Sabbaticals & Studying

I've already mentioned to a few people and putting it out there in public will help support my in my choice.

In 2019 I'm having a sabbatical.  From 'racing'.  Not from training, just 'racing'.

A number of things have changed in the last year, and things are set to change further.  Now is as good a time as any to shake a few things up, and to try exploring some avenues that are opening up as a result of having to make some fundamental changes in the way life works right now.

The internet is full of 'inspiring' quotes about change and I could fill this blog full of romantic notions of finding the 'real me' and blah blah.  It's not really about that.  More a time to take a chance, to learn something new, whilst also focusing on overcoming some of the training/body/emotional challenges that I've had over the last year.

On top of the already written about challenges, compounding in some of the recent WHW race 'issues', my 'day job' is changing location, and I'll need to commute to Glasgow city center several times a week, compared to my current 10 minute easy drive each way.  

An exciting change for the business, and a clear marker in the long term future.  But a total pain in the b*lls (if I had any) for fitting the life balance around it!  And that life is important.  To me, and my mental and physical well-being.  I've found the process of consultation, decision making and change very tiring and stressful, and it's made me question a lot of things about what I'm doing and where I want to be, and whether I'm taking steps to achieve any of those things.  The re-location is making a lot of people much happier, much better off, and giving them all that time that I am going to lose.  I can see how excited they are, and that compounds some of how challenging it could be.  I'm also losing a couple of really good people from my team - those who know exactly what they are doing, are great sounding boards and generally damn good people.  Yes, I've recruited new people, who will be great...that will take time.... and fresh blood can bring new ideas.

You can't keep overloading without something having to give.  And as a guest on a podcast I was listening to this week said..."I just had to sit down"....

Just so happens some of my sitting down might be like the above image.  I've signed up to do a 12 month (part time) yoga teacher training course at Merchant City Yoga in Glasgow.  You can change many things in life, changing yourself is one of them.  I'll be starting a separate blog about my maybe yogi journey and I won't be giving up the running completely - running to train, for physical and mental well-being, to decompress and to continue to enjoy the hills!

Next up I have what's becoming an annual August trip to Chamonix - this year running the new 'wee' race, the MCC and I'm looking forward to 40km and 2,300m of happy trails, before a week of watching the big boys and girls do the 'main events'.  I've also got the Ring of Steall in September to challenge my mountain trail skills.

So much to do...you only get one shot!

R E S P E C T (and '3 is the magic number')

Let's start with the positives! 

The Goblet!
I'm now the proud owner of 3 West Highland Way Race goblets.  Out of something like 237 starters, I was one of the 198 who finished this year!

Only 1,298 people have officially completed the WHW Race (since 1985 on the official results), and only 209 have done it 3+ times. So whatever I say later, I am still rightly proud deep down of my achievements, and I will run again.....(I'll leave this open to interpretation of whether I mean run WHW race again, given I said on many occasions 'never again')!

Descent from JBH

The Charity!
I've raised a staggering amount - over £2,600 (with £1k coming from funds matched by my employer Edrington-Beam Suntory) for Brake, the road safety charity.  To read more about it please click here.


This was a huge motivation for my eventual completion of the race. I ran under number 17, in memory of Gregor being only 17, and had my sister-in-law support run with me from Bridge of Orchy to Glencoe (although when I say run.....).  That's us pictured above at BoO, with our personalised vests which were very generously designed and donated by David Murdoch from Forth Valley Promotions




The Crew!

Helen and John (photo credit Clark Hamilton)

It's no secret that crew are one of the most important factors in your race, and once again they played a massive role in my completion. Clark once again in charge of support vehicle, food and kit; John in charge of ass kicking; Helen responsible for hand holding and emotional support; and this year, Adrienne as mentioned above taking a support runner shift.  John deserves special mention for picking up an 'extra shift' when everything was going even more pear-shaped at Auchtertyre, so he ground out an extra 10 miles more than planned to get me to BoO! This is one of those selfless gifts that you can never say thanks enough to someone.

The only runner to have a sit down at
 Jelly Baby Hill apparently!  Bowmore for
Murdo the Magnificent!

The Family!
It should go without saying that the organisation and family feel of the WHW make it what it is.  It's a special event in many ways and rightly holds a very strong hold on my, and many peoples, hearts and souls.  The commitment of all the race committee, volunteers and everyone involved in any way is just exceptional.  I lost count of the number of people who offered words of support and amazement throughout the weekend, and also before and after the event!

7 miles to go photobooth!  Photo credit Heather (I think)

It's also worthy of huge mention to Nicola Stuart in particular, who picked me up (along with Claire Allan and Chuck and probably some others I blinded with my torch) when I fell (more on this below), and also sacrificed some of her progress stopping to help, and then walk with me when I puked at about mile 45....







However......

There were mistakes.....

Respect!
A threefold issue here - respect for the race, for the crew and for myself.  

