Perfect Day

All I can see ahead of me is a sea of people moving. And we are all moving uphill. Many people are walking, but I am running. In the distance I can see a building with mirrored windows and I know that is where my wife is going to be standing waiting to see me. I have just past the 41km mark of the Barcelona Marathon. It is tough and things have been tough for a while. Then from the crowds lining the street a woman shouts encouragement, “Venga! Venga! Campiones!!” (Come on! Come on! Champions!!). In that moment, she gave me the encouragement I need to keep going up that hill. If one thing summed up Barcelona it was that moment. I well up just thinking about it.

Head down I plough on. It is very hot but luckily this street has a bit of shade. I pour another bottle of water over my head to keep cool, something I have been doing for about the past ninety minutes. I am aware that I am passing people, but also some people are passing me. As I get to the final, steep part of the hill, a runner goes down. So close to the finish, but as others help him, I carry on. I just need to get past this rise and I am almost there.

With a final effort I get over the brow of the hill and reach the flat part of the course. I raise my arms. I know I am going to be able to run a full marathon without stopping. I begin to recover from the effort and as I scan the crowd I spot my wife. I run over to high five her. I suddenly feel ecstatic. The man next to her high fives me as well. Only a few hundred metres to go now. I turn into Plaza Espana and look up at the two giant towers that straddle the entrance, the course is still rising but very gently.

The view looking towards the finish line

I try and focus. I want to drink in the experience, I need to remember this, I need to take it all in. I can see the finish line and the fountains beyond. I keep going, still overtaking people, as I reach the line I look at the clock, raise my hands and punch the air. It is over. I have done it. I am a two time marathon finisher. As I stop I almost stumble but I gather myself and I punch the air again. I have taken on what will be, for me, the ultimate physical challenge and I have done it. It is the most incredible feeling. Relief yes, but also euphoria.

(You can watch a short video of me running and finishing the race here. My bib number is 7262.)

Four and a half hours earlier I had been in the same place but heading in the opposite direction, full of nerves. I felt ready but anxious about what lay ahead. It was a beautiful, if slightly chilly morning as I headed towards the start line before 8am.

Even before the race began the sun was warming things up

We started before 9am, but even then it was clear that the early morning coolness was not going to last and it was going to be a warm day, warm even for the Catalan capital at this time of year. There was not a cloud in the sky as we walked toward the start line. The song, “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe rang out as the confetti cannons fired and our wave began. The atmosphere among the runners was euphoric. As I reached the line, the song changed to an upbeat Spanish number which clearly all the locals knew as ninety per cent of the runners began singing and clapping along. Then we began to run.

I knew the early miles of the course were a slow climb towards Barcelona’s Nou Camp football stadium so I had always intended to take this part pretty easy, knowing of the greater challenges which lay later in the race. I crossed the line and in those opening miles quite a lot of runners went past me. After 5km I was in 12724th place, a number I will come back to later. For me this was a crucial part of the run and I made an important decision. I ignored them.

This was about me running my race, not being distracted by anything or anyone else. The race was marked in kilometres, with signs for miles only every five miles of the race. As someone who always paces in miles this did give me some other mathematical challenge to figure out on the way around.

“I was going to abandon my plan to aim for a time “

As I got to that five km mark I had already made another decision. I was going to abandon my plan to aim for a time around 4 hours 20 minutes and I was going to focus on maintaining an even pace and getting round safely. It was clear to me in those early miles – most of which were in the shade – that the day was going to be too hot to push things hard. After around ten miles the course would open up and the shade would be much less so this was going to get hot, certainly much hotter than anything I had been training in for the past four months through a Scottish winter.

The marathon route passed some of Barcelona’s most iconic sights

The course itself was pretty flat and took you round some of the city’s most iconic sites and there is no doubt that running along past the Gaudi designed Sagrida Familia Church was truly a special memory. As I came past there I ran past two Canadian women, running with special Canadian flag hats. We talked briefly then I carried on. The course had two sections which basically ran up and back, which was mentally hard as the runners only a few feet away were, in fact, miles ahead of me. The second of these, up the Diagonal, was particularly tough going as it seemed to stretch forever, but on I ploughed. This was also the section where all the runners had to move to one side to allow an ambulance past. There were physios tending to runners every so often as well at the side of the road as well. It was becoming very warm now but I was making good progress, the kilometres were ticking by.

