Thoughts around mental health during the pandemic

In the week commencing the 9th March this year I was pretty anxious.  I'm usually bubbling up and down with a bit of anxiety about most things, it's how my brain is hardwired and fortunately age and experience helps me manage it so that it doesn't overwhelm me as much these days.  

This week was a bit different though because I had my usual travel anxiety of going away on honeymoon to Barbados (we got married in September 2019, but had decided to do a proper break in March 2020), anxiety of leaving a busy recruitment desk for a week, still some anxiety around politics and Brexit, but then this new anxiety about Coronavirus.  I knew that I wouldn't be alone in this anxiety, so I shared my thoughts in a blog post at work and on LinkedIn as I know from my role as a mental health champion within work and within my running club that the biggest issues people tend to face when they've contacted me for a chat is that they feel like they are the only ones with odd and unsettling feelings going through their head.  Just helping people understand that they are not alone and should not feel ashamed about talking about how they are feeling is important.  

As Friday 13th loomed when we were heading down to Gatwick to stay over the night before our flight, I wasn't sure whether we'd get to the airport to be turned around and go back home.  We had a few bottles of hand sanitiser and I was stocked up on vitamins and soap in my luggage.  The Virgin Atlantic staff advised us that Barbados were increasing their quarantine restriction levels and there was a chance we could be quarantined upon arrival for 14 days "but we're only travelling there for 10 days?" the lady shrugged and whispered "I'd still fly if I was you".

The flight was calm and pleasant, we washed our hands more frequently and used hand sanitiser before eating and when we landed they heat scanned us as we got off the plane and interviewed us for our movements and symptoms before we were allowed through immigration.  The hotel had a fair amount of hand sanitiser everywhere and from the first evening to the next the buffets went from being unstaffed to only being allowed to have your food put on your plate by a member of staff.  It was a surreal experience of being in a tropical paradise, getting grief from my Mum to fly back immediately from a coronavirus free country and constantly checking the Foreign & Commonwealth page for updates.  We moved onto another hotel for the second of our 3 days and on the morning we were due to check out we had a missed call from a Gatwick number and Virgin Holidays cancelled our "holiday" (basically the next 3 night hotel booking) as they'd not realised we were already in Barbados.  Alan also had a nervous couple of hours when we thought the call was from the airport parking as the app for his car showed it as unlocked (we did manage to lock it through the app remotely).  We then tried to call Virgin Atlantic to see what the advice on our flight was on the evening of the 22nd March, couldn't get hold of anyone after 1 hour on hold.  Alan checked with the insurance company who said they'd cover us for a return flight as the FCO guidance had changed to no non-essential travel.  We logged onto BA and the first flight we tried to book as we clicked "pay" bounced back as fully booked.  Fortunately we managed to get onto a second flight that day at a cost of £1400 each.  We took a taxi to the airport and emailed the rep to say we'd not be needing the second 3 night hotel booking and wouldn't be attending the catamaran cruise we'd booked.  Whilst this is in the scheme of things a very small inconvenience, as I type this out it makes me feel really sad as it really hits home that it was the end of an extended "normality" we had come to expect and enjoy. 

In the plane poor Alan at 6"4 was crammed into an economy seat for the 9 hour flight back with his legs twisted to fit in.  We sat next to an elderly lady who had been staying in Barbados with friends for an extended break of several months and was due to fly back on the same day we were, but her daughter had booked her onto an earlier flight out of concern and I shared my hand sanitiser with her as we ate our meals.  The way my anxious brain works is that I still think about this very transient acquaintance and hope that she's still ok.

We landed in Gatwick had no checks other than a self service passport scan and collected our luggage.  We found our way to the carpark and set off home picking up Alan's brother's dog on the way as he was staying with a friend whilst his family were on holiday.  Their holiday was also cut short and they had a more complex return.  The roads were busy and the service stations didn't seem to have clicked that people should be socially distancing. 

Since then it's been almost like we've been in a film.  I went on annual leave and haven't been back into the office ever since.  My smart shoes are under my desk at work, my rice cake snacks are in the drawers going stale and I've not seen any of my colleagues in person for over 2 months.  I've not even driven into Leeds at all, in fact in over 2 months I've driven a total of 25 miles and I sometimes go and look at my car to remind myself that it's still there.

At the moment we hear the phrase "we're all in this together" trotted out, but I reflect on this and think of the other analogy used that "we're all in the same storm, but not in the same boat" and feel that is a more true view of the Covid world.  

When Alan and I decided to move in together and we found a house in a more remote rural location of our lovely village in South Milford I don't think we ever imagined that we'd spend all of our time here and quite so much time with each other.  Fresh back from honeymoon we are fortunate that we both love and like each other and so our lockdown together has been relatively conflict free.  We don't have children and so we are able to focus on our own needs without the challenge of balancing household chores, working from home and home schooling.  Many people I've spoken to have described the guilt to me of deciding whether to focus on work or home schooling and until recently whether to go out for their own exercise to clear their head or take a walk with their family - thankfully this situation has been eased a bit with the updated restrictions.  

We have been fortunate that we can get all the groceries that we've needed via the amazing drive through farm shop near by at Bert’s Barrow, click and collect from Tesco as well as our usual evening meals through Hello Fresh.  We are also in a remote location so at anytime of day I can go for a walk or run and social distancing isn't a problem. I'm incredibly grateful that whilst my work and income has suffered as a result of Covid - 19, I still have a job to occupy my time and an income that covers my outgoings.  For me this is a massive comfort as I don't do well with too much time on my hands or without sufficient distractions.  Most of all I'm incredibly lucky that I've been mostly symptom free and in good health and so far most of my family, friends and acquaintances have been too.  However, sadly I know a few people that I know who have both had Covid and have recovered, but also those who have not been as fortunate.  I think about these people often and have no idea of what I can say to offer comfort in these impossibly physically distant times.   

