Look at the size of that

I am, and have always been, a bit of a big lad. Tall for my age when I was little, continued to stretch as a teenager and ended up at six foot two inches, and an appetite to match. For clothes, I am an extra large in everything. Sometimes a large, but you will almost always find me hanging around the XL size area of any clothes rail. Or at least I thought I was an XL in everything.

I have written lots of times before about my challenges around my weight, how running has been such a positive force in my life and helped me get, and stay, fit and healthy. So much of the whole issue around having a negative view of your body image (I think the technical term is body dysmorphia) clearly is what lies in your own head. Others may see you as slim, skinny, fit, healthy or whatever, but it is what is going on between your ears that matters. And that is unique to you.

“A bit of a bargain”

So where am I going with this? A couple of weeks back I began to see some Black Friday deals on running jackets, and I was in the market for a new one. I really wanted to get one that was both windproof and waterproof (or at least more wind and waterproof than I have at the moment). As we are heading into winter now, I thought this was the time to invest and get something, and if I could get a bit of a bargain then all the better.

I saw a good deal on a jacket from a company called Proviz, so I went to place an order. I looked at their sizing guide and I was a bit taken aback. What they classed as an XL was, to me, a bit on the neat side. I consulted a friend who I knew had one of their jackets and he told me, “there is no way you are a XXL”. So I went ahead and ordered the XL size. Then it came. And there was no way that zip was ever going to close I can tell you. In fact, there was no way the zip was even going to come near the opposite set of teeth. so back it went, and I dabbled in the world of the XXL.

“not exactly ideal”

The process was simple, no worries about that, and duly the XXL showed up a few days later. Out of the packet it came, all shiny and new, but while this time the zip at least made a connection, I was more concerned that if I breathed in a bit too much, either the back would split or the teeth would go pinging off in every direction. Not exactly ideal when it comes to wanting to use a jacket for running where movement and breathing are kind of a pre-requisite.

So my friend was right when he said, “there is no way you are an XXL”. Yep, I am not an XXL in Proviz terms. I am, in fact, an XXXL or an XXXXL. At this point I simply do not know, as I am awaiting the next delivery (I ordered both this time and will just send back the one which is their too big or too small (who knows??)).

“a lot bigger than I thought I was”

One thing I did do, because by this point of ordering I thought I was going slightly mad, was double check I was in fact ordering a men’s jacket, but yes I was. I was not ordering a woman’s. I was not ordering a unisex (with unisex I could understand if the sizing was a bit different to normal). I was ordering a standard men’s running jacket. And all of a sudden I have gone from thinking I am an XL into thinking, “well god only knows what size I am, but clearly I am a lot bigger than I thought I was”. And this is where the problem kicks in.

I already am sensitive about my body size. Now, in the saga of ordering one jacket, I am descending further down into the rabbit of hole of thinking, “well just how fat am I? Is all this effort worth it? Why am I bothering to do all of this running nonsense? Where is the chocolate?”. Comfort eating takes on a whole new appeal. And down we go.

This has all come at a time of a lot of negativity about running for me. Last week’s Falkirk Half Marathon fiasco, was then compounded this week when the company behind the event went bust. Putting out a statement where they portrayed themselves as the victim, really did not help either. The likelihood of any refunds now seems very remote, though I am exploring other avenues for that.

The self pitying post from the Falkirk Half organisers

Then if that was not bad enough, I got another marathon ballot rejection. This time from the Dublin Marathon, which I had hoped to do in October of next year. What is even more galling about this one, compared to every other race lottery I have entered, is that for this one, you have to pay just to enter the ballot. If you get in, the five Euros gets discounted from your race fee, but if you do not get in what happens? The organisers pocket the five Euro fee anyway. Easy way to make cash.

Another lottery kick in the teeth

But this takes me to some positives, amidst this sea of sadness and negativity. And that one positive is my running. I have not run much this week, concerned that the tweak of my ankle that I did last weekend when I ran the virtual half marathon would impair my recovery from that injury I sustained during the Bennachie Ultra Trail race a few weeks back.

But a gentle 5km with my friend Susan early on Friday morning, then a 10k around the beach, city and university area of Aberdeen on Saturday with another friend, Maxine, really did lift my spirits. A good chat, an opportunity to catch up, and to acknowledge the support of my running friends, made me realise that my size is only one aspect of me. It is not all of me. There is much more to me than whatever size of Proviz jacket I am wearing.

Early miles with Susan

Sunrise run with Maxine

I want to be clear that I am not having a go at anyone who is an XXL or above. We should all try our best to be happy in the skin we are in, but size has been an issue for me my entire life, it is hard to separate things out. It may sound farcical that a running jacket could make me feel like this and I also recognise that I could easily have just not ordered the jacket in the first place and gone somewhere else. But feel like it I did. And that is just me.

