10 ways to beat the doorstep demons

'Just put your shoes on and get out of the door' - Easy as that - Or is it?



Decisions, decisions at the start of a
wet run in the Cotswold hills

It's always okay once we are out there with the muscles warmed up and the endorphins flowing. But it can often be a fight to make that transition from lethargy to liveliness. The mind is adept at distraction in these circumstances with anything from the 15 minute shoe lace tie to a sudden urge to clean the bathroom keeping us from our good intentions. In order to combat these pitfalls, here are 10 suggestions for getting that door shut firmly behind you and to ensure you spend more time cleaning running shoes these dark winter nights than toilets.

1) Map it the old school way. Send off for a bespoke site centred OS map with your house in the middle. (You can even have your own picture on the front cover of the map!) Rip it out of the packaging when it arrives and pin it up on the wall to plot all your current routes. Then realise how many other rights of way or trails there are that you haven't run before. Get out there, ideally with your new map and run something new!                                    £16.99  https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/shop/custom-made-maps.html 

A wild day out on Kinder- Peak District

2) Meet a friend. You can't keep looking out the window hopefully for that storm cloud to arrive if you are going to make someone late now can you? Make your appointment and see how much easier it is to keep going when steady chatter distracts you from how much further you have left to run.

3) The journey run. Rather than that old loop always resorted to, try running to a  pick up or rendezvous point where you can meet the family or get a  lift home. This not only doubles the potential distance that you can get away from home -  giving you access to new trails - but also provides renewed purpose and direction that is sometimes absent from an out and back. A variation on this could be to hop on a bus or train to a suitable distance from your home and run home for that well earned cup of tea and cake!

4) Enter an event that scares you. Beat that 'where's all this running going?' feeling that can lead to excuses at the front door by signing up for something that gives you the willies. This could be running that first fell race or trying something different such as the Tough Mudder in May; or getting in shape for something a bit longer with the The Exmoor 'Endurance Life'  ultra (33miles) also in May.
https://toughmudder.com
http://www.endurancelife.com/events-list.asp

5) Read all about it. Running is largely a solitary sport but there's no reason why you should feel alone. Get inspired if you haven't already by a raft of running writing. Learn how internationally renowned ultra runner Scott Jurek beats his own lethargy 'the bed sirens' in 'Eat and Run'. Or, closer to home, how the everyman runner Richard Askwith trained to run the 66 mile Bob Graham Round in the Lake District (whilst holding down an editorial role at The Independent newspaper) in 'Feet in the Clouds.' 

6) Data! Collect it all using an APP like Strava and reveal to yourself how much or little you are getting out. Comparisons with friends can be useful but keep it as a motivational tool rather than a stick to beat yourself with.

7) Stick it to the man. Turn your commute into a training session. It might be slower, but if you had planned to run after work anyway, any time you win back here is a bonus against that spent drumming your fingers against the steering wheel. There is also something inexplicably naughty and delicious about arriving to work with mud splattered legs, basking in an endorphin drenched shower and then slipping back into the normal world.

8) The Rocky approach. Get the tunes on 10 minutes before you intend to leave the house. If Stallone isn't your style try something whimsical like the Lord Huron 'Lonesome Dreams' album. Either way be sure to fly out of the house and punch the air as you charge off into the hills.

9) The last resort 'I'm only running to the end of the road' approach - Exactly as described but, once there tell yourself that you might just as well make it to the end of the next one as well...and go from there until either the enjoyment kicks in or you really have decided that it's time to take your domestic chores in hand.

The first step...

10) And finally Retail Therapy. If your shorts get up your bum and your trainers have been beaten flat it's no wonder you aren't so keen! Get yourself to your local running shop, tell them about the map on your wall, your train ticket for your journey run and your foolhardy event entry. Riding the wave of their oohs and aahs get that new kit on ASAP and get it muddy!

Ultra Mallorca Serra de Tramuntana - 112km - April 19th

photo courtesy of mifotomallorca.com

KM45    It’s just before 5am. I have been running for as many hours as the day is long and I’m thinking about gherkins. I turn off the hard packed gravel and onto the tarmac. I put out my headlight and run by the moonlight that starts to draw me out of the inner place I have been locked into for the last few hours. Other senses come stalking back too. The wind brings a barmy, dusty kind of smell of the day’s heat still not quite rubbed out. The sloshing of the water bottles is smoothed out by the rhythmic footfall on asphalt and in this, the quietest, loneliest moment of the night, even laboured breathing seems an intrusion. I pace lightly and think about food.

The stillness is interrupted by a stop at the burningly bright aid station in the mountainous village, Valdemossa. By daytime, lycra clad roadies propping up their carbon steeds, sipping away on Espressos would be lining the streets. Now, however there is a hardness about the town. An urgency of hastily filled bottles as the harshness of floodlights burn away at the edges. There is no sitting down and little conversation.  I had been alone on the road but there are a few other runners here too, and we eye each other suspiciously- anxious that the right balance of jam sandwich ingestion and pickles is juggled without losing a place, and personal space, to slip out on to the trails again.