“I would find it almost impossible to start running again”

From now until the end of the race, many people were walking. It was so tempting to join them, but I knew that if I did I would find it almost impossible to start running again. So I thought about some things. I thought about how much pain I had been in when I had done the Stirling Marathon in Scotland last year, and I knew that this time the pain was nothing like as severe. So I kept going. I thought about all the morning and evening training runs, particularly the ones with the JogScotland group as I got to 10km and less to go, a distance I had run hundreds of times, a distance I knew I could do. And I kept going. I thought about the runs I had done on my own, with no support. And I kept going.

“their words were replacing the energy I was losing.”

And then there was the crowds, which grew in size the further along the course we went. As we approached the Arc de Triomf the crowds really swelled and everyone was cheering and clapping. The race organisers also had bands playing almost every kilometre of the race, so that in sections where the crowds were thinner you still got the sense of people supporting you. But back to the crowds. “Vamos” they would shout. “Animos” they would shout. “Venga” they would shout. Every so often someone would shout my name as it was on my bib number. (I heard so many different Spanish pronunciations of Craig on the way around it brought a smile to my face every time). And it was almost like their words were replacing the energy I was losing. As we turned from the Arc de Triomf the road ahead resembled to me one of those stages in the Tour De France where the cyclists are just making a path through wall to wall people, there just seemed to me to be so many people on the road. And so I kept going.

5km to go now – just a Parkrun. As we headed back towards the seafront I could see the cruise ships. I knew there was not far to go. On towards 4km and the statue of Christopher Columbus came into view. This really gave me a boost and I gave myself a few “come ons!!” to push on. The statue was 3km from the finish. 3km. A distance I would regard as nothing on a normal day. But when you have run 39km it is not a normal day. This was a day unlike any other.

We passed the Columbus statue and turned to run up the Parallel. In previous years this was the finishing stretch, straight up the Parallel, a steady climb but I knew that this year the course had been changed to take out some of that taxing uphill section. However as I looked ahead I could not work out where we were going to turn. The hill looked like it went on forever. I had also hoped that this section would be in the shade but no, we were still in the sun. By now it was after 1pm and the temperature was around 20C. At every water stop for the previous 10km I had been drinking water then pouring the rest over me to keep cool, not something I had ever had to do in Aberdeen.

“My body had fought my mind and my body had won”

Then suddenly I saw the runners ahead were turning, turning into the shade and when we turned there was the final water station and I saw the 40km sign. I was almost there. I was still running. There was no way now I was going to walk. I had got through that tough part. My body had fought my mind and my body had won. The road was still going uphill and I was still overtaking others. I grabbed more water, drank some then dunked the rest over my head. I took my hat off in the shade to try and cool down, even just a little. And then I turned and I heard that cry of “Venga! Venga! Campiones!!”.

When I crossed the line I stopped my watch, but my phone had died on the way round so I had no idea what my time was. I did not care. Even though I had gone into the race with a specific time in mind, it did not matter to me anymore. I had done it. I had run a marathon, actually run it. And that means so much to me. I know this sounds stupid but I did not just want to be a marathon finisher, I wanted to prove to myself that I could run the full distance. No stopping. No walking. I am not criticising anyone who does. Just completing a marathon is an incredible achievement regardless of the time you take or the way you get from start to finish, but to me, inside, deep, deep inside, it was important to me to do it this way. Running is you against the distance. And on that day, in that city, I overcame the challenge I had set myself. My time? More than eight minutes faster than my previous best at 4hrs 30mins 23secs.

After finishing, the pain is quickly forgotten

Recovery started soon afterwards

The other statistic that I am really happy with is that I finished 10127th. But you need to bear in mind where I was after 5m. In the race I overtook almost 2600 other runners between the 5km mark and the finish. And I did it by maintaining that even pace, and though I slowed in the last 7km, others slowed more than me, so in the last 2km alone, I actually overtook more than 300 runners. Had I gone out quicker I would never have been able to stay at that pace for as long as I did.

