Doing A Bit Of Running

I had become accustomed to the state of being broken and useless.

I had started to feel that maybe it was a normal state of affairs to grunt and groan as I moved about. Then, this week, a large orange ball came into my life and I am beginning to think that maybe things aren’t as hopeless as they seemed.

I’ve jumped right into the middle of a story there and maybe we should call up the wavy lines to float across the screen as I take you back in time to the start of 2020.

It was a happier, more innocent time back then. We all crowded together in small spaces and knew nothing about hand washing and what percentage of alcohol we should have in our hand sanitiser. I had been running through the winter holidays and was feeling great, apart from a niggling pain in my ankle. This pain got worse and eventually stopped me from running altogether.

I called up my private health insurance and they arranged for me to see a physiotherapist. Hurrah, thinks I. A bit of rest, a few exercises and I’ll soon be back running.

Three months, says the therapist. No running for three months. I was aghast, appalled and an unhappy runner. However, I did as I was told and embarked upon the exercises. Ankle felt a little better once I stopped running but always gave me pain first thing on a morning. Then I found that the exercises were making my ankle feel sore. The physio moved me to the next stage of exercises and then lockdown happened. No physiotherapist sessions for me. After a while they sorted themselves out and offered online sessions. Unfortunately I had now lost faith in the process. The change in exercises hadn’t helped and I was still feeling sore after every set of of them. I decided to stop.

So, that’s the story of my ankle.

But there’s more…

Crunch Goes The Shoulder

In the process of this they did slice up my Black Knight t-shirt. Perhaps he had previously had a bad experience with a satirical security officer.

A Slow Recovery

This happened on June 23rd and I spent several agonising months huddled on the corner of the sofa not daring to move as the tiniest movement would cause huge waves of pain to sweep through my body. Time passed and my muscles wasted away. My whole frame looked weirdly lop sided as the neck muscles and shoulders just vanished. I had more physiotherapy sessions now but this therapist had me attempting lofty goals such as moving my left arm a few inches away from my body. It was a slow and brutally painful process. The shoulder had been thoroughly smashed up and we had to wait until the bones fused together again and then attempt to make the whole thing function.

Now we are just nudging our way into November and I have attained the mighty super power of being able to raise my left arm above my head. I can’t hold it there for long but consider myself a super over achiever for arm movements and am expecting to receive a badge for it that I can sew onto my sleeve.

However, all that sofa sitting had not done me any fitness favours. Muscle had gone, fat had moved in and movement was a process that was always accompanied by grunts, groans and a remarkable lack of grace.

Eventually I resumed work and tried some of this moving about stuff. I do quite a bit of walking about and pointing at stuff at my work. I also like to get out in my lunch break to go see some nature and check that it is still there.

It was after one of these lunch time walks that my knee suddenly became desperately painful. To drive home I had to push the car seat all the way back and operate the foot pedals without Bending my leg. All extremely painful and massively awkward. I struggled on for a few days and eventually the pain wore off. Hurrah thinks I. Why not celebrate by attempting a run. One good reason why not is that it is a stupendously stupid thing to do.

And so it was.

I managed about a hundred yards before knee exploded into mighty supernova of pain.

I limped slowly back and felt terribly sorry for myself all mixed up with also feeling quite angry with myself too.

Much resting, elevating icing and compression followed and I bought a kind of knee sock thing, which seemed to help.

Once recovered I was possibly quite justifiably a little scared of trying to run again. I was getting fatter and more unfit so needed to do something. I was back at the stage I remember when I was 50. I felt lethargic and sluggish. There was a sort of haze of murkiness that seemed to weigh heavily upon my senses.

Of course, when you feel like that then it becomes even more difficult than ever to get yourself outside and moving, especially as we move into cold, wet and rainy season. However, it helped enormously that I’d managed to get myself reasonably fit before and I knew how good I would feel afterwards if I could manage to get out there.

A Glimmer Of Hope

I spotted an outdoor basketball court on the local recreation ground, that no-one seemed to be using. I played a little basketball at school when I was around 14 years old. I wasn’t very good but I at least knew the rudiments. I could bounce a ball, throw it at a basket and do a lay up on the basket. I would buy myself a big orange ball and try get some exercise with that before attempting to run again.

And so I did and it was a lot of fun.

I was still pretty terrible at it but running up and down the court, bouncing the ball, and then leaping up to bounce it off the backboard was really good exercise that didn’t place too much stress on a body that had become far too accustomed to inertia.