This week is mental health awareness week with a theme of kindness (a major prompt for me to get some sort of blog out at last) and it's also the week I enter a new decade turning 40 on Tuesday.  During my 40 years I've experienced depression, anxiety, OCD and self esteem issues, 8 weeks into lockdown and a global pandemic I'm doing ok.  Back at the beginning of April I read this article and certainly some of what was written really echoed with me - having a long track record of dealing with mental health challenges I have managed to develop a tool kit of skills and methods to help me keep as even a mood as possible.  In brief these are:

• Regular exercise that has me break a sweat
• Getting some fresh air, daylight and looking at views/nature
• Eating as well as I can - fresh fruit and veg and not too much sugar 
• Avoiding too much caffeine and alcohol
• Getting a decent amount of sleep
• Regular social activity with friends
• Craft / creative outlets (time away from screen)
• Limiting social media / news
• Volunteering - spending time focussing on others 

As soon as we arrived back home I knew that I needed to be quite strict about these and so I've generally been sticking close to this plan each week.  I've not necessarily done all of them perfectly, but doing as many as I can as often as I can as I know that if I don't look after myself it's easy to fall into bad habits and then a subsequent bad mood.

One of the universal struggles that I think everyone has is that the old "rule book" has been suspended.  For those of us with self esteem niggles (indeed even those who have never had any self esteem issues may find the current world more difficult) we might have validated ourselves by competing in races or running with friends and knowing that we can keep up with a certain person or in a particular running group.  At work in my recruitment sales job you'd compete with an external competitor and beat them to a candidate or a job and chalk up a fee on the board, or you'd be used to billing the most in an office, a region or a discipline you could be "better" than others or the "best".  In both of these areas we are the *same* people we were before, we are as skilled or fit as we were before and can put in the same amount of effort, but we are likely to not be experiencing the same outcomes.  Does this mean we are no longer worthy?  Does that mean we are all now bad at our jobs or running?  Have we no longer got what it takes to be successful?

Someone once coined the phrase "form is temporary, class is permanent" and I think that is certainly true now.  Individually we can't control what happens with the global response to this virus, we can't control whether the lockdown remains or is lifted and whether this is the *right* thing to do.  We can look out of the window and get angry with those people we see not socially distancing (for this I found this article a very useful read).  We can get in rows with people on social media.  We can get into a spiral of thinking that makes it impossible to step out of the door for a run or pick up the phone and make a call.  Worst of all we can get stuck in a funk without our friends and colleagues noticing and asking how we are or just being around in a better mood to lift our spirits by osmosis. This is one of the hardest things we are likely to face and we must draw on all the resources we have available to help ourselves get thorough it together.  Whilst we are physically distanced it's important to be socially connected.  

I've never before spent quite so much time staring at my own face (or indeed quite so little time wearing no make- up!) on video calls and it is not the same as personal interaction.  I know from my own personal circadian rhythms that my energy levels in the mornings are lower than the afternoons and evenings, but that meetings in person energise me - unfortunately I don't get the same energy boost from a video call and in fact find these can be more energy draining.  However, it's not about beating myself up for feeling this way as we aren't comparing the same things here, it's about working out how to operate more effectively in this strange world.  It's about trying something different and working out what is best for you.  Here are a few ideas about what has helped me with work.

• As tempting as it is to stumble from bed, into your clothes and in front of the laptop, try and go outside, even if for a few seconds so that you punctuate the start of your day with some natural light and fresh air.
• Every hour get up and walk away from the screen - usually you'd make a coffee, chat to a colleague, meet a candidate or client or at least stare into the distance - avoid eye strain and general stress.  As a plus you can put the dishwasher on, or stroke your pet!
• Try to plan your day so you aren't bouncing from video call to video call - it's exhausting, try and plan some activities in that boost your energy levels.
• Have a decent lunch - again eating outside, getting active or at least getting daylight will help keep your energy levels up.
• Don't let work bleed too much into your evening - if you have something good happening, don't feel guilty about doing a bit of extra work on it, but if your day hasn't been going as well as you'd hoped don't drag it out feeling more and more frustrated.  Finish your day, plan some easier calls for first thing and get a good night of sleep.
• If you have something more admin focussed and are finding it hard to concentrate, listen to some music, I find that it "switches on" different parts of my brain.
• Importantly talk to people.  Usually after that rude or grumpy client call you'd turn to a colleague have a moan and crack on, but instead we can only grumble to the cat who quite frankly probably isn't that bothered!  Don't bottle it up, try and talk regularly to colleagues and your manager about the good and the bad and help support colleagues if you think they are having a tough time.
• And finally - how do you measure success?  This is a tough one as ultimately my job is still to place candidates, even if I have far fewer jobs to work on, I still need to create revenue.  I've been doing my job long enough to know what a good day of work looks like and how it feels so I'm trying not to be too arbitrary around numbers and just putting in a good day of work and reflecting on what the positives have been - a positive call with a new contact, a hint of a new job that might come live - breaking down all of the component parts and doing them as well as I can.  By controlling what I can, when things do improve, I'll be ready to make the most of the situation.

I don't have all the answers, but I do know that whilst we are physically separated, it's more important than ever to share what we are finding hard, what we have found helps and showing each other we are not all alone.  

It's Mental health awareness weak and the theme is kindness so try your best to remember to be kind to yourself and others.  

20 things 20 times in 2020

"but that's 400 things?!" said Alan when I explained my plan for 2020.

Box ticking is one of the things Alan finds a bit irritating and I have to say I can sometimes see his point - ticking something off a list (especially one that someone else has written) to say "I've done that" seems a bit...well arbitrary.  Visiting x site when actually a less famous site might be more to your taste than queuing up for "the selfie" that everyone else has.

As I know that this is the year that my age arbitrarily changes into another decade, I'm going to attempt not to have any mid-life type crisis and just think positively about this new decade and concentrate on doing more of the things that either make me happy, improve my wellbeing or are good for the world in general.  I quite like that the numbers are all 20 as this makes some of the tasks quite easy to achieve, but they are all important and valuable activities for me and some of them will be more of a stretch.

