I awoke early last Sunday for my lift to the Steyning Stinger marathon. All my kit was ready on the table, oats soaked, gels packed. On top of my bag was a Mother’s Day card, inside was written- “Bring Home the Bacon Mum” and three kisses from my three children. No pressure then.
So here we are 12 weeks down the line post the birth of our sweetest little girl. We wont go into the gory details, but the birth was, as is my forte, pretty horrendous (why do I keep doing this?!). The consultant sat by my bed after Evie had been safely delivered and made me promise not to have any more babies….though we didn’t plan to have anymore I am kind of sad that there is a finality of this new born stage, every day my little baby gets a bit bigger and thats it then, no more newborns in our house.
Are you still running? Has been the question most people have asked me throughout this pregnancy. I have felt the pressure to keep fit and to stay in shape, mainly because I want to get back racing as soon as possible, but after pushing myself to run for 36 weeks I am looking back now wondering if it was my most sensible decision. We will see!
Paul Navesey, Rick Ashton and I have something we laugh about called the 5km opt out…whatever race we are doing, the longer and the harder it is possibly the earlier the 5km opt out comes in. We run for about 3 miles then decide this is way too much effort and we convince ourselves that we will just ‘jog it in’ due to a sudden injury, leg falling off, nasty case of sudden ebola. Of course we don’t, but the doubts hit pretty early, even for super sonic runners like Rick and Paul.
I recently spoke to Tim at www.trailoutlaws.com about training and racing with kids and pregnancy. The link can be found here:
Enjoy, its quite long, you may need a cup of tea (and a snack!)
How often do you come back from a run and are happy with your progress? How many times do you think, yes I nailed that session or that was a great run everything is working in the right direction? I have access to 25 athletes inner thoughts and feelings about their running or triathlon training everyday. It has struck me how negative the majority of them are towards their bodies, their sessions, their performances.
I recently read this blog from one of my favourite triathletes Catriona Morrison. It struck a real chord with me, especially after spending the day helping (checkpoint food testing) at the Winter 100. Winners, losers, death marchers, everyone is in the same boat when push comes to shove. Ultra running is a true testament to character strength, there is no hiding from the real you at mile 75 as you bare your soul to the trail, leaving a little part of you at every race when you dig into your inner resolve.
At the beginning of the year I flew around the Country to Capital course, I was in great shape, not super fit, but really good, strong winter fitness, I hadn’t run over 60 miles in training, clocked a couple of 20 mile long runs in the mud, but mostly had been doing lots of steady runs with some short intervals thrown in. I felt that this was going to be my year and was so pumped at all the races I had planned. And then slowly this pesky injury creeped up on me, taking over my normal life, then my running life and it has now completely taken over every waking moment of my day.
Tough, tough, tough few weeks in the Sutton household. Morale has teetered on low to dangerously low. Teeth have been gritted and words spoken in frustration that weren’t needed. The smell of a grubby gym, ingrained sweat and blisters on my hands are all signs of a runner who has nothing to do, but repeat endless strength work. Very soon if I cant get out of the gym I may actually find myself wearing a lycra one piece and turning up to body pump with Rick Ashton.
I cried in the doctors surgery last week. Frustrated that after 4 weeks of limping around I am still yet to have any proper diagnosis of my injury. I am very lucky to have some financial support so have been able to fund some physio work, but after fainting when she tried to manipulate my foot the physio did the right thing and said I think you need a scan and an x ray now.