Fun Day

What do you do if you are on the tube and you realise that you have your top on inside out? It wasn't totally obvious as the top looks pretty much the same either way but the massive label hanging out of the side was a bit of a give away. The thing was, I couldn't really quickly whip it off, turn it in the right way and put it back on because the carriage was full of people and they were mostly looking my way, not at me but at the baby.

It was the baby's fault anyway. I didn't want to haul the pushchair up the staircase in the place in Carlton House Terrace where the changing was for the BUPA 10K that I'd just run in and then again, I didn't want to have to lie him on the floor while I was getting changed. So, what I had done was to quickly change my top in the lobby area (largely unnoticed by the passing athletes - who mostly wouldn't have cared anyway because it's the sort of thing athletes do all the time). However, I hadn't really paid sufficient attention to whether it was on the right way and now I found myself in the dilemma of whether to just leave it or whether to again publicly reveal my underwear and pregnancy assaulted midrift.

At East Finchley the carriage largely emptied, just one guy a bit further down listening to his music and not really paying much attention to anything. I whipped off my top, turned it in the right way and felt a lot happier with the way things were going.

I'd been in a hurry to get back because I was meant to be helping with the Fun Day on the old Barracks estate in Mill Hill. I'd been up at 7am making sandwiches for it and spend most of Saturday baking the "best ever fairy cakes" or so the recipe said. I questioned my choice of purple icing but at the time it seemed like a good idea. I did notice that the purple ones were the last to be eaten. There is something about purple that suggests that it shouldn't be eaten, especially the shade of purple that I had managed to create.

I got back as they were packing things into the C2G van to go up there but I still had to get changed (I made sure the T-shirt was the right way in) and get up to the Barracks with the kids. Mostly the setting up went well. None of us could remember how to put up the gazebo and then we found we didn't have the corner pieces so we had to go back for them but, other than that it was OK.

The sandwiches and cakes etc arrived (squashed) and the ice lollies had nowhere to go, except into the sun or into eager kids tummies because the cool bags were still on their way but it all added to the experience. I have never seen such a disorganised mis-mash of food for a picnic but nobody seemed to care and nearly everything got eaten.

The bouncy castle was as popular as ever and the silly games were great, loved the eating chocolate mousse through tights games although I wondered whether it was a good idea to introduce them to wearing tights over their heads at such an early age, they looked like under-aged bank robbers.

There were loads of kids and it was a great event. The weather was perfect. The team from Mill Hill East Church was fabulous and worked really hard. Our youth worker, Chris, was amazing doing the games and Gen and Yasmina did a fantastic job with the face painting. However, what struck me was that there were very few parents there. Chris did one game where you needed a dad (or mum) to squirt water at. He got no volunteers. It wasn't that the parents were unwilling to take part in the game, it was simply that there were so few parents there. There must have been nearly 50 kids there and almost no parents! Some of the kids were really young too, most were junior school age or below.

I can't imagine just letting my kids go off on their own like that. I'd want to know what they were up to for one thing and also want to be involved in what they were doing, sharing the experience with them. I can't believe that so few parents on the estate wanted to do that. This estate is pretty small but I imagine that same scenario being reflected up and down the country. There must be thousands of kids out there who are just left to do their own thing without any involvement from the parents.

We can only do so much as a church, we barely have enough money to fund one youth worker let alone a children's worker and whatever else we would need to provide support on this estate. It's difficult to know what to do but I hope that days like Sunday will help the kids to know that we care about them and that we will always be there for them.

Bupa 10k 2012

This Sunday was the Bupa 10,000. It's a 10k race round the same route as the Olympic marathon except that we only did one loop and I think that they will do 4 loops for the marathon. It's quite a nice race to do because, as a Championship athlete (i.e. my club entered me to take part in the UK 10km championships), you get priority treatment and there are very posh loos in the place where you have to meet up before the race. Not that I got to use the posh loos this year, but that's another story.

I ran the same race last year and I remember being engulfed in runners within about 100m of the start but this year they seemed to send the championship athletes (including the likes of Mo Farah and Mara Yamuchi) off a couple of minutes ahead of everybody else so it was a bit less depressing because I wasn't overtaken by masses of people right after the start. In fact, I wasn't overtaken by many people because I started near the back of the pack, not having high expectations of running a fast 10k only 16 weeks after giving birth.

