Running, Poo and Strava

“I used to timetrial with Epsom Cycling Club.” I tell everybody that when the subject of cycling comes up. It sounds like I gave up last month or maybe last year but in actual fact it’s been over 7 years now. I know because I wasn’t a veteran when I cycled and I’m 46 now. I’ve cycled intermittently in the meantime but nothing serious.

 

The reason I gave it up was twofold, firstly I had just progressed to road racing and somebody knocked me off in my first event twisting my knee, and secondly it was a relief. By definition timetrialling is all about beating your last time, which for somebody as competitive as me heaps on the pressure. I used to get so stressed before an event that it would give me diarrhoea.  For the first mile or so of each timetrial I would feel like shit (sorry couldn’t resist that pun) and be full of negative thoughts about why I was putting myself through this, and then I’d settle down, get into a rhythm and rather enjoy myself, fuelling a repeat performance the following week.

I felt extremely guilty about giving it up but I had a dodgy knee to blame it on. The knee must have gotten better because now I can’t even tell you which one it was. So why am I writing this now you might ask, well, last November I noticed that I had put weight on. I didn’t wake up one morning and think ‘where did that come from’ it was a gradual thing that I was aware of but ignoring. It was time to get the bike back out, maybe I could join winter training and consider timetrailling again next spring. Not a bad plan if I could have managed to cycle 50 miles on a Sunday morning with the guys who hadn’t had 7 plus years off. I needed to start cycling during the week to get fit enough to start training if that makes sense.

But it was November. Dark and damp before and after work, not the ideal conditions for getting back on the bike, so I went jogging instead. I haven’t run since I was at school when I used to challenge for the lead at cross country despite being terrible at sports. I picked a route round the block which was just over 3 miles and ran it 2 or 3 times a week. It took me nearly an hour each time but that didn’t matter, this wasn’t a challenge, it was just a means of getting fit and losing some weight.

I really enjoyed it and didn’t experience any stress or doubts as to what I was doing and more importantly I didn’t suffer from diarrhoea before every run. However, after the first mile or so I do often have a terrible sense of needing to go for a poo. Fortunately the sensation passes eventually and I don’t have to do a Paula Radcliff.

After a while it was getting easier to run around the block and to add a bit of nostalgia for the cross country running at school I lengthened my route to include a bridlepath up on to Epsom downs. I could have done without the gradient but it was the only off-road path near home that didn’t involve getting the car out. I was surprised at how enjoyable I found it and the soft earth underfoot has the added bonus of being kinder on my knees.

All was going hunky-dory until I started to wonder how fast I was going and installed Strava on my phone in April. If you haven’t used Strava, it records your progress using GPS as you run or cycle and uploads it onto the Internet when you’ve finished. It then looks for timed segments that you have run and adds you to a leaderboard for that segment. It also has a leaderboard for the most miles run or cycled in a calendar month.

There was one segment on my route, a ½ mile section on the bridlepath up on to the downs. A 4% climb rising 99ft which rather appropriately for the title of my article is called ‘Rifle Butts’. It said it took me 5 minutes 44 seconds and I was 18^th out of 19 people who had run it in the past.

From that day onwards I haven’t been running without my phone and have even been out to buy new running gear with zip pockets to accommodate it – I don’t like the idea of sticking it on my upper arm as I run alone in the dark, it feels like having a sticker on my back that says “Hello mugger, I have an expensive phone with me if you’d like it.”

My time for the Rifle Butts has steadily reduced over the past few months without me even trying and then on Friday I went for a run and was surprised to see that I had gone faster again without noticeably putting in any extra effort. So on Sunday I decided to have a go at doing a really fast time, if for no other reason than to get it out of my system so that I could go back to leisurely running. It felt good and I was sure I’d bettered my time by a long way.

When I got home and uploaded my run to Strava I was shocked to see that I was only 1 second faster up Rifle Butts than I had been on Friday. How was that possible? I was sure it was better. Now what? Do I get all stressed out on my next run or just forget about it and concentrate on enjoying myself?