It is going to be a long climb back to fitness but I know it’s worth the effort.

Hoping very much I can avoid further injury…

Everything had been planned down to the last detail but despite this it still looked doubtful. 2 hours had seemed like some insurmountable barrier for so long.

Nike had developed super whizzy running shoes. They had spent millions laying a special track in Vienna and some of the finest athletes in the world would be pacing Eluid Kipchoge. We had possibly the finest marathon runner ever with the best technology currently available. Maybe this barrier was surmountable after all.

I started watching it but like so many runners on Saturday morning I realised that the finish would be during parkrun.

Damn, Damn, Damn!

Maybe I shouldn’t go to parkrun.

Hmmm, nah. I am doing my parkrun. Even Kipchoge making history isn’t going to stop that.

However, I am all in favour of having cake and eating it, so tried to find a feed that I could listen to while I was running. I found a livestream and shoved the phone into my pocket. Linking up the bluetooth headphones I could still be updated with the latest Kipchoge goings on.

We set off at around 09:05 (Cambridge is nearly always late starting) and the tension was starting to build. He was close now and looking strong. He had had a bit of a wobble at around 35k but was now clocking up the kilometres at a metronomic sub 2 hour pace. He was cruising along at a steady 21 kilometres an hour. Just an incredible speed.

I was caught up in the shenanigans of first lap mayhem and had just started to stretch my legs a bit as I emerged from the crowds when Kipchoge put on a last burst of speed and ducked under 2 hour by a whole 20 seconds.

My first reaction was to yell for joy (I didn’t do that).

My second reaction was to tell everyone around me that Kipchoge had done it (I didn’t do that either).

All around the course I wanted to tell everyone that it had happened but I didn’t. Part of me thought that maybe they had recorded it to watch at home and maybe they were saving it as a surprise. The rest of me thought that it would be of no interest to folk and that they might find it a bit weird and scary if I turned into strange shouty person ranting on about 2 hour marathons.

It was a great time and an amazing achievement. I kind of wished I had someone to share it with at the time but I reckon that I probably have no one to blame but myself. It is quite likely that if I had spoken to people that some of them would also have been excited about Kipchoge’s achievement. I just needed to be more bold.

Congrats to Eluid Kipchoge

You are an astounding athlete.

The Grantchester 10K has all the elements for an excellent race.

It has a fine mix of terrain from paths, trail and gravel. It has that most rare thing in Cambridge, a hill or two. OK, the hills are fairly puny but you take what you can get here on the edge of the fens.

Grantchester is one of the most beautiful villages I’ve ever encountered. It has the Old Vicarage which was home to the poet Rupert Brook at one time and is now owned by Mary and Jeffrey Archer (OK, so Grantchester isn’t perfect). It has 3 excellent pubs and another that I haven’t tried. It has the Orchard Tea rooms, Grantchester Meadows (yes, those meadows that Pink Floyd immortalised on the album Ummagumma) and so many beautiful buildings.

If you just go there for the race you probably won’t see much of this gorgeous little village so I would recommend allotting some time before or after to take a look around.

There is a field set aside for parking only 150 yards from the start of the run but I decided to go there on the bike. Obligingly the rain paused for my journey so I was able to enjoy the cycle there, basking in the late September sunshine.

I navigated the path through Grantchester Meadows marvelling at just how much shit the cows had produced and wondering if they made a special trip every time to deposit it on the path. Were they trying to keep the grass clean? Had they deduced that the path had been laid there primarily for that purpose?

I get there with only a few minutes to go to the start of the race, Richard, Lloyd and Eilidh are already there so I get a splendid welcome when I arrive. Handshakes and hugs all round and quickly over to registration desk. I glanced nervously over at the start line as I queued for registration but the queue quickly melted away and I was into safety pin and timing tag wrangling in no time.

I reunited with running pals briefly and then we split up again to line up at the start. We run at different speeds so attempted to put ourselves in the right spot so we would be running at the speed of the people around us. Unfortunately I was ridiculously pessimistic about my own speed so put myself rather further back than I should have done. I spent far too much time during the first couple of kilometres feeling hemmed in by the crowds.

We start uphill running on footpath through the fields in glorious sunshine and before we reach the road bridge at the top of the field the clouds have scurried across the sky and settled overhead to provide a cold slanting rain that seems to be hitting quite hard.