The problem with racing on a Sunday is what to do with the kids. My husband is a church minister so it isn't all that convenient to just leave them with him. It's not so bad now that the older ones are 8 and 5 but the baby needs a little more attention. I intended to leave all 3 of them with Peter and asked somebody else to help but since I would be gone for about 4 hours and he would need feeding at some point, I decided that it might be better to take him with me, if I could find somebody to look after him.

Our team manager, Simon, is a man in his 50's with no experience of looking after babies. He seemed the ideal candidate to ask to babysit while I ran. Strangely, he accepted my invitation so, on Sunday morning, after getting up before 7 am to make 2 loaves worth of sandwiches for the Fun Day (another story) I set off for London.

Arriving at the place in Carlton House Terrace where the championship athletes meet up, I was told by Brian that Simon was at the 'A' start/finish so, I had to re-trace my steps down to the Mall. When I say steps I mean in particular that flight of steps that goes up from the Mall to Carlton House Terrace (my bike is very familiar with this particular flight of steps). I couldn't see Simon anywhere. However, I did spot a portaloo with no queue! Too good an opportunity to miss. Well, it would have been but the official near the portaloo wouldn't let me go. He said that I had to use the toilets in St. James' Park. The portaloo was only for athletes. I pointed out, perhaps a little too vehemently, that I was in fact an athlete.

Finally, I spotted Simon over the other side of the Mall. I knew that the "you can't use the portaloo" official wouldn't allow me to cross the course so I just legged it. A cry of "you can't go across there" rose behind me but I ignored it and gratefully deposited my son with Simon.

It was already getting pretty close to the start time so I didn't really have much time to warm up. My jog with the buggy down the Mall and then the return to Carlton House Terrace was about it. Just time for a few stretches and then we were ushered back to the start. I checked that the baby was OK, he hadn't even noticed that I had gone, and prepared for the start.

I was aiming for around 42 minutes which was about 4.12 per km. I set off as steadily as I could, knowing that if I didn't then I would really suffer later. It was pretty hot out there but at least it wasn't too windy. The first km was around 4.15 but when I got to 2km my watch read 8.52. I think that the km markers were probably in the wrong place as the next km was around 4 min, including a water station. I could tell by 5km that there was no way that I was going to get near 42 min but I was running at a pretty even pace, around 4.20 per km. I recorded 21.39 though 5km (the official time says 21.46 but I think that is because I started near the back of the pack at the start so it took a few seconds to get over the start line).

I ran as well as I could over the second part of the course but I wasn't really able to speed up. I think that at the back of my mind I knew that I would have to look after Daniel when I finished and then get home and help with the Fun Day so I think that I didn't push myself as much as I might have done. The last couple of km up along the Embankment and past House Guards Parade was pretty hard work but when I finally stopped my watch it read 43.25 (the official time was 43.29).

I was pretty pleased to have run such an even paced race although a little disappointed with the time. It is six and a half minutes off my best so nearly a minute a mile slower than the fastest that I have done but it is by no means a flat course and I don't think that it will produce a very quick time for the Olympic marathon.

I have to be realistic that it is going to take time to regain my speed. However, I have been quite pleased with how the training has been going. Even though I'm not running that fast, I have managed to run 10 miles twice and the pace was reasonable. I think that if I can just get some longer runs in and be patient with the speed then I will regain my fitness before the winter.  I also started doing a pilates class for beginners. I'm hoping that this will improve my core stability (and get rid of my excess tummy from the pregnancy).

And, by the way, Daniel was also fine. Simon said that a woman had to help him with the dummy because he couldn't work out which way up it went! He was also surrounded by bottles of water when I picked him up, which was really handy as, for some reason, all the championship runners failed to pick up goodie bags or water at the finish. Well, I got both, although my goody bag was a baby rather than an oversized T-shirt and unwanted samples of shaving gel (which is the type of thing you normally get in goody bags).

(The photo is from the trail race at Bedgebury Forest a couple of weeks ago, the photos from the Bupa 10k are ridiculously expensive and I don't look any better in them than I do in this one!)

