My name is Goose, I’m 10-years-old and I’m an English Pointer.

I’ve lived with my humans since I was 8 weeks old. Apparently English Pointers are quite posh, but my humans seem quite common – we live in a small terrace house with no butler or staff. Thankfully I’m the only dog so I’m confident in my role as the most important dog in the house.

My chief interests in life are naps wrapped in a duvet, walks with lots of sniffing time and stealing from picnics. I like other dogs and humans very much, but humans are my favourite. Particularly humans with sandwiches.

The importance of routine

These days I’m a dog of routine – I like my first walk to be at 7am ideally, followed by a second 2pm stroll and finally, a before-bed wander. I find consistency is key to avoiding too much stress and having sore legs.

These walks can be substituted for a longer nap if it’s raining. Who wants to walk in the rain?! I’ve trained my humans to give me food or snacks on request – sometimes I’m not peckish til mid-afternoon and I don’t like eating the food in my bowl if it’s not fresh. We operate a feed-on-demand policy at home. I go to the kitchen and wag my tail and usually someone feeds me.

I’m a bit fussy about food, so if any drops out of my bowl onto the floor, I can’t eat it. Maybe commoner dogs do but, as I’ve said before, I think I’m quite posh.

Back in the day

Back in my youth I did a lot of running with one of my humans. These days, I’ve retired from running as I’m a bit stiff and frankly can’t be bothered running around unless there’s a squirrel or pheasant involved. Even then, it’s more of a short burst to prove I’ve still got it.

When I see my human put on her running kit in the morning, I know it’s time for an extra snooze in bed. When I did run, I occasionally went MIA after a pheasant or squirrel which tended to cause a fair amount of fuss. Especially if I made my humans late for work, or a wedding (too much fuss that day I’d say).

Plyometrics are very important for some athletes too

My chief interests in life reflect my dog-philosophy.

Firstly – naps are good, especially after a long walk with lots of sniffing. Naps help me to keep mentally sharp – essential when flushing out unsuspecting pheasants. They also help my muscles recover, ready for my next walk. If you ask me, humans don’t nap enough.

The key to a good nap is a quiet house, a full belly of food and not having any worries in my head. Although, to be honest, I don’t worry much about anything.

Secondly – walks are ideally for sniffing good smells, having a nice chat with other friendly dogs and for enjoying the scenery. Walks on a strict timeline or in a rush are not for me.

Life is for living and my nose is definitely made for sniffing. Rushing will lead to missing beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the opportunity to chat to a new dog that might have moved to the area or a particularly pungent scent that needs investigating. My advice to humans with dogs is to slow down and smell the squirrel.

Lighting can be be key for a good nap

Sometimes you need to actively share other people’s picnics

Finally, and perhaps most importantly – stealing from picnics is my one true love. My humans have unfortunately become very good at scouting out picnics before I do but luckily, I have a good memory and so can run back along the river to find picnics I’ve noticed earlier.

This year I managed to eat a whole bag of scotch eggs before an annoying lady put me on a lead. My human – the non-running one – was very upset, especially as he got shouted at by the annoying lady. Those scotch eggs were 100% worth it though. So moreish! I’m all for my normal healthy dog food but sometimes one does need a good snack to liven up the palate. Stolen snacks do seem to taste better too.

I’d love to write more but I am feeling a bit sleepy – it’s mid morning and my usual nap time.

The post The ideal athlete lifestyle doesn’t exist… appeared first on Fast Running.

It’s taken me a while to be able to write this which sounds more dramatic than it is!

If you’ve been following my blogs and social media, you’ll know that I had a rocky Spring. I tripped in a cool down in April and banged my knee. After a lot of rest, some attempts to train and race (I dropped out of the Thames Path 100 at 40 miles) I got a MRI in June and found that I’d fractured the bone under my cartilage in my femur and had lots of tibial bone bruising.

There have been quite a lot of changes to my racing plan since then, but I eventually settled on competing in the Irish 100km Championships in August.