KM55   The day begins to bleed out the darkness at 6:31, just as I re-join the long distance footpath, the GR-221, at the mountain pass above Deja. I pick my way on tiptoes a km or so through the badlands of rock jumble that leads down from the summit to the treeline. Here I find 4 pirates at an impromptu race chip check station who shout  ‘caña, CAÑA!’ (fishing rod, FISHING ROD in the only Spanish I know) enthusiastically at me and I smile meekly, hoping, only vaguely, that there may be some kind of Rollmop delicacy awaiting me at the next aid station. Luxurious carpets of moss sweep down the mountainside now. The descent is so steep that the same moss that is at my feet, I can moments later run my hand through like a shag rug when I turn obliquely to follow the path as it convulses down the hillside. I turn my lamp out for good and the scent of pine resin rears up. Lower down still, I slow down respectfully to navigate more slowly at the point where I fell on a recce two days earlier. 10foot Bamboo shoots block the way, or seem to, but the rocks that stand proud and erratically from the path dance a way through.

Approaching the checkpoint at Cuber

KM 86   At 11:20 I look it in the eyes. I was running away from it all night and now, winding up the last hundred metres or so of coarse scree, I realise it’s here. There was only one gringo at 7 in the morning basting himself in factor 50 at the drop bag checkpoint, and the bead of creamy sweat that begins to irritate my eye is a precursor of what is to come. The other 400 Spaniards probably laugh in its face and are stretching out their ebony legs to full capacity like solar cells to the sun. But the oven timer has started for me now and I give myself two hours or so before complete meltdown.

KM 101 13:20 I follow a smooth, gently climbing sightseers road that weaves its way through olive trees and wild jasmine and lemon trees on the outskirts of Lluc. I haven’t seen another runner for nearly two hours and as I float dreamily along, occasional cyclists pass - smiling benignly.   Swaying patches of shade from oak and cypress wash across the road and make soothing hushing sounds in the breeze. There is a heaviness to my legs but no leadenness. I am tired but not in that discordant head lolloping and feet tripping kind of way. I am tired of concentrating and tired of having to stoke myself every fifteen minutes like some kind of ravenous coal fired locomotive. There are 11km left: just a couple of times round the university campus 5k course I tell myself and it’s all downhill. I open five energy gels, funnel each of them down the feeding tube like a foie gras duck on slaughter day and try to stride out.

KM 107 13:50   The foothills fall aside and the switchbacks of the last trail section relent. I pick up an event sign with ‘5k’ to Pollenca and the finish line signposted. The valley widens, yawing out infront to the East and the Mediterranean Sea. I pick up a runner who has slowed to a walk and try to put a spurt on as I pass him. We burble alongside an ambling brook that makes no rush of arriving in Pollenca. The shade is deep and I needn’t have worried so. Pollenca assembles itself around me in sandy pastel shades. As I pass the 500metres to go marker, I see a police motorbike parked next to two men drinking lager in the cobbled street from dainty beer glasses ripe with condensation. The bike pulls away. Drawing closer I ask the men, ‘Where do I go?’ and with their nods of instruction, I realise that the officer who is looking impatiently in her rear view mirror is my own surreal blue light escort to the finish line.

I am in 18^th place I learn from the announcer and am greeted by my wonderful family and girlfriend who have been there throughout to meet me at various points. I try to say something profound about how I feel in response to their questions but just feel thankful for it being over and grateful for their suppor,

And then, 24 hours later, as the airstrip bus turns an arc from West to East across the gaping panorama of the whole Tramuntana mountain range, I feel grateful for being able and fit of body to have indulged so deeply in it all.

 I was raising money in this race for Hand in Hand for Syria: an important refugee charity that is on the front line in dealing with the outbreak of Polio in the country. If you enjoyed this post, if you can, please give here http://www.justgiving.com/Matt-Maynard

Imber Ultra 33miles 9th March 2014 - Team Bath - Bish, Bash, Bosh!

My good friend and running partner James Donald (right of shot) had a stern word with me before the race. 'You better be in it to win it' he told me.

Team Bath team prize: Guy Landon 2nd Matt Maynard 1st and James Donald 4th 

In this fantastic inaugral local race that I can highly recommend I managed to just sneak out Guy Landon (left of shot and fellow Team Bath mate) to win in 3:58. Guy pushed the pace the whole race and I tried to hang on to him thoughout despite some cramps that I tried to cover up in the last ten miles and a mild bit of hallucination of an imagined water station at the top of a very thirsty long climb.

This was the second weekend in a row that I had run side by side with Guy in a race with 'Bath Half' just the week before. We were accompanied by Martin Indge, who is a super strong and seasoned ultra runner, for 2/3rds of the way as well. I tried to make conversation when I could, without rasping for breath too much, but I don't think I had either of them fooled...

I managed to just edge Guy out in the very last 600metres on a technical steep descent which he had told me three hours earlier that 'if we are still racing at that point, it's yours, because my ankles won't have it.' I felt pleased to be able to run strongly down the rutted woodland gully after 32 miles and knew that all those long miles in the Cotswold Hills through the winter were beginning to pay off.

Guy and I relaxed and stretched out in the sun for a full half an hour before the next finisher came in. James came a few minutes after in fourth and shortly after that we had to put our cans of cider down to collect our Team Prize. It was a wonderful English scene on the Westbury cricket pitch that afternoon and it was good to be there amongst friends.

Bath Half March 2nd 2014 - 1:14:03

Great day out on home streets. Linked up with Luke (who I am hugging) and Guy (second from left) after a mile and we chainganged it for the next ten miles together, sharing water, blocking the wind and keeping one another motivated. Thanks guys!