We change direction after the bridge so the rain feels less of an irritation and we’re heading into wooded area of narrow paths and deadly tripping tree roots. A really nice chap has joined me here and we’re chatting about all things running related, including how a friend of his was waylaid by these very tree roots on this run last year. I met this chap (I’m afraid his name is going to be chap for the moment as I don’t remember his actual name) at the Mikkeller club run at the shop, Thirsty. We chatted as we did the social run together and briefly afterward during the traditional social drinking that follows the social run. He is interested in trying ‘Race To The Stones’ so was pumping me for information about the experience. It seems that he’ll be pacing at Town and Gown so I’ll watch out for him there.

We stretch our legs a bit after the tree section and I enjoy the quicker pace. It feels nice to get moving as we emerge from our single file section under the trees.

Soon we’ve caught up to his friend of tree root notoriety and they get to talking. I am still feeling good and so push on a bit.

Lolloping along toward the 5k mark I hear a strange cracking noise across the field. At first I think it must be something to scare the birds but eventually find a splendidly enthusiastic marshall, cheering and clapping every single runner who comes by. As I pass I mention that I had heard him clapping from a half kilometre away and he admits that actually his hands are quite sore.

There’s now a long straight run to water station at 6k and then back we go over another road bridge and on to the fields once more. There’s more uphill here and it stretches on for some time but I don’t begrudge it a bit of gradient as it’s all leading to that glorious downhill caper toward the finish. It really does make for a great end of race experience as you get the elation of a bit of speed and also the buzz of crossing the finish line.

Lloyd, Elidh and Richard are faster than me, so I get the benefit of them all being there to cheer me in as I cross the line. We’re all pleased with our runs and our times today. It seems like it’s been a good run all round.

Then we queue up for bacon, sausage or veggie sausage sandwiches. These are a great idea as a bacon sandwich strikes me as so much more welcome than yet another tee shirt. Top tip from Eilidh here though. The sandwiches are a bit dry so bag yourself plenty of sauce to counteract this.

We top off the run by popping to the ‘Green Man’ pub in Grantchester. We were going to go to the Red Lion but it seemed a bit fancy for we sweaty, smelly runners. The Green Man was an excellent choice and had some fine real ales.

The only downside to the morning was the fearsome rain which accompanied my cycle home but overall I had a most excellent time.

Every run this year I have thought of as training for Race To The Stones. Every injury has been a hurdle to cross on the way to Race To The Stones, and every shoe purchase has been a disaster on the journey to get to The Race To The Stones.

However, on 13th and 14th July it happened and I lived to tell the tale.

We drove down the night before and parked Carrie’s bike in the field near the start. We noted that the inflatables were inflated, the toilets on standby and the Threshold crew listening intently to the pointing and gesturing people at the front of the tent.

Carrying on our journey we got caught out by a junction closure that Google Maps didn’t know about. It was something of a shock to find that not all information is always available on Google.

We arrived at our B&B, The Inn With The Well in Ogbourne St George. It was a lovely little place with excellent local gin and beer from Ramsbury distillery and brewery. We enjoyed it so much that we popped into the distillery shop to get our own supply on the way home.

The following morning we were up too early for B&B breakfast but our hostess had made up a bag of interesting things to munch.

We nipped down the the finish area, parked the car and jumped aboard the bus. A surprisingly empty bus – hmmm. Does everyone else know something that I don’t? It seems that they probably do. This bus leaves at 7 and it takes around an hour and a half to get to the start (we actually took a little longer due to the aforementioned road closure). The right bus for us would have been the 06:30. It looks like the 7 o clock bus is really just to sweep up any latecomers.

I arrived at the start not long before 9 and was surprised to see that there were people still there. The stewards bustled me out of the coach and flung me toward the start.

The briefing finished and we were released upon the Ridgeway.

At the beginning of a run there is usually the release of a lot of pent up energy and people go tearing off along the route at great speed.

At the Race To The Stones, certainly in this last wave there was just a steady walk up the hill and everyone settling in to their own pace.

Much I was tempted to start running I thought I should go with the wisdom of the crowd and follow along.

At the far side of the field were a couple of volunteers to point the way. One was wearing a ‘Bad Boy Running’ tee-shirt. I gave the traditional ‘do badder’ greeting and he returned it. Most excellent!

Once we entered the trees the track became quite narrow and there was no real choice but to move at the pace of everyone else. This seemed a little bit frustrating but I figured it would help me conserve my energy and my legs.

