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Running, Poo and Strava Richard Shaw
“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 18th 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?
June 2014