Walk of Shame (Running)

Sunday 17 June 2007 12:18PM

I haven’t dropped out of a race for ten years, until yesterday…

In most races there are times when I feel like dropping out, and I can usually come up with a few convincing excuses. But it always feel that dropping out just because I don’t feel very good, or because I’m not running well will open the flood gates of dropping out, and I’ll struggle to finish races from then on.

The one caveat is injury, if I hurt myself and it feels like I’ll make it worse by continuing, then unless the race is very important, it makes sense to pull out.

Yesterday’s Glen Rosa Horseshoe race on Arran was one I’d been looking forward to for a year, since coming runner up to Stewart Whitlie in last years Scottish champs race there. It’s a fantastic course, basically taking the route of the classic Glen Rosa Horseshoe walk but missing out the scrambly/climbing bits.

You can see the route here.

Andy Symonds and I led the race out towards Glen Rosa and the first big climb. On one of the fastest and least technical parts of the course I went over badly on my ankle – weak from miles and miles of traversing in the LAMM last weekend. This isn’t a rare occurance for me, my right ankle is often a little weak, but this time was worse than normal, and it hurt to run for the next five minutes or so. I made it up the big climb, dropping behind Andy a little (nothing to do with my ankle). But on the steep descent back into Glen Rosa my ankle was feeling so weak, and I was having to be so careful, that I decided it would be wise to retire. With such a weak ankle it seemed likely that I’d turn it again on the remaining course – two big technical descents and a few km of deep heather running – and that if I did the second time would be much worse.

So all that was left was the walk of shame back to the start. It was hard not to feel like I was just shirking a challenge – Andy was ahead and running well, but close enough that we could still have had a tussle if I’d been prepared to risk my ankle.

Maybe not though, it’s feeling sore enough today to justify my decision, and the most important thing is that it’s strong enough for the Defi de L’Oisans in six weeks time.

Perhaps time to put the racing plans for the next few weeks on hold, focus on training and use those days off for some of the climbing ideas that have been buzzing around my head recently…