It’s a rather odd experience just strolling through the countryside with a bunch of strangers. They all have their little groups and are chatting away. It feels almost like we are on some kind of social club picnic.

This feeling is very much reinforced when I get to pit stop one and encounter lots of stalls containing many foods. People were sitting about, chatting, eating and drinking. It all seemed very relaxed.

An ultra will be many different things to different people but I am fast learning here that in this part of the field it is an all day mobile picnic. It’s a laid back, sociable experience but with a lot of scenery, endurance, cows, joy and pain built into that.

I grabbed some fruit, crisps orange juice and a Freddo (hurrah for Freddo) bar and set off again along the trail

It widened out a little here so I started taking advantage of the downhills to do a little running. It felt really good and I was tempted to just keep going but several pretty fearsome hills put a stop to any of that sort of nonsense.

This section of the course was probably my favourite. There were trees and lovely peaty soil underfoot. Even though it required intense concentration to avoid tripping on tree roots it was an absolute delight to run upon.

I arrived at pit stop two after about 20 kilometres still feeling fresh and strong. My wife Carrie was there to greet me and we sat out in the sunshine as I munched through more water melon, tuna sandwiches and motivational bananas (the bananas had cheery slogans written upon their skins – absolute genius).

Carrie seemed to be enjoying her cycling journey so far, as she wrestled with the logistics of meeting up with me, while herself trying to avoid cycling on the Ridgeway (Carrie reckoned that with all those runners on the path that she and her bike might cause a bit of an obstruction). Unfortunately because she chose to be so thoughtful it did condemn her to some remarkable (she did remark upon them) hills as she made the climb up onto the ridge.

The next pit stop was at 33 kilometres and I had encountered a problem. Every time I tried to run I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my right calf. This was more than a little frustrating. I had been shovelling down anything remotely electrolyty to try and stave off the cramps but here they were were in bright technicolour jabbing away at my leg and severely cramping my style. I felt good, I felt that I wanted to run but the merest skip sent me into spasms of pain. This, as you can imagine soured my mood a little.

I met someone else who seemed to be suffering as she walked down the hill trying to move without her feet touching the ground. Bright perceptive chap that I am, I immediately arrived at the conclusion that blisters were the evil demon at work here. I had a bunch of blister plasters in my backpack and so went over to offer assistance. She explained patiently that it was actually her quads that were causing problems and so blister plasters may not be the thing. I must keep this in mind for if I ever harbour any hopes of going into the medical profession. It may not be my area of expertise.

Pit stop 4 did lift me up a little as it was only 7 kilometres away from the halfway stage. Just one more stage to go and I wouldn’t be just Jim in a Save The Rhino shirt. I would be Jim who had covered 50km on foot in a Save The Rhino shirt.

An exciting thought.

So exciting that I tried to run again.

Ow! Ow! Ow!

Back to the long walk. Tramp, tramp tramp tramp. The path went ever onwards and my painful calf wouldn’t allow me to take any advantage of the wonderful downhill slopes.

I finally reached the monument and knew then that basecamp was within reach. Ignoring the pain I broke into a trot once more and reached basecamp for reggae hour and so danced joyfully over the timing mat, high fiving a delightfully crazed loon called Nigel who was doing his MC bit on the mic.

I stood there for a minute or two just breathing in the moment. I felt suffused with a wave of stillness and abiding joy. I had covered 50km on foot. It felt absolutely brilliant.

And they were playing reggae for me (obviously it must have been for me) – how cool is that?

Carrie was sitting by the food tent tucking into a pizza that she had purchased from one of the vendors. She also possessed beer and kindly offered me some.

I thought about buying some myself but looked at the queue and figured it could wait for now.

I removed my shoes and experienced several sackfuls of sheer bliss. I felt that I could almost see the pain seeping out of me and wafting away in clouds of angry red hurt, leaving behind some very relaxed and mildly throbbing feet, slowly dissolving into a pool of mush.

Carrie and I lay around for a while, enjoying the music and the sun, but unfortunately at 7pm she needed to leave. It was a 2 and a half hour cycle back to the B&B and she reckoned her chances of survival on the roads may be slightly increased if she got back before dark.

We said our goodbyes and I ambled into the food tent to shovel in some calories and inhale several cupfuls of coffee.

