SLMM 2013

I have a new t-shirt.  It is black with white lettering, with Corney Fell reading bottom to top along my left rib cage, and the SLMM logo upper right.  We did it we did it we did it, Team Kingfisher came home, in time (half an hour before the course closed even) all controls properly checked and visited.  Last, but not by anything like as much as the LAMM 2011.

The map is spread out in front of me, with the control points marked in ink now.  How long will the numbers marked on the map conjure the memories stored in the souls of my feet?  After the ignominious defeat on the first day of the LAMM 2012, feet and heart rejoiced together at the modest demands to get to control one on day 1: a gentle wide path along Whitecombe Beck, leading to an unsubtle control at a fence corner. Control 2 was an equally obvious tarn on an old friend - Black Combe - a top we had visited in our training weekend, visited but not seen, the whole then wrapped in frightening thick fog.   

The contour lines lie close on the way to Grassgill Beck - a bracken covered bank too steep, a place of dramatic but well padded tumbles.  Sniff our way out of Crookley Beck, trying to find the path that would start us on our way to Kinmont Beck. We meet our first marsh.  We were to become connoisseurs of squelch, but at that time we were only learning the trade, and troubled ourselves to look around for  drier ground.  In later marshes we would splash directly through with bogged determination.  Sight down to the stream junction where control 5 was sunbathing on the rocks just down there - but separated by a fence.  It is Wicked and a Sin, we had been told, to cross a fence or wall.  We were novices, and obediently walked the half kilometer along the fence to a gate and half a kilometer back.  It became apparent that others didn't.

Six hundred paces to the kilometre, keep counting, there's the control, hiding in a corner.   Contour round to control 7, sounds easy, yes?  Tell my feet that.  Two and a bit kilometres with feet struggling to keep their grip at an ankle wrenching angle, feet sliding in their shoes, scrunched toes screaming.  On to Stanton Pike.  I should be glad of a bit of straightforward ascent after all the sidewise sidling, yes? No.  And fence issues.  There were no gates.  I christened  a convenient stone a stile and hopped over.  

And down, through a maze of rock fields, and then fence issues.  Gently despairing of getting across, we asked a runner running up from halfway camp (clearly had not enough to do to keep him busy) how to handle the fence problem.  "Oh, just climb over."  Ah.  Well, now we know.  It turns out that the Bad Things only happen if you climb walls, and then Really Bad things only happen when you climb walls which are explicitly Verboten (marked in red on the map).  Last control, and in to a thriving tent city with all mod cons; a water hole, a washing hole, portaloos sufficient to the 500 or so in overnight residence.  Tea, in a bright blue mug this time, with milk!

Cramps, cramps and more cramps.  Placating rebelling muscles is as challenging as pacifying a bawling infant.  Hydration problems? Waaa! No.  Glucose? Waaaa! No, or not in and of itself.  Madopar - ah, yes, or perhaps the combination of all three.  Chicken Korma in minutes courtesy of the minute cooker that could, a device weighing nothing and which I can enclose in my hand, which boils water for two while we are putting down a foundation layer of flapjack.  Second course chocolate ReGo followed by a savoury course of supernoodles.  Well tired, well fed, nothing else so well makes a comfy mattress of a lumpy field.  Two contented team mates needed no rocking to sleep that night.

Day 2, and a sense of disquiet and unease.  With an earliest possible start time of 8:05, and course closed time of 16:00, finishing was going to be a challenge, forget about clocking in at all the controls.  The first and third of these were Up, not my favourite direction, and clocking in at the third after a wearying climb, doubts had clouded an otherwise bright morning.  A feeling of utter wastedness, too familiar, too well remember from the dnf'ed LAMM 2012 clouded my spirits.  Well, time would tell.  Either the feeling would pass, or, as last year, it wouldn't.

It passed.  A long level stretch featuring some friendly footing restored spirits and body, control 4 by the fence and wall found and clocked.  A splendid stretch to a control 5, tucked in a sheep fold.  Control 6 was over a featureless fell that would do as a model for eternity.  Happily some with excellent compass skills had laid a trail of flattened herbage that we came to trust; the trails etched on the rising slope by feet proceeding to control  7 confirmed the accuracy of our guides unknown.  Time was with us; two hours to find control 7, one steep downhill and into the event headquarters.

Control 7 was an idyllic trot over close cropped turf, in full sun with a cooling breeze.  Running doesn't get better than this.  Our trail blazers had led us on, down to the col, and then up the little summit which is White Hall Knott.  

The path on top of the Knott sowed the seeds of uncertainty; a narrow knife edge, neither side of which was appealing as a way down felt sinister with even the mild breeze on top.  Oh well, the ridge route down would be less steep, surely, and our friendly guides had beaten the track before us: they were experienced and had justified our trust. Trusting, we followed them and committed ourself to a frightening descent.