I do not want to finish on a down though, so a final bit of positivity. I mentioned the Bennachie Ultra Trail event earlier. Due to a mix up at the finish, I did not receive the hat I was due to get for doing the race. Basically it was not in the goodie bag I got at the end of the event. Well the hat finally arrived this week, and giving that we are heading into December and the winter months, I am likely going to need it. So here I am, a middle aged man, with concerns about his weight, stupidly excited to get his hands on a knitted hat.

Nice hat

Sometimes, it really is the small things which keep us going. Except when it comes to running jackets. My days of being a small are long behind me. Now, where is that XXXL delivery?

Not the Falkirk Half

I was on a work call at about lunchtime on Wednesday when I saw the email notification ping up on my phone. You know that bit where you get a bit of a preview of what the email says? I saw that it was from the organisers of the Falkirk Half Marathon and then I saw the dreaded words, “we regret to”.

I could not see any more of the message but I knew already what the rest of the sentence would be. I came off my call and sure enough, the race had been postponed. A variety of emotions rushed through me at that point – disappointment, a bit of anger, sadness, annoyance, frustration – and then I read the rest of the email.

“not acceptable”

I do not buy their reasons for cancelling – illness among a couple of the organising team – as an event of this size (around fifteen hundred runners) should not be reliant on a couple of people. A lot has been said online about the organisers (look it up, it is not hard to find) and I am not going to add to that here, suffice to say that cancelling a race just four days it is due to happen is not acceptable. Will it be rearranged? They have said we will hear within a week but I am not convinced. Will I get my money back? I am not holding my breath.

Most of my annoyance and frustration was not so much that the race itself would not go ahead, but that we had planned a whole weekend with my friend Rob, who was traveling up from Wales to run the race with me. You can read last week’s blog for more on that. Thankfully he had planned to drive up so did not have any flights or trains booked, and though we looked for alternative events, everything else was either full or had closed for entries, we decided to scrap the whole weekend. He was still able to cancel his hotel at no cost.

“disappointing is hardly the word”

But that is really not the point. The point is that everyone who had signed up for the race had put a huge amount of time and effort into their training and plans for the event. I am very lucky to have done lots of events and races, but I am sure for many this was going to perhaps be their first ever half, or that people were fund raising for the many great causes who benefit so much from people taking on the challenge of a distance race. For those people, to have it cancelled so late would have been crushing. It was bad enough for us – and both of us have said how gutted we are that we are not meeting up – but for those others I have mentioned, disappointing is hardly the word.

“all the benefits … have been lost”

The other point I want to make – and this is not really running related, but I think is typical for men of my age – is that I do not really have that many close male friends. Many of you will know that one of my best friends, Donald John, died a few years back. So these opportunities for us to meet up – at the weekend I was also going to spend time with my family in Falkirk who I do not see that often – are pretty limited. Yes we talk all the time on Whatsapp or Zoom, but it is not the same. So not only was the opportunity for us to run the race together snatched away, that in-person social contact, the chat of anticipation at the meal the night before, the laugh and celebratory drinks in the pub and all the benefits that positive experience would bring, was lost.

Sure we will look to arrange something in the coming months, and of course, there are far worse things going on in the world at the moment, but all of this matters to me.

“the tougher the conditions the better”

But now that the race had got canned, what was I going to do. Well, it would be fair to say that I had a bit of frustration to work off this week, so I decided I would run the distance anyway. Having had a nice couple of jogscotland runs during the week, I made up my mind to go out super early on Saturday morning and run my own half marathon just to get it out of the way. The fact that the weather forecast was grim just added to my determination to get it done regardless of the conditions. Yes I could have left it until Sunday when the forecast was better, but what would be the fun in that. The tougher the conditions the better.

It was grim, cold, wet, windy and dark when I set out just before seven o’clock and of those conditions only one changed. It got lighter. The wind was the most significant factor – rain and cold does not bother me – and the direction was from the south east. This would mean that for quite a bit of the first half of the route – and certainly on some of the most exposed parts – it would be in my face, but then would be behind for the slog back up the hill to my house. Yin and Yang, eh, you need to have some balance in life anyway.

Rough sea conditions at the beach

The wind was brutal on the exposed parts going out, particularly coming over the main bridge over the River Don, and also on that stretch of road it was a challenge to avoid getting even more drenched as buses powered through some of big puddles at the side of the road. I was so wet anyway it would not have made a huge difference but psychologically I felt better by staying out of their way. There is a great Scots word to describe the conditions today – dreich. And boy, was it dreich today.

A loop around the city centre and then it was off down to the beach front, to make maximum use of the wind behind to get an easy couple of miles on the flat promenade before the climb home. Often, on long runs, between nine and ten miles is when I feel best, and as this coincided with the gale behind me, I felt terrific at this point! But once I came off the beach, while what wind there was was still at my back, its effect was lessened by the effect of the buildings.

The south easterly wind propelled me along the beach front

It was then just a case of up the hill and done. I realised that I would hit the half marathon distance about three quarters of a mile before my house and I decided that I would stop my watch then, so I could record it as a half marathon (rather than what would have been a fourteen mile run). I stopped my watch as I passed the thirteen point one mile mark in just under two hours and ten minutes. I was super pleased with that, given the conditions on the day.

The time was irrelevant though, what was important was just doing it. I am often quite frustrated about my weight and my fitness – too negative and too critical if I am being totally honest – and I need to appreciate that it is pretty amazing that I have it in me to rock up and run a half marathon every month.

On the negative side, unfortunately I trod on a stone right at the end of my run and tweaked my ankle again so I will have to see how that settles down. It is certainly a bit sore at the moment. Injuries eh? But I have to take many positives from the run, even if the week itself has been a bit grim. Best thing to get over race cancellation blues? Booking another event. Right Rob, where do you fancy next?

Magic Moments

One more race for the year. One more big challenge to overcome. One more day to test myself against a distance. Just one more.

The race was one of my favourites from last year – the Falkirk Half marathon – which I ran with my brother and one of my friends. While they are not running it this year, I am running it with another friend, Rob, and that always makes it a special occasion.

Rob and I do not run together often – he lives in Wales and I am in north-eastern Scotland of course – but when we do, it is often for one of our big events of the year. With Rob, we ran his first 10k together and then his first half marathon. We ran the Liverpool Rock n Roll half together two years ago, where Rob produced an unbelievable effort to get round having been injured in a cycling accident only a couple of months before the actual event. So every run has always had a significance.

Rob and I after the Liverpool Half in October 2021

These runs have been among my favourites of the races I have done. Don’t get me wrong, there are races I have done on my own which I am incredibly proud of, but the ones where I have run with friends, both of us encouraging, cajoling, dragging each other round to get to the finish line, are truly memorable.

I am sure there have been points in these races where we could have killed each other as we slog up another hill or we tell the other, “there is no way we are stopping now” when we think about slowing down or having a breather, but all of that is forgotten in the glory of the finish, the medal being draped over our necks and then the celebratory pints in the pub afterwards as we reminisce about how it was not really all that bad and begin to plan the next adventure together.

“these are magical… moments”

It is this family feel. That time with friends. That sense of community. This is what running means to me. As much as there is the fitness and the knowledge that you are doing something which is going to make you healthier now and in later life, it is the companionship, the sharing of experiences, the sheer pleasure of each others company, even when things are tough, and the realisation that these are magical, never to be repeated, moments that means so much to me. I have been privileged to have so many and I am eternally grateful to all of my friends who I have run with.

From Paris to Pheonix. From Inverness to Chester. From Manchester to Aberdeen. From Falkirk to Chapelton and Kemnay. Two marathons with Jeanette. A half with Cara. 10ks with Susan and Maxine. The half that was not a half with Jan, David and Rob. The runs with my brother, with my friend Jon. The weekly runs with my jogscotland buddies. Every single one of these – and so many more that I could not fit into the collage – have been life affirming events.

It means so much because of where I have come from and it has impacted me in ways that I could not have imagined possible. Around eight years ago I struggled to walk up a flight of stairs and lived an incredibly unhealthy lifestyle of international travel, excessive eating, and if I am honest, drinking, weight gain and more. Take it from me, it is never too late to make the right choices.

“there are not going to be any records”

The preparation for this race has not been perfect, mainly through hurting my ankle a few weeks ago. But in the past couple of weeks, I have got in the miles which I feel I need to be as well prepared as I can be for the thirteen point one miles ahead. There are not going to be any records set on this run, but that is not what it is about. What it is about, is ever image above.

After a solid five and a half mile run and a six mile run during the week, I felt good about heading out for a twelve mile run this morning. Normally in the week before a half I would not run that far, but due to the setback with my ankle I wanted to get in a good chunk of miles as a confidence boost. My friend Cara joined me for a few of the early miles too.

In the early miles I felt ok, but I always knew that with the route I had chosen that the big test would come towards the end – the peril of living at the top of a hill – and I was not wrong. I had to wrestle with some internal mental battles as I tried to decide which of the various uphill routes to take to get back to my house. As it turned out, I did not have much in the way of options. Every way back was going to be a painful slog.

“I got through it”

So I am not sure it was that much of a confidence boost as I felt like I was breathing out of my backside as I struggled up the big hill at mile eleven, but I got through it and that was the main point. By mile twelve, when I was heading home on the flat, I felt ok once more. And again, like last weekend, the autumn colours were a joy. Even if the weather – pouring rain for most of it – was less than ideal.

The only thing really to say about the run is that it is out of the way. Other than the struggle up the hill, things went fine and I am in as good shape as I am going to be. There is nothing I can do now that is going to make things much better.

It is time for a relaxing week with maybe a couple of runs and winding down before taking on the half marathon challenge again. The fact I am doing it with Rob will ensure that, whatever happens, it will be a day to store away in the memory banks once more. And that is truly what life and running is all about.

Changed Days

Motivation is a weird thing. For some of the past few weeks, I have had zero motivation to run. None. Zip. Nada. The combination of crap weather, sore ankle, being away for a few days on holiday and busy at work, all came together at once. On Thursday I did something I rarely do. I got ready for a run. And then did not go. What is going on?

That night, I was due to be leading the six mile group at my local jogscotland group. Having been out with my ankle injury and not really run very much over the past couple of weeks, I had led the group on Tuesday night and despite some trepidation about how my ankle would stand up to it, it went really well and I felt pretty good.

“I took the easy way out”

But come Thursday, the weather had turned again. It was wet, windy, and slippy underfoot with fallen leaves. Now, all of these things are occupational hazards for running at this time of year, and on plenty of other occasions I have gone out and run in similar conditions. Weather, in general terms, does not deter me from running. However, as it turned out, no one actually came along for that six mile group. I could have, of course, joined any of the other groups and ran with them, but I took the easy way out. I went home.

I could easily beat myself up about this. In fact, part of me is beating myself up about it. But the reality is, with a race two weeks away and nothing to really be gained by going out, I made the choice which was right for me, in that moment. Would it have improved my fitness to have run? Yes, a bit. Would it have helped my ankle to have done a run? Maybe. Do I feel that I let myself down by not doing a run? A little. Does any of that matter? No.

“I still think I did the right thing”

We all face decisions when it comes to running or fitness in general. I have written before about the importance of recognising when NOT running is actually the right thing to do, and in this case, for me, I still think I did the right thing. Now had someone been there to run the six mile group, I would have gone out with them and been happy to do it. I would have put aside the concerns and pounded out the miles. But I did not. And that was ok. Running is an individual thing. Always make the decision which is the right one for you, no one else. In the end, you are the one who is going to run the race. Nobody else.

Fast forward twenty four hours and I am sitting at home, cosy in front of the fire, having had a couple of beers. One positive thing from Covid is that me and a few people from work have a chat on Zoom at 6pm on a Friday night to round off the week. We started it during Covid as a way of keeping in touch socially and it has continued on. So we have a beer or two, we chat about anything except work, and it sets off the weekend.

“I was determined to go out”

However, after the call on Friday night, I had already decided that my second beer would be my last drink – other than soft ones – as I was determined to go out on Saturday morning for a long-ish run. I had thought about doing something in the range of eight or nine miles or so. So what was different?

The forecast was better for a start, but that was only a minor consideration. What was different was that I had resolved in my head that I really HAD to run. If I want to get to Falkirk for the half marathon in semi decent shape, then I needed to get some miles in. I never take running for granted, regardless of the distance, and though a half distance is something I do frequently, running thirteen point one miles is a serious undertaking. So thirty six hours after bailing on a run, I set out once more.

“much more about just getting it done”

In the event, I loved my run. I was not pushing too hard for pace, as this was much more about just getting it done and I also took advantage of the good weather to stop and take some pictures. Such has been the state of the weather in the last few weeks, I could not really recall the last time I had been out when it had not been wet and/or windy and therefore a bit miserable. The conditions were, for me, pretty much my ideal.

Almost no wind. Cool temperatures in the fifties Fahrenheit (around 12 Celcius). Out while the sun was just coming up and the roads were still very quiet. I only saw another couple of runners and that was when I was about two thirds of the way through my run, which ended up at ten miles, slightly further than I had intended to go.

While I had a route in mind, I had not plotted it out in a detailed way. I usually use the website MapMyRun for planning routes for distance but this time I had just decided I would go out and see how far it was when I got to a certain point. When I got there and realised I was about a mile further ahead that I thought I would be at that stage – plus I was feeling pretty good – then it was straightforward to ensure after that that I would reach the ten mile mark. It is amazing how you get to know, pretty accurately, the distance from any point back to your house.

“I will continue building towards the race”

My ankle is ok. It still feels a bit sore after a run and I am still wearing a strapping when I do run – and overnight to help with compression – but I am pretty confident that if it can stand up to the rigours of a ten miler then I will be fine to get to the half marathon mark. Usually at this point I would be winding down the mileage ahead of a race, but my current thinking is that next weekend I will perhaps try and go a bit further. Rather than tapering I will continue building towards the race. That is, of course, all dependent on how my ankle continues to feel. Let’s see how it goes.

Do I feel more motivated after my run today? Absolutely. Do I regret not running on Thursday night? Probably a little. Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? It definitely does not.