The reasons are numerous, and in fact, in December 2018 I spent quite a bit of time writing a recap of everything that had happened since the infamous Canberra 50K in April. But that post was somehow swallowed by the internet, which was extremely annoying, and then 2019 was consumed by some major upheavals in my personal life (more about that soon), and of course we all know what 2020 did to the planet, most of which wasn't good at all.
So what have I actually been up to then?
Back to Canberra
Finally in 2019 I was back, running with fellow Wagga speedster Neil, and we paced each other very nicely to finish in 2:55:47 (him) and 2:56:24 (me). My time was good enough for 2nd female and a nice paycheck, resulting in an extremely yummy brunch afterwards for our whole Wagga entourage. It was a very pleasant outcome after the disaster of the previous year's 50K.
Then after the Wagga Trail Marathon in August 2019 - probably in no small part due to the new course which eliminated ALL the flat bits and turned it into a ridiculously taxing combination of hills and technical trails - I got injured. I'd been dealing with (mostly by ignoring) high hamstring tendonitis in my left leg for many years, but it got dramatically worse after the Trail. An MRI led to a steroid injection and a very gradual recovery that meant several months of minimal running, which I handled surprisingly well, all things considered.
In early 2020 I was ready to start back at proper marathon training, but a few major things had changed.
The simplest part to explain is that I've just gotten older. My twin brother and I celebrated our 50th birthday in grand style in early 2020 by going heliskiing together in Canada, arriving back just as COVID-19 exploded into our lives. I had never really thought that "getting old" would slow me down, but it's not by chance that you generally don't see runners in their fifties on the podium at major races. This is a fact that, as it turns out, seems to apply to me just as much as it does to the general population. Unfortunately.
Running has been shown to actually slow down the ageing process. But the ageing process also slows down running, in more than one way:
* decreased maximal heart rate
* lower stroke volume (meaning less cardiac output for a given heart rate)
* decreased VO2 max (oxygen uptake, and therefore delivery to muscles)
* smaller and fewer mitochondria in muscle tissue (less energy production)
* decreased muscle mass
* various hormonal changes that don't help at all
In my experience, things started to feel different after I turned 47.
The result at Gold Coast was actually a course record for me, even more amazing given that my first run there was in 2012 at the age of 42. I finished just before Aussie running legend Steve Moneghetti, who bopped me on the head in congratulations as I stood there in shock at my finish time. I think as 2017 began I had the idea that I would go on like this forever.
2018 started with the Cadbury marathon, where I was a bit surprised not to be able to run faster than the 2:57:20 that got me 3rd place overall. In late February I ran Tokyo - one of the world's flattest and fastest marathons, or so everyone says - but struggled both mentally and physically, still managing a fairly evenly-split performance but some 6 minutes slower than my personal best time.
Don't get me wrong, it was beyond strange to suddenly have no races at all on the horizon - and slightly annoying, given that I'd only just aged into a whole new age group - but it was also sort of nice. I've been very fortunate to have achieved more than I ever dreamed would be possible in my competitive running career, but it didn't come without a lot of dedication and effort, logging up to 12 hours per week of running, week after week for months and years on end. The pandemic racing shutdown gave me a convenient excuse, a reason to allow myself to slow down and enjoy life in a way that I hadn't for a long time. It was definitely sort of nice.
Within 5 minutes after the gun went off, I knew sub-3 was not happening today. I was running close to goal pace but it didn't feel sustainable, and in any case there were already 10 women (possibly more) ahead of me by the 2km mark, so I had no reason to really push myself anyway. Then, a largeish group of runners approached from behind, two of them discussing their pace in a way that made me certain they were leading a group with the goal of breaking 3 hours.
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| Me grinning, Neil eating |
Then after the Wagga Trail Marathon in August 2019 - probably in no small part due to the new course which eliminated ALL the flat bits and turned it into a ridiculously taxing combination of hills and technical trails - I got injured. I'd been dealing with (mostly by ignoring) high hamstring tendonitis in my left leg for many years, but it got dramatically worse after the Trail. An MRI led to a steroid injection and a very gradual recovery that meant several months of minimal running, which I handled surprisingly well, all things considered.