Trying to string some string weeks together

I felt like I’d had my fair share of bad luck this year so was keen to get a decent result down. I strung some good training weeks together throughout the summer and did a great long run on the Isle of Wight on the Red Squirrel Trail in very hot conditions in July.

I’m a big kid and I love spending time with my nieces and nephews so following my 35 mile long run I decided it would be fun to go along to an inflatable water park.

In the back of my head I could hear a small voice saying things like ‘recovery, injury-risk etc’ but I decided to ignore that small voice.

Unfortunately, a large man slipped on the platform 2 metres above me, hit me and then we both tumbled into the water. I felt a bit rough that evening but put it down to being dehydrated and drinking champagne (the best recovery drink?!). The next morning I woke up to find that I had pretty severe vertigo and a very sore head. This continued for the next 2 weeks.

It never rains, it pours

Just as I was starting to recover and thinking about doing some decent training, I had my second vaccine. I trained as a vet at Cambridge and like to think of myself as a scientist first and foremost.

I’m a huge vaccine fan. I think it’s incredible that the vaccines have been produced and I think that everyone who can have one should.

Sadly, I was one of the few who had a vaccine reaction – huge rash, lymph nodes in my groin and armpit huge and feeling like I’d been hit by a bus. Another training week gone.

Photo: Provided by athlete

A light at the end of the tunnel

The good news in the middle of all of this was that Northern Ireland gave me a late call up to the Anglo Celtic Plate team. My first senior international vest! It’s hard to put into words how much this meant to me.

In the back of my head I was starting to wonder whether my body was asking for a break but I was really motivated to push on and try to do my best for the team.

Luckily I had a week off coming up with my family in the Cotswolds. It was now 2 weeks until the race and I was keen to get some last-minute work in. I trained hard during the week and other than feeling really tired (hanging out with nieces and nephews is super fun but exhausting) I did some great running.

Another hurdles to jump

On the last night I had sudden onset extreme nausea and missed our final meal together. Instead, I lay in the car trying not to puke. I thought I might have eaten some dodgy whitebait so hoped it would pass. Sadly it didn’t!

One week out from the race I spent the weekend in bed taking anti-nausea medication and trying to eat intermittently. It resulted in some difficult conversations between me and my husband during the week.

He thought I was crazy to race but I couldn’t get my head round not trying. It’s fair to say that my mum was also on my husband’s side. We flew to Dublin for the 100km and I had a tearful evening before as I felt so rough.

Tom Craggs, my coach, emphasised how important it was that I was healthy but he also knew how much the race meant to me.

Head out and see what happens

I’m quite a nervous racer so I had my usual pre-race dodgy tummy which felt pretty normal. I managed to eat some breakfast and nibble a few crackers before the start. I was keen to get going as I knew I was unlikely to feel ok for very long.

Up to 20 miles or so I felt fairly good – on the pace I was hoping for, and I was drinking and feeling ok. Just after the 20 mile mark I started to feel really nauseous and regurgitate anything that was in my stomach. I’d brought some anti-nausea medication with me so took that and tried not to panic.

Unfortunately it progressed and the only thing I could intermittently keep down was flat coke. In endurance running flat coke is also known as ‘the little red ambulance’ and it certainly felt like it. At one point I confided in a fellow Northern Ireland runner how bad I was feeling. He gave me a great pep talk about how tough I was and somehow I kept moving.

It’s in the head, not the legs

I can’t remember much from 26 miles onwards. Repeatedly it felt like I couldn’t run another lap (the course was 1.14 miles long) and I did a lot of self-talk and negotiation in my head. I repeatedly just ran to the next corner or next section of the lap. I tried to keep smiling and moving, even if I was moving slowly.

By some miracle I finished and unexpectedly won the silver medal in the Irish Championships. Our team won bronze and I got the NI and Ulster record for 100 kilometres.

Photo: Provided by athlete

The next few days weren’t pretty – my parents were so worried they almost didn’t put me on a flight home, but I thought the prospect of 3 hours in a car was worse than a 1-hour flight.

