She Emerges Victorious!
Gem does the Island Run 10k
Here’s the promised update on my aches, pains, and progress towards the London Marathon, only three days later than I promised. Amazing.
The Achilles pain appears to have settled into “niggle” territory. it aches a little all the time, eases off when I run or walk, and then stiffens up later. I can live with that.
Parkrun went ok. It was slow, but then I’m slow anyway, so no one else but me cares about those few minutes.
So last weekend, I was ready to tackle the Island Run 10k.
I grew up on the Isle of Sheppey, so this is truly home turf for me. The Island Run is a 10k that meanders casually along the seafront. It is mostly flat and offers lovely sea views.
I was genuinely excited to run it.
a) because I’d actually missed long runs, and
b) I had NEW SHOES (affiliate link).
After weeks of stressing over shoes, because I have a different body weight and running style from when I first fell in love with the New Balance 880s, I actually went and tried some on to see how they felt. Sure enough, I hated the more cushioned 1080s I thought I would like and ended up in a pair of FuelCell Rebels, which felt super light and springy. As a side note, I also tried on the Nike AlphaFlys, and I learned 2 things: first, they are definitely cheating, and second, I would 100% break my ankle if I tried to run a marathon in them.
Before the race there was a minor panic when I checked the 2 emails that arrived the week before the race that said you needed photo ID and very specifically said: NO ID, NO RACE PACK. I, obviously, was 150 miles from home, without my passport, my only photo ID. I did, however, have a photo of my passport that I hoped would suffice.
How does that story end? I hear you ask. Well, there were three possible outcomes. Which of these do you think happened?
Well, obviously, no one even asked, and they just handed over my race pack. They did ask Mr Gem, as it happens, so I guess I was just lucky.
The weather was beautiful, the course was fast and flat, and for 5k I was honestly quite impressed with how easy it felt. It must be the shoes.
Then, at 5k, we turned around and headed back in the other direction—into the wind. It was not easy, not at all.
My mum and dad were marshalling on the course, so I got to wave at them. I also got to wave at Mr Gem as he came back in the other direction, as he is slightly faster than me.1
To avoid an incredibly dull kilometre-by-kilometre breakdown , I’ll skip straight to the end. Despite not being able to train for a few weeks, dealing with a stiff and painful Achilles, and battling some absurdly strong wind, I got a post-cancer PB!
Yes, I divide my running life into pre and post-cancer. Gem with a broken back, 20kg extra weight and crippling fatigue is a different human to Gem the athlete and personal trainer, so, yeah, this is a PB, and a massive one, knocking a whole 7 minutes off my 10k time from Run Norwich last year.2
I finished in:
1 Hour 19 Minutes and 20 Seconds (pause for applause).
It wasn’t record-breaking, but it definitely made me feel a lot better. I’m aiming for 7 hours at London, so that gives me 2 minutes per kilometre to play with. I could have taken another 20 minutes to finish and still have been on London pace. This is good because, if I am honest, I am absolutely bricking it.
3 weeks and 4 days to go…
Despite not having run at all for 6 months, git.
To be fair Run Norwich is NOT a fast course, but still.