In early 2020 I was ready to start back at proper marathon training, but a few major things had changed.
The simplest part to explain is that I've just gotten older. My twin brother and I celebrated our 50th birthday in grand style in early 2020 by going heliskiing together in Canada, arriving back just as COVID-19 exploded into our lives. I had never really thought that "getting old" would slow me down, but it's not by chance that you generally don't see runners in their fifties on the podium at major races. This is a fact that, as it turns out, seems to apply to me just as much as it does to the general population. Unfortunately.
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| This was definitely worth getting older for, though. |
Nevertheless, I had paid for my entry to Canberra 2020, printed out a Pfitzinger training plan and was well into it (with a planned break for skiing, of course) when the event was cancelled by the pandemic. Actually, it wasn't cancelled, just postponed, but we all know how that turned out. Like every other semi-competitive marathon runner on the planet I was suddenly adrift, without an upcoming goal race (or three) for the first time in a decade.
When an email landed in my inbox on the 9th of February, 2021, informing me that my entry to Canberra's rebooted marathon festival in early April had been approved, I was mildly surprised. This gave me exactly 8 weeks to train and I hadn't done a long run over 15 miles (24km) in probably 9 months. And I didn't even remember agreeing to roll my entry over for the 2021 race! I used to be perpetually race-ready, but thanks to the COVID racing hiatus, those days were (and are) now long gone. I was left wondering how much my new age group might affect my running and ultimately my ability to race again after such a long time.
Running and ageing
* decreased maximal heart rate
* lower stroke volume (meaning less cardiac output for a given heart rate)
* decreased VO2 max (oxygen uptake, and therefore delivery to muscles)
* smaller and fewer mitochondria in muscle tissue (less energy production)
* decreased muscle mass
* various hormonal changes that don't help at all
In my experience, things started to feel different after I turned 47.
In 2016, aged 46, I ran two races that were close to my all-time PRs: the SMH half in May and the Gold Coast marathon in July. I was quite surprised to find myself finishing the half just seconds off my best, on a much more difficult course.
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| 1:21:43 half marathon at age 46? I can't believe it either |
The result at Gold Coast was actually a course record for me, even more amazing given that my first run there was in 2012 at the age of 42. I finished just before Aussie running legend Steve Moneghetti, who bopped me on the head in congratulations as I stood there in shock at my finish time. I think as 2017 began I had the idea that I would go on like this forever.
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| 2:49:13 deserves a hug from Mona! |
I was, of course, very wrong.
At the start, 2017 was going pretty well - I won my age group in Boston! - but towards the end it became apparent that I wasn't getting the same results from doing the same training that I'd always done.
At the start, 2017 was going pretty well - I won my age group in Boston! - but towards the end it became apparent that I wasn't getting the same results from doing the same training that I'd always done.
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| Boston 2017 with my Canadian friend Paula, who I ran with in NYC 2014 |
2018 started with the Cadbury marathon, where I was a bit surprised not to be able to run faster than the 2:57:20 that got me 3rd place overall. In late February I ran Tokyo - one of the world's flattest and fastest marathons, or so everyone says - but struggled both mentally and physically, still managing a fairly evenly-split performance but some 6 minutes slower than my personal best time.
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| Suffering through it and very happy to be done |
The total debacle that followed in April in Canberra, where the most monumental stuff-up of my running career took place, probably contributed to the malaise that set in during the rest of the year: I was still running, but the motivation to write and post about it definitely just wasn't there anymore. And on a mental health note, a lot of other stuff was also going on, which meant that running had become less of a pleasure and more a tool for managing the overwhelming anxiety and stress that had found its way into my life.
I have no doubt whatsoever that a large part of success in running - indeed, racing - marathons is a mental thing. Articles will tell you that "running is 90% mental, 10% physical", but I tend to think that if you've only done 10% of the training for a marathon, no amount of positive thinking is going to get you across the finish line in one piece. But without quibbling about numbers, assuming a certain level of training, the mental percentage is definitely an extremely important one. Especially at the 35km/22 mile mark of a marathon.
Running and the brain
Mental toughness is what saves you when your body taps your brain politely on the shoulder and says "I think we should stop now." It's what keeps you going when all you can think of are very compelling reasons to slow down, preferably now. And it will save your bacon when your legs abandon good manners and start screaming at your brain to "Stop now, stop now, stop JUST BLOODY STOP RIGHT BLOODY NOW!!!"
I ran my personal best marathon time in Boston in 2014, the year after the bombings, when everyone in the entire city was massively pumped up in the way only Americans can get pumped up after a tragedy. I was averaging just under 4 minutes per km, which is 6:26 min/mile pace. Around mile 16 I started thinking that I really wasn't enjoying this much, and I rather wanted to stop running. But I'd been passing amputee runners who brought to mind the 17 people who had lost limbs the previous year, not to mention the 3 who had died, and a voice said firmly in my head "This is Boston. You are Boston Strong and you do NOT give up in Boston" so I kept running.
Somewhat further on I really REALLY wanted to stop, so I played the "two more miles then you can just jog" game until there was only one mile to go. Ultimately, every single second of my 66 second improvement on the previous year was due to not slowing down in the second half - and to ignoring the increasing desire of my body to stop. I might have trained a bit harder and been a tiny bit fitter, but the major difference was my mental fortitude.
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| Please make it stop |
But in the same way that positive thinking, colonic irrigation and kale juice don't stack up against chemotherapy as effective treatments for cancer, mental strength is no match for Father Time.
When the End is Beginning
For all competitive runners, a time comes when your best is behind you. PRs are no longer breakable. Times that were once almost easy are now out of reach. The drive to achieve and better previous results....it just evaporates. So what is the motivation to keep going?
For me, running has always been about two main things: competition, and sanity.
For me, running has always been about two main things: competition, and sanity.
I started running in my final year of medical school, wanting to get fitter and lose the "I'm bored/I must be hungry" weight that had crept on during years of study. I kept running because I found, somewhat to my surprise, that I was pretty good at it, and because I'm a competitive sort of person who wants to be the best at things.
I kept running for my sanity through the crazy-busy years I was working as a junior doctor, then the exhausting, sleepless years of baby-wrangling, and then for the sake of competition from 2012, when I started to realise my potential and enjoy some success with it. Running was an invaluable stress-release: a piece of time that was mine each day, no matter the demands of work/children/life.
It became more important in difficult times, of course. Running brought many new friends and people into my life, and it held me together when, during the second half of 2018, I came to realise that the marriage I hoped would be my fairytale had somehow become a nightmare. As long as I kept running I could feel that I was succeeding at least at something, while despite all my efforts it seemed I was failing at my relationship.
My injury in late 2019 brought a sudden clarity (well, that and some other stuff that finally helped me see my now ex-partner for the abusive alcoholic that he actually was, and would always be) and even without running I was able to find the courage to make the changes I had to make.
Things can be different. What a revelation...
In 2020, I found that I no longer had to obsessively count the miles I had run each week. Without a goal race to put the pressure on me, I happily kept running every day but no longer felt compelled to complete a long run every weekend. Emerging from the emotional war zone I'd unwittingly inhabited for so long, my stress levels were dramatically lower and I was even able to - gasp - take a day off here and there, without my brain imploding from anxiety.
No longer spending my life constantly on edge, I found that I could enjoy other pursuits and fill in spare time in ways that didn't involve logging miles upon miles. This had a visible effect on my weekly mileage, of course - for a long time I had almost never dropped below 80 miles (128km) per week, but now I was doing it regularly - and what's more, I found myself not even really caring. It was like I'd been holding my breath for years and had suddenly found the space to exhale.
I couldn't get interested in virtual racing (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) so the whole of 2020 passed by with only a handful of runs longer than 2 hours. I just wasn't that motivated, and there was really no need. I had come to realise that I had been using running to manage the severe and constant anxiety that comes from living in an abusive relationship, and with that relationship over, I just didn't need to keep running so much.
Don't get me wrong, it was beyond strange to suddenly have no races at all on the horizon - and slightly annoying, given that I'd only just aged into a whole new age group - but it was also sort of nice. I've been very fortunate to have achieved more than I ever dreamed would be possible in my competitive running career, but it didn't come without a lot of dedication and effort, logging up to 12 hours per week of running, week after week for months and years on end. The pandemic racing shutdown gave me a convenient excuse, a reason to allow myself to slow down and enjoy life in a way that I hadn't for a long time. It was definitely sort of nice.