I got chatting to a few folks in the food tent and found that quite a large number of them were running through. I tried to picture myself in the same position of sitting down to have my evening meal and then heading off out into the dark to run another 50km. My poor little brain did a couple of anguished backflips as it tried to wrestle with that scenario.

I was allocated tent number 112 in green wave so collected drop bag plus an inflatable mattress thing and made myself at home in little green dome.

After unpacking I went to try out the shower and was pleasantly surprised to discover they had hot water. Out here on a field in the middle of nowhere I hadn’t really expected such dizzying heights of luxury as hot water. It was most welcome.

The beer queue had shrunk down a little so I grabbed a pint and wondered down to the timing mats to watch some of the people still coming in.

There were so many emotional moments but none more so than that of the sight impaired person coming in with their helper. She wept with joy and hugged everyone upon reaching the finish. Huge waves of deliriously delighted emotion and elation.

Settling down to sleep in the tent I realised just how little sound insulation you have in one of these things. The noises changed throughout the night from chatting and laughing, to rustling and shuffling, to farting and snoring (mostly from the woman in the tent next to me – an endurance runner but also an endurance farter – how is it possible to manufacture that much wind?)

The next noise was much more baffling. There was a buzzing noise from a tent close by. A buzzing noise? What on earth could it be? I decided it must be a toothbrush – yes definitely – yes absolutely – couldn’t be anything else.

I reckon I got about 3 hours sleep but still felt pretty good when I got up. Breakfast done, portaloo visit complete it’s time to go again.

This was a very low key start. It’s open early morning and you just wander across it when you’re ready, and start moving.

I walked for a while to loosen up and then broke into a gentle run. My legs felt stiff and tired but the calf pain had gone.

Hurrah!

This is going to be a good day.

The first pit stopped arrived quickly. I didn’t really need anything yet but forced myself to eat and drink and then move on.

This was all feeling so much more natural now. The path was less crowded so I could move at my own pace and was enjoying just being out on the trail and moving through the landscape.

Next pit stop arrived and yet again I didn’t want much but forced myself to eat and grab some powders to sprinkle into the orange juice. Getting all electrolyted up hadn’t worked yesterday in staving off the muscle cramps but not knowing what else to try I figured I would just keep shovelling them into my gob and hoping for the best.

The second half was much tougher running terrain than the first. So many rutted paths, it was often quite painful as the ruts pushed you on to the sides of your feet. I tried side shuffling, skipping or a sort of bobbling motion but I achieved nothing more than looking quite deranged.

The worst is saved until last. There is only 5 kilometres to go and you are fairly sure that you’ll coast it in. Then you hit rutted chalk tracks that make the previous terrain seem like bouncy turf. The side ridges of the rut are several inches high and every footfall bends your feet back into positions that feet just shouldn’t go. I can actually see the finish now but running is almost impossible on this stuff. Eventually it smooths out onto a tarmac road (OK, a post apocalypse tarmac road but still…). We climb up the hill and I suddenly start to see lots of people coming past me down that same hill. Have they all finished and are going home?

At the top of the hill I find out what is happening as we are sent into a field to run around a couple of stones and then we ourselves go down the hill to loop another field before we can aim at the finish line.

Then the moment arrives. I fight my way out of the field and there is a tarmac road to my left. At the far end of this road I can just see the inflatable finish arch.

I stagger along and gradually manage to increase speed. There is a mad sort of clanging noise in my head increasing in volume as I near the finish. It’s like fireworks going off in my head while a brass band battles a highway road crew to see who can raise the most hullaballoo. The excitement has gone beyond palpable to a shaking intensity that has immersed my entire being.

I get to the finish line and punch the air with excitement. I set off yesterday with no idea whether I could do this. Now I have. I am a chap who has moved along 100km on foot. I feel absolutely wonderful.

I gather my medal and t shirt and we head back to the B&B for rest and beers.

I’ve now signed up to do 100km in one go for next year.

See you all there.

Several other people have been telling their Race To The Stones 2019 stories:

Aaron Kidd – In For The Long Run

Liz Dexter – Adventures in reading, running and working from home

Ridgeway Runner – Race To The Stones 2019

Well it’s all becoming frighteningly real now. We set off tonight to stash Carrie’s bike near the start and then to drive on to our bed and breakfast for the night : The Inn with the Well, Ogbourne St. George, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 1SQ,

We will stay there overnight and then travel to the finish where we will catch the shuttle to the start.