(You might notice that none of the below specifically include "spending time with Alan....I'd hope that I don't need to arbitrarily task myself to do that, plus he doesn't like ticking off boxes ;-) ) 

1 - Complete 20 parkruns - an "easy" one as I've averaged more like 40 per year since I discovered parkrun in 2014.
2 - Donate to charity / recycle 20 bags or boxes of stuff - living in a house with no storage is great in some ways as it forces this issue, but recently I've definitely accumulated too much and a sort out would be useful.
3 - Go to 20 yoga or pilates sessions.
4 - Write 20 letters or postcards
5 - Complete at least 20 crafting sessions - either alone or even better with friends
6 - 20 sessions of creative writing / blogging entries
7 - 20 sessions of mindfulness - Ideally I'd do this everyday, but I'm not great at always remembering, so this is a nice achievable target.
8 - Today having a stunning walk around Fairburn Ings RSPB nature reserve I realised this is one thing that makes me really happy and so I want to do at least 20 walks or runs around beautiful nature locations.
9 - Leading or backmarking at least 20 run club sessions
10 - Volunteer at least 20 times
11 - Meet friends for coffee/lunch/catch ups at least 20 times
12 - Read 20 books
13 - Watch 20 new films
14 - Spend 20 hours learning something new
15 - Get at least 8 hours sleep 20 times (this is a challenge as my regular daytime sleep is only 6.5 hours)
16 - Visit 20 new places (not countries, just different places that I've not been before, whether a restaurant, or a nice place to walk)
17 - Visit the gym at least 20 times (pretty sure I didn't manage this in 2019)
18 - Plant 20 "things" whether seed bombs or vegetables.  
19 - Watch at least 20 live music acts (should be achievable as we are least going to Blue Dot festival again and hopefully might still get tickets to Glastonbury in the resales - fingers crossed!)
20 - Get to work without driving at least 20 times (I'll cheat if needed and include working from home!)

Wish me luck 

New York Marathon - Marathon Number 11 and how not to run or train for a marathon!

In a fit of pique in January when Alan realised that he had a fair few air miles from his credit card (definitely recommend a reward or cashback credit card if you end up putting a lot on for work that you claim back!) he asked if I fancied going to New York again.  I'd been twice before and both times loved it and so was up for the idea, he then did some research and found that Sports Tour International offer guaranteed marathon places with a combined holiday package and asked if I fancied it - and so feeling positive about my running in the midst of Red January I said yes!

Now first things first, it's not a cheap marathon to run or enter.  I think that the ballot places are most likely as tough to get into as London and if you want to run as a group of friends/couple the likelihood of everyone getting a ballot place is probably very limited and I believe it still costs $358 per place if you are a non US resident.

If you are speedy you could try and run a qualifying time which is even tighter than London as for the 2020 race you would need to be nailing the following times, broken down by age group: 18 to 34 years old (3:00 for men, 3:30 for women) 35 to 39 (3:05 for men, 3:35 for women (I'm sure you still have to pay those chunky entry fees!).

You can also try and secure a place by running a "virtual" marathon between the 31st October and 3rd November.... although this has already happened for 2020 - but more information is here - again I'm guessing you'll still have to pay, although the fees listed for charity places seem to be around $150 and I think that is for US charities only and with fundraising targets of c$2650.  I've tried to see what the fundraising targets might be for UK charities, but it seems as though you have to apply and will still need to pay for your flights, accommodation and the $358 fee.

So the costs are a bit prohibitive, but the good news is that you get all of this stuff included in your fee:

• Entry to the 2020 TCS New York City Marathon, including fluid/fueling stations, medical support, entertainment, bag-check handling, and security 
• Official New Balance technical shirt 
• Official transportation to the start from Midtown Manhattan, Lower Manhattan, or the Meadowlands Sports Complex (New Jersey) - Start area, including breakfast and entertainment 
• Finisher materials: medal, food, beverages, and United Airlines/Foot Locker Heatsheet™ 

However...it's worth nothing that:

• The drawing is free to enter and limited to one entry per person
• Entry fees are charged upon acceptance. 
• Once an entrant is accepted, the entry fee is nontransferable under any and all circumstances, and is also nonrefundable under any and all circumstances except in the event of cancellation of the marathon.

There are a few other ways to enter, but most likely out of reach for a few of us, but if you are interested and a budding elite athlete or philanthropist, here are some ideas.

Accommodation in New York is also not cheap, Sports Tours sell packages that include guaranteed entry plus accommodation, flights, transfers and other extras or a combination of your choosing.  Alan being a frugal (definitely not stereotypical Yorkshireman(!!)) knew that the air miles sorted our flights (although we paid the usual air taxes) and we went for the guaranteed entry and minimum accommodation option of 3 nights to save money.  We then used Hotwire to book a cheaper (and better quality) hotel for our last 2 nights.  Hotwire is great if you are a bit relaxed about exactly what hotel you get - it allows you to stipulate an area and price range for your chosen dates and tells you what you might get and then you book blind and find out where you end up after you've paid.  It's always worked really well for us previously (we didn't end up in the Trump hotel - phew no ethical conflict!).  This time it took us to Hyatt House in Midtown/Chelsea area - only a few blocks from most of the places you'd want walk to in NYC, very roomy and a really friendly welcome.

New York Marathon was something Alan and myself both hoped to look forward to and train well for.  The reality was that life got in the way a bit; things like getting engaged in April and married in September, Alan having a slipped disc injury flare up after London Marathon and not running more than Liverpool Half in May, me studying for and completing my CIRF course in September, both of us being a lot heavier than when we were at our running peaks back in 2016, me currently trying to be more than one person at work as well as my own on/off niggly injuries,  This all meant as the weeks passed I was starting to dread the marathon I should be really excited about.