Canberra Marathon 2021
As I said above, through all my years of active marathoning from 2011 until 2019 (other than during rare times of injury) I was pretty much ready to race a marathon most of the time. All it took usually was about 4-6 weeks of sharpening - some marathon-pace miles in the midst of a long run, maybe a few higher mileage weeks - and a short taper and I could quite easily run a sub-3 hour marathon.
Of my 34 marathons finishing with Canberra 2019, 20 of them were sub-3, and I suppose my thought process upon reading the email informing me I'd be running in Canberra so soon went something like "Well, 8 weeks has been enough to get ready before, so it should be ok this time, right?" Right!
A small voice in the more rational part of my consciousness had its doubts, of course, and piped up mentioning the crucial 2 years of age I'd added to my tally since my last road marathon. Not to mention my radically more relaxed approach to pandemic running. But really, sub-3 had never seemed unreachable in the past, so what could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, it seems.
Plenty, it seems.
I wasn't encouraged by my only attempt at marathon pace during the abbreviated training cycle I completed in February and March. 3-hour pace felt way too hard, and definitely not something I could envisage maintaining for that long. And my Saturday morning ParkRun efforts were similarly underwhelming - the effort level that would have guaranteed a sub-20 minute 5km now reliably got me something around a minute slower.
But hope springs eternal, and dragging out my magic Zoomfly 4% Nike shoes a week before race day had me feeling like maybe there was some spring left in the old legs yet. I set off for Canberra with the whole gang in tow and feeling that I had maybe a 50/50 chance of sub-3.
How wrong I was!
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| watching the 3-hour pace group disappear ahead of me |
I watched as they eased past me and steadily opened up a gap. I could have given chase - later I spotted my British expat running friend Jo (of Fuxian Lake fame, 3rd in the 100km there) at the front of the group, so I would have had familiar company too - but I didn't even bother trying to keep up. My brain had made its decision that sub-3 was a no-go, and my body was more than happy to comply.
I've written before about how mental self-talk plays a role in marathoning, and how, as soon as you start telling yourself "I can't do this", it can start to become reality. My doubts about my age and lack of proper training had been whispers before; now they were chanting loudly in my ear and I wasn't ignoring them anymore. By the time I hit the notorious headwind during the undulating out-and-back section of the race from 28-35km, I had no arguments left as to why I shouldn't slow down now, and so I did.
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| Behold the graceful slide |
In the end I did beat my 2011 time, although not by much: I managed to finish in 3:08:04, which looks respectable until you consider that I went through halfway in about 1:31:30 and therefore ran a 5 minute positive split, my worst in a road marathon for quite some time.
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| Done, like a dinner |
Ok, what on earth was that?
It would be hard to say what exactly was the main factor behind what is probably best described as an epic FAIL for me.
The COVID shutdown, coming on the back of an injury layoff, was no doubt a huge contributor. My significantly reduced training mileage, plus being on the wrong side of 50 now, also definitely played a part. But how much of it was mental? How much was because, maybe deep down and even on an only partially-conscious level, I just knew it wasn't possible after all?
Or was it because I really don't care that much anymore? Perhaps because I no longer need to prove myself? Maybe I've become less obsessive and more relaxed in my old age! Was that a pig I just saw flying past the window?
Undoubtedly it is disappointing to be facing the reality that my best running years are now behind me. Podiums and paycheques are things of the past that are probably not going to be coming my way often, if at all any more. On the other hand, I'm definitely not dead yet!
And the best bit is that now I can enjoy my family. I can enjoy my work and my holidays and not walk around on eggshells all the time, waiting for the next tantrum to happen for no reason at all. And I have a wonderful new partner who is supportive and understanding, caring and kind, the sort of person I've always wanted by my side in life.
So maybe I'll retire from racing now, and find another motivation to keep me interested, or maybe I'll start training my butt off again and surprise even myself! Who knows?
The possibilities, as they say, are endless.
