On Sunday 24th March, at the North Inch, in Perth, Jenn Wetton won the 50km race that incorporated both the Scottish and British 50km titles and was crowned 50km champion. It was her first race beyond the marathon distance, which she won in a time of 3 hours 29 minutes 03 seconds. We caught up with her for a chat last week when she was still in recovery mode.
AS. How has your recovery been since the 50km race?
JW. It’s been OK. There wasn’t as much initial pain after the race, as I’ve experienced with marathons in the past. I think a lot of that is probably down to the carbon shoes. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could walk downstairs last week. It was uncomfortable, but I could do it, and it didn’t get any worse on the Tuesday. In the past, two days later was often worse. So yes, the initial pain was much better, and deep tiredness was still there. Some days, I feel like I’m coming out of it now, but hopefully, in a week or so, I’ll be feeling back to normal again.
AS. If there’s any consolation, I think others would have been feeling the same too. If you have experienced that deep-seated tiredness after an event, you know it’ll go away.
JW. My old coach used to say, “It’s a mile a day to recover properly.” You’d expect in about a month, I should have recovered from a marathon.
AS. You would hope so.
EARLY RUNNING ADVENTURES ON THE ISLE OF ARRAN
AS. So tell us. How did you get into running? Was it something you always did from a young age?
JW. My family were all very active growing up. I grew up on the Isle of Arran. But then, when I was in primary six, they had an island sports day where all the primary schools picked one person. and they competed there. In primary Six, I remember sitting there and watching the girl’s 800-metre race. There was one girl who won it by a whole lap of the 200-metre grass track. I remember thinking, like, yeah, I want to do that.
So then I told my Dad, “This is what I wanted to do.” It was about the end of 1997. I started running with my Dad in the winter, training for this island school sports in the summer. Then I did the 800 meters and won it and it felt like it was the Olympics. Then, in high school, I started doing some cross country and competed in the Ayrshire Championships. I think after I did well in my second year, Jim Young, a key figure in the Ayrshire Harriers, spotted me and got in touch with the Arran Runners saying, “You know, you should perhaps get this girl along to train with you.” So the guys loved that. Having this 12-year-old girl running around with them. It kind of started there. Then, I competed in national cross country, and that’s when I got involved with The City of Glasgow Athletic Club. A couple of clubs contacted my Dad, after I’d done well at national under 13 in the cross country and suggested I join a bigger club. We picked Glasgow. That gave me access to track competitions and championships, and it snowballed from there and has taken over my life.
AS. As it does. Were you still living on Arran at this time?
JW. I lived on Arran up until I was 17 and went to university. I came to Stirling at that point. I came to visit, fell in love with the campus, and liked the idea of training with Central Athletics Club. Back in those days, it was Morag MacLarty, as she was at the time, who was the big name in the club. Derek (Derek Easton) was winning Scottish Athletics Coaching Awards. I mean, he still is. It seemed like a really good opportunity to run with such a good endurance club, with a good coaching set-up.
AS. Did you find just having the group set up there and the dynamic, just helped you get to that next level?
JW. Definitely, because growing up, it was me and my dad. We would just run around the village. Sometimes I’d be chasing him, sometimes it would be the other way around. But yeah, it helped to push me on, having the club. Also, my dad had some coaching qualifications, but having someone like Derek Easton, was very beneficial.
AS. You did well at school. There are parallels between you and Dougie, (Dougie Selman, who won the 100km race at Perth) because Dougie went through the whole track experience as a teenager, going to Scottish schools championships and things like that and doing well.
When did you first start thinking about a marathon?
PROGRESSION TO THE MARATHON
JW? I think the way I’ve done it is in a sort of traditional way. I feel like I started off running 800 meters because that’s as far as you can run under 13. Then, at under 15, I was running 1500 meters. Then, at under 17, once the 3K became a possibility, I was doing that. I have naturally and gradually moved up. I think I was about 24, something like that before I did my first half marathon. For my first marathon, I must have been about 26. So it was a gradual, gradual build-up. I always knew I’d probably end up doing the longer distances because they did seem to suit me better. It would have been in 2013 that I did my first marathon.