We'd clearly invested a lot of money in our trip and 4 days before race day (having only run 8 miles the Sunday before and the furthest before then being the Leeds Country Way (11.5 miles) on 1st September) I was really ill with a heavy cold/flu and I ended up working from home (not something I tend to do!). I was really worried as to whether I could make it around.

Alan and I had discussed our game plan for the marathon and as a qualified Coach in Running Fitness I would always recommend training appropriately for a marathon as it is a distance not to be trifled with!  So none of the below is what I would actually coach.

However, with money invested and a non transferable place, we decided to research how long was available to complete the course and make it a true sightseeing trip of NYC.  They have 4 waves and 3 different starts, somehow I'd ended up in Wave 3 and Alan in Wave 2.  We checked and he was able to start further back in my wave.  The sweep vehicle is 6 hours and 30, but unlike London starts at the end of the starting pack - so being in Wave 3 would mean we had more like 7 - 7 hours 30 until we were swept up.  They also keep the finishing line open until 7.25 pm.  This was my 11th marathon and Alan's 8th and I wouldn't recommend taking on a marathon as we did without the training, but we have the benefit of knowing what the demands of this distance are on our bodies and how to mitigate for this we knew we'd likely complete it, even if it was slow.  We figured that we could walk run c9mins 15 secs KM and get around in sub 6.5 hours and so that was the plan.

We flew out from Manchester with Virgin at 12.30pm on the Thursday and Alan had strategically booked seats that allowed for him to comfortably stretch his legs and didn't have to pay extra to do so.  For the week between our clocks going back and the Sunday of the marathon, NYC is only 4 hours behind UK time, so we arrived at a reasonable time.  We made our way through crowded transport with the Air Train and then the subway to the Port Authority and we walked a few minutes to the Sports Tours International Hotel which was Double Tree by Hilton New York Times Square West.  It was a good location to get to the Expo the following morning - around 15 minutes walk and also to the transfer buses on the morning of the marathon - around 15 minutes walk as well.  The room was small, but functional and my only issue was that the shower seal was not present so the room flooded when you showered - Alan was also sad there wasn't a bath!  Our first evening was a bit functional as I was still really poorly and so we grabbed a Five Guys for tea after checking into our room and got an early night.

The following day we went along to the Expo to pick up our race numbers and marathon t-shirts which were great - long sleeved and technical.  Only slight niggle was I had to get an XXL as they'd run out of L and XL and M was a bit of a suffocating fit!  However it looks great and I will definitely wear it often (first outing was to parkrun this morning!).

Speaking of parkrun - there is one in New Jersey - Delaware and Raritan Canal, you can get a train and an uber, or there was a bus arranged via Facebook...needless to say we didn't partake as it wouldn't have been sensible prep for either of us in these circumstances - they did have a record turnout of 111 as a result of the marathon.  There is also an optional 5K Abbott race that gives you a great hat souvenir and is "race to the finish" for the last 5K of the marathon I believe - again not good prep for us so we gave it a miss.

 

The Expo was fun, and despite feeling gross I managed to enjoy picking up free samples of compeed (Just as we were saying damn...we forgot the compeed!) and we bought some cool looking, roomy and comfortable NYC Marathon branded running belts for $23 each.  I also realised I'd totally forgotten my running nutrition, but fortunately managed to find the same Shot Bloks as I use in the UK, but with exciting new flavours like Margarita with 3 x extra sodium - useful when you sweat a lot!

We grabbed a self serve deli salad for lunch (they do it by weight rather than what you can cram into a container so it was a rather expensive, but delicious lunch!).  And after a bit more exploring we went back to the hotel so I could rest and Alan went to get breakfast for the following morning and picked up bananas, croissants and belvita.  We somehow managed to find a table that evening at an Italian restaurant - Il Punto and filled up on pasta.

That night the clocks went back and fortunately we had an early night as we were still jet lagged and so the obscenely early start of 4.30am to get the 5.30am transfer bus meant we still had around 6 hours sleep.  Classically I had the anxiety sleep I get pre-marathon and kept waking up, panicking about everything - again not what I recommend as a coach.  Eliud Kipchoge reportedly gets a religious 8 hours per night plus a 2 hour nap during the day!

We'd laid out our kit the night before and so we got ready quickly with each of us putting on a throw away t-shirt on and walked down to reception where the Sports Tours International rep met us and at 5.10am walked us down to the bus stop where the marshalls were super enthusiastic even at that eye-wateringly early time!

The bus takes you across to Staten Island and took around 45 minutes as we watched the sun slowly rises over NYC.  The weather was perfect running weather - completely dry, clear sky, but pretty chilly as a result!  We got off the bus and walked through to the security gates - it's a sad fact that you have to be scanned for weapons and bombs and aren't even allowed to wear large fancy dress costumes or camel bak style water packs.  

We then were in the race start village which was great!  We had complimentary coffees, bagels, Gatorade  and water as well as picking up Dunkin Donut hats (brilliant marketing on their part!).  There were also Honey Stinger waffles and bananas available.  We found a spot to sit down at around 6.15am and then had over 4 hours to wait until my 10.35am start wave!  It was a great atmosphere, everyone was in good spirits, but it was FREEZING!  We'd fortunately picked up rain ponchos and so we huddled together and tried to keep warm, but if there is one piece of advice I can give for race day it's please take extra layers and even old blankets to use and then donate to the goodwill bins (which I thought were excellent ideas!).  

About an hour and a half before the start we wandered down towards the blue start village area and I had a quick glance in the Therapy Dog tent (if I wasn't so cold I'd have been tempted to sneak in for a stroke!)  I needed the toilet again (they were plentiful and with not many queues) and as I walked back, I spotted a full goodwill bin and so "borrowed" a blanket for the last hour of our wait to share with Alan (we returned it to the bin after we'd finished with it).

I realised as we were waiting that my hair band had fallen off... I tried tying my hair up with string from the start village bag, but it wasn't great.  At least my buff would keep most of my flyaway thin hair away from my face I hoped. 

