An exciting weekend (Hannah)

Last weekend was exciting for a number of reasons...

1. It was a bank holiday which is always a bonus.

2. The sun decided to come out and play.

3. I was in a place I love (Milford-on-Sea and the New Forest) with all my immediate family.

4. I was finally able to run properly again after a month of virus / post-viral fatigue.

5. I was announced as one of the TORQ Trail Team for 2013!!!

Let’s start with the first four... I was in Wales over Easter and it really felt like my running was coming together.  I ran four back-to-back days including a really enjoyable 4 hours on the Gower coastal path.  It felt like the base was there so that I could spend the next few months really building on that and getting to a place where I could nail the ultras I’ve entered this year.  A few days later (the 4^th of April to be precise) I felt the inkling of a sore throat.  And a couple of days after that I DNFed 10 miles into the Compton 20 miler once a painful chest had made it clear that this was more than a sore throat.  I’ve attempted a few shortish runs since then but have mostly been resting and sleeping.  Lots of afternoon naps, time off work and 12 hour sleeps.  Very frustrating!

So after starting to question whether it was time to go for some blood tests, it was really exciting to be able to run for three days in a row without any hint of “something dodgy coursing through my veins”.  The only thing that was slowing me down was a couple of spare kg’s and the twenty-degrees-warmer-than-we’re-used-to sunshine (which I’m not complaining about!). It was great to feel like me again!

In amongst all this fatigue, worry and frustration, I had been selected for the TORQ Trail Team.  This has really provided me with the motivation to rest properly, get better and achieve my 2013 ambitions.  At school I was most definitely not in the sporty crowd – not helped by the fact that lessons were only 35 mins long (even at that stage I preferred endurance to short sharp dashes) and usually involved a ball of some sort.  I used to take drama as a sports option. And for years afterwards (even when rowing seriously) I would insist that “I wasn’t sporty really”.  Stu’s comments at the TORQ assessment day around psychology and self-perception really resonated with me.  It’s only in the last couple of years I’ve started to think of myself as athletic – and even now I sometimes struggle with this description.

So to be picked to be part of someone’s team is a real novelty and means a huge amount to me.  I want to make the most of it and prove that I really deserve that place.  Especially given that I’ve met so many of the other people who applied and know what fantastic running CVs they have.

And now I’m preparing for my first race as a member of the team – the 50k Marlborough Downs Challenge this coming Sunday.  Off the back of the whole viral thing, I’m not really approaching this in the manner I would have hoped.  But I’m pulling on some of the advice that Stu talked about in terms of mental preparation....

• I was "there" at Easter in terms fo my running ability.

• I did the race last year and so I know the course.

• I’ve got so much in my legs and in terms of mental preparation from last year.

• I nailed my “routine” last year in terms of fuelling / clothing etc.

So at the moment, I’m keeping things ticking over, not doing anything too crazy and looking forward to this weekend being the start of a great season filled with lots of adventures and some very cool people!