I’ve never gone so deep mentally or physically in a race. Since then I’ve had 2 weeks off running and am just starting to jog again. I’m still intermittently nauseous but starting to feel a bit better. I’m still not sure it was the right thing to race but I’m proud that I toughed it out. When I eventually start to feel myself again I’m excited to see what I can do when I’m feeling good.

The post Tough times favour tough people appeared first on Fast Running.

My mother is what a close Scottish friend once called a ‘nippy sweetie’. 

The sort of person who bakes and cooks obsessively for anyone who might be ill, is happy to spend her spare time helping me do work on my house and is generous to a fault.  She is also the person who regularly tells me I look like I’m auditioning to be a tramp in Oliver Twist, wonders aloud why I’m so wrinkly so young and for years has likened an obsession with running to having a serious mental health condition.

She once told me ‘People are talking about you running, out in all weathers, in the rain. You’re lucky they haven’t sectioned you by the side of the road’.

“It’s not good for your knees”

Requests for base layers, socks or a head torch on my Christmas list have been ignored for years. Attempting to get out the door early to run has been met with tuts of disapproval when I’m home for the weekend.

When my mum and dad came to watch London marathon she wondered if she’d have to spend the whole morning watching the race and could they not pop to Oxford Street instead (my proud father veto-ed this in a rare moment of victory).

On the phone when I’ve previously complained about being tired after an on-call weekend my mother has told me I’m running too much and that I should concentrate on work (she also has a Puritanical work ethic). Until the last couple of years, suggesting exercise other than walking was like suggesting a 4-day week.

A peculiar turn of events

It has been bewildering therefore to find that my mum has not only taken up running but is running back and forth on the beach, five mornings every week.

It has been less shocking to find out that she’s quite a talented runner.  She is the most competitive and bloody-minded person I’ve ever met, and I’m married to an Olympic gold medallist. There’s no way I’d take her on at bridge or table tennis – her other new skills in retirement. 

In addition to our regular phone call news exchange which mostly consists of my mother listing all the people who are sick or have died recently in the North Coast of Northern Ireland, we now also discuss pre-run defaecation and running kit.

My dad tells me that she has singlehandedly kept Sweaty Betty in business during lockdown, with the purchase of some very nice matching running outfits. My grey and very unmatched kit looks sad by comparison.

Mum has placed dibbs on my Nike Next % trainers when I’m done with them although I’m not sure how much advantage is to be expected on Portstewart Strand. 

How about some intervals?

Some of our conversations have been very funny. I suggested that interval training might help improve my mum’s speed, but she remained unconvinced despite an explanation of the physiology behind it.

Needless to say, no interval training has been carried out. And she has no memory of ever having any negative feelings towards running previously, much to my amusement. Recently mum told me that running is like brushing your teeth – the day doesn’t feel quite right until you’ve done it. I have to agree with her.

Perhaps what is most unexpected of all, is how much pride and pleasure I feel that my mum enjoys running so much.

Running with my mum on the beach feels really special and is something I never imagined I’d do. Long may it continue! 

The post Running with Mum appeared first on Fast Running.

I’m a big fan of Elizabeth Day’s podcast, ‘How to Fail’.

Day interviews people (usually famous) about their three biggest failures and how those failures have shaped their lives. She has also written a very successful book about her own perceived failures.

I’m not keen on stereotypes generally but she reported something that really resonated. Typically, when Elizabeth interviewed a man, they often struggled to come up with three failures, preferring to re-frame things that had gone wrong as ‘just life’ or something that led to success.

In contrast, women were able to list the many times they had already failed that day. I’m sure there are many exceptions to this but I’m certainly prone to getting stuck on my perceived failures.

A small fall with bigger consequences

Approximately 6 weeks ago I fell during the cool down from a great session set by Tom Craggs (20 minutes at marathon pace, 2 x 8 minutes of continuous hills followed by another 20 minutes at marathon pace).

Two weeks before that I’d run a marathon PB in the middle of 100-mile training and it was fair to say that although I was tired, I was smashing the training. I fell because I tripped on a small rock, a few days before my period.

