Hi, good morning and we are here at the Newburgh 10K10.
It's organised by the Newburgh June Running club.
Today I've got Jill, I'll let her introduce herself.
She was sort of embarrassed with why I would choose her as a
runner, but she is a runner. She is part of the running club
that I'm a member of. So, Jill, give me a brief
introduction to what makes you a runner.
Well, I started running about 10 years ago now when my daughters
got into running and I kind of felt I needed to do something to
get some fitness back, having done absolutely nothing for
years and years. So for a while I ran, went to
the gym and swam, but since we've moved up here I tend to
just do running now because too far to go to get to either the
sea or the pool to swim and I really love it.
I started off doing couch to 5K with the aim of actually doing a
park run was my first target. Then I moved on to doing Norwich
10K was my first 10K and subsequently then I did
Edinburgh Half Marathon and Manchester Marathon was my first
marathon. I think I've done four or five
since then and I've really got the bug.
Every year I will just stick to doing half marathons and not
doing anything longer. I'm getting older and my body
doesn't really necessarily like the really long distances, but
bizarrely I ended up doing an ultra last year and I have
accidentally signed up for at least one marathon this year, so
who knows? You mentioned there about
running to the pool, so running is not the only thing that you
do. You're into swimming as well, is
that right? I do bumming when I can get to
the pool. Yeah, I do like a nice swim.
More in the pool than in the sea, But that's more of a
historic thing because I nearly drowned in the sea as a child.
I still have hurdles to overcome.
You mentioned that you did an ultra last year.
Tell me about that. Well, that was.
Something that I signed up for with a friend in a fit of
madness presumably. And unfortunately I got COVID
like a month before of it before it, so it really didn't fall in
with being fully recovered and I made it through the Ultra within
the cut off time. I was really pleased that I did
it, really enjoyed it, but there's an awful lot more walk I
would really ideally have liked. To do Covid's probably
appropriate thing given the recent history of our society, I
guess. What tips would you have for
sort of getting back to fitness after you had COVID?
Well, certainly don't do what I did, which was I was still on my
run streak. I still am on my run streak.
So I was still making myself go out every day, even though I
didn't really feel like it. When I was feeling at my worst,
it was more maybe like a mile or two of walking with 10 meters of
running. But I do wonder if I would have
bounced back quicker if I had actually taken 2 weeks off and
not done anything. But I.
The main thing I found I think with getting back into it was I
just, I'm slightly asthmatic, but I was just getting the
breathing back again. Even when I stopped feeling
absolutely tired and having to go and have a lie down in the
middle of the afternoon, just trying to be able to get like a
full lungful of air again, it was really difficult.
Is that hindsight that you should have been doing this?
Or even now that you know that you should have been doing it,
would you do the same thing again anyway?
I mean, I do see, see fine now that having bounced back, maybe
having got used to running with even less lung capacity than I
normally do, I now find that I'm a bit faster than I was.
So possibly it did have a benefit.
There's no science behind that at all.
No is my word. For it, we're all on an
experiment of 1, and that's yourself so.
That's very true. You mentioned that you were on a
run streak. What's What's your criteria for
your run streak and how far through it are you?
I think on something like day 430 ish, my criteria is I try
and do 5K every day. There has been a couple of times
when I haven't managed it, so certainly post COVID I was
because I was walking and sometimes I could barely manage
a mile, but normally I do. I think after Edinburgh
marathon, which was a really, really hot day.
The day after that I think I only managed 2 miles, but
normally I do get full 5K and that's my minimum.
Tell me, what's your biggest running achievement?
I think it's getting myself from that mindset.
When I first started going coach to 5K and there was, there was
one week where there was quite, it seemed at the time like a big
jump Where you're suddenly running for.
I don't know, 5 minutes or something ridiculously that
seems ridiculously short now. But the time was like I can't do
that and it's just getting from that I can't do it to actually I
can do it. And then once you can do one
thing, you know you can set yourself another target and it
all becomes much more achievable.
You know to the extent when I first started doing coach to 5K,
there was never any way that I would have done 10K half
marathon, anything longer than that.
Whereas now you know, I know I can do it and it's fine.
But I think a lot of the time every run, long run that you do
competitively is an achievement because there's always something
that's not ideal. Either you haven't fuelled right
or it's too hot or it's too windy or you know so you always
get to the end of a of a long competitive run and give
yourself, need to give yourself a pat in the back because you've
actually got out there and. You've done, you say,
competitive, competitive to me. You're racing against yourself a
lot of the time. It doesn't matter what who else
is in the race, it's you that might on on that.
So I thought, what's race? Have you got ambitions to do?
