A big move and a running evolution

Although it became a pretty protracted process in the end, the second half of 2021 brought an end to 6 years of living, as well as running and hiking, in the Dartmoor National Park. We have now settled in Oakham, Rutland, 30 miles from where I was brought up in Spalding, Lincolnshire. Although the hills have not totally disappeared from view, around here is more "rolling countryside" than the "moors and tors". Trails are at once better defined but also more heavily frequented. However they are certainly more "runnable".

During the six years in Sticklepath my elevation "stats" were pretty consistent. Week after week I would log over 2000 metres of ascent (and by implication descent) in my running. Once or twice in the last 2 years, I "binged" with weeks of over 6000m and nearly 9000m as a part of lockdown challenges. Neither of these, nor the several hilly / mountainous races over distances over 50 km, gave me any serious effects of fatigue. I "bagged" local tor tops after steep climbs as a matter of routine. I became accustomed to the continual gradients and in the parlance, I undoubtedly became "hill hard".

From Summitbag.com

Looking back now, a three month house sit at the foot of the Chiltern Hills over the middle of winter gave me some hope of continuing to embark on the type of hilly training run that was my regular fare on Dartmoor. But gradually the realities of the change in terrain seeped into my stubborn runner's brain. I entered 3 road races; I started running more road miles (sorry Cocoa); I started going to Parkruns on fast, flat courses and I began to re-evaluate plans for the summer of 2022.

At the start of the year I had the following in my calendar:

LDWA 100 mile in the Peak District at the beginning of June.

Eiger Ultra Trail 35 km +2300m ascent in mid July

UTMB / CCC 100 km +6300m ascent in late August

I have now withdrawn and been partially refunded for all of these events, as I just could not imagine how I could prepare properly for any of them. DNS (do not start) has always been way preferable to DNF (did not finish) in my eyes. I like to feel I am competitive, at least against my own age group, in anything I undertake, and all of these events incur varying amounts of peripheral expenditure that becomes hard to justify when the chance of a result dimishes. To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail, as someone wise once said, and how do you prepare for hills and mountains when your nearest hill, and the local high point, is just 60m of elevation above where you live?! And it is no surprise that I have not had an outing, run, hike or walk, with more than 300m of elevation this year. For much of the last 6 years, that was almost a minimum.

I'm going to deal with the road races in another post. I've tucked those away. They served their purpose.

So what now? First of all I think I can still train and race for events up and around 50km in English "undulating countryside" conditions. We have that here and its just a matter of agreeing with my coach how best to approach that. But as for the mountains, British or elsewhere, I've decided that I'm going to get my pleasure there from hiking in them, non-competitive but "challenging". I've tested the driving distance to the Peak District (Hathersage) and I'm sure I can work on some great days out. Cocoa and I made a pretty good start about 10 days ago up on Stanage Edge.

So, for some of us, it's just like Dartmoor!

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

Book Review - "Running for our lives" by Rachel Ann Cullen

It's fair to say that I struggled with this book somewhat.

The sub title held a pretty good hook to make it stand out from most books of the running and endurance genre that I have read before. "Stories of ordinary runners overcoming extraordinary adversity" suggested an anthology of case studies. What I had not expected was that a recurrent theme would be the author comparing the experiences of her subjects with her own, when this "journey" into running had already been dealt with in her previous work, "Running for MY life", which I had not read at that point.

After a subjective preamble, the book does partially develop in the manner of a series of case studies. After writing her first book, Ms Cullen was contacted by many people who had struggled with mental and physical health issues and many of these felt that taking up running had been instrumental in changing their lives for the better, or by allowing them to cope with other challenges. The book tells the stories of 17 of these, 13 women and 4 men, but also constantly relates back to the author's own lifetime struggles with her mental health, self esteem and severe body dysmorphia. At times I felt that these other subjects were being used purely as props in the  self-depicted drama of the author's own life, but nevertheless found these individual accounts to be poignant and thought provoking. But I became convinced that their stories would have benefitted more from an objective dispassionate narrator.

Before writing this review I felt I ought to read "Running for my Life", and I have just completed it. Like the subject of this review the book is quite readable, is easy to follow, and is well edited. It is purely autobiographical, but is full of judgements about other people's intentions and motivations. The men in the author's life do not get a good press, it is fair to say, but after all the title does make it clear it is really "all about Rachel".

I think that if you enjoyed "Running for My Life", and were drawn to the author's own struggles, you will find a place in your library for this obvious follow up. The perspective on different types of struggle with a common theme of running as redemption or compensation is an interesting one. Perspectives will differ on whether "Running for our lives" is truly a book about running, and, in any case, dealing with 17 "cases" in around 200 pages demands the type of superficiality that I am not personally attracted to in a book. The author's insights are from an observer who apparently has no professional qualifications as a counsellor or mental health practitioner. The resulting superficiality and subjectivity were at the root of my doubts about the value of the book. The underlying theme of "running as therapy" would really benefit from the insights of mental health professionals. 

The book is available direct from the publisher, Vertebrate Publishing, on the following link

Running for our Lives

https://www.adventurebooks.com/collections/running/products/running_for_our_lives

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