Picture This

Relief. Joy. Ecstasy. Belief. Trust. Endurance. Resilience. All of these emotions and more are captured in the photograph at the end of the Barcelona Marathon, my first race of the year.

A hard winter of training came to fruition on a warm day in early March in the Catalan capital as I set an eight minute PB on my second run over the 26.2 mile distance. And this one was very different to my first. It was a truly magical experience. It was also a very, vary hard run – no marathon is ever not – in weather which was too hot for me, but I came through it. I ran the whole way, which was my main goal, and did not stop until I came over the line in front of the fountains in the Plaza Espana. You can read the full blog of my experience that day here.

If Barcelona summed up joy, then this picture, as I approached the finish line of the Baker Hughes 10km race in Aberdeen at the start of May, sums up sheer guts. That feeling of running your heart out, pouring everything in to a race and this was me realising as I came to the line that not only was I about to set a personal best, but that I was about to beat it by about five minutes to far exceed any ambition that I had had before the start. I went in to the race hoping to get a time around fifty minutes. To cross the line at forty eight minutes and twenty eight seconds was beyond belief. It just goes to show what hard work can achieve, and you can read this blog here.

But running and racing is not just about times or achievements. It is at its best when it is about sharing the experience with friends and helping them achieve their goals. One of the things I have benefited from so much has been running with my JogScotland group – and at times, the people in the group helping me, or me helping one of them, when things are hard. This picture is of me and my good friend Rob, as we celebrated him completed his first half marathon, at Chester towards the end of May. This was a great day and brought home to me again the sheer joy of being part of something that was much bigger than what I was achieving that day. To be with Rob that weekend – having been with him when we ran his first 10km race last year – and get him up that final hill before the finishing straight was undoubtedly a running highlight. My blog on that experience is here.

If Chester was a highlight because of running with friends, then the day in June when I took on the Westhill 10km race just outside Aberdeen was a highlight for other reasons. Mainly because it was so flipping hard. Hot day, hilly course, but somehow I managed to drag myself round to get to the finish line at under fifty minutes once more. While I love the picture of me finishing at the Aberdeen 10km, this one is probably a more honest depiction of what running feels like for me. Tough. Very tough. The race also came after a night run along the runway at Aberdeen Airport with my daughter (she will not allow me to post a picture from that :-)) so it was not exactly ideal preparation shall we say. The blog on this experience is here

Another race on another hot day – this makes it sound like Aberdeen had a heatwave this year!! – was the Aberdeen half marathon. This was another race I ran with a friend, helping her to a PB on a difficult day but it was another medal to add to the collection and another half marathon under my belt. This blog is here.

If the Aberdeen half marathon was about the struggles of others, then the Great Scottish Run in Glasgow was all about my own struggles. Like the forty eight minutes and twenty eight seconds I recorded for the Aberdeen 10km race in May, I still cannot really believe I got under one hour fifty four minutes for the half marathon distance. The race was a tough one, a mental battle as much as a physical one, but that reslience I touched on at the start really came to the fore that day to keep me going through the toughest parts. I honestly do feel now, no matter how tough things are, that I have gone through tougher patches in races compared to the patch that I am in at that specific moment. Experience breeds confidence and there was no lack of guts invested in that run, which you can read about here.

From the warmest of weathers at the start of the year in Barcelona, my racing journey finished at Culloden near Inverness at the end of October. This was Scottish conditions in late Autumn in all their glory – squally showers, rain mixed with hail when it came and gusty winds. If you look closely, you can see how blotchy my legs are from the elements they had to endure that day! But again, I got through it. I did not manage to break fifty minutes on this race but I came pretty close. To even get close to fifty minutes is so far beyond what my ambitions were when I started running a couple of years back and this blog is here

So those were the races, but those do not tell the full story. The true story of any runner is not the races, it is that plus everything else. The races are just the bits of glory that you tack on to the end of months of hard work. The runs in the dark, in the wet, in the wind. The nights when the last thing you want to do is leave the house and go out. The early mornings when the warm bed smothers you and does not want to let you get up and out. That is why the races matter as well. It is the realisation that the sacrifices have been worth it. That you get out of the sport what you put in.

This year I run faster than I ever have before. I ran further than I ever have before. I have run every week – even in the week after the marathon where my legs were like concrete – and continue to meet great people though running. The fun, friendships and camaraderie of running. That is also what is about.

And the other thing I have also learned is that if you run the Barcelona Marathon in hot temperatures and are pouring water over yourself to keep cool, then wearing light blue shorts was perhaps not the greatest fashion idea I had ever had. Thank goodness you can crop pictures!!