While most readers will have no interest in my menstrual cycle, I know that during this portion of my cycle I have terrible proprioception. And that if I’m going to trip and hurt myself, it’s probably at this time of the month.

Failure point number 1 – Don’t run on a rocky trail when you’re tired and pre-menstrual.

A simple fall turned out to be less simple when I realised after a few dodgy days of running there was an effusion (fluid in my knee) and some bone bruising. Three weeks out from my A goal – the Thames Path 100-mile race – I was forced to taper early, rest my leg, ice my knee and try to stay the right side of sanity.

The weekend before the race I was still a bit ‘ouchy’ but there was some rapid improvement in the 5 days before the race. After some chats with Tom Craggs my coach we decided to give the race a go.

Thirty-five-ish miles in I started to have severe quad pain in my right leg that progressed quickly to pain all the time, even when walking. I knew from the physiotherapy treatment I had been having that this was probably because a knock-on effect of ongoing knee instability and bone bruising.

Anger and disappointment

I wish I could say I handled having to drop out of the Thames Path well but that would be a lie – I was angry with myself and disappointed in my body.

In the weeks that followed, when my quad pain eventually healed, I told myself I should have been tougher. Normally, when I finish a race, I really enjoy the down time afterwards – nights at the pub with friends, cereal for dinner, tubs of ice-cream etc but this time I worried about losing fitness and a prolonged injury.

Even amateur athletes are guilty of separating our body from our mind and accusing it of letting us down. Running acts for me as relief valve from a very busy job.

It’s a reason to prioritise time for myself and try to get out roughly on time. Without training sessions to go to I got sucked into longer hours and was less resilient to the stress of my day-to-day.

Failure point number 2 – beating myself up for things outside my control.

One of the things I found most difficult was my own perceived change in identity as a runner.

When I’m not running, I don’t feel like a runner, and I’m a bit lost. My strength and conditioning sessions are great, but rehabilitation is a lot less fun than improvements in weightlifting or drills.

I took myself off Strava for a while, acquainted myself with a watt bike and tried to avoid hopping on my leg to see if it still hurt. Eventually I started to feel a bit better although not before I’d lost my temper several times and cried quite a lot.

Failure point number three – taking myself way too seriously.

It’s been easy for me to identify my recent failures, but the reality is that falling over happens to everyone. It’s just one of those things.

And I know that I am tough enough – I’ve trained bloody hard for quite a long time now with no races on the horizon.

Just because I’m not running doesn’t mean that I can’t prioritise getting out of work to go for a walk with my dog or to go to the pub.

No-one cares about what I’m doing on Strava, the people that matter just care that I’m happy and healthy. After all, if the last year has taught me anything, it’s that ‘health is wealth’.

The post How to fail (and that it’s okay) appeared first on Fast Running.

It’s been a big couple of months of training (and racing) for me. I’m training for my first 100-mile race in May – the Centurion Thames Path 100 – and I’m equally terrified and excited.

My longest recent run was just under 30 miles and it blew my mind that on race day I’d still have 70 miles to go. Training has been going well and I managed to run a marathon PB (2.57.11) in the midst of training, which still seems like a dream.

Alongside a more-than full time job I’ve been averaging 65-80 miles a week as well as some strength sessions. This might seem like fairly small fry for all the high-mileage athletes out there but I’m pretty knackered. I’m normally a voracious reader but at the minute I’m lucky if I can get through a few pages of my book before bed and I’ve taken to having a nap on weekend afternoons. 

The day job

My day-job is as a veterinary anaesthetist. There aren’t many of us in the world (approximately 150 in Europe). To become a veterinary anaesthetist, it’s sort-of similar to the consultancy training pathway that doctors follow with some key differences.

Most vets qualify as the equivalent of a GP and then, after some time in practice, a small subset apply for training posts at specialist hospitals in their area of interest. I was lucky (and mad enough) to get a training post in Edinburgh some years ago and I qualified as a specialist anaesthetist in 2016.