I am starting in wave F which has a starting time of 08:25. Shuttles depart at half hour intervals with the last one leaving at 07:00 to arrive at the start for 08:30.

The event is called ‘Race To The Stones’ and is a 100km run along a footpath known as The Ridgeway. It ends at Avebury standing stones. Carrie will be accompanying me but not running. She will be on her bike and meet me a various points along the run and and at base camp in the middle.
.
I start at Field Farm, Shirburn Road, Lewknor, Watlington,
Oxon, OX49 5RR.

I run 50km on the first day and then camp overnight at Lattin Down Kiln, The Ridgeway, Wantage, Oxon,
OX12 8PA.

Then I’ll run another 50km on Sunday to hopefully finish at Rutland Farm, Avebury, SN8 1RH.

From there it’s just a short hop back to the Inn With The Well.

I will be wearing a GPS tracker so if you want to follow my progress then visit this page, http://live.opentracking.co.uk/racestones19/ look up my name (number 46 on the list) and it will show you where I am on the route.

I am raising money for ‘Save The Rhino again. If you wish to donate then it is on this page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jimmowattstones

This page will tell you a little more about the event
https://www.letsdothis.com/…/dixons-carphone-race-to-the-st…

The Race To The Stones is only a few weeks away now and I have not been able to do any running at all. This is more than a little worrying.

It all started with the calf injuries caused by the new shoes. I switched shoes around and the calf injuries abated but then I got a niggle at the back of my right knee. This developed into a full on strain running from back of knee toward my bum causing me to limp home from Parkrun.

Damn!

I did the sensible thing and ceased running immediately.

Then I did the not sensible thing and signed up for the Flaming June Half Marathon only a week later.

OK, it might sound extremely foolish but it did feel as though the leg was completely healed. Or rather, it didn’t seem to hurt when I walked on it.

Flaming June was, as you might expect flaming hot. Everyone struggled that day and many ran between 10 and 15 minutes slower than usual.

Poor running friend Lloyd was absolutely distraught running more than 2 hours when his usual time is much much less.

I was running fine and feeling good and then at around 3 miles I felt a bit of a twinge at the back of my knee. I passed 4 miles, ran down the road a little and then a whole bunch of horrible happened and I was brought to a complete standstill with one leg hovering in the air and the cold realisation that my race was over. I was injured again and now only 6 weeks away from my attempt to run 100km over two days at Race To The Stones.

It was a long and miserable limp back along the busway as I contemplated my situation. Maybe I should just accept that Race To The Stones isn’t happening for me this year.

This time I waited for around 16 days before I attempted to run.

I trotted out around my usual route through the trees near the dump (it’s much nicer than it sounds).

I ran across the bridge and down past the Park and Ride site toward the recycling centre.

Another runner approaches me and nods and smiles. So far this is fine. This kind of limited reaction is something I can cope with without even stressing a neuron. Then she says, “I have that T-shirt”.

I am immediately thrown into a bucketful of quandaries.

This runner is a happy smiling person and has reached out to a fellow runner to acknowledge a shared experience. Something is obviously expected of me in return. I can’t get away with the minimal runner’s nod. I must engage in some way. This should be easy but I failed abysmally in my attempt to run the Flaming June Half Marathon and am not entirely sure I deserve to wear the T-shirt. Of course I realise that none of this really matters but suddenly I feel like such a fraud. Should I explain to her that I DNF’d after only a few miles and did a sorrowful limp back to rhe start/ finish line? Should I tell her that I don’t really deserve this T-shirt?

There is only a second or so to decide and no time for proper explanations however I must respond. She has taken the trouble to engage and it would seem churlish to ignore that.

Panicked, I reply with the words, “so do I”.

As I was wearing the T-shirt this was probably the lamest response in the history of responses ever.

Oh well, hopefully we will never meet again and my shame will remain forever a private internal scar that claws at my insides and scratches away at my self esteem for the rest of my life.

I carry on running and soon duck under the trees to enjoy my glorious little trail on the other side of the recycling centre past the grazing horses, the hunting owls and alongside the routes of the grazing muntjac. It is bliss indeed, and only marginally violated by my memories of my dismal attempt to interact with other runners.

As for the injury – I can still feel that twinge at the back of the knee. I ran in the old running shoes this this time and it didn’t make it any worse. Maybe this is the answer. These shoes may have lost most of their cushioning but at least they don’t seem to be injuring me.