I’m beginning to think the universe has it in for me at the moment.

The day after my last post, I was at work and my back went. Yes, you heard that right. After the groin pull and allergic reaction to medication in the lead up to the Cambridge Half Marathon, both of which I had mostly managed to recover from, my back went. What was I doing I hear you ask? One armed pull ups? Kickboxing? Wrestling a bear?

No, fair reader. I turned. Yup. I made the fatal error of turning around.

At first I was in denial. I just thought “nah, that hasn’t actually happened. I’ll Taylor Swift it and just shake it off.” But as I walked down the stairs from my office, I knew I was in trouble, and this was then followed by a Bridget Jones-esque 10 minute sob in the toilets. Nicely handled Thomas.

The next day it hadn’t eased up at all, and when Alan called to ask me how I was doing in the lead up to the half, I told him what had happened, and he asked me “do you think that maybe your body is trying to tell you something?” I then burst into tears again (2 days running – excellent!) and told him that I wasn’t ready to quit yet as I had physio and osteo appointments lined up later that afternoon. By 6pm I had the information that my L3 joint had locked up, probably because I have a terrible habit of carrying my stress with me all the time, and it had been an incredibly tough 10 days, both physically and emotionally. It was nothing mega serious, but I was uncomfortable and in pain.

It was probably my conversation with Stacy that really pulled everything into focus. She knew how emotionally invested I was in this race as I wanted to #RunForMarcus so badly, but as an athlete who has had her share of injuries in the past, she said “look at the bigger picture. If you run this, how much is it going to set you back coming out the other side? Will it mean a whole month off just because you’ve put your body through something it wasn’t strong enough to do? Also risking further mechanical injuries by running with a technique that protects your back. If you knock your hips out of alignment etc. it could be weeks before you’re back running again. Could you cope with no exercise?”

I hate it when she’s so flipping sensible.

My choice was, which will I regret more? Not running this particular race, or running it and injuring myself in a way that could take me out for a potentially long period of time?

When I then woke up yesterday morning with my back still painful and stiff, I knew my decision had been made.

I look just like this when I cry

It’s so hard to let something go when you’ve worked so hard for it. Especially when I felt like I had already come through so much to be ok to run it. But sometimes things aren’t meant to be, and sometimes you have to just be sensible and make a tough -but ultimately right – decision.

I then decided that rather than wallow at home, I was going to go and support my friends and cheer them through it. The race was going to happen whether I was running it or not, and I knew I could at least be useful by being a fleece-holding cheerleader, so I got up at silly o’clock and headed to Cambridge with four of my friends who were running.

I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t easy standing there at the start line and chatting to Andy from Ely Runners as he commiserated with me, watching all of the runners bubbling over with nervous energy and wishing I was one of them. But as the starting horn sounded, I cheered everyone off and then scuttled across Jesus Green to the Round Church where I hoped to see everyone at the 2.5 mile mark.

All the super-fasties at the start. The eventual winner, Aaron Scott (1:06:47), can be seen in the dark headband with his head lower than everyone else’s.

After witnessing a scuffle between an impatient cyclist and the marshals (he wanted to cross the road just as the first – very fast – runners were approaching and when politely asked to wait he started ramming them with his bike before throwing punches), I managed to spot loads of people I knew and cheered them on as loudly as I could. I then crossed over to hang around outside Trinity ready to catch them when they looped back and hit the 11-ish mile mark. My attempt to catch Aaron on camera failed miserably (TOO FAST!) but I managed to catch local writer and all over stupidly fast person Liz Fraser, as well as my awesome friend Pete:

I then just started cheering on random runners, shouting out their names as they ran past (putting their names on their numbers is the BEST idea) as I remembered from my own experience of running the Cambridge Half that hearing people cheer you on by name is a brilliant boost.

After I was pretty sure I’d spotted everyone I knew, I headed back to Midsummer Common to get to the finish. I again spotted Andy from Ely Runners and managed to give him a congratulatory hug on his incredible PB before being told that as a non-runner I was NOT allowed to be in that section (way to kick me when I’m down!) and instead I walked around to the end of the runner’s funnel to meet everyone.

It was at this point that I lost it slightly. The sight of all of the jubilant runners and the excited chatter of PBs just hit me in a way that left me almost emotionally winded, and the sheer disappointment just came out and I burst into tears yet again. But I was also so, so happy for everyone who had just achieved something utterly incredible. I just wished I could have been a part of it.

But you know what? I was. I cheered people on as loudly as I could, my throat sore from my efforts. There is something brilliant about being able to give people the encouragement they need when there are still 2 miles left to go and their legs are shouting at them to stop but they’re mentally battling to keep going. I may have missed out on an awesome medal, but this race just wasn’t meant to be for me. I’m going to properly get over everything that’s happened in the last couple of weeks, get some emotional and physical balance back, and then come back better and stronger. And quite frankly, I’m done with crying.

How I actually look when I’m crying