Sticking to an even pace really paid dividends

So what now? Well this week, not unreasonably, I have not run at all. I went for a sports massage on Monday to help my recovery but I will not lie that I was pretty stiff for a few days afterwards, probably also not helped by a hugely busy work schedule involving four days of 4am/5am starts and travel to Madrid, Paris and Copenhagen. Plus the challenge of various flights of stairs along the way.

Downstairs is always worse than going up!!

I hope this weekend to make it out for a gentle run and am certainly planning to take my running stuff with me for a work trip to Paris and Lubljana in Slovenia this week. I have a 10k and a half marathon in May to get ready for after all.

Will I ever run another? At this point I am not thinking about another marathon race. The training for it is so demanding that I would need to have some serious motivation to take on that challenge once more. My focus for the rest of the year certainly is on a few 10km and half marathon runs.

“waves of emotion that keep sweeping over me”

What if Barcelona is to be my second and last ever marathon? I really doubt I will ever be able to beat the experience I had on Sunday. It is so hard to put into words the waves of emotion that keep sweeping over me. There have been times through this week I have been biting my lip and fighting back tears as I think back to various stages of the run, particularly the encouragement of strangers in the crowd. In fact, I found myself having to do that during the run itself, so overwhelming was the nature of the day. The course, the weather, the crowds. Amazing.

I know that the achievement will never mean as much to anyone else as it does to me. Not even close. And it means so much to me. The training. The not going out on a Saturday night because of the prospect of a Sunday long run. The fitting in the training around work and family life. The runs in the rain. The runs in the snow. The Parkrun PBs. The runs on Boxing Day and New Years Day. The runs in the dark. The runs with the JogScotland group. The runs when I have been abroad with work or on holiday. The easy runs. The tough runs. The runs when the last thing you wanted to do was run. The treadmill runs. The runs with friends. The marathon is all of that and more. And in one 26.2 mile course you pour all of that out into the effort to get yourself safely round. I am a marathon runner.

Though I will finish with one bit of advice. Be aware that if you are wearing light blue shorts and you pour water over yourself to stay cool during a race, then in all your post race photographs it will look like you have wet yourself!! Happy Running 🙂

The perils of mixing water with light blue shorts!!

Heroes

When you start any sport, you often look for those you wish to emulate; those runners who you admire for their achievements. So if running is just about achievements, then is there room for any joy? This might seem an odd way to begin a piece reflecting on 2018 but I think it is a relevant question to ask.

I have been fortunate to have a lot of joy in running in the course of the past twelve months and many of the most important parts of that have not come through setting a personal best or achieving a particular target. It has not come from beasting out another session or getting out there when the rain was pouring down or the wind was howling – though I have done all of these things. What caused most of that joy was actually running with, and the reactions of, friends and family. These are the heroes of my running year.

2018 was the year that I ran again with my brother, Gary. We had not run together for years – we live a hundred or so miles apart so we it is tough for us to run with each other socially – but this year we managed to fit in a little four miler while he was visiting one weekend. That then led on to us running  a race together – the Men’s 10k in Edinburgh, which was one of my favourite races of the year. The main reason I enjoyed it so much was because we ran together, each helping the other, plus it was a great course, a chilly, but sparkling Autumn day for a run through the streets of the capital city. That social engagement is something that has become increasingly significant for me this year.

At the finish inside Murrayfield Stadium

2018 was also the year that I ran a few times with friends from work – Rob and Jon – both of whom have been kind enough to say that they have got into running and taken some inspiration from my own decisions over the past couple of years to get healthy and exercise. Jon and I got in some miles while working together in Dublin, though it was tough going through the crowds in Temple Bar.

Running with Jon on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin

Rob and I ran together a few times – near London, in Singapore and in Madrid in Spain. I also managed to persuade Rob to race for the first time, and we had a great day outside Edinburgh at the Scottish 10k race where I helped pace him round. This was another fabulous day of weather, but it was also great for me to do a race where I felt the pressure was off me to go out and beat a personal best. I was there to make sure Rob got round and to help him to get to the finish line. He did it in a great time but that is really not important. Next year, all three of us want to race together, to have that shared experience or a race with each other. The time is not relevant. What is significant is achieving the common goal and supporting ourselves through it.