AS. Was that at Loch Ness when you sneaked under Three Hours?
JW. No. The first marathon I started was actually London, earlier that year. However, on the Thursday night beforehand, I’d gone down to the club for a little jog, and I got bitten by a horsefly on my shin and discovered I was severely allergic to them. I went down to London anyway. By that time, my shin was about double the size it should be, and I was in A&E the day before the race. They wanted to keep me on a drip because it was so bad. I said, “Well no, I’ve got this wee race to run.” Fortunately, the guy who was dealing with me was a runner. He understood if I was staying in overnight, I couldn’t get to the race start. So, we just got a little antibiotics. I made it to 15 miles, and that was it.
So, Loch Ness was the first one that I actually finished. I was quite lucky managing to get under the three hours there, having blown up and cramped for about 10 miles. It was a learning experience for sure.
AS. Your first Loch Ness experience didn’t put you off because next year, in London, you knocked a huge chunk off, and everything seemed to go very well.
JW. London Marathon, the second time, was a far better experience. It wasn’t a perfect run. I have a habit of setting off far too quickly. But with that one, in the back of my mind, was the thought, could I get under 2:40 and get the Commonwealth Games qualifying time for Glasgow 2014? So I think all the top Scottish girls started thinking they should go for it. I wanted to know whether I could do it or not. I suspected I probably would struggle in the second half, which I then did, but at least that way, I knew. I didn’t want to finish in 2:45, feeling super fresh and thinking, “Well, I should have gone for it.” So I could have perhaps been more sensible, but you live and learn.
AS. That didn’t put you off either. Later in the year, you were at Loch Ness again, and it was the Scottish Championship that year.
JW. Yes, I had a really good season. I had a lot of good races against Megan Crawford from Fife. We had a lot of good battles there. She didn’t have the best day that year at Loch Ness. I think she was closing me down towards the end once she got back into a better patch, but I was really happy to hold on for the win. That is the fastest I have run a marathon, but because it’s technically a downhill course, although it doesn’t feel like it, London’s still my PB time.
AS. You only beat Megan by 15 seconds that year, I think, so it was quite a close finish.
JW. Yes. I don’t think I was aware of just how close, because I’d had a bit of a lead. She had some issues partway through and dropped back, but I didn’t realise just how much she was closing. Had it been 26.3 miles, I probably wouldn’t have been the winner that year.
AS. Then fast forward, you seem to be running marathons every two years. Is there a reason behind that? Or was it better to get a good recovery, while doing other things in your life as well?
JW. So, in 2014 I did Loch Ness. Then, I was injured for most of 2015. I got married at the end of 2014, then went on honeymoon in the Easter time. I came home and did the Round the Houses 10k at Grangemouth. My Achilles didn’t feel great, and I barely walked the week after. You think, “Oh, it’s just a niggle, I’ll keep going here”. I soon realised I couldn’t, so I didn’t run for three months that summer and was constantly in the gym and at spin classes. It was horrendous.
Eventually, it got better. It wasn’t perfect. It’s fine now, but it took a very long time. That’s why not much happened in 2015. Then, the other Achilles got a bit grumpy at the start of 2016. So nothing was happening in springtime. I was supposed to do Manchester that year, but couldn’t. I think I did Loch Ness again that winter, and then in 2017, for most of it, I was pregnant with my son. He was born in February of 2018, and then I got myself back for Loch Ness that winter, that autumn and finished second.
AS. Interestingly you were second to another FIFE AC runner, Sheena Logan. who was in the Scotland 100km team at Perth, It really is a small world. Only a couple of minutes separated you in that race. It’s interesting how Sheena’s had little breaks with children too, and tried other things like Ironman triathlons.
WHY 50KM?
AS.Winding forward again, you’re certainly getting competent at marathons. You enjoy them. What planted the seed to want to run further, to try your first step beyond the marathon?
JW. So, the last marathon I did was Stirling in 2019. After that, for several reasons, I just fell out of love with marathon running.