We queued up for our wave having heard the cannon fire for all the previous waves!  When you sign up you can either choose a bag drop (as you get at London Marathon etc) or a post race Poncho - we went for the poncho which meant that we didn't have to drop a bag off with the UPS trucks.

We were in our wave, it was all becoming real and we were about to take on 26.2 miles.  The sun was shining, the atmosphere was buzzing and we started to walk towards the bridge for our start.  As we walked over the bridge I noticed there were lots of clothes thrown on the floor (no goodwill bins on the bridge as per all the regular tannoy announcements!) and I said to Alan "I wish there was a spare hairband" and 2 steps later there was one there so I was able to discard the ineffective string and properly tie my hair back!  I then said "I wish I could find £1m" sadly this wish wasn't granted...should have gone with that first?

We were started with a cannon, ticker tape and the sound track of "New York New York" and even though there are 2 starts as per London Marathon, there are more runners (53000) it somehow felt more intimate as a start rather than being moved like cattle over the start line.  

The first 2 miles is just running over the Staten Island Bridge, loads of people stopped for selfies on the bridge, but we cracked on with our slow running plan and cleared the bridge in a solid time of just over 20 minutes.  The bridge workers were super excited to cheer all the runners on!

We then got onto Brooklyn and that's when the support really kicked off!  It's a hard to describe the dichotomy that New York Marathon was both more and less serious than London Marathon and other UK races.  More serious - very few fancy dress costumes at all, no club runners generally, but everyone mostly in serious running gear and certainly walking around NYC before and after lots of very obvious "runners" or as Alan sometimes referred to them "running w**nkers" i.e. always in running gear, wearing their medal for 3 days after the race even in the airport with a hint of arrogance about them.  Less serious - overly enthusiastic supporters who literally screamed with excitement, even by the time we reached some of them after 4 plus hours, people with great sense of humour on banners like at mile 10 "you're nearly there - Fake News! and printing out huge personal pictures of runners faces and even their pet cats and dogs.  NB. I'm definitely printing out massive Maya and Qubit faces for the next race I have to support Alan for!

Brooklyn I think was my favourite in terms of support - it was the longest section and had full on marching bands, rappers and rock bands - we loved it!   Alan kept a close eye on his heart rate and we adapted our pace to make sure we didn't peak his heart rate and so ran walked and got fairly quickly to around 10 miles and I figured as we had the opportunity to do so I'd use the walking sections to share some of the atmosphere, sights and sounds of the marathon on facebook live.  I'd intended to use it as a distraction to Alan from his sore back, but I'm not sure he altogether appreciated it!  The first time I'd taken my phone out I started jogging and ended up throwing shot bloks everywhere!  

The water and Gatorade stations are pretty frequent (every mile?) after the first 3 miles (none on the Staten Island bridge) and they all had paper cups which I think I preferred as it felt potentially less environmentally harmful that plastic bottles and was certainly much less of a trip hazard.  I tend to not recommend using anything on race day that you haven't had in training and Gatorade isn't something I've had much of before, but it worked well for me on the day.  There are also toilets every mile and fortunately we only needed to stop once.  The best thing is that there are formally arranged and informally arranged music stations around 3 per mile!  I had quite a few dances as we were running along and we clapped every single band and singer regardless of talent!

I like to count down all long distance races in miles, kilometres and parkruns to mean that I'm ticking something off every few minutes.  As a distraction (annoyance?) technique with Alan we nominate parkruns for each 5K segment of the race and always finish on Woodhouse Moor of course!  We ticked over the halfway point and then soon reached Queensborough Bridge which is 16 miles in and even though the bridge itself wasn't the most scenic there were some great views across to Manhattan Island as we trudged over onto Manhattan and up into Harlem before heading into the Bronx and then back into Manhattan for the iconic finish in Central Park.

       

I had hoped that by not spiking my heart rate and run walking it would mean my legs didn't get that 20 mile ache where every step hurts a bit.  Neither of us hit the wall as a result of the slower place which was great and actually we could have taken advantage of the 20 mile Biofreeze station, but the end was in sight so we kept going.  We continued with our Facebook live breaks which I certainly enjoyed and it was nice to get support from our friends back home whilst we were running!

 

The last couple of miles you can count down the blocks until you hit Central Park and the support continues to be great - I really enjoyed a brass band just before we hit Manhattan again coming out of Harlem.  Once you hit Central Park it feels like the end is in reach, but there is still a good nearly 2 miles to count down (amazingly our Garmins were fairly accurate despite all the huge buildings that usually skew GPS).  There was an incentive to run the last mile the fastest - we tried, but Alan's back by this point was incredibly sore so we had to walk a bit, although we did manage to run over the finish line!  

As we crossed the finish in 5 hours 51 minutes (my second slowest ever time next to Medoc - the wine marathon!) we held hands and it was an amazing atmosphere.  We then walked down to pick up first a heat sheet (necessary as it's a 30 minute walk to get your poncho or bag), then the great big apple medal, then a very good quality (and reusable!) goody bag which included water, an apple, pretzels, more Gatorade, protein shake, Honey Stinger waffle, biofreeze and I think some other things!

We walked down to our poncho collection point and they were fleece lined, waterproof and felt like a hug!  It was funny watching all the runners dressed in them as we walked out of the marathon area.  Fortunately we had no need for the reunion point as we ran together, but like all big races phone signal is patchy, so definitely worth pre-arranging a meeting point if you need one.  We staggered a bit confused to the subway and managed to get on a train back - it was only 20 minutes walk, but we'd done just enough thanks.  The trains were rammed and one lady even passed out and had to get off the train early - she seemed ok thankfully.

After a shower and change of clothes we had just enough time to walk down to the pre-booked post race celebration party (kindly only 5 blocks away from the hotel) for £20 we got 2 cocktails and canapes which included tasty mini slider burgers and meant we didn't need to buy dinner.  We chatted to one of the reps who was lovely (I feel this may be my future "retirement" job!) and after the food was done and we'd had a final JD and ginger to celebrate we walked back to the hotel stopping off at Shake Shack for a celebration Salted Caramel milkshake and then went straight to bed clocking up 66267 steps for the day!