Bad call.  By the time we knew it there was no possible retreat. Maybe these mountain goats could do it standing up, but not a coward with two slow planks for legs.  It was, frankly, a bummer.  Many feet had polished the grass into toboggan runs.  Sit down, position yourself carefully. Get going too fast and there would be no stopping until the land levelled 150 metres below.  Seek out catching features - nice friendly patches of scrub gorse.  Inch forward, legs in front, slide, grabbing at gorse bushes (NB the roots don't sting) in passing in an attempt to control the slide, landing in a heap, hopefully at the catching feature. Repeat, and repeat again, six feet or so at a time.  Nice friendly gorse, what wonderful strong roots you have, I forgive you all your prickles.

The bottom, at last, with shaky knees, holes in my Ron Hills through to my knickers, and more thorns in my backside than proverbial fretful porcupine, grateful to be standing up.

A final small stretch of bog to damp down the dust, the final control visited, and home.  Job done.  Overall 16:21:21, age adjusted 15:15:56, last, any way you count it, but happy.  The long ride home provided plenty of time for reflection and analysis in between dozing.  We need to make a list of exactly what we ate and what we carried home, so as not to load ourselves with unnecessary food next time.  We need to analyse where improvements can be made for next time.   Specific training required: cv stuff for me, downhill running for my partner.  Her excellent navigating placed us accurately at every control - not bad for someone who first met navigation at our training weekend a month ago, but there is always more to learn.

Next time is already a mark on the calendar.  Lots can happen between now and then of course.  Improvement for one.  But a Parkinson's disease runner must also know a truth that holds for even the winner of Klets: there is going to be a last.  We pd folk are just more aware of it, and therefore place a value beyond measure on the memories of the present; glorious weather, fantastic trails, splendid and friendly organisation, and most excellent company.  Look on the map and remember.  Look on the map and hope and dream.

Planks for PD runners

The Hash are fond of describing themselves as drinkers with a running problem.  The Monday Hash here have a very severe running problem, even by comparison with other Hashes, in that for half the year they meet again on Wednesdays for (gasp) speed training.  They also like winning things, like the local Chariots of Fire relay, and putting up a good show at such local events as the Grunty Fen Half Marathon.

The Wednesday meeting tends to be a proper gut wrenching workout.  I get there when I can (or, at least, when I cannot find an excuse). There is a little warm up run, perhaps a couple of times around Jesus Green, and then technical exercises - excellent diagnostic tests of where Improvement could (and should) be made.  This appetiser is followed by the piece de resistance of the evening - timed intervals, handicap runs, a pleasing variety of entertainment from week to week, the common theme of which is to leave one bent over, hands on knees and gasping.  And then, for pudding, as it were, core stability exercises, under the kindly eye of the senior sadist.

To be fair, he does not require us to do anything he can't do, and my shoulders are not the only ones trembling with effort to hold a plank as the seconds crawl past (stopping, no doubt, to admire a midge, or hold a leisurely conversation with a mosquito).  I generally cheat and give up early, or decide that a plank from knee to shoulder is good enough.  Then, when planks are deemed done, there is an assortment of tum trials, such as lying on one's back, legs in air and boxing one's boots.  It is almost a relief when the final session of planking is called, signalling the approaching end of dessert.  A beer helps to wash down so heavy a meal.  

Core training is the stuff that reaches the bits mere running cannot reach.  Like oil on a bicycle chain, it ensures that energy spent all converts to forward motion.  No effort is wasted in wobbling.

Same as those who have not got PD, I can not afford to waste any energy in a run.  I do not enjoy planks or boxing my toes, even without midges nibbling my ears, but I (and those who share my running problem) happily indulge in this Wednesday treat.  For me however there is an extra dimension to the exercise, a core component of running that my fellows may not be aware of, yet equally essential to the game.

It is the one time when I run with a group, the distance between me and the pack providing a distressing measure of my limitations.  For those whose speediest pace might be 12 minute miling, joining in a group of runners is a sobering experience.  The unseen "why bother" devils and the "you could just run on your own and spare yourself the humiliation of being so very far behind the field" evil spirits are there in force, standing by the wayside, jeering me on. Face them.  Stare back. Yes, I am slow, and will get slower. So What.  It is important to practice running past them, solid of purpose, accepting that things are not likely to get better, are likely to get worse, but for today and tomorrow, the race goes on.

The glory of it is, of course, that I have not got to face these imps alone.  Although my fellow drinkers may be unaware, they are a powerful force against would be defeatists.  Just being included in the game does it, and the grins are there for extras.

Running heros help here too.  I am thinking of one, then a thirteen year old girl, a survivor of a brain tumour and two years of every hideous form of cancer treatment in the book, in an epic and never to be forgotten race, the hundred metre dash at her school sports day.  She abandoned her customary stick and lined up with her classmates, and the gun went off.  After ten seconds, her competitors were half the field ahead of her.  I saw her falter for the least fraction of a second, and then head up carry on, to finish perhaps a minute after her peers.