These days I work 4 long days (10+ hours as a minimum) per week and a 1-in-4 on call rota which means that one of my long days is followed by being on-call overnight. I also work 1-in-4 weekends where I’m on duty from Friday morning until Monday morning. 

Veterinary practice is much like human medicine in that it’s unpredictable, often hilarious and occasionally chaotic. Unfortunately, the unpredictability doesn’t always tally well with my training program so there’s a fair number of runs that are shifted around and quite a lot of getting up too early.

The importance of good communication with your coach

Tom Craggs, my coach, is endlessly patient with late night texts to say that I’ve missed a run because of some disaster that’s arrived out of hours. For me, being awake between 11pm and 6am has a disproportionate impact on my fatigue levels, whether that’s due to work or training.

Every minute I’m up before 6am seems to require 30 minutes of extra sleep and sadly that’s not always possible. To those athletes who work night shifts, I salute you! 

Double runs require careful negotiation with my husband as it means I can’t fit in a morning dog walk with Goose, our English Pointer, and he has to do it instead. Even on single days it often makes sense to run early as it means training isn’t dependent on getting out of work at a decent hour.

That said, my early morning dog walk is balm for my soul – I love walking with him beside the river before the rest of the world is awake. Unfortunately, there are two swans nesting on our usual route at the moment. Goose isn’t interested but they try to attack anyone trying to walk past – it makes our morning wander a lot less relaxing.

Clearly Goose needs some serious walking and takes no prisoners. Photo: Karla Borland

Fuelling the bigger workload

With all this training, there’s a lot of extra fuelling that’s necessary. My Italian colleague at work is constantly disgusted by how much I shovel into my mouth between cases. Apparently, I eat like an Italian builder.

I’ve taken that as a complement but from his facial expressions, I’m not sure that’s how it was meant. The anaesthesia snack cupboard at work is legendary although much of it would not be considered nutritious – it’s mostly sugary sweets and doughnuts. I’m guilty of getting to 7pm and then inhaling a chocolate bar in an act of desperation. 

There are a couple of things that have really helped me survive quite an intense period of work and running. As I’ve mentioned above fuel is key. All mealtimes have gone out the window – if I’m hungry and fancy a panini in the afternoon, two hours after lunch, then I eat it.

After my recent marathon I had a bag of chips as an afternoon snack and felt a lot better about life.

Following some tough runs, maintaining my strength and conditioning sessions has been essential to getting my legs moving again. I’ve also been doing my best to get more sleep – Instagram scrolling is the absolute worst for keeping me up. Before I know it, I’m searching for nonsense and am wide awake.

Instead, reading a book makes my brain switch off from work and running. And finally, the most important thing. Wine. I’m not going to break any world records and running isn’t my job so if I fancy a large glass of red then I have it. I’m sure all those antioxidants are useful for ultra-training. 

The post Adapting and fuelling ultra training appeared first on Fast Running.

When I was asked for a ‘fun fact’ for the Fast 10 blog I mentioned my dog, Goose. He’s a very cool English Pointer and will hopefully feature in an upcoming blog. The other ‘fun fact’ that I probably should have mentioned is that I’m married to a double Olympic medallist in rowing, Tom Ransley.

Tom retired last year, and I could probably write a book on living with a recently retired athlete, but it wouldn’t be funny and I’m keen to avoid divorce (turns out, divorce is mind numbingly expensive and a massive hassle).

I thought I’d try to talk through what I’ve learnt from living with an Olympian.

The not-so-normal aspects

Once you’ve got your required nutrients in for the day then you can eat whatever you want. If that means consuming 16 mini rolls on the way round a supermarket and then having to explain it to the checkout lady, then that’s what is necessary.

If it means you need to eat a bowl of pasta before going out for a three-course dinner because you’re concerned about portion sizes, then that’s the sacrifice you’ll have to make. Anxiety about the availability of food will be constant.

Rest is essential. Agreeing to come on a dog walk isn’t really about the walking. It’s all about walking infuriatingly slowly to the nearest bench and then asking to sit down.