All in all, whilst it was nearly a personal worst for me in terms of time, it was definitely a personal best in terms of experience and atmosphere.  It was lovely to "run" a whole marathon with Alan and cross the finish together and not once did we argue about stopping or pace.  The views were incredible and the organisation was great!  I said as we set off and as we shivered in the start village "I definitely won't want to do this again"...but I might have changed my mind...

PS. if you want to do NYC 2020 it's their 50th anniversary and I think the day before Trump is either re-elected or knocked out of the Whitehouse - could be an interesting time to visit!

"Reader, I asked him" - how parkrun lead me to change my mind about wanting to get married again

On Saturday I got engaged to my partner Alan.  It was a really special occasion and I wanted to write about how it came to pass, how it went and how we both felt afterwards.

I have been married before. I was with my ex for nearly 12 years and married for around 4 years.  If I had been wiser and braver I might have made some different choices about that relationship, but it eventually ended when both of us were extremely unhappy and with very poor mental health.  

Having been in a relationship since I was 20, I found myself in 2013 as a newly single woman in her early 30s feeling completely clueless about "dating".  I decided to do some research and I read some books about dating including "The Rules" by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider and "He's just not that into you" by Greg Behrendt.  They made me feel even less equipped to enter the world of "dating" not least the complicated world of "online dating".  In the most basic distillation of the advice I took from these books it was basically "as a woman never make the first move (don't even look at a man first!)" and that if someone isn't bothered, they're not bothered and don't waste your energy chasing it (which I guess does make some sense.)

In the following couple of years I went on quite a few dates that would probably serve as a humorous book if I were to write them all down from the guy who lied about his name, age (by 10 years) and having a job and then asked to borrow money from me through to the guy who started to go cold on me (He just clearly wasn't that into me!) and so when he explained why and told me it was because "he would have killed for a garden like mine and would never have let it turn into an overgrown nature reserve" I came to the realisation that online dating in particular is just a bit badly thought out and wasn't really going to find me the sort of person I wanted to be spending my life with.  

Compare online dating to online shopping - you have a list of criteria you are looking for say to book a holiday and you can search for all those elements and see what other people thought of a particular hotel and provider, there are reviews of the service to validate what you are buying.  You can make a considered purchase and worst case scenario - most of the time you can take it back for a refund or buy another one if the reality doesn't match up to expectations.   Not so with dating, the nearest you can get to a "review" is on the "My Single Friend" site which has friends recommend their "single friend" which is obviously slightly biased  You have to take a leap of faith and meet someone who you likely wouldn't bump into in real life.  This situation also affords them the opportunity to behave terribly with no consequences from the community around them. 

Then we come to the perception of infinite choice - if you think meeting a perfect match online is simply finding someone who ticks all of your "wish list" then you'll most likely be looking forever because for every "must like dogs" and "must look like Brad Pitt" you can tick off, you'll never have thought about the unique things that make us all human like "must have those cute tiny creases around their eyes when they smile so it looks like their eyes are twinkly" and those "must have big hands that annoyingly spill stuff everywhere when they cook"...but you don't mind because you love all of them (yes I'm talking about Alan!).  

In August 2015 I deleted all my dating apps because it wasn't good for my mental health to be continually comparing people on superficial qualities and it wasn't good for me to be constantly compared either.  I also read another dating book "Get the Guy" by Matthew Hussey and it gave me a slightly different perspective on things which was "don't obsess over trying to meet *the one* instead just enjoy meeting different new people.  People who can introduce you to other people and will allow you the chance to develop feelings more naturally over time rather than in a pressurised face to face over a coffee.  I also went to see a palm reader on a trip to India and whilst I didn't (and don't!) believe in the truth in what they say, he did something interesting and told me I would meet my next partner between 19/08/16 and 19/09/17 and so it made me think "why am I trying to force this, is it so bad if actually I stop putting pressure on myself and know I might not meet someone immediately?"

When I got back home after my trip, I went running with my friend from Hyde Park Harriers - Sam Scarlett who mentioned to me that she thought I would get on well with her friend Alan who she'd met at parkrun and I'm guessing had a similar conversation with him as shortly afterwards I had a Facebook friend request from him.  I accepted and when I was putting a shout out to try and find someone to keep me company on a 20 mile training run he offered instead to meet me after parkrun for around 15 miles as he was travelling to New York on the Sunday and wanted to get in his marathon training miles before the Yorkshire marathon.  We agreed to meet up and go for a run together after parkrun.

(I must confess at this point that I had actually seen Alan's profile on one of the online dating sites, but despite thinking he looked lovely, I had moved past it as I was so weary with online dating and also I think I was too old for his age criteria at that point!).

I am so glad that I got a second chance to meet Alan!  So thankful for parkrun!

We first met after a fast 5K parkrun at Woodhouse Moor parkrun.  parkrun has been life changing for me in many ways, I first started running back in 2004 when I entered a "Race for Life" event to raise money for Cancer Research and it was amazingly beneficial to both my mental and physical health.  I moved up to a 10K in 2007, a half marathon in 2008 and then a marathon in 2010, but I only discovered parkrun in 2014 after my friend Gemma invited me to her birthday parkrun.  About 6 months before I'd been mugged and my marathon training had ended up being solely on treadmills as I had no confidence to run outside by myself anymore.  I realised that this friendly place called parkrun (which was also free!) meant that at least I could run outside once a week and not feel scared.

Alan walked over to me at the finish after I'd had my barcode scanned and we will have both been sweaty on a very warm September morning.  We set off in my car to Eccup Reservoir and did a couple of laps chatting all the way around.  At one point I had to stop for a pit stop in a bush which is probably not a conventional thing to do on a first date and certainly against "The Rules"!  We called it a day after 12 miles as it was so warm and drove back to Alan's car and went our separate ways (despite me dropping many hints about going out for lunch!) After getting a shower I was really pleased to have a message from Alan inviting me to the cinema that evening and we watched "Legend" at the Everyman and ate pizza.  Alan even picked me up from my house and dropped me home afterwards which was lovely and we had our first kiss in my dining room in front of snuffly Marla cat.