My first Trail Race

I've been running since I was knee high to a grasshopper well, since I was about 7 at any rate, but I have never run a trail race before. I've done road races, track races and lots of cross country but trail racing has never been on the agenda. So, it was with some trepidation that I went to Bedgebury Forest to run in my first ever trail race, very unfit and with 2 small children and a 3 month old baby.

I don't have any trail racing shoes and spikes weren't really appropriate because there was quite a lot of forest track which would have been too hard for spikes so I ended up running in my normal road shoes, which don't have a whole lot of grip in thick mud, as I found out when I was practically horizontal on one section of the course. How I managed to stay on my feet I don't know. I also didn't know what to expect with the terrain. Cross country races often have lots of ups and downs but you can normally see them coming because it is out in the country but, in the shade of the forests trees it was difficult to know what was round the next corner both in terms of the hills and the underfoot conditions.

I had booked to run in the sub 45 min group but was far from sure that I could run that fast. I didn't have much choice though because all the other groups were booked up when I found out about the race. So, I set off fairly cautiously at the back of the pack.

The first km just kept going up. I thought that the run was going to be fairly flat so I had a bit of a shock. I needed to do about four and a half minutes per km to get my target time of 45 min but it took me 5 min to do the first km. However, I soon settled into it and began to overtake a few people on the second km and picked up some time because it was mostly downhill.

The route was really pretty with bluebells and other flowers, and mud! You also got the gorgeous smell of pine trees as you ran through the forest - much better than the car fumes that I'm usually inhaling on my runs.

It was really difficult to settle into a rhythm because the conditions kept changing. One minute you were on a nice flat bit of track then you were squelching through mud then up hill then down so I found it quite challenging. In a way cross-country can be like that but without the dramatic change in the underfoot conditions and you can normally see what is coming up ahead quite a bit in advance. I like cross-country for that very reason, it isn't just plodding along, those who can cope with the changes in conditions and relish the challenge of the hills tend to do better, and I did enjoy the trail too for the same reason. At 5 km I was going well, 22.09 for half way.

However, after ploughing through a particularly sticky section between 5 and 6 km I really just wanted to sit down! There's always a point in any race when you wonder "why am I doing this?" Sometimes it is when you are on the start line but sometimes that moment hits you mid-race and for me, it was just after 6 km.

I did actually settle into it a bit better after that though and managed to get through the next couple of km without too much trouble, although I was beginning to slow on the slightly more uphill sections of the course. There was another woman just ahead of me and I tried to catch up with her but try as I might, she seemed to be pulling away from me. It was downhill between 8 and 9km but it was really touch and go whether I would be able to get under 45 min with 40.45 on the clock at 9km. However, when I saw the hill up from 9km then I knew that there wasn't a hope! Perhaps I'm lacking mental toughness but I couldn't drag myself up that hill any quicker than I did. In the end the official time was 45.57 for third female.

I suspect that the pre-race preparation will be a bit better for my next race in 2 weeks time. On the way to the race, part of the exhaust fell off the car! I wasn't about to turn back and miss the race after we'd braved the Friday night traffic to stay overnight a bit closer to the race venue at my brother in law's so we just got out of the car, picked up the exhaust and shoved it in the boot! And when other people were warming up before the race started, I was feeding the baby. I don't think he would have lasted until I got back without some milk - well not unless I did a PB at any rate.

I also discovered that my kids really don't like mud and, with there having been rain for the last 3 weeks, there was plenty of mud even in the registration area. My son enjoyed the bouncy castle and the climbing wall but my 4 year old daughter was far too worried that her princess dress would get muddy to enjoy herself.

Oh well, I enjoyed it but I don't think that we'll be going to another trail race anytime soon and I might have to think again about taking the kids to the cross country in the winter.

How to run when you have three kids

I really didn't think that it would be this hard to get fit again after having my third child. I've been back running now for more than a month and I'm still really struggling. Some days go really well and I think that I might be getting back to something like 'running' again rather than simply crawling round and then other days my legs simply won't move and my whole body lacks any kind of energy.