It had been incredibly hard to train for it. My son was about 14 months old when the race opened, so he was teething, and he was going to the nursery and bringing home loads of bugs. I was still trying to train like I had done five years before, trying to run 90 to 100 miles a week off about five hours sleep, with a teething child. I was getting ill every couple of weeks because he would bring home bugs, and I was running too much to be able to cope with it. The race didn’t even go that well. I finished first, but my time was an awful lot slower than what I’d been wanting to run. I thought, well, is this even worth it?
I remember complaining publicly about the reduction in the prize money and was torn apart on social media. That just made me think, no, I don’t really want to be doing this. Then, after having my daughter, I told myself I wasn’t going to run a marathon until my children had all their teeth. I wanted to get back into longer distances, but I didn’t want to go straight back into the marathon. I’m intrigued to know what I could do with carbon shoes now and carbohydrate gels because these things weren’t around when I was last playing this game. I didn’t want to go straight into the marathon. I wanted something that seemed a little less pressure. If you’re doing a marathon, everyone knows what the time means. Only some people will know what the time means for a 50k. I know, because I studied up on it. So I could know what was good and what was not so good. But I thought it would be good to do it, and I also wanted to try an ultra to see whether it suited me while I was still in my 30s. I wanted to know before I turned 40, which is still about two and a half years away, whether it was something I could enjoy.
AS. So, Looking at 50K, did you change your training much from marathon training? Did you do the research and see that there are a lot of good marathon runners running good 50 Km races also? They don’t have to change too much. Did you change much from your previous marathon schedules?
And supplementally, were you self-coached? Have you got someone helping you at the moment with your coaching?
JW. At the moment, I just do my own thing. I trained with Derek Easton’s group for about 15 years, so I feel like I know how to structure a week, and I’ve always just kept the same patterns and the same types of sessions that we did then. Having two young children, plus my husband’s job means he’s away a lot during the week is hard going, so a lot of my training is on the treadmill. Sometimes, it could be at 5 a.m. Sometimes, it’s 8 o’clock at night, depending on the children. So I can’t commit to a club or even a coach giving me sessions, because if the kids don’t go to sleep, I’m not going to be able to do the session. I’d rather have the flexibility of structuring things for myself. In the past, when I marathon trained, I wouldn’t feel fit unless I was running 100 miles plus per week. It was a mental thing.
Now that I’m older, there’s no way I could cope with it. I don’t have the time, and I don’t have the energy. Previously, I would have done a big session on a Saturday, and then I would have done a long run on Sunday. This time around, I thought, well, I need to be smarter with how I train. I’ve been doing all of my long runs and efforts combined into one, on a Saturday.
Then, on a Sunday, I go out for a little half-hour shuffle around the town. I’m also, as you’re aware, a big park runner. So everything’s had to kind of fit so I could still be doing park run, which has been great because sometimes, I’ve run to the parkrun and had 25 miles on my legs before, and I am then trying to run 19-20 minute parkrun. Other times, I’ve been doing sessions and then going to parkrun for an extra effort at the end. It’s been good getting all the miles in early on Saturdays. I’m done with my training by half past 10. Sometimes, it means I’m up at half past four, but it’s not interfering with family life. My husband plays rugby, so he needs to leave the house, sometimes at 11 or 12 o’clock to go out. So, you know, I’m out at the crack of dawn doing my thing and come back. Then it’s my turn with the kids, and he goes and does his sport.
AS. I am sure families are reading this and empathising with all of that!
SPECIFIC TRAINING FOR PERTH:
RUNNINGN LOOPS AROUND THE BLOCK AND LEAVING GELS ON WHEELIE BINS!
AS. So, the experience of the race in Perth. You’ve never done an ultra before. You had never done a loop course like that before. How did you find the whole setup? Were you wary coming into of “How am I going to cope with loops? ” You mentioned in an Instagram post that you were practising going around the block at home.