Celebrating Rob’s first 10k

I was fortunate enough to also run with another colleague from work, Jan, while I was in Madrid as well. We set out just to do some short runs, but as Jan was training for his first marathon he mentioned that he would be doing 20 miles (32km) one Sunday and would I like to join him for at least part of it. Having not run further than half marathon distance for a couple of months I thought I could probably get up to around 15 miles without too much difficulty, but I certainly never thought when we set out that I would still be with him when we got to the 20 mile mark. I would never, ever, have got there alone, so once again it was that camaraderie, that joy in sharing that running journey on that day that got me through.

The joy of getting back up to twenty mile distance with a great friend

Jan and I had started the year running in the freezing temperatures of Pyeongchang in South Korea – where we were working at the Winter Olympics – so to complete this run in the pleasant October temperatures in Madrid was even more special. Also during the trip to Madrid I ran with Brian and with Josh – both of whom had also been in Pyeongchang too. This kindred spirit of runners has been a bit of a revelation to me.

In Aberdeen I completed two races with my friend Fiona, though we only actually ran a very short part of each race together. Now you might think this slightly odd, but it came about because both of us were chasing different personal bests for each race – 10k and half marathon – but the encouragement we gave each other during our training and then at the start of each race definitely helped spur me on. Fiona achieved PBs in both races and we plan to do more training together next year as she heads for her latest half marathon challenge in Edinburgh in May.

Celebrating Fiona’s half marathon PB

So if 2018 has meant anything to me it has been that sharing of joy – and nothing can explain that more than my reaction to what was my biggest achievement. I set PBs for 5k, 10k, half marathon (probaby what I rank as my best race) and I also completed my first marathon. In Stirling back in April I reached 26.2 miles for the  first time and as I crossed the finish line I was disappointed. Now you might think, “what an idiot, what the hell have you got to be disappointed about?”. And you would be right, but at that point, in that moment, I was disappointed because I had walked for part of the race. Injury in the last few weeks before the run had brought my training to a complete standstill and I suffered for that in the last few miles of that run, so I walked and ran the final miles.

Walking and running those last few, lonely marathon miles

I collected my medal and went to meet my family and it was only at that point, through their reaction, their support, their congratulations, that it actually dawned on me what I had actually achieved. For all I have talked here about the support of others, running can be a solitary pursuit. The vast majority of my miles this year have been run on my own, in varying weather and in many different countries. None of my running achievements will ever mean as much to anyone else as they will to me and reaching the end of that marathon course will leave with me for the rest of my life.

The joy at the end of my marathon journey

I got invited to join the Racecheck visor club (www.rachecheck.com) and also began to go to the Aberdeen Parkrun in summer, then in the final couple of months of the year I joined a running group for the first time and I have really found the welcome from the JogScotland group and the motivation the people have given me has really spurred me on and given me a new focus to some elements of my training. I also follow lots of great people on Twitter who have been so generous with their advice and support.

I have been unbelievably lucky, for so many reasons this year. Lucky to have run in place as diverse as Las Vegas, Pyeonchang, Singapore, Munich, Edinburgh, Rome, Slough, Cologne, Madrid, Beijing, Ljubliana, Berlin, Venice, Falkirk, Amsterdam, Paris, Warsaw and, of course, Aberdeen.

 

 

But much more than where I have run, or how fast I have run, or how many PBs I have set or how many goals I have reached, it has been about that sense of joy shared with others that has meant so much. It is also why, when my wife gave me a medal hanger as a Christmas present this year I was overcome with emotion. My family have to put up with a lot with my running so to get this from then really meant a lot. I now have somewhere permanent in my house where I can reflect on everything I have achieved in running – and have that as a reminder of all of my friends and family who have supported me. It is not about the journey which is run alone, it is about the journey which is shared with others. And for that, to everyone, I thank you for helping me get there.

Now for 2019…..

 

A Thousand Miles

Saturday night. The wind is absolutely howling as Storm Deirdre blasts her way over the north of Scotland. Rain is battering against the window. I am sitting inside thinking, “do I really want to go out for a long run tomorrow morning if the weather is remotely like this?”.