I was wondering why some days were so bad and I came to the conclusion that it was, as much as anything, about how tired I was. I ran pretty well at the National Road Relays a few weeks ago but I had spent the whole week at my in-laws where I didn't have to do any cooking or cleaning or even much looking after children. I was really well rested, although still somewhat sleep deprived due to a baby with a bit of a cold.

However, this week, I have had some terrible runs and I've barely been able to put one foot in front of another. I am simply really, really tired. Yesterday though, instead of going for a run, I went to sleep. In spite of being woken up after an hour by my daughter wanting me to help her with something, I still got a little bit of precious sleep in. It had also been the first day of the week when I hadn't had to get up at 6 am because of the baby. I'd still been woken up a couple of times in the night but, when he woke up again at 6 am, I had managed to persuade him to go back to sleep and didn't get up until 8.30. So, basically, over the last 24-36 hr, I'd had a reasonable amount of sleep. The result today was that I actually ran reasonably well. I wouldn't say that it was startling but it was OK.

I just wonder how I would be running if I wasn't so sleep deprived. I really need several days or weeks of sleep like yesterday in order to fully recover. If I were running better then I would run better, if that makes sense. What I mean is that I would be more likely to run further and faster if I felt that I was getting fitter. However, when you run badly then you don't feel very positive and so you don't feel much like running. There is a stupid psychological thing. I notice it when I am out running. If I am out on a run and I look at my time and find that I'm going faster than expected then my attitude changes and  I am more likely to run the rest of the run faster but, if I see that I am going slowly then I tend to get depressed and run slower. It is self-defeating or self-affirming.

Anyway, it is really difficult with 3 kids to get enough sleep and keep the household functioning. I didn't realise how easy it was with just one child. After my first son was born, I ran about the best I have ever run in my life. I am convinced that the enforced rest from running during pregnancy helped but so did having my mum around to look after the baby when I went out for a run and being able to sleep when he slept and only having myself and my husband to worry about apart from that.

Now the situation is quite different. Now I have to fit in a run when a window of opportunity arises rather then when it might be best. So I may end up going soon after eating because that is the only time available or when I have just come back from somewhere and my legs are tired. Now, I have to make sure that there is food on the table for 2 other children, as well as my husband, we can't just make do because I am too tired to cook something as we could have with our first child. Also, everything gets messed up so much quicker with kids around. The bathroom, the toilet, the living room, the whole house in fact gets messed up in a fraction of the time. Then there is the washing and the washing up which are doubled or more by the increased number of children. The whole situation is such that just when you really need more sleep and more rest because you have more to do, you actually end up with less sleep and less rest. It is like a cruel dream where you are striving towards the unobtainable.

So, I am going to try to get some more sleep. I'm going to worry less that the baby is crying and try to get some of the things that I would normally do when he is asleep done when he is awake and possibly crying. I'm going to go to sleep in the day when the kids are at school and the baby is asleep. It might mean that the house is a bit more messed up than I would like or that we don't eat as good food or that somebody else has to do the washing up, but it might mean that I remain relatively sane and I might even get fit!

From a UK record holder

When my mum came home one day last year and said that she thought that I held the UK record for under 17 girls for the 10,000m,  I kind of dismissed her. She said that she had accidentally come across it while looking up to see how one of the girls in her club was ranked for the hammer throw. Apparently she is a pretty good hammer thrower and has thrown close to the UK record. I just presumed that there was some mistake, that the records hadn't been kept up to date or that she was simply mistaken.

Two things started me thinking about whether I really held the record or not. The first was an interview with Kathrine Switzer on MarathonTalk (www.marathontalk.com). Kathrine Switzer was influential in getting the women's marathon into the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Interestingly, one of the athletes in the race in 1984 where I supposedly got the record was the marathon runner, Priscilla Welch, who came 6th in that first ever women's Olympic marathon that same year. For the record, she lapped me several times. The other thing that got me thinking was when I was asked to run at the National Road Relays the other day (on only 2 weeks training and only 10 weeks after giving birth). The relay was won by Aldershot Farnham and District Harriers. Their team was made up of a group of very talented young athletes including Charlotte Purdue, Emelia Gorecka and Steph Twell, all girls who I expect will be household names in the future, if not already. Surely one of those girls must have run 10,000m faster than I have. So I decided to investigate my mum's claim that, in fact, I held the record.