In summer, our dog enjoys this enormously as every bench usually has some disgusting discarded sandwich nearby to try to eat. In winter, the dog and I just freeze as we’re basically just standing outside in the cold and waiting. I suspect the aim to stop being asked to come on a walk.

Training so hard that it makes it difficult to get up every morning is normal. As is groaning every time you have to put your socks on, lift anything off the floor or trying to descend the stairs. Living with someone who does an impression of the tin-man in the Wizard of Oz on a daily basis becomes totally normal.

We shall be asking Karla for as many pictures of Goose as we can.

Enough lycra to make clothe the Titans

You can never have enough kit. We now have enough lycra to clothe a large village of very tall people with a penchant for close-fitting sportswear. No matter how many times it’s washed it will still smell like a mixture of mould and body odour.

That smell will invade every other piece of normal clothing kept in the same room. When suggestions are made about disposing of said kit the reaction will be akin to suggesting that second breakfast is an optional meal (see Point 1).

Competitiveness extends to every part of your life. At the end of a heated ‘discussion’ you will declare that you have ‘won’ the argument. It will take you 10+ years to figure out that this makes your wife want to kill you. Board games at Christmas take on a new significance and years later you will still have a mental tally of how many times your mother-in-law has beaten you at cards.

Maybe a bit more naked than normal

Training day-in, day-out with 20 other men every day for 11 years will make you incredibly relaxed about being naked. This means being unsure whether answering the door to our 90-year-old neighbour wearing a very small towel is appropriate (it’s not by the way).

Coming home for Christmas to Northern Ireland and swimming in the sea, in panda-print budgie smugglers, is also not ok. Especially if your mother-in-law is looking on, wondering who her daughter married.

If you’re an Olympian-in-waiting and you’re reading this I accept that you won’t have got any useful advice. Spare a thought for your partner though. Living with an athlete is hard.

We probably should include a picture of Karla and Tom too. Not sure how he would be coping with the thin air at 2685m.

The post Living with an Olympian appeared first on Fast Running.

The Northern Irish international ultra-runner details her own training and interviews a fantastic range of athletes on her own website, so we are delighted that Borland will be part of the Fast10 in 2021.

Stepping up from 100km to 100 miles is the yearly focus, as well as taking on one of the biggest challenges in UK ultra and off road running, the Dragon’s Back race in Wales in September.

Profile

Name: Karla Borland
Age: 34
Hometown: Originally from near Bushmills in Northern Ireland (where the whiskey is made) but I currently live in Winchester in the UK.
Club: Winchester and District AC, Springwell in Northern Ireland
Main discipline: Marathon, Ultras
Other disciplines: I’m happy to race over any distance although the steeplechase is probably my personal worst.
Work: I work full time as a veterinary anaesthetist in a referral veterinary hospital in Hampshire.

Goals for 2021 and past highlights

Goals or targets for 2021: Complete my first 100 mile race and enjoy it, hopefully make the Anglo-Celtic Plate 100km team for Northern Ireland and do the Dragon’s Back race in Wales in September.

Past Running highlights: I ran Comrades [iconic 56 mile ultra in South Africa] in 2019 – the entire experience was pretty crazy and cool.

Interesting or fun fact: I have an English Pointer called Goose. He was the ultimate running companion but now is too old and stiff – he still loves his walks but stays in bed when I’ve got my running shorts on.
I run because…it really helps with work stress, I love the feeling of being really fit and I really love races (2020 has been a hard year!).

Photo: Paul Hammond

Favourites

Favourite training session: Long runs with a friend and plenty to catch up on.
Least favourite training session: Anything short and fast.
Favourite pre-race food: Coffee and a mug of granola. I prefer morning races.
Favourite post-race food: Pizza and a beer. Ideally with an ice cream sundae to finish.
Favourite running shoes: This is a tough one – I was an Adidas girl through and through but the new Ultra Boost trainers feel terrible on my feet so I’ve been experimenting with New Balance, Nike and Asics – the search continues!
Brands or organisations that support me – no brands but I do interview runners on my blog here.

The post Fast10: Karla Borland appeared first on Fast Running.