Yep, I’ve been quiet on here. And sadly it’s not due to getting out and enjoying my marathon training plan and the easing of restrictions here in the UK.

Just two weeks after my blog post about getting a place in the London Marathon, my stupid plantar fasciitis (thanks shitty tendons) made a screaming comeback like an attention-seeking toddler having a hissy fit. Honestly, the timing was almost laughable. Twelve weeks later and I’m – finally – tentatively sticking a less than happy toe back into the water whilst I wait for my long-awaited for osteopath appointment to roll around. I know that its recurrence is due to a number of factors. Pre-lockdown I used to have monthly physio MOTs and it’s been 14 months since my last appointment, I’ve been working from a sofa all year due to the size of my house and having two adults working from home, and I’ve been doing online workout classes on a non-sprung floor. That’s all going to add up.

To be honest, London isn’t massively on my mind at the moment. I need to start my training plan in earnest in June if I’m going to make the October start line, and since I only just started running again two weeks ago and am at 2.5 miles, realistically that’s looking super unlikely. And I know some people think that London shouldn’t be about the time and you should just enjoy it, but I don’t even have any longer run foundations to build on right now. I’ll be starting nearly from scratch, and even getting around and enjoying it, regardless of time, feels like too big an ask. So I’m just waiting for them to announce their deferral process so I can get that sorted and not need to think about it.

But in these last few weeks, I’ve realised just how much of me is tied up in running. So much of who I am is wrapped up in this pastime of mine that I feel like I’ve really lost my way – and part of who I am – in the last few months. I’ve had to block notifications from my running club on Facebook as I couldn’t bear to see people sharing their virtual race results and sharing photos of themselves back at training. I’ve had to temporarily mute messenger conversations from close friends when the talk turned to running as the jealousy became too much. I’ve had to block notifications on Strava when I kept being told that any segment or “local legend” titles that I held had been snapped up by someone else. Everything just felt so negative and there’s also another argument here for stepping back from social media, but that’s another conversation for another time.

I have thrown myself into cycling, both on the turbo trainer and in the real world, and the racing side of Zwift has helped me to scratch my competitive itch, but nothing makes me feel the way running does. Nothing fits me like running does. I bumped into Ely Runner Kath just yesterday, and she summed it up beautifully. She told me that to her, running is meditative. She has come to know her local routes so well that she has one for nearly every mood. It’s not quite like cycling where you have to have more of your wits around you 100% of the time, looking out for potholes and being hyper aware of cars. With running, you can pick a quiet trail and switch off, and in Ely we’re lucky enough to be able to be in the depths of the countryside within minutes, with nothing but bird song and maybe the distant rumble of a train for company. It’s soul food and I feel like I’m starving.

Although I’ve been injured before, it’s quite an overwhelming thing to be injured during a global pandemic, when your biggest coping mechanism for good mental health is suddenly taken away and access to the treatment you need to get back out running is harder to come by. We’re all coping with so much change and uncertainty already, and to lose the one thing you rely on as a constant is gut wrenching. I’ve cried at friends who haven’t even been able to hug me and tell me that of course I’ll be back. That I’ve been here before and it’s part and parcel of being an athlete. And deep down I know this. But I think over the last 14 months my capacity for any mental strain has diminished, and to be a running blogger who can’t run, to be known as Girl Running Late online but have nothing to say about it means that I feel like without running, I’m nothing.

But I have to say, that alongside my husband, it’s my running friends – both old and new – who have kept me going. There are those that drag me out for bike rides just so that we can try and find Justin some random tat on the side of the road and make up even more nicknames for each other (sorry Bethan), those who turn up with flowers and chocolates just because they know I’m having a bad week (thanks Rach and Ann), those that let me cry at them and help me to see the bigger picture (thanks Pete) and those who offer to come out for a walk when they would normally be out running (Charlotte, Janet, Shaun, Emma, Emily) just so that we can laugh and vent about anything and everything (sometimes with a bonus doggo and/or baby). It’s meant more to me than they probably realise (even if Justin did beat my Mill Hill segment on a bike ride, the git).

So what next? I see Melissa at Spritely Osteopathy in less than 2 weeks, and I know that her treatment is going to be the first step in getting back out there. I’ve been doing a lot more pilates to work on my glutes and core, the twin engines of a runner’s body, and I’ve signed up to Fiit, whose huge number of classes and points based workout system keeps me motivated. And as for the running, I’ll keep taking it very steady, restricting myself to a short run every three days and not deviating from that plan, and knowing that if my foot flares up again I’ll need to stop. For now, that’s enough for me. I’ve realised that even running a mile is restorative, and makes me feel like myself again. Yes, a lot of who I am is defined by my running, but it’s also given me the people who have kept me afloat both during this injury and during the whole of the last 14 months. So maybe it’s ok that it’s such a huge part of what makes me, me. Because without it, my support network would have been a hell of a lot smaller. Just don’t be offended if I don’t like your long Sunday run on Strava. I’m not quite there yet.