Influencers

Shortly before I asked for her autograph

First man home

It’s highly likely the wrong sort of recovery was indulged in following the Great Eastern Run ten days ago. Alcohol has been unlimited, dinners have been large and leisurely and Ladywell Track has been swerved.

So when Saturday came, I no longer had any excuse: I needed to test my half-marathon legs and Hillyfields parkrun seemed as good a location as any. Also, I’m a mere five parkruns away from my 250th, and that green T-shirt.

Friday night saw me, wine glass in hand, curry in belly, hobnobbing (didn’t have any of those, not vegan) with a splendid group of people at the German Society in Horsham. The most splendid of all was a beautiful woman called Louise, who ran her 250th ages ago, is always first in her age group (V75) and who has written about the need for women to stay sportive at all stages of life (can’t find it online to link, sadly). She was the first in a parade of impressive people I’ve met in the past few days.

Parkrun Saturday, then, dawned in a deluge, and the rain continued throughout the five kilometres. The organisers have switched to the winter course, given the slitheriness of the grassy hillside on the south-western edge of the park. The winter course always feels longer and sloggier (and on Saturday, soggier). The slog is that the three-times uphill is replaced by a less steep, but rather longer drag. Still, it’s all grist to the cross country mill.

Coffee drained, and legs feeling more or less ok after the 13-miler six days earlier, I lined up behind a wall of fantastic physical specimens representing the Kent AC ‘A’ team, including one of our most popular team members, Dame Dibaba. He has a reputation for going out much too fast, but on Saturday that didn’t matter, because he was first man through the finish funnel in 16.57. Imagine. I puffed through more than nine minutes later, in a slightly disappointing 25.45, because I, too, had set off too excitably and lost my mojo on the third time up that hill.

Dame, though. He’s been a member of the club since 2016, and living as a non-person, thanks to the intractability of the Home Office, since 2015. He’s been through so much, persecuted in his own country, willing to risk his life to make a fresh start, keen to work and build a life here, but as I have written before, destined to live ‘like a ghost’ in this benighted land. We look out for him as best we can at Kent AC. One of the ‘A’ team provides legal representation free of charge, others have given him a room in their home, although, for the past three years Dame has chosen to put himself into the hands of the Home Office, and be housed in random mouldy rooms and cheap hotels they move him to, from Reading, to Aldershot to Bedford. Wherever he ends up living, he makes friends and works hard on his running. He’s a trooper. And a great friend.

Clubmate Nicola Cartlidge was the third in the hit parade. Resting her legs and volunteering at parkrun following a fabulous PB at the Yorkshire Marathon (3:29), she agreed to a selfie for the purposes of this blog. This woman ran her very first marathon in 3:38, astounding everyone in the club and is going from strength to strength. Like me, she tests her post-marathon health by giving blood (it’s a useful way to check iron levels). She also spent the last few weeks of this training block trying to alleviate a knee injury, so was forced to rest, rehab and hope against hope that race day would be ok. It was. I was almost as delighted as she was with her result last week.

Sunday saw me running a gentle ten miler, slowly and steadily, with frequent stops to admire the Thames views in the sunshine. It was unusual to run alone on a Sunday morning, but a soothing start to yet another sociable day, university friends for brunch, then a twentieth-anniversary celebration at Ellie Brown Wellness Fitness & Pilates, the business founded by the eponymous Ms Brown, fourth in the hit parade of inspirational people that have improved the quality of my running blog this week. I am proud to count Ellie as a friend, but she has been, over the years, my mentor, my coach (still is), my Pilates guru and a very useful sommelier, having spent the first ten years of her career in the wine trade.

And here we are, post-track on a Tuesday evening, where we did 6x600m and everyone, by the end, was steaming visibly, like racehorses in the winners enclosure. The infield grass was mantled by knee-high mist by the time we finished the session, and the half-moon was silvery bright.

Autumn training is underway: my first cross country race is on 11 November, but I may not be able to get to the track for the next week: Marathon Gran is hosting her little German grandsons for half term.

Vegan Runner, 60, runs half decent half

Both feet off the ground, mad socks (thanks to Fiona Cumberpatch, sharpshooter)

That’s a fortunate logo behind the old girl scampering for the finish line. I’m glad it wasn’t an ad for cod liver oil or Werthers Originals.

The sun shone generously on Peterborough on Sunday. Everyone was smiling, which, as the friend I stayed with assured me, is most definitely not always the case. Peterborough, like all market towns in agricultural areas, is feeling the pinch, so it was wonderful to see this cathedral city being so fulsomely praised by happy runners.

Mine was a happy run. Still seven minutes or so off my PB, but it was strong enough to earn second place in the F60 category. Not many women in that category, it has to be admitted: 26 of us, but I am still proud of my 1:51. There should be more women runners over 60.

It’s a fast, flat course. The first kilometre takes the runners around the gorgeous cathedral square, the last mile returns to the tourist honey pots, such as they are. Just as you’re losing the hope that you’ll ever see that finish gantry, you run through a pretty churchyard. As I lumbered through, a pair of vicars cheered me on, one calliing

‘you’re a great advert for eating vegetables!’ ( a reference to my proudly worn Vegan Runners vest). The vest attracts attention, I should iron my name on to it. Most people shout encouragingly ‘Go! The Vegan Runner!’.

A raucous group of young women cheering their friend behind me shouted ‘come on _, show the ***** vegan how it’s done’, or words to that effect. It would have been properly annoying if the young man had overtaken me, and had happened to be wearing a vest from a running group that causes my lip to curl whenever I see them (Bacon Butty Runners). He didn’t, and wasn’t.

[Running notes to self: I went out a bit quick (8.01-8:20 m/m), settled into the required 8:23 m/m for much of the course, but blotted my copy book in the last four miles (8.30-9m/m), which accounts for the pesky 70 seconds that denied me my goal time.]

Nutrition was typically peculiar, the required number of bananas were consumed over the weekend, plus beetroot juice, sour cherry juice, loads of peanut butter, glass of good red (as speedy marathoner Matthew Parris would advise) and as many carbohydrates as I could squeeze into my straining belly. In fact, I ate too much, and endured a mildly squiffy stomach for the rest of the weekend.

This past running week has been lightweight. There was daily yoga at my spiritual home, a swim, a cycle ride and two short, sharp runs. The penny has finally dropped about junk mileage. I’m running because I want to go out for a run, not slavishly following some unrealistic schedule written by a young man.

Coach Ellie and I had a chat about Running And The Senior Woman at Tuesday track. She was my interviewee, years ago, when I wrote a piece for the late-lamented Guardian Running Blog We both stand by what I wrote back then. Whatever the science says, we believe that sport, especially weight-bearing sport in which you push yourself, raise the heat rate, sweat and all other actions that generally sit together under the title ‘out of your comfort zone’ can mitigate against all the ‘symptoms’ of menopause (there seem to be about a million).

It’s tough when you go into the latter stage of your life: the end of the menstrual cycle signals the start of life as an Invisible Woman. I agree with all the Shirleys and Davinas out there, who want the world to talk about menopause without belittling or dismissing women going through it, or have emerged the other side and want to be taken as seriously as their younger colleagues. However, it is not a sickness. We need to push on past this and work on our physical strength. Training to be strong makes you feel better ‘as honest toil always does’ (one of my favourite quotes from Jill’s Gymkhana, my favourite read as a prepubescent, and still chuckled over in my dotage).

I dare say I’ll rue that fighting talk when I’m standing, goose pimpled and embarrassed, at the start line of the cross country race on 11 November. Being way down the field behind strong, athletic young club mates to ‘make up the numbers’ is a true test of the shaky self-esteem of the mature woman. But I will pin on my number and thank the running gods that I can power through the mud, however slowly.

Goldener Oktober

Not very cool in Poole

Today is a red-letter day for senior fans of the London Marathon: registration opened for Good For Age entries at 10am.

The TCS London Marathon, to give this most auspicious of races its proper name, takes place on 21 April 2024. Presuming my marathon time in Brighton last April is acceptable to the Powers That Be, I shall start training for the marathon this December. It is so exciting to be back in the running for it; the last time Marathon Gran skipped round was in 2018. That year I wasn’t attempting to achieve a good time, as a year of Achilles issues had precluded any serious training, but it was fun running with my buddy Siggy, on one of the hottest marathon days on record. We were glad we took it easy, in the end.

That’s the plan for five months’ hence, then. Back to the present, and everyone’s talking about the weather. It’s golden. The shops are full of wool coats and corduroys that make me break out in a hot sweat just looking at them. Walking past Greggs this morning, I noticed the advertising board showed mittened fingers clasping pumpkin lattes (with bilious amounts of squirty cream on the top). The very thought.

Running-wise, The Great Eastern Half Marathon is on my mind. It’s this coming Sunday (15 October) and sunshine would be nice, please, weather gods. This past week’s training has been, as Keir Starmer would say, too little too late, but each session was ticked off, after a fashion.

Tuesday track was a pyramid session (200m/400m/600m/800m then back down again). Thursday’s was about eight miles, early doors, with friends. My intention was to practise my half-marathon pace (I would love to dip under 1:50, which is a full seven minutes slower than my happy 2015 PB, so roughly a minute’s slow down for every passing year). it’s not too ambitious, but it’s a big ask to improve a half-marathon time by four minutes in six weeks. However, Gran me is well used to Athlete me carping on about other 60 somethings that run like young gazelles, I am motivated by my inner coach and determined to keep on trying.

The weekend was spent with my sisters in Poole. As usual, I made a date with the crowds taking on the fast, flat, Poole parkrun and ran reasonably well (25.03, first in my age group), but I was quicker in August, when I was second V60. Seems a fellow old biddy was conspicuous by her absence last Saturday.

I think the weather was hotter on 7 October than back in the summer holidays; I was certainly bathed in sweat when I asked the unfortunate fellow runner to take the above picture.

As the long slow Sunday run was not possible, a few desultory miles were tacked on to the parkrun. It was balmy enough to paddle in the sea in short shorts and my new Vegan Runners vest. My statement outfit was bang on trend for my choice of brunch venue: a delightful vegan cafe on Salterns Road, just north of Poole Park (Miiko, thoroughly recommend). Gratifyingly, it sparked a pleasing, companionable chat with a handsome man, who was resting prior to racing the Bournemouth 10k the following day. Our conversation intrigued another man on my right, so this proved a memorable lunch break to warm the cockles of Marathon Gran’s foolish heart.

Track this evening (Tuesday before a half marathon) will be 10x400m, but not at eyeballs- out pace, because if I have learned one thing from 15 years’ of training and racing, the taper must be respected. Thursday’s session will be a mere warm up and tempo test.

Lighten up

Old Ronnie and Old Harry

If tackling Edinburgh Marathon on insufficient training and recovery, with the exhaustion made worse by the biggest upheaval in my life (we moved a mile up the road, but shed many years’ worth of family detritus, which nearly broke me), was stupid, you’ll never guess what I got up to next….

At the end of the last blog (May, post marathon) I mentioned North Downs Run, followed by a blood donation and a big break from running while I nest in my new home. Well, I did all that, but really underestimated how much of a rest I would need.

The North Downs Run took place two days after the Big Move, which took place after a long night’s drinking with our neighbours, while sitting on the furniture in the front yard. Selling the house to a developer whose intention was to gut it and transform it into eight units meant that we didn’t really need to bother about cleaning the place, or even offloading the family heirlooms (ancient dark dressers and cupboards that no-one wants and cannot fit into a two-bedroom townhouse), as one of the building team said his mother, who likes repurposing old furniture, would like it.

It’s hard, now, writing this on a soft, greyish October morning, at a kitchen island, no less (never thought such an item would be part of my life, but have taken to perching on a high stool with laptop), to recall the exquisite discomfort of searing heat, banging hangover, pertussive dust and seemingly endless stair climbing that was the moving day. It was a full 15 hours of torture, penance for 21 years of house neglect and careless accumulation of stuff. Of course, there had been copious dump and charity shop trips for weeks beforehand, but it was still a case of fitting a quart into a pint bottle, or whatever the antique imperial measurements are. Moving house is the most exhausting activity.

That was an ordeal. Then, the North Downs Run. This entailed 18 miles of often shadeless running, in 35 degrees, and the race started at 10.30am. Mad dogs and Englishmen. At one stage I could barely walk up one of the hills, let alone run. In fact, at the top of the hill I sat down very heavily (ok, collapsed) and had a little nap (ok, lost consciousness).

This little drama took place in a woodland copse, where a marshall had set up a water station. Basically I hung around until I felt better, then continued my run. Lesson learnt. The race should never have been attempted.

Giving blood a few days later was reassuring. Iron levels were sufficient, and the six weeks’ of fatigue and almost no running (bar parkrun, am within a gnat’s whisker of my 250th and the attractive green T-shirt announcing this achievement to the work. Just seven more park runs to improve my WAVA age-grading score) that followed this event were greatly appreciated. The rest coincided with returns of daughter and middle son for the summer weeks (both now safely ensconced in Taipei and Grand Cayman respectively) and general settling in to the new home.

By September 3, and The Big Half, I was more or less recovered. However, a nagging hamstring occasioned by (of all things) a painful corn and surrounding impacted hard skin on base of the foot, made training awkward. Still, Be More Len, as the saying goes, and I ran the half marathon. Garmin filled me with false hope (turns out that the canyons of Docklands and Canary Wharf mess with its measuring), which drained away once I’d received my official time (1:54, could’ve sworn my pace was on track for sub 1:50).

In a fortnight I hope to remedy this disappointment at the Great Eastern Run. It’s famously flat and fast (if somewhat unprepossessing, being largely set in the suburbs of Peterborough), but I’ll be staying with my best buddy and confidante, and running with her husband and sons, so it’ll be a friendly affair.

Five days before The Great Eastern, the Good For Age applications for next year’s London Marathon open. This is when I’ll dredge up the discipline of a previous running blog (one that ended with a glorious PB), actually referencing a definitive marathon training guide week by week, and prioritising my running. It’ll be boring, but a useful record for this new phase of my running story.

The moon was lovely last night. Inspiring me to stop waning and get on with it.