JW. I had been thinking about doing the race in Perth for a while. A good friend of mine, Alison Downey, who ran the 100K and has been running Ultras for ages, always talks about the Young Hearts Run Free podcast. I’m like, well, I’ll give this a listen. So I’ve been listening to all their old episodes, trying to learn as much about ultra-running as I can from their various guests. When they were talking about the Anglo-Celtic Plate in 2022, they built so much hype around, like, this sounds fantastic. I didn’t manage to get up to watch it that year, but they made it sound so exciting. Then, having Jo Wilson do so well there in 2022 was quite cool. I told myself that if it comes back to Perth, I’m going to have to do this then. Last November I gave myself a little test. The block that I live on has a 1.43-mile length of path and pavement. I thought, “This is perfect. I did maybe a couple of hours running around there, just to see if I could cope with it mentally as I knew it would be difficult, physically. I also suspected mentally that it might be pretty difficult. I did that, and it wasn’t too bad at all. So a lot of my sessions, when I’ve been doing long tempos or 5K reps, I’ve been doing them round and round that block. My neighbour’s Must think I am crazy.
But it’s been brilliant because I just put the wheelie bin at the end of the drive and put gels and drinks on it. I can grab them as I go past. I felt pretty prepared for the laps. I’m normally the sort of person who goes out and does a big loop. I like to have something different to see, but I knew I’d need to train myself for this. The “round the block” sessions all went well, so I felt confident about the laps. I hadn’t managed to get up to Perth for a big session. I got flu in February, so a couple of weeks were a total write-off. I did manage to get up the week before the race for parkun and did a couple of recce laps just to see how the little incline felt at the floodgate.
I felt my long runs had prepared me for the distance, and I felt pretty prepared for the laps. I’d practised all my fueling and I’d even practised grabbing gels from my friend who was coming to the race to do just that. So I felt as prepared as I could be going into it, all the while knowing that, you can’t control the weather. I might have just had a bad day, and it could have all gone wrong. You could say the preparation had been good.
THE SRI CHINMOY 50 KM AT PERTH
AS. And how did you find the atmosphere of going around the loop?
JW. It was really good. It was a bit like “Tour de France” at the start-finish area that everyone was coming through. I mean, sometimes there were bikes on the course as well, members of the public coming through. It was a good atmosphere, and all around the course, there were so many runners. There were runners everywhere. You were never on your own for more than a couple of seconds really, with 100k runners as well. It was good. It felt friendly. I mean, by the last couple of laps, I wasn’t wanting to hear from anyone. I was just in my own little world of pain. But no, I enjoyed it.
AS. You got under 3 hours 30 minutes which I have to say is very respectable for a first 50k. Was that the ballpark you were aiming for?
JW. Coming from a 5k and 10k background, I thought four minutes per km wasn’t that fast when you are running a 5K. It’s pretty quick when you’re running 50K though. I was adjusting my expectations for it. yes, 3 hours 30 minutes was what I was aiming for. I was aiming for 10-minute laps. It was a good simple math. I was wary of my GPS, maybe not being that accurate and the last couple of laps, it did go a bit haywire. It was easy to tell because you know, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, you knew how you were doing each lap and the pacing worked out quite well
LOOKING AHEAD TO THE NEXT ADVENTURES.
AS.So you are now, both Scottish and British 50km champion for 2024. You seem to be recovering OK. You mentioned that you might be planning a marathon later in the year. I have to say, in my experience, a lot of people think, when they move to ultras, that they might lose all their speed. History shows the extra strength you get from ultra training can and does mean people still run very fast and even maybe improve their marathon time. What I’m saying is you might surprise yourself when you do a marathon. Is a marathon in the autumn the plan going forward?
JW. I think so. I have an entry for Chester. I needed the 50K to go well so that I could try and use it as a qualifying time to get into a marathon because my friends were asking me, “Do you want to come and runBerlin? Do you want to do this, that, the other? However, because I haven’t run a marathon in the last five years, I don’t have a decent qualifying time to get a good start place. Chester Marathon was offering entries for sub-three-hour females, and they accepted my “self-timed” 42.2 k split from Perth, backed up with the race results timing system and let me in on that. So I’ve got the free entry for that in October.
