Pyllon Endeavour - One Year Later

17th November 2018. 121 miles. Standing at the bottom of the road to Glencoe Ski Centre, we all gazed at the sunrise; clear skies, and colours I can't describe without doing them an injustice. There was dense cloud circling the very top of the Buchaille, and the cold air caught on frosty breath as we surveyed the beauty around us. I can't really explain how stunning it all was, how privileged I was to see it, and how much it's stayed in my memory ever since. It was a peaceful, special momen-- "F*CK! Ah'm freezin' my considerably large baws aff, here!" shouts the next relay runner, waiting for his handover.

GB Ultras : Race Across Scotland - Volunteer Report 2018

Yes, I know, I've been silent on the blog this year - I'll come back to that another time. I felt I needed to put some words down about last week's incredible experience volunteering at the 214 mile ultramarathon that crossed Scotland on the Southern Upland Way - so I guess I'm back! And by 'some words' you might appreciate that a 100 hour race will take a little time to go through, so I'll do my best to keep it concise! But this is still gonna be long, sorry.

Finding Solutions

I am blatantly stealing my title from a vlog by Scotland/GB ultrarunner, motivational eejit, and all-round decent bloke, James Stewart. He posted it over a year ago, but he lives by the ethos every day, and I'm pretty sure it's contagious... Albeit without the running up and down crazy hills in sub-zero temperatures at impossibly dark o'clock in the morning! So let me explain how I moved into the 'find solutions' mindset, and what it means for me.

Background first (bear with me). I've never been fit, or a 'normal' weight for my height, in my entire adult life, and my weight has varied between overweight, obese, and clinically/morbidly obese, on and off for the past 20+ years. I tell myself regularly that I need to change things, and I go through motivated phases where for a period of time I eat well, I exercise, and I lose (some) weight. It always goes back on, and I know that's because I only ever address the symptoms, not the cause. I tried counselling, it didn't really work for me other than contribute to my having a great deal of self-awareness of quite how terribly I self-sabotage. But anyway... I digress. I have concluded that my mental health issues around food and my weight/body shape may never be addressed from effort on my part to directly influence them. Instead, I think I have to more deeply harness the positive mental aspects I get from exercise and healthy eating, and hopefully let the toxic negativity deep down inside slowly dissipate over time. It won't be easy. It's a deep-down part of me just now that as soon as I start acknowledging success, I start finding ways to sabotage it. No matter what I tell myself, I innately KNOW I'm not worth it, y'know?

So. It became important for me to stop giving up. The longer I can maintain success, the quieter the inner disagreement can become. In Summer 2015 I felt a breakthrough, in recognising something in myself with exercising that I hadn't seen before. I could set running targets, and work towards them, achieve them, and then set more targets. I was running without any walk breaks, and every time I was hitting pace goals I would never have dreamed of. This is unknown, for me. This was new ground. I won't lie I did have a few moments that summer of a deeply lacking belief in myself, and a handful of secretly sabotaged runs for no reason other than to snidely tell myself "See? You're a failure after all!" - but I also had accountability through a great pseudo-coach sending me running plans each week, which meant I couldn't wallow in failure, I had to get back out again for the next session. It was working.

And then I got injured. And it was honestly like I'd given carte blanche to every single ounce of self-hatred to spew back up. "Ha! I knew it! There was no way you were keeping this going. Look at you making excuses to go out, and sitting there eating that entire box of cakes. This is the real you."

Let's cut to 2 years later, because I think I've already shared too much, haha. And let's get to the point of my post.

I explained in my last post about what I've been doing, and the fact I'd started my 100 Day challenge; the reason was to help fight those inner demons, keep the achievements coming, keep the focus, and not give myself a chance to give up. So here's where 'finding solutions' comes in. Turns out getting a gym visit done every single day can be quite complicated! I finished all 100 (sort of) days, and I'm proud to say not only that I didn't miss a single day, but also that I did so while it could have been really easy to make excuses, skip a day, blame something entirely reasonable. I managed this while applying for a huge promotion at work, spending a lot of time preparing for that, which translated to spending distracted hours on a rowing machine practicing interview answers in my head and wondering why my pace was off! *laughs*

Work requirements mean I can sometimes travel to other buildings, start early, finish late, so I worked hard to schedule each day in advance, but I kept a bag with a full gym kit in the boot of my car at all times to take opportunities where they arose. My gym sessions were at 8 different locations over the 100 days, all different times of the day (from 4:30am to maybe 10pm at night sometimes...), and some days I went to work wearing lycra leggings under my work trousers and a sports bra under my top, to get the quickest change possible after work. I even maintained my social life (for what it is), and fit life around the gym without too much difficulty. On December 24th I was in Cumbria visiting my family, and due to the holidays no local gyms were open to non-members on a pay-as-you-go basis. For 3 days, I did some light exercise in my room, to keep things going and to keep my mobility training on track. On the 27th, I drove home to Edinburgh in the evening (a 4 hour drive due to a traffic incident on the motorway), unloaded my car, made and downed a cup of tea, got changed, and went to the gym.

Using different muscle groups on consecutive days made sure I wasn't risking any overuse injuries, and on days where my heart just wasn't in it (and days when I had a grotty cold) I still went along and pedalled slowly on a stationary bike for half an hour. I made sure to incorporate my injury rehab exercises, and plenty of stretching, and I attended two personal training sessions each week. Shaun (my trainer) arranged a programme of work for me that would stretch me without damaging me, haha. The 'main' goal of the 100 Days was purely just to turn up, to prove to myself I can... but what was actually happening was frequent personal best performances. I was getting faster on the rowing machine, stronger with the weights, and a combination of faster and stronger on the SkiErg. ....and I got the promotion at work. This self-belief malarkey is truly something special.

So I guess what I'm saying is now I've started a new year, and am putting 2+ years of injury behind me, I need to remember what I've learned here, and ensure I continue #findingsolutions wherever I can. It means so much for me to look back on what I achieved these past few months, but also to remember the lessons I'm taking from it. I already noticed this week I've fallen easily into 'excuses' mode, but it's almost 2 weeks into the new year, and time to step up and go after those new goals I've started to set for myself. I'll tell you more in my next post... x

An overdue update.

 

 "You haven't written in your blog for ages," said Shaun, my personal trainer. "I thought you'd be writing about your gym challenge, or your rowing, at least."

I thought about it. "I guess I just assume my readers are too used to my posts veering from "yay motivated!" to "urgh, failure again!" over and over. Do I have anything new to say?"

Western States 100 - Volunteer report 2017

Note: there are lots of photos here, as always you can click on them to expand. I struggled to narrow them down from the many I took! Are you ready....? Got a cuppa? Then I'll begin....

Here, at home in Scotland, I made the decision at the end of 2016 that I wanted to apply as a volunteer for Western States Endurance Run, fulfil a bucket list dream, and be part of one of the most iconic races in the ultrarunning calendar. In February, turning 40 and feeling a bit.... 'blah' about that, I set myself objectives of going outside my comfort zone: I think travelling to America for the first time, travelling long haul alone for the first time, and volunteering at a race in 100ºF temperatures, definitely ticked that box.  I was accepted as a volunteer, I booked my flights, and from there, it was on. Eeek!