That's one in the teeth for the "why bother" imps.  Home, shower, log my efforts, it feels good.  For another week, the devils faced, PD put in its place, the extra glow of satisfaction of having defeated the enemies within.  Do the planks.  Stand tall, waste no effort in wobbling, not in running, not in life.  For those who wobble naturally, stability in the mental core will serve where muscles fail.

Stairs

Little things can have amazing consequences.  About a month ago, or maybe it was years ago, I wandered about on a website and eventually clicked on the little box labelled "enter now".  One of the consequences is that I have become a connoisseur of stairs.

In particular, I have become intimate with four different sets of stairs. I had a brief but intense relationship with the seven flights of fourteen steps each up to my mother's apartment. These I used daily, in contemptuous disdain of the lift, except when my octagenarian parent was accompanying me. I twice celebrated their existence by doing seven and ten reps, 686 and 980 steps respectively. The stairs were a textured concrete, painted in slip-proof grey, with black hand-rails, and a general air of neglect.  The natural light, through small windows was sufficiently insignificant that it was the better part of a week before I recognised there was any.  But I had them entirely to myself, unquestioned.

Late in my stay with my parent I discovered that the set of stairs in the far end of the block had twice the number of flights, offering an even longer continuous ascent.  Even better, the natural light in that stairwell was excellent even on a dull day, quite bright enough to render the motion-sensitised lighting unnecessary.  This stairwell was not deserted; I shared it occasionally with maintenance staff, who eyed me curiously but refrained from comment.  I only ever did a proper stairs session once, five ascents, 980 steps, after which the conditions outside had improved to admit real hill runs.

Back at home in flatland now, I return to familiar steps.  There are the office steps, a selection of eight possible circular stairwells attractively surrounding lift shafts, admitting light and carrying sound well - excellent eavesdropping opportunities, catching any conversations in the corridors surrounding the stairwells.  The eight stairwells some connected by corridors or walkways offer an exciting variety of routes.  There is but the one hitch: I must admit to being shy of indulging in the sport of stairs in the presence of my colleagues.  I have not been able to determine whether this shyness is because I worry that they may consider me (even more) mad, running up stairs beetroot red-faced and puffing, or  for fear they might join me, and by bounding up twice as many twice as fast render my pride in tackling stairs at all as nought by invidious comparison.

So the compromise is a grand, broad set of four flights, about 100steps, in a 1950's lecture block in the Sidgwick Site.  The stairs are sealed concrete, with metal edging and wooden hand rails polished by many hands.  The stairwell amplifies my footfall; minimising that impact for the sake of those in lectures is an added challenge. In between lectures I am by no means alone; streams of students pass in either direction, but there is room, and I can fall in step with them for that short interruption of my study in stairs.  Yesterday's ascent was ten reps, steps taken one at a time.  Sometimes I take them two at a time, but I need to get the distance up first.

What is it though, that derails a mostly stable mind that it should fix on the subject of stairs?  Hope. That entry button confirmed my place on the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon.  Dweller in flatland that I am, the stairs must deputise for hills, and I must persuade unwilling legs to do the homework.  Distance along the flat alone will not do, although there is work to be done in that department as well.

Hope is an odd thing.  It puts life and colour back into the world, giving me eyes again to see the world as a woman fit and well and ready to compete, present situation and future concerns notwithstanding.  I am again in training.  I am again a runner.  The framework of life has returned, the weekly round of different "runs" with different purposes providing the lattice on which the other parts of life are fixed.  

The present does its best to withstand, I must admit. At the time of clicking on "Enter now" even a single flight of stairs presented problems.  Walking peg legged and 13 minute miling are the norm.  A rest day for me means at least half the day spent with my feet up, with book or laptop on my knees.   Me running up hills in the Lakes requires a very lively imagination at the moment.

Fortunately, Hope knows better. Imagination to see these my present legs capable of climbing hills is not required. The peaks are often not clearly visible from the foothills.  Eyes down and focus on the stairs. Spend the time with feet up today to extend the mileage tomorrow.  Just do the runs for the week and leave worry for the never arriving later.  It is a gamble.  Yes, it may be that all I can do is nothing worth, and I face another DNF or even a DNS. Yes, PD might win this time.

But it might not, and if I don't settle down and get to grips with the stairs now I've lost already, and will never know if I might not have won had I tried and done the homework.

For now, the eventualities, whether I do or do not make it to the start-line, whether I do or do not manage to complete the course, are irrelevancies. What matters is that I am again a runner.  In training.  Life's compass is restored, Polaris has resumed its rightful place in my night's sky.  Life resumes, in defiance of PD and the other little devils of life.

On on friends.