I think everybody who does any kind of outdoor activity has moments like this. When it is cold. When it is dark. When it is windy. When it is pouring with rain, or even worse snowing. Or even when you yourself, for whatever reason, simply does not feel like getting off the sofa and out of the house.

But as I sat there last Saturday – having already been blasted by the wind at the parkrun that morning – I was determined that I was going to set my alarm for 6.30am, get up and get out. I have said before that a lot of running is done in your head. This was no different, because in my head was a target. A target to get to 1000 miles before the end of the year.

I fully realise that this is simply an arbitrary number – I mean, what difference does it make if you do 999 or 1001 – but when I began to realise a few weeks ago that I was homing in on the 1000, well then there was no way that I was not going to get there. Resilience has been infused in my DNA over the final part of 2017 and through 2018 I think and while it is here, then I fully intend to make use of it.

However, I cannot say that I was anything other than relieved when I did get up on Sunday morning that Deirdre had pretty much blown through and while it was a bit breezy to start with, essentially it was a near perfect December day for running. While it was cold, it was dry and the biggest obstacle was dodging around a load of dropped branches that peppered the streets where I ran.

I again chose  new route, adding miles on the route that I had run the previous weekend. With around 40 miles left to get to the magical 1000, I worked out a route that would get me halfway there. There were some challenging moments – a hill that I had not really factored in on a new part of the route was one – the most challenging of which was when I got to the end of the run along Aberdeen’s beachfront and looked at my watch hoping that I had gone around 18.5 miles so I had a short route home. My heart did sink when I saw it said 17 as that meant I had faced a long, slow climb for almost two miles to get me back on track. This is where the resilience comes in. I just sucked it up, got focused and got it done, all the way to 20 miles.

My 20 mile route around Aberdeen

I stopped when I came to a junction near my house to have a short warm down. Had I noticed the distance on my watch I would have gone the extra 0.02 of a mile to get to 2018!!

I totted up my total for the year and that left me with just around 18 miles to go, and a work trip to Madrid gave me the chance to knock off more of those miles. I managed a 3 mile and 4 mile run with a colleague from work but he could not make it out on Wednesday morning so I struggled through a very tired and slow 5 mile run to get me within touching distance of the goal. That 5 mile run in particular, starting when it was still dark, was so tough as my legs felt so heavy but again, it was just about getting it done. My legs were telling me to stop. My head was telling me to plough on. For me, if my head is right, then the rest will follow. I am not a big fan of running every day, but for the moment it was what I needed to do to get me to the target.

There it was then, one more run of around 6 miles would get me over the line, and knowing that I had my usual JogScotland run lined up for Thursday night, this would be my chance.

The contrast to that final run in Madrid could not have been more marked. I did a 1 mile warm-up run before meeting up with the group and then the 6 mile run itself felt so easy. I felt strong all the way through, the way I dream of feeling when it comes to the marathon in Barcelona in eleven weeks time. If I can maintain this level of fitness and build on it with my training plan, then I am hopeful of a good race and time.

The run that finally got me past the 1000 mile mark for 2018

I honestly cannot believe that I have run 1000 miles this year – in case you are wondering how I kept track, I have been logging my training via the Great Run Training website that I used when preparing for the Stirling Marathon back in April – but I am so glad I have done it. Whether I will ever achieve this again is another question. For the moment I think I should celebrate my achievement and reflect on everything I have done in 2018, but I need to couple that with the reality that I am in the middle of another marathon training plan, with lots of miles to go before I even reach that start line.

All of these miles of course to get me to the 1000 are also counting towards my Run Up to Christmas total, and here another arbitrary number hoves into view. With all the running, I have now reached 181 km since the start of the month – way beyond my initial hope of 50 km. I think I might need to go for the 200 km. What do you think?

Step On

Running, for me, has always been full of highs and lows. This week has rather perfectly encapsulated both of these.

It started on a real high. I am still working over in Madrid and one of my colleagues is training for his first marathon. His schedule had him planning to a 32 km (20 mile) run on Sunday and I said that I would come out and run with him, at least for part of the way. While I have run around half marathon distance a few times since I did my first marathon in April I have not run anything further than that so was really not sure how things would go.

The weather in Madrid has been beautiful, but quite warm by late afternoon so we headed out around 8am on Sunday morning when it was still pretty cool. I have been surprised at how hilly the city is but we aimed to do a route that was undulating to start with but relatively flat later on.

We also discussed how we wanted to pace the run, taking things pretty easy as this would be the first time he had run this far, and for me, I was very uncertain I would be able to make it to the full distance we had planned.

We began with an undulating first 6km or so that took us from our hotel at the West of the city, right across to the Eastern side at the Faro de Moncloa tower and near the Victory Arch from where we descended into one of Madrid’s many parks.

The park next to the Victory Arch at around 6km in to our run

From there we carried on to an uphill stretch, aiming to reach the Casa De Campo, which is a very large parkland area with trails where we thought we could run another 10km of the route. We got slightly lost at this point but always had the Royal Palace as a reference point so by the time we reached the gates into the park, next to the Rio River, we had hit about 10km in just more than one hour. This was a little faster than we had intended, so we kept reminding each other to slow it down a bit. One thing I learned in my marathon training was the importance of time on my feet rather than just pace – certainly for a first timer – so we focused on that for a bit.

The entrance to the Casa De Campo area

The next section was the toughest part of the run, as it was steadily uphill for around 5km to the top of the park, but this did, of course, mean that we had 5km of a flat or downhill section to come after this. At this point I was really not sure that I would be able to make the full distance, but as we came back down and took it easy I began to feel better and my legs were not complaining too much as we reached the area along the riverside.

This is a great area for running and cycling and there were many others out enjoying what was a beautiful Sunday morning for some exercise. This whole riverside area has been revitalised in recent years with the addition of paths on both sides and it was a superb place to run. Lovely and flat, for the most part, we ran along past the former home of Atletico Madrid as the temperature began to rise but a cooling breeze did help, along with the many water fountains that are placed along the route (and in Case de Campo) so you can refill your water bottle easily on the run. A lot of places in the UK could learn from this initiative!

When I have done long runs like this at home I would always run with gels, but this time I was relying on my electrolyte drink solely, as I had not taken any gels with me. Despite this, I was still feeling pretty ok as we headed towards 25km and beyond, further than I had planned.

Now not all of the route along the riverside was scenic, but as we turned and headed back it was a real boost to see the Royal Palace and nearby Cathedral come in to view.

Along the riverside, there are distance markers for every 50 metres. Frankly, when I was getting up towards 28km, the last thing I needed was a reminder of distance every 50 metres!! Then even more bizarrely, the markers disappeared at 1.75km, I guess they have not yet finished the full riverside revamp yet.

The not particularly helpful distance markers!

At this point I was beginning to flag a bit to be honest, but I think this is where mental toughness comes in and an important part of my distance running has been about learning how to handle the tough parts. So while I may have been feeling it, I told myself that we had around 4 km to go, probably close to thirty minutes of running and that I could see that through. I was not going to give up for the sake of only another 4km, not when I had got this far.

My friend and I had chatted all the way around, so we kept the pace nice and easy and headed further than he had run before (28km). We were relying on his watch for distance, as my Fitbit had failed to connect to my phone and I know that when it does that it measures my runs longer than they actually are. This also meant my run did not sync with Strava which was a bit frustrating.

The route we followed for the 32 km run

However, it felt great as we headed to the final stretch and made it to the 32km point, including a final push from both of us to get to the end. It was such a great feeling to complete the run, to do the distance and exceed my own expectations. I guess it goes to show just how much fitness you build up over time that enabled me to bang out a run of that distance without any specific preparation for it. I think it also gave me a real boost about my capabilities, even when I am not training for a specific long distance race, and mentally it, again, taught me about myself and what I can achieve. All of the running last week also contributed to my highest ever weekly step count – more than 160,000!

So if that was the high, then what about the low? Well, like most people who applied for the London Marathon next year, I got my rejection notification this week. While this is not really a surprise – the ballot was ten times over-subscribed – I cannot say that it did not come as a disappointment. What also did not help was that I went out for a run the day I got the email  and on that run I felt like I had never run before in my life. Two miles of torture, two days after doing the twenty miler. You learn from every run, and that was a real toughie.

So if London is not to be, then what will be my marathon plans for next year? I am going to wait until next week when I get home then make a decision. I think Edinburgh is looking the favourite right now, but let’s see. There is a Madrid marathon at the end of April you know…..

 

 

I Travel

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with traveling. For the past eleven years or so I have traveled extensively for work. While this has enabled me to go to some amazing places and visit some incredible cities, it has also meant a lot of time away from home and family.

The other thing about traveling is that for a long time it was also the excuse I used for live an incredibly unhealthy lifestyle. Airport lounges, free food and drink, staying in hotels all the time, going out for meals with colleagues and customers all added up to me ballooning in weight, becoming seriously unfit and blaming it all on the traveling rather than acknowledging the issue rested with me.

Now I still feel guilty about my travel with work – attempting to strike the right balance between time away and time at home is something I never feel I have got right – but at least now I use my time away a lot more productively than I used to, because I now use it as an opportunity to get out and run. And I am so lucky to get the opportunities to do this in cities across the world.

This week and next I am working in Madrid in Spain, somewhere I have visited a couple of times but I have never really spent any length of time in the city, and certainly have never spent any time exploring or running. I am staying to the west of the city centre, and this week some of my work colleagues are also very in to running so we have been going out regularly, which has been fantastic.

Initially we just ran around the streets close to the hotel, getting to around 5k distance but then one of my colleagues asked if I would fancy a longer run, going down to Park Retiro in Madrid and back, a distance of around 11k. This was fine so off we went. Now I know the other guy really well, we have worked together for years, but it was one of these runs where I thought he was setting the pace, and he thought I was setting the pace, and at no point during the run did either of us say, “hey, this is a bit fast!”, so we basically flogged each other to death for 11.5k, on a hilly route. Madrid is WAY hillier than I ever imagined. So the pace was high all the way around, so much so that I recorded my second fastest 10k EVER!! It was only after we had finished we both commented on how fast the other one was setting the pace. Lesson learned, make sure to work out the pace before you start!

I never knew Madrid had so many hills

But Park Retiro is really beautiful so I ventured back there later in the week for a bit of a tourist run, this time stopping to take pictures as I went and this time I made a point of not just running around the permiter, but also heading in to the centre of the park to run around the lake, which I caught just as the sun was coming up – spectacular.

 

If you ever come out here, I would really recommend it for a run, or just a visit, it is a lovely place, though it is not flat!! It is also worth mentioning that if you do go for a run, make sure you know your route back. I did my usual trick of thinking I was running in the right direction for about five minutes before realising that nothing looked familiar, looking at Google Maps and seeing that I was at least two roads away from the road I should have been on. One day I am going to go on a long run somewhere I do not know and not get lost, but I have no idea when that is going to be.

 

The other thing about this week in Madrid is that I cannot believe how dark it is in the mornings. It does not get light until after 8am (it is, of course, then light in the evenings), but this has meant that quite a few of my shorter runs have been completely in the dark. which is fine, but just not something I was anticipating. The run to Retiro Park takes around half an hour from the hotel so it was just getting light when I got there, but other, shorter runs, have been before sunrise.

The early morning commute in the darkness

One thing that has been great to see is how many other people are also out and about at that time of the morning, particularly around the various small parks that are dotted around this part of the city, as well as the Retiro. I guess this is also because the temperatures are much more suited to running at that time of the day. Even though it is October the temperatures have been in the mid to hight twenties celcius all week. I am not a runner who likes the heat, so getting out early has suited me far better.

My route also takes me down past the bullring in Madrid

So I head home next weekend and hope to make the most of my time here with regular runs, outwith the work of course, and then next week, like many others I await my fate for the ballot for a place in the London marathon. I am pretty fatalistic about my chances but we shall see. If it it is not to be for London, then Edinburgh will be my next marathon adventure. But for the moment, it is a bit more of Madrid I am going to explore.

Returning to the theme of my post, I could not have imagined doing this only a few years ago. I would have been far more interested in the bar and the food than anything else. I am so glad I made that positive change in my life.