Another summer of Adaptation. And some big decisions!

Half way through 2021 and I had to absorb the chastening experience of nearly 11 hours out on the SWCP on the Pure Trail Tsunami course. It wasn't what I planned and I didn't think it represented where I was, fitness wise. But, truth be told, the ankle I injured has been a physical weakness throught most of my running life. The "original" injury took place playing rugby when I was at university in 1976. In all places it was in Boston, Massachusetts on a tour. With a tour group of only 19 players for 7 matches in 18 days we were somewhat stretched! But as my injury was one of the minor ones, or so it seemed, I was patched up to play again just 4 days later against Amherst College. It didn't go well, and I never played a competitive game of rugby again.

I've twisted, sprained and gone over on it with regularity ever since. At times it has received expensive attention from physiotherapists, podiatrists and even Simon Costain had a look at it in the mid 80's. It actually looks deformed with a big lump on the side these days. It doesn't help that my gait is irregular (like most of us), one leg is 2 cm longer than the other, and I apparently over-pronate, but only on one leg!

Given all of this, I had actually had a pretty good run (!) since 2015, training regularly with only the occasional injury blip. Running on the mostly soft ground on Dartmoor had, I believe, an overwhelmingly positive effect on maintaining a good range of motion in the joint. I seemed to be able to wear most types of offroad shoes, and although I am always extremely reticent on uneven downhills, I got by. Coming out of the Tsunami, it settled down, but now I started to have difficulty on any left to right downhill camber, where the tendency of the ankle to collapse inwards (downhill) gave me discomfort and I felt pretty unstable.

Around this time, with uncertainty still surrounding the Covid pandemic, UTMB offered all those registered for their races in 2021 the opportunity to cancel or defer their entry. So I decided to defer, as did several of my other Devon running friends. I decided right there and then that I needed another challenge! A solo project.....

So I set my alarm for 3 am on Friday July 9th, headed up the M5, and saw the dawn over Winchcombe in the Cotswolds. I was taking on a 50 mile 'anytime challenge' of a route called the Cotswold Ring, unseen, unmarked and totally self-supported! A verified completion of this would also act as a qualifier for the LDWA Trans Pennine 100 mile in 2022. I even logged the route for a Fastest Known Time to give myself some extra incentive!

I had a really good day - well nearly 17 hours of the 24 spent on the route - encountering some great variety, and coping with some overgrown paths, a shortage of water and "on the fly" fuelling in some of the tourist hotspots of the Costwolds. The ankle held up pretty well, and I used my trekking poles throughout. There were some great views.

Just 5 days later I lined up for a 10km road race on the totally flat paths in Exeter along the River Exe. It was a sweltering evening, and probably way too close to my 50 Cotswold miles! But somehow, with another vest from my club in my sights in front of me I managed to sneak home a couple of seconds inside 50 minutes. Sore legs obviously followed!

We also took the decision in the summer to sell our Dartmoor home, which really was too large and expensive to run and maintain for us. Initially we hoped to move to a new house in North Devon but eventually this didn't work out, and we changed plans and location.

I had one last "fling" on Dartmoor, completing the 50 km Chagford Challenge with some of my Devon running friends in late September. We were blessed with some really good weather, on terrain we were all pretty familiar with and made pretty good progress without ever pushing in just over 7.5 hours. LDWA events are invariably very friendly, give you great support at checkpoints and are cheap to enter. The very non-commercial ethos is in tune with how I feel about my runnjing these days. Walking and running when youy feel like it is very much the way to go, and although you normally get a memento and a time, it is never really a race.

Evolved to run. Born to run. Older, greyer, still running. Follow @Nariokotomeboy

Book Review - "Failure is an Option", by Matt Whyman

Matt Whyman's book falls loosely into that category of "my running journey". Some in this category are classic must-reads, and are treasured members of my library: Markus Torgeby, Dean Karnazes, Boff Whalley, Mike Cudahy, Charlie Spedding. And, latterly, Damian Hall. Their books are all about more than the running, and often, in differing ways, get to the heart of the somewhat obsessive, sometimes self-destructive nature of the activity. There are many others, of course, some of which are ghost written or highly edited accounts by "elite athletes", which can be a fascinating insight into the elevated world of elite competition. But there's also a fair amount of dross out there, occasionally self-published accounts of what might have been an interesting tale by an amateur runner, or hastily written accounts by a "celebrity runner". They are best not named and shamed, particularly by a very occasional running blogger such as myself, who doesn't even edit his posts seriously.

So where does "Failure is an Option" fit into the pantheon, and is it worth a read?

It's fair to say that, like myself, Matt Whyman is essentially a running "nobody" who has wandered through life with running as a constant thread from a relatively young age. Big goals get set and obsessed about. Relative failures and successes follow. Lessons get learned or they don't when they should have been. The book has it's central theme an audacious attempt to complete the Dragons Back 6 day Mountain journey across Wales. It is extremely topical as Matt was a starter in the latest, infamous, heatwave dominated, edition of the race. This is just one of many challenges in running that Matt has set himself and prepared poorly for in decades as a runner. (Hint: Matt, if you ever get to read this, just get yourself a coach, and stop being so stubborn. It took me 33 years, but now, 5 years later, it seems so obvious.) Throughout the book, Matt weaves his running story into his private life and he gives a feel of how his family and professional lives interact with his running. There are few traumatic incidents, with one notable exception (no spoilers!), and Matt lives in "comfortable" South East England. So when I got my review copy a few days ago, I immediately suspected that the book might be "one of those".

Happily it is not, and I whizzed through it in little over 24 hours, much as I would a short novel. And therein lies the secret as to why Matt's story is well worth a read. Matt's day job is as writer, a novellist in fact, and his obvious skill in making his running book flow is to leave out much that the rest of us would include. Also his prose is sharp, and some of his insights from "middle of the pack" are thought provoking and very relatable to my own experiences as an aging (more ag-ed these days) runner. For me the book was very easy to pick up and actually quite hard to put down. I thoroughly enjoyed it and needed little time to marshall my thoughts before posting this review.

Available direct by pre-order from the publisher with a nice little discount on 14th April.

https://www.v-publishing.co.uk/books/books-new-and-coming-soon/failure-is-an-option/

Evolved to run. Born to run. Older, greyer, still running. Follow @Nariokotomeboy