Reach

I’m scrubbing my shoes after yesterday’s cross-country and can’t quite get the chorus of a song out of my head. It’s been rattling around in there all morning and I’m feeling a mixture of slight annoyance and enjoyment as I remember dancing away to it on Friday night.

It was possibly because of Friday night that my performance on the fairly straightforward route around a park in St Helens felt like an absolute slog. I hadn’t drunk any alcohol because I was driving but I had danced quite a lot, and once I get going, I do enough plyometrics to last six months with all that pogoing. I don’t get out much.

The County Championships, like the Liverpool Cross Challenge we went to a few weeks back, appears to favour grassy terrain, with no huge hills, or great vats of mud. Unlike the Cross, and unlike the international races that were held today, the County still seems to insist that the men run further than the women. It was one small lap and two large ones for us, and a third large lap for the men. 

There were only two of us to represent Pensby women, but we’ve got to both stick together, and it looked like the other local clubs were also short as there was less than a hundred on the starting line. I had not previously been completely last in a cross-country race before but looking around at who had turned up, it was near certainty that that would change today. 

You can argue that racing has a huge mental element to it, and perhaps my reckoning at the beginning did not give me the right mindset. But for that first mile out of the five, I did my best to hang on to the shoulder of the second-to-last woman, to the point where I apologised to her for my heavy breathing. I was, however, going beyond my capacity, and something had to give, namely the distance between me and her. My heavy breathing continued but it would no longer bother her.

It was a lovely afternoon. The sun was still sending out its weak December rays while we ran, and I didn’t mind being last as I was giving it everything. My personal mantra, don’t stop, kept me moving without any walking at all, even on those ‘undulations’. My aim to get a weekly speed session and an off-road run in were being covered by this one event so it was a time-efficient outing. I didn’t get lapped by any of the women at least, but I was joined by a great thundering herd of men as they began their first small loop, and I was finishing my last big one. It was probably the only time that I can say I ran alongside Ben Taylor, who is our fastest member and was sixth overall in his race. For comparison: it took him just under 41 minutes to do seven miles and it took me 50 minutes to do just under five miles.

It was lung-bursting work, but very satisfying once I’d finished. It was also nice to see that the Pensby men, as they ran past us on each lap, looked as knackered as I had felt – aside from Ben, he always looks like he’s flying. They all did very well and under normal circumstances we’ve got to all stick together. Unfortunately, I couldn’t cheer them all in as I’d not brought enough warm clothes, and my toes were beginning to freeze, so Alex and I headed back.

It was the last big thing in a week of big things. The time leading up to Christmas is always busy, but this was the one that I’d been slightly stressed about. It began with a talk by Nigel to the club on the ‘Psychology of Running’ and ended with me being last and not feeling too bad about it (I’m not quite sure if that was the outcome he wanted us to take from it but there you go). In between I got (most of) my Christmas cards posted, had a club committee meeting, finished the Christmas decorations, wrote the minutes for the meeting, did my Self-Assessment Tax thingy with a friend who knows more about these forms than me, had the grandsons for the day, and went to the club Christmas Party that I’d helped to organise. 

The coming weeks will probably be just as busy and no-one knows just what the future holds but I feel like I’ve got over the hump and be able to reach my goals for this year.