You can look up UK athletics results on the power of ten website (http://www.thepowerof10.info/) so you can find out what times people have done for any distance. It isn't completely comprehensive because it was only set up a few years ago and although they have tried to take results back as far as possible, they haven't done it for every single athlete. So, for example, you won't find my 1984, 38 min 31.9 sec time for 10,000 m on the site but you will find results for me from 2003 onwards. However, you can find times for some of our top athletes going years back.

I looked up each of the likely suspects to see if they had recorded 10,000m times and none of them had. In fact, if you look up the UK athletics rankings for U17 girls (http://www.gbrathletics.com/uk/wu17.htm) then it would appear that no other U17 girls ever recorded an official time for 10,000m on the track, which makes my claim to be a UK record holder a little shallow as I only hold the record by virtue of the fact that no other under 17 year old girl was ever crazy enough to run round the track 25 times or perhaps no other under 17 year old girl had a mum crazy enough to let them run 25 times round a track!

Well, it seems that I  may always be the only under 17 year old girl to record an official time for 10,000m on the track as the UK Athletics Rules, Rule 107 section 4iii, state that "No athlete in this age group is allowed to run in any track event in excess of 5000m." I'm not sure when that rule came in but presumably I didn't break any rules when I ran as an intermediate girl in what I think was the AAA 10,000m championships at Copthall Stadium in London (where I now train) on a particularly windy day in September 1984. It's funny to think that I got a UK record all those years ago and didn't even know it.

Now I am old and slow and it was rather embarrassing to see amongst the results in Athletics Weekly for the top ten teams at Road Relays the other week is my stage of 22.08 which is more that 2 min slower than the next slowest athlete and nearly 7 min slower than the quickest, Charlotte Purdue. I'm  pretty certain that any of those Aldershot athletes could have run faster than 38.31.9 for 10,000m when they were under 17 years old. Charlotte Purdue, for example, ran 16.51.43 for 5,000m as a U17 and the record is held by Emily Pidgeon at 16.04.46. They could probably have walked the second 5,000m and beaten my time. However, the fact is that they haven't ever recorded an official time so I am actually the UK record holder, a record that it looks like I might be able to hold onto for quite some time. Well, that's my claim to fame!

Back to running

It's been a tough time. My last 'proper' run was mid-July before I found out that I was pregnant. I did a half marathon distance run in the pouring rain. It was miserable and I got completely drenched. I couldn't work out why I had run so badly. The rain didn't fully explain my poor performance, but pregnancy did. I didn't run at all in August but I tried a few short easy runs in September. So it has been a while. I tried to keep fit by swimming and aqua jogging but it just isn't the same. I missed my running and was really looking forward to getting back to it. Of course the inevitable birth isn't an immediate passport back into running. You can't just 'drop the sprog' lace up your trainers and get out there. In fact my return to running has been far from straightforward. I had hoped that I might be able to start again about 6 weeks after the birth but infections and strange pains have meant that I have had to wait..and I wasn't even able to swim instead. Well in a way it hasn't mattered because I have been far too tired to run anyway but it is nevertheless frustrating to completely lose one's fitness. Then there is the extra weight. How do these celebrities manage to look so slim so soon after giving birth? Flat, toned tummies and no flabby thighs? Is it just good underwear? Is it an age thing or am I missing a trick? At the moment I a suffering from the problem of being between trousers. I am too thin for my pregnancy jeans, they keep falling down. Conversely, I am too fat for my regular jeans, I can't even nearly do them up. I really need to get running as that will help me return to my pre-pregnancy shape, well hopefully anyway, although my stomach is doomed to be a mass of excess flabby skin forever. My kids think it is really funny and play with the excess skin. I, on the other hand, pine for that lovely pre-child stomach that will never again be. So, having visited the doctor for the umpteenth time since giving birth and failing to ask her if it was now OK to run again for fear that she would say 'No' like she did the previous time, I put on my running shoes and set out on a short run a mere 8 weeks after giving birth. I am so unfit. I don't remember ever feeling so unfit in my life. I'm sure my age doesn't help. It just seems much harder than I remember it being with my other two children. Perhaps, in fact, they are the real reason why it is so tough. I didn't have both of them to look after as well as the baby last time, or the time before. In fact, it was all so simple after my son (my first child) was born. My mum helped a bit and my husband was really good and about 5 months after giving birth I ran my fastest 10km ever and a month later I did just over 1 hr 20 min at the Stroud half marathon. It would probably have been quicker had I not raced in the National road relays the day before. It seems impossible to think that I will ever be able to run that speed again, not even for 1 mile. The few runs that I have done in the past 2 weeks have been such a struggle. It isn't as if I have tried to run them fast, I have really just tried to get round. To begin with, I was quite pleased with my progress but now I just feel slightly frustrated. I know that I shouldn't expect miracles but it is annoying to run with such a lack of fluidity. I can see how beginners start off with a fit of enthusiasm then give up after a couple of weeks. I can't claim that running is a joy right now. If I didn't know that it will get better, that I will recapture that wonderful feeling of freedom while running or the satisfaction of completing a long run or the pleasure of finishing a hard interval session with all the reps bang on time then I think that I would give up now. It really is too hard to run with a baby and two small children. But run I will because I know that it won't always be like this and I know that running will be good for my soul as well as my body. I need to get through these next few weeks, be disciplined and just get out there not worrying about the speed and reclaim my fitness. I know it won't be easy but I know that it will be worth it.

Sleep Deprivation

Nobody would endure this much pain and disruption to their lives under normal circumstances but, it seems, that having a baby makes you prepared to put up with a lot more than is reasonable. If you survive the pain of childbirth and make it through those early weeks then you are doing well.

If you were trying to think up some strange kind of torture then you wouldn't go far wrong with sleep deprivation due to a baby. You are already tired from lack of sleep during pregnancy. (Every time you want to turn over in your sleep when you are pregnant you wake up completely and then have to haul your huge belly to the other side of the bed.) Then when the baby arrives, it wants to be fed, burped, changed etc.... frequently.

It's time for bed. You settle the little chap, he looks peaceful and relaxed in his Moses basket, nothing could break that peaceful sleep, it is long and deep. You crawl into bed. Just as your head touches the pillow, there is a piercing cry. Wait a minute, he was fast asleep just 10 seconds ago, how come he has woken up? You hope it is just a little wind and will pass as you close your eyes and attempt sleep. But the cry continues and it is impossible to ignore. You crawl out of bed and pick up the baby. He smiles, your heart melts, you feed him. You burp him, you change him. He falls fast asleep in your arms and you put him back into his Moses basket and go back to bed. Just as your backside has touched the bed, there is a piecing cry. How can it be? He was fast asleep not 5 seconds ago.

You pick him up, you burp him - again. He falls fast asleep and you put him back in the Moses basket. Just to make sure that he is really asleep before you are denied your bed once more, you sit down and watch him for a few minutes, just to check he is really settled. Yep, this time he really does look pretty chilled out, no chance of waking up this time. You get back into bed and close your eyes. There is a piercing cry. Surely it must just be in my dream. You ignore it. The cry continues. You hope that your husband may get up instead. "I think he needs feeding". You get out of bed and feed the little chap, both of you half asleep. He falls asleep while suckling, you wake with a start and put him in the Moses basket. That should be it for another couple of hours. It's now 1.20 am. You've been in and out of bed for the past 2 hours or more but now you should get some proper sleep.

You crawl back into bed and doze off. There is a piercing cry. You look at your watch. 1.30 am!! He's woken up again because he didn't actually get much milk the last time and was just worn out sucking. You feed him some more. 1.45 am, so this must be it now, he must be settled. You put him back in the Moses basket and get back into bed. Just as your head touches the pillow, there is a piercing cry......... and so it continues.

Eventually, at some point in the wee small hours, he does fall asleep, and so do you. But only after you have endured the torture of sleep deprivation. There's nothing you can do, you can't ignore the crying, the pleas for food, attention and care. It would be easy if it wasn't your baby, you could sleep through the noise. But it is your baby and you are hard-wired to respond to that cry. There is nothing you can do but, sleepily get up, attend to his needs and hope that you won't die of exhaustion along the way. You would only do this for love. But you only have to take one look at him to know that it is all worth it.