Alan flew to New York the next day and we messaged and face timed a lot in the week he was away and had our second date at Kendall's on the day he arrived back to the UK.  Over the first few weeks we barely spent any time apart and visited Antwerp and the Yorkshire Dales together.  I knew that Alan must like me a bit when a day after his Yorkshire Marathon where he smashed 35 minutes off his PB he signed up to run the White Rose Ultramarathon with me (and Sam Scarlett) 2 weeks later.   On our first glamping trip to Swinton Bivouac the topic of marriage came up and I said that for me I didn't want to do it again as it wasn't that it felt like something that I needed to do and was very expensive.  Alan seemed disappointed and said that for that reason he'd not ask me as I'd made it clear I didn't want to be married again.  

3 1/2 years on and we are very happy living together in a house we bought together in December 2016 with two lovely cats and for all purposes live as if we are married.  So you might think - what changed? 

In March this year I saw one of my friends from my teenage years, Will, marry Sara. Sara had also been married before and I got the impression may have felt like me about doing it all over again, but seeing her and Will look so happy on their wedding day that was all about them, their relationship and how they wanted the day to be that it started me thinking "Am I just being stubborn?"  Sara even made a speech and made the point that it would encourage more women to be more equal in the marriage process and that got me thinking a bit more.  

As I was driving back home with Alan sat next to me, I realised I had changed my mind, whilst I didn't think getting married would make our relationship any different, being with Alan makes me feel safe and happy and I thought it would be lovely to celebrate this with our friends and family and also to give us both the chance to have a wedding and a marriage together.  It wasn't something I felt I "should" do, but it felt like I might regret not doing it if we didn't.   He had said he'd never ask me though and I thought to myself "what's holding me back from asking him?" and I realised that the only thing holding me back was that women don't generally ask men.  As a guide leader and ex-Women's Institute president, I'm also very keen at ensuring that as a woman we continue to move towards equality and that one area we are terribly unequal is in relationships and in particular proposing marriage, but with anything unless people are willing to stand up and be one of the first to do it, people won't feel confident to try too.  

I knew that if there was only one place that would be right to ask him, it had to be parkrun.  I was still driving back from the wedding and got so emotional thinking about it that tears were running down my face and Alan was trying to ask me "what's wrong?" and I couldn't really explain.

Alan is extremely good at guessing anything I'm up to try and surprise him, but it occurred to me that this year his birthday fell on parkrunday (known to others as Saturday).  By using his birthday as a decoy I could invite family and friends to come to parkrun with the excuse of "It's your birthday!" and then ask him if he wanted to get married.  I told him I was going to organise a special birthday parkrun "but it's only my 37th birthday, it's not a special birthday!?!" he said, but didn't seem to get too suspicious.

To make sure I wasn't going completely crazy, I sense checked my plans with my friend Hannah who thought if I wanted to do it and was happy and loved him then I should ask him and offered to come and help me on the day in any way needed.

I then looked at the volunteer rota and saw that it was Anne Akers the event director (who we know well) who was down to be the run director on the day of Woodhouse Moor parkrun where I first met Alan.  I contacted her directly as I wanted to keep it as secret as possible to avoid any chance of it slipping out before the day!  She was delighted with my idea and I promised to make sure that my plans wouldn't interfere with the normal business of parkrun.

I had a few ideas of how I could ask Alan.  I have seen stories where some people have proposed at the run briefing before the runners set off, but I know Alan is not always keen on being a big centre of attention and also would probably not want to actually run after such a life event!  Anne's husband Noel suggested I could reveal a message per lap of the 3 lap course, which I think would be great, but knowing how curious Alan is there would be another risk he'd not complete parkrun (and I couldn't be responsible for that!!)  In the end the idea that I settled on was to volunteer on "unscannables" which means I'd manually write down any unscannable barcodes at the end of the run.  I would task the scanners to mysteriously not scan Alan's barcode and then I'd have to write down his barcode and could ask the question.  Anne liked the idea and I was happy as it wouldn't have too big an audience, wouldn't interfere with normal parkrun business and would also be metres away from where I first met Alan.

I wanted to make the occasion as special as possible and also knowing how emotional and tearful the idea was making me, I came up with an idea to help me out on the day if nerves kicked in.  I planned to make a video with some of our memories of our time together like the strava track of our first parkrun and run together, a screenshot of the first messages we exchanged and some holiday and running photos.  At the end it would have some words written down about how I'd changed my mind about wanting to get married.  I first used the 1 Second Everyday app, but it was just too quick!  I didn't want the last few slides to not be readable (Hannah confirmed my fears!)  I then ran the 1 Second Everyday photo and video montage through another video editing app to slow it down, but it made the bits with speech sound weird.  I then remembered that I'd gone to the Apple store with my Guides last year and they'd made videos with music about what they enjoyed about being a Guide using the Clips app on the Iphone.  This was perfect as it allowed me to make text slides, add music and add speech bubbles to what the cats were thinking!

The video took me ages... my Iphone screentime report was huge for 3 weeks!  I also in-between ran Manchester Marathon and had a pretty terrible time running.  I had to walk the last 12K including running past somewhere playing "One day like this" by Elbow which made me burst into tears and felt like the perfect song to put the video to.  Finally I had a roughly 4 minute video that right at the end finished with slides telling him that I'd changed my mind about not wanting to get married again and ending with the word "so" leaving me the small matter to turn to Alan and ask him to marry me.

I was still really nervous about all my preparations - I'd asked Alan's brother Dom to come to his birthday parkrun and ideally wanted to tell him in person about my plans, but we'd not managed to meet up beforehand.  I messaged him to let him know and he said he'd be there with Alan's niece and nephew and he even brought Winston the dog with him on the day!  I said I was scared he wouldn't say yes, but he said he didn't think I needed to worry and thatwe were as "thick as thieves".  I also met Sam Scarlett who had introduced us in the first place and showed her the video and asked if she would be around on the day to run with Alan if needed - she was delighted and her reaction to the video was what I'd hoped for and gave me some confidence that it would land well with Alan - even though it ended up being about 4 minutes!

I'd also got my cousin Jenny to come on the day as well as Alan's colleague Danielle (who I didn't tell in advance as that would be a potentially tough secret to keep at work!)

I kept saying to Alan how excited I was for his birthday parkrun - I could hardly contain myself!  I think he was a bit baffled by it all, but didn't suspect anything other than perhaps a surprise picnic!  I'd ordered him a new parkrun wristband for his birthday as well as a leather bracelet with a silver engraved section with our two parkrun numbers and the date we met on it (although stupidly in my excitement I managed to put my birthday of the year we met by mistake - doh!!!)

The night before I'd bought some birthday tiffin for him and put the bottle of champagne I won a few years back in a bag and then struggled hard to fall asleep.  I woke up early to give him his main birthday present and make some hot cross buns, orange juice and coffee for breakfast and we made our way to parkrun.  The night before he said "I don't understand why you're volunteering" and I said it was because Hannah was coming and might need some help keeping an eye on energetic James!  Alan also kindly ran with Alex who is only 9 and so needed to be in arms reach of a responsible adult!

We arrived at parkrun and I carried over my bags of provisions and my cousins Christmas presents from my parents (yes I know we've just not managed to catch up for ages!).  "why are there cups in your bag?" asked Alan "My cousin is having a BBQ later and needs to borrow them" and he didn't ask anything further thankfully!

I grabbed my hi-vis vest and a clipboard and pen, said hello to lots of people who were wishing Alan a happy birthday.  Anne Akers cheered him up by pointing out that 37 is a prime number.  Hannah met us with a very excitable James and Alex and then we all walked over to the start.

It was such a beautiful morning, sunny with a completely blue sky and the runners set off on their run after Anne had given Alan a birthday shout out, I'd told the scanners I had some special instructions for them and when the run had started I told them what I'd got planned and showed them a photo of Alan so they knew not to scan his barcode when he got to the finish.

As we walked back to the finishing funnel I realised that Alan's brother Dom had arrived with Ada on his shoulders, Wren in the buggy and Winston on the lead and I spotted my cousin Jenny had arrived too.  After cheering the runners past 2 laps I took up my position at the end of the finish funnel with Hannah and James ready to take the clipboard from me when Alan arrived, writing down at least a page and half of unscannables in the process.

With the help of Danielle, Alan managed to pace Alex around to shave 10 minutes his parkrun pb finishing in just under 35 minutes and headed straight over to me bypassing the scanners because he could tell that Alex had an issue with his barcode.  I handed the clipboard to Hannah and said that I had a special video to play Alan "I'll watch it later, I need to get my barcode scanned first" he said, but I insisted and played him the video putting my arm around him as he lent over me and dripped sweat onto my head.  

The video played and James was keen to look too until his attention span flicked onto something else and Anne took up a position ready to snap a photo and a small audience gathered behind us as the video played.  It was hard to not comment on anything or hurry it along and as we watched it play on my phone my legs had started to shake with nerves.  The last few slides played and then I turned to Alan and quietly said "will you marry me" and he took my face in his hands with a tear in his eye (it wasn't just sweat!) and said "of course I'll marry you" and we had a kiss and a hug and turned around to an audience who said "Well?!?!" to which Alan declared "I said yes!" and everyone cheered and congratulated us.

We walked back over to the start to pick up our stuff and I opened up the bottle of champagne and shared it with people and Danielle shared her amazing baked goods of Easter Rocky Road, cheese straws and sausage rolls and we all had a great time chatting and smiled an awful lot.  I'd given Alan the bracelet and he had put it straight on and then after a few second glances, he realised I'd managed to mess up the date.  

After some time had passed and we'd drank some champagne, we walked over towards the parkrun cafe - Opposite and realised we should probably tell our parents about our news before it got out over Facebook!  I rang my Mum and Dad and told them and Alan Skyped his mum and they were all very pleased.  We walked across to get coffee and were glad we'd made the call then as we spotted the lovely photo that Anne had taken off us shared on the Woodhouse Moor parkrun facebook page and quickly got a lot of likes (It's a great photo - thanks Anne!)

We were slightly overwhelmed by all the well wishers and I've not yet managed to respond to all the lovely messages yet, but I will!  We'd arranged to go to our local pub, The Queen o' t' owd Thatch, for dinner anyway and were delighted that when we arrived my friend Lauren had bought us a bottle of fizz to go with our meal and also they decorated our plate with congratulations for our dessert.  

Both the Yorkshire Evening Post and the BBC got in touch as a result of the response to the photo Anne had shared to Facebook and it seems that a lot of people enjoyed reading about our story and a few people commented on the posts "I wish this could happen to me!" or "I wish I could meet someone at parkrun!"  Both myself and Alan would definitely say - you can, but I think embracing the whole of parkrun will make it more likely.  Run, walk or jog parkrun and chat to people (or even just smile at people if you are shy) as you go around, volunteer and get to know the core team and importantly (one of the best bits!) go to the coffee shop and get to be a part of the wider parkrun community.  In the dating book that I liked..."Get the Guy", it said that if you want to meet *the one* don't just focus on meeting that *one* person, but instead focus on broadening your network and meeting lots of people, ideally doing something that you love (it doesn't have to be running!).  parkrun provided a great opportunity to not only improve my health and meet lots of lovely new friends, it ultimately introduced me to my future husband. parkrun has genuinely changed my life for the better in so many ways.  And now we are planning our wedding for September!

I love parkrun and parkrun helped me to find love.

#loveparkrun