Oh, I'd like to go back and do London Marathon properly, being
properly, fully fit, The time that I did it, it got, I mean I
got a place in the ballot and then obviously COVID cancelled
the London Marathon and I started training again and then
that got postponed and so, but I don't know by the 3rd date that
they set for it, I was just like, it's never actually going
to happen. So I didn't really get my head
round properly doing the training plan.
And then it got closer and closer and it became apparent it
wasn't going to be cancelled and I just wasn't fully fit for it
or as fit as I would have liked to have been.
So I I kind of felt like I didn't really do it justice.
Do you think that London is because London?
Is London the biggest marathon in the world or would another
marathon say? I've heard good things about
Manchester Marathon being like a fast and as good as atmosphere.
Is it the peal of London that matters, or?
I think I just feel I've got unfinished business with London.
Manchester was my first marathon and I set myself a time of
getting round it in under 5 hours, which I was easily.
I easily managed, but there were bits in Manchester where there
was when they were highlights. Don't get me wrong, there's one
man who's got like a giant tortoise, you know, to come and
you'd taken out on the pavement to watch the mile, but there was
a couple of bits, sort of roundabout mile 20, where you're
running and there's really not a lot of spectator support.
But then I found that with London as well, post COVID.
I think a lot of people didn't really turn out in droves
because you're probably worried about that.
I just feel I've got unfinished business with London.
I would like to go back, but I would love to.
New York and I have heard good things about Venice Marathon,
where they actually put pontoons and things out across some of
the lagoons and you're running across these pontoons and cover
all the bridges with carpets, even on the cobbles.
And it just sounded like a fantastic, fun atmosphere.
Also like more like a carnival than a race.
Well. You're saying that the
atmosphere in some of these races like London, because
there's so many competitors, but I know that you were doing the
Murray Way relief when I was doing it last year and you were
lucky if you saw people every 15 miles.
Does that does that make a difference or is it just because
that race was such a nice race that I I think you looking at
the photos you enjoyed that as well?
Yeah, it's. It is.
I think that's one thing that running's taught me, that you
can enjoy doing things in completely different ways.
When I first started running, I was like embarrassed.
I used to go out early in the morning so nobody could even see
me running. And then so to be part of a race
where you've got 4050 thousand people is incredible.
But then to do something like the Murray Ultra where as you
say, you don't see anybody for the whole, you know, the whole
leg. I mean, we did the relay.
I was actually dreading the bit in the dark because I, you know,
like eyesight's not that great in the dark and but I absolutely
loved that. That was just the best, probably
one of the highlights of my year that year, if not my entire
running time, just running out from Granton in the dark and
then getting up onto the Moor. And there were some owls calling
in the woods. And, you know, obviously there
were things rustling in the undergrowth.
But because it's auk, you know, it's unlikely to be anything
that's going to jump out and eat you.
And then just watching the sun come up as you're running along
the old railway line, it was just absolutely fantastic.
You think that running in the dark is probably something that
you you want to experience more but you've not got.
I don't know if you've not got the opportunity, you're playing
the opportunity around here because it's always dark at this
time of year. Is that something that you want
to explore more I think? I would like to do a bit more, I
mean, but I think it's a confidence thing as well.
I mean it's sort of working out what works for you equipment
wise. I mean, I borrowed a chest
torch. That leg is a Murray Ultra, but
I found that didn't whether I just run too much like that, but
I just found that watching the light on the path.
I found that it makes you almost seasick.
Yes, yeah. And I think I would have been
better sticking to my head torch, although they have
disadvantages as well because they're they can be quite heavy
and tends to not carry. Away not just confidence, but
getting used to the kit. Yeah, so I think, I think that
was a big thing was I think I would like to do more and get
get used to the kit and get a bit more.
I'm just, I wasn't a trail runner until I moved up here at
all. Never run on a trail.
And the first time went out with the club on a trail run, I'm
gonna die because it was just so much like hard work.
And I think I tend to, I've got a running.
My natural running action is not lifting my feet very high, which
I need to work on. So I end up tripping over things
a lot more than I should do so. Well, I I.
Find confidence like. For me, if I went to see a
professional gait analysis, they would say, Oh no, you're you're
running stupid, I run, I run. What's natural to me?
I'm a swimming court in a previous life, so I I do know a
bit about Physiology and repetitive actions and how they
can cause injury from a swimming point of view, so I can try and
translate that knowledge over to to running.
You mentioned earlier that you're not getting younger.
Don't want to ask a woman her age. 27.
How do you feel that as you're getting older, how does that
affect your body? I.
Think you start getting a bit more aches and pains?
Certainly when I started to run streak I was finding a lot of
niggles. Nothing that actually made me
stop running, but I seem to have got through that now and out the
other end and it's almost like I want to keep the run streak
going apart as much as anything just because it does seem to be
doing a lot of good. And also, I mean my sister's got
osteoporosis as the fact that I'm running around, it's got to
be doing me a lot of good, your weight bearing, bone preserving
point of view. So I'm not.
I think it's just important to keep active as long as you can.
If you can do it without injuring yourself and then
becoming inactive. And do you think that the the
run streak that's prevented injury or you think you've
because you're you're exposing yourself to more situations
where you could get injured, you are injured more or because
you're fitter and stronger that makes you injured less I think?
Definitely the latter because I'm fitter and stronger.
I've been injured less. I mean, having said that, I
could go out this morning and trip over something and you
know. These things.
Happen. Yeah, exactly.
But I do. I feel stronger.
I feel fitter. I feel more coordinated.
My balance is better. My reaction's a bit better.
It's not. Good.
When you mentioned earlier on about competitiveness, what do
you feel from the run streak or even just experience of running
you are faster now? You're slower because you're
older or how does it balance out?
I'm definitely getting faster, interestingly.
I mean it's got to come a point where it will balance out in age
will, but having come to running quite lately in life, it's nice
to know that you can still make improvements year on year.
Yeah, what? What was your the first race
that you took part in? Not counting park room because
obviously that's not, it's not race.
Apart from against yourself, it would have been in Norwich 10K.
How do you feel that compares to other races that you've done
since now that you've got more sort of knowledge of what a race
is? In Norwich 10K was my apart from
park room was my first experience of running in public
as in a large number of people. And it was thousands of people.
And I I really lost a lot of sleep ahead of that at the night
looking back and like why. But I just found that it was
quite daunting just being part of a big thing.
But then all of a sudden the adrenaline just kicks in and
you're suddenly like, well, I'm part of a big thing and I'm not.
I'm not like, I think how to explain it.
It's actually finding yourself that you are actually part of
something as opposed because I'd always run on my own before, I'd
never been a member of a running club or anything.
And it was just suddenly finding those whole community of people
out there who actually did the same things that you did.
You know since moving up here and becoming a member of the
running club maybe two years ago, it's like finding your
Michelle said to me one week about it's like something about
finding your own tribe. And it is.
It's very much like there's all these people who run and they
all run for different reasons and they all run different
distances, different speeds with different abilities.
Some are really fit some are not really fit and but they all have
that one thing in common, running.
And sometimes we hate it and sometimes we love it, but it's
it's just it's just like finding a group of like minded people,
even though they've all got different goals within that.
Yeah, well, even within, like we're in the same running club,
but we don't often run together. But at an event like this, we
are, as you say, part of the same tribe.
So it's it's getting people together that makes it, yeah,
worthwhile to me. And I think there's that whole
mental health thing as well. It's not just physical health
that you've been out there in the fresh air talking to
somebody, you know, where I live, it's really remote.
We moved up here promptly, went into lockdown, didn't really see
anybody for two years. And you know, I don't think
that's, it's not a healthy way for human beings to live.
I don't think you need. You need that interaction with
other people. Given the weather up here
compared to down beside Norwich, do you get out when it's
snowing? Do you, If you got trade not at
home, how do you cope with that sort of thing?
I haven't got a treadmill and it is.
I find treadmill running really incredibly boring.
But from the injury prevention point of view, when it's icy,
it's probably a sensible thing. And I I think I may end up
looking for treadmill just because that week or so in
December and then again started Jack middle of January, it's
just lethal around where we are. We're like you.
We don't get glitters and snow plows and you get that melting
and refreezing and it's just and it's just icy.
I ended up a couple of times in Marcus on just running around
one of the fields near where I am, which was deeply unpleasant
because it was very wet with ice on top and you were running
along every step. You broke through the ice with
ice cold water and I was desperately trying to get sort
of like 5K done around this bogging field.
I think ice is my biggest. I really don't want to slip and
flower over and break something. We're we're coming to the end of
the event that we're supporting that's going on.
You see people driving back in the background.
One last question to wrap it up the the event here is powered by
cake and juice. Have you got any fuels that
you've got during the race or is it cake and juice?
During a race, I tend to have Jelly babies.
Or a long run. Yeah, Jelly babies.
Sometimes Cliff blocks or sometimes I'll put tailwind in
my hydration vest. What else do I take?
Ginger nuts. I like ginger nuts on a long
race and oh, I can't what they're called.
Like mini cheesy biscuits, mini cheddar things.
I quite often take them as well and then cake when I finish
right. I think due to the noise that's
a way to happen in here. I think we'll call it a wrap
there today. And thank thank you very much
and see you again next episode.