While I did the training and (mostly) followed the plan, I don't think I gave it the full focus it deserved this year for a number of reasons.  The short version is around bereavement and work, meaning I had 'excuses' to not sort out my diet, my head was quite often not in the right place, and this resulted in me standing on the start line the best part of a stone heavier than when I last ran it in 2015. There is no hiding place when you are trying to run 95 miles and almost 15k ft of ascent (not to mention the descents!), and this year I just couldn't get the fear factor high enough to get everything aligned.  In previous years, I've gone on 'the wagon', lost weight and given up caffeine.  None of this happened.  So that's not giving the race the respect it deserves...which also ties into not being respectful to the crew.

Smiles hiding the pain.  I was on verge of DNF here. Photo
credit Lorna Maclean.

I didn't execute anything that looked remotely like a race 'plan' on the day.  And I'd been full of procrastination and not actually really written much of a plan before-hand...on the basis I was going to pack light, and not be a diva....and the crew know me, and the race well enough to know what I should need/do.  None of the crew were expecting to be supporting me for a finish time closer to 30 hours, and when it all started going wrong for me, that plays with my head, making it another chip in the armour.

Respect for myself... this year could have been the perfect year for a PB.  The weather was a bit on the warm side (but hey, with all that hot yoga I must be able to handle the heat, no?), but all the markers were there for a good run. Dry trail, clear skies, very few midgies....  All the points mentioned above, I feel I didn't give myself the respect and best chance to execute well.... have I 'missed my go'?

Coming into Balmaha (14 miles post-fall)

The Fall!
Five miles in and I throw myself at the mercy of the trail (while thinking 'this terrain is tricky in the dark at 2am in the morning, take it easy'). 

It hurt.  A lot!  

The photo doesn't do it justice, and now almost 2 weeks later my right knee is scabby, bruised and doesn't bend.  It took almost a week after the race for me to weight bear on it.  Left knee and both feet are also bruised.

Nicola, Claire and Chuck picked me up and asked if I was ok to carry on.  I think my reply was 'I just have to'.  Partly because I'm a stubborn bugger, and moreso because I knew the sponsorship was reliant on a finish.  And how was I going to explain to Adrienne that she wasn't getting a run in honor of her boy?

The adrenaline gave me a kick and I tried to run along with Nicola and Claire for a while, zoning into their 'Love Island' chat to distract me!

The sickness!
I can hear John Munro reading this now and going 'you were only bloody sick once woman, quit bleating on about it...'.

My first EVER mid-race puke! On the roller coaster before Auchtertyre.  I'd been feeling grim for a while and there had been a lot more walking than running.  I was already WAY behind any schedule (even based on my previous completion times) and everytime I tried to push on, my body was shutting down. I'd felt 'better' after a Mars Bar and 'pint' of Fanta at Inversnaid, and managed a wee lip-wet of The Macallan when visiting Dario's post, followed by some Red Bull and various snacks at Beinglas, but nothing was giving me enough of a boost.  I'd been fuelling not too bad, and taking plenty of fluids, but something just wasn't working.  

Tiredness, nausea and heat(stroke?) resulted in a wee (not even a tactical) puke just as Nicola caught up with me again (apologies to the walkers I was just passing), and she very generously walked me up and down most of the roller-coaster, chatting away to distract me, until we reached the final descent and I told her to carry on without me, for fear of her losing any more time due to my pathetic state!

For the rest of the race, I moaned (a lot) about being sick/feeling sick, whilst trying to shovel milkshakes (thanks John!), Mugshots, fruit pastilles, licorice allsorts and everything else in.  The toast and tea at Kinlochleven was lush!  

Most of it didn't result in any great performance improvements, and I went through several spells of 'balance issues' where I would mostly just keel over (mostly to the right) and end up sitting in the heather.  No idea what the cause of this was.  My ascending on the Devil's Staircase was appalling....I redeemed myself a little on the KLL climb (and then across Lairig had something of a brief resurrection and passed quite a few people along with what felt like a 4 mile 'sprint' finish down the fire road! Maybe the wee snifter of Glengoyne John gave me there was the reason!). Mostly anything involving up was an issue, which isn't ideal given the terrain ha ha!

Having just looked at the splits though, I still managed to gain places at most checkpoints.. and you can see the benefits of my performance when I have a support runner!

	Overall Position	Section Position
Balmaha	191	191
Rowardennan	183	172
Beinglas	183	180
Auchtertyre	181	174
Bridge of Orchy	177	167
Glencoe	175	167
Kinlochleven	169	166
Lundavra	161	126
Fort William	152	106

The Aftermath!
When it's all said and done, I go back to the start of this blog - I got the goblet, I raised the money, I'm still here.  John said something to me afterwards (well, one of the many things along with confirming most of my opinion that I f*cked up a tad) that 'you're a real veteran of WHW now you've had a sh&tty one'. 

I am still disappointed with myself, but it's not just about feeling sorry for the race day, it's about the choices that could have been made in the months before.  I've never had to combat some of the emotional challenges I've faced in that period though, so sometimes you just cannot tell how things will pan out.