AS. Looking ahead, now you have done a 50k, and you’ve survived, does doing more 50ks or even, dare I say, going further appeal to you in the future?
JW. Part of the appeal of the 50k was it’s not much further than a marathon, so it still felt like a distance that you could properly attack rase-wise. It’s not just a case of, okay, let’s try 100 km now.
In the 100k, people are running phenomenal times. The top two women at Perth, Sarah Webster and Melissah Gibson were much faster than me through 50k, and then they kept going, not slowing down that much. So I am not sure I have it in me just now to run that far at a similar pace. For me, I felt like 50 Km was still a distance that I could run quickly.
Beyond 50km, I think I would be just trying to survive rather than running at a good pace. Also, I think if I were to go further, I’m not sure I would like to do it in the same format. I’d rather feel like I was going somewhere. Races like the West Highland Way or the Highland Fling might appeal to me at some point. But it’s having the time to train for it. I don’t really have that time just now. The kids will need to be a bit older.
AS. I guess probably even Derek, your old coach would have pondered the question many years ago or worked it out himself. What is your best distance, and what is your best surface to run on?
JW. Yes, exactly.
AS. Sometimes, a lot of people doing ultras are guilty of saying, I’ve got to do 100 miles. I’ve got to do a 24-hour. I’ve got to go further and further. Of course, they can do it, but sometimes with disastrous consequences. They either move up too soon, and get injured or overtrain, or don’t figure out what their strengths really are.
“I AM JUST A RUNNER” and “THERE IS JUST RUNNING”
JW. I guess I think of myself just as a runner. I know there are hundreds of, trail races out there, that everyone seems to be doing and raving about.
I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t really think of trail running as a separate thing! It’s just running on a different surface. I grew up on Arran running on trails through the forestry and things. It’s just running. You’re just not on a super smooth surface. It’s not as technical as trail running. I come from a hill running background. As a junior, I ran for Scotland on the hills so I am used to all surfaces but it’s just running. You’re just sometimes on a forestry track in a different environment.
AS. I have had this conversation with many people. I’m from a background and a mindset where there is just endurance, with so many wonderful challenges out there. You just need to find your challenges. People should certainly find their strengths and do what they enjoy, but limiting yourself to one area of running or endurance closes the door to a host of other credible challenges.
JW. When I was younger, Dad took me to as many different types of running events as he could. So, I mean, I’ve run on the track outdoors. I’ve run on the track indoors. I’ve done so-called trail running. I’ve done hill running, cross-country running, road running, done all of it. It’s just running.
AAS. Just coming back to Arran, do you still have links there? Do your folks still live there?
JW. No, My parents left the island a few years ago. They don’t live there anymore. My husband’s family don’t live there anymore either. So it’s still home, but there isn’t a home there.
AS. I understand. I have fond memories of Arran when your dad used to organise the Arran half-marathon.
JW. Yes,. He organised all of the races for several years.
AS. I used to go across with my daughters and run. It was a beautiful grassroots event. I have fond memories of one year of you being at the prize giving, translating into French because a bunch of French runners came across. Do you remember that?
JW. Yes, I do remember that. That was a long time ago. Why this group of French runners decided to come to Arran, I am not sure.
AS. The story I heard was this French club, every year, would pick a summer expedition to go on. That year, they’d picked Scotland and the Arran half marathon. It must have been a fabulous trip for them, but they hardly spoke any English, which was a minor problem.
They won some prizes between them, and as you could speak French, your Dad must have asked you to help with a bilingual prize giving.
I assume that’s how it transpired. But it was a very nice touch and went down very well with everyone. I remember everyone there giving you a huge round of applause for doing the bilingual prize-giving.
JW. It was kind of fun but I am not a fan of public speaking, particularly not in another language.
parkrun fan
AS. Slightly tangential. You’re a big fan of parkrun, which you tell the world about on your Instagram posts. Do you have a favourite parkrun? That’s a difficult question, I know, as you’re going to offend somebody,
JW. I can safely say my favourite is the University of Stirling as it’s my local one.
AS. Very diplomatic. In your multiple travels, there must be one that has stuck out as being just an impressive venue, even though it’s hilly or something. It’s just something that really sticks out.
JW. The best adventure trip I had, was probably Mount Stuart, which is near Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. A friend and I met at Wemys Bay in the morning and got the ferry over to Rothesay. We decided we didn’t want to take the bus round to the venue. It was five miles, and we had about 45 minutes to do it. So we ran there. We then did the Park Run and ran back, with just enough time to grab a coffee and walk onto the ferry. I was home by lunchtime. It’s quite a spectacular course, and it’s just more exciting if you have to travel on a ferry to get somewhere. It’s the only island one I’ve done. Several harder-to-reach ones are on my to-do list.
AS. Well, you will have to wait until your children are older and can run proper parkruns. Then you can take them with you.
JW. Definitely, yes.
AS. They’re doing junior park runs now. Are they still in the buggies, or are they running them now?
JW. So the kids are three and six. The six-year-old is about the size of an eight-year-old, so he can still fit in the buggy, but it’s very very heavy to push when you’re pushing over 50 kilos of children. I’ll take them to places like Cramond and Strathclyde Park if it’s not windy. Any sort of incline, and it’s just too difficult. So yeah, the Junior parkrun is for 4 to 14-year-olds. So my son does those. My young daughter comes along, and sometimes she has a little jog around part of it, but she’s not old enough to do it properly.
It’s just nice for them to see everyone doing this on a Saturday. See the grownups doing it and then see other kids doing it. Whether or not they become runners, I have no idea, but I just like that they’re exposed to this active lifestyle and they just see people getting out and wanting to be involved in it.
STANDOUT ACHIEVEMENTS
AS. In all your running, do you have a standout race that, in your mind is head and shoulders above everything else? Either that being a venue of a race or just a personal achievement?
JW. I don’t know. Things like winning the Scottish Marathon Championship at Loch Ness was pretty special. I love the races in Inverness. They’re so well-organised. I’ve done them so many times, that they almost feel like home events. Stirling 10k, finishing first in that one, was pretty special because it’s the local event organised by my club. The times that I’m proud of, are races like your 5k at Silverknowes when I managed to finish third one year. It was the only year, by the way, you didn’t give out pineapples!
I’m not sure what my stand-out, proudest running achievement would be. I mean, I’m pretty pleased with how well the 50k went really. It went pretty much exactly as I planned it. So that’s got to be up there.
AS. You ran very well.
JW. I’d like to think I could run quicker over 50k because I trained to get under the 3 hours 30 minutes and achieved that. Perhaps I could train to run faster, we’ll see. I would also like to go further, some time and have adventures. We’ll see.
Runners that have inspired you
AS. Plenty of adventures waiting for you when you feel the time is right. Finally. Do you have someone, either in sports or in life in general, who inspires you more than anyone else, who has inspired you over the years, or who inspires you now?
JW. In terms of running inspiration, I would probably pick someone like Morag. ( Morag Millar /McLarty) She’s someone I’ve grown up with and a lot of people talk about the likes of Laura Muir leading the way in Scottish female distance running, but Morag came along earlier and she definitely inspired me on my journey. She was just unlucky with injuries at certain times. I am amazed to see how she juggles so many things now. She’s got two kids, she’s got her own business. I think Morag has to be my favourite runner from people I know.
Also, how can you not be inspired by Jasmin Paris? I was following her progress at the Barkley Marathon on the Thursday and Friday before the 50km. It was amazing, and so inspiring.
I was very glad to have a big challenge to get stuck into on the Sunday having witnessed her incredible performance play out via Twitter/X.
. Over the years, there have been so many inspirational characters that I’ve met through running. I was out for a run on Monday this week with Kyle Gregg. I was visiting family near where he lives. We were chatting about Martin Hyman, and I don’t think there has been a much more mildly eccentric and inspirational character than Martin. He was a fantastic guy who did so much for the sport in so many areas. He’s got to be up there on my list as well.
Supershoