afternoons. I ran the same route each day, watched morning mist rise to meet clouds nestling in the valley as I headed away from Town End. Around the village, little stirred. Buses hadn’t begun to arrive. No queue for gingerbread. People sat behind panorama windows of B&B conservatories ordering their full English. Briefly, I became part of their view. Deeper into the village, air conditioned vans discharged chilled packages ready to be freshly baked, here, on the premises. Later I’d return to find grey slate eclipsed by brightly coloured coats and remember my moment of solitude as I too merged into their midst.

This week’s travels take me to the Southern edge of Coniston with Mr A. Both convalescing from our coughs, I’m not sure how much walking will get done. Resting, recovery and reading are firmly on the menu. No running.

This granny keeps on running

I was brought up on the fable of the hare and the tortoise. I identify with the tortoise; demonstrating a lot more stamina than speed. This is not really an asset in a short event such as the weekly 5k parkrun where the sprinters do tend to finish first rather than settle down to rest whilst I plod past.

What was your time? Was it a PB? These are the standard post run questions. I enjoyed every step, or that was hard work, are my usual replies. I like to measure my runs in terms of personal satisfaction and enjoyment and compare my speed against that of the armchair critics.

That does not mean that I don’t feel an element of pain listening to the moans and groans of sub 22 minute runners over missing a PB by a second or two when I know that I would be ecstatic with anything under half an hour.

Last weekend I ran the undulating Graves parkrun. We were in Sheffield for a wedding and met the groom, and a group of his friends, celebrating his final run as a single man. They were running to a timetable, I told them not to wait for me.

I was wearing my new t-shirt which gave rise to a lot of social banter – about both marathons and politics. Many shouts of ‘I want a Boris one!’ It may have been my slowest ever parkrun; that doesn’t matter, it was the most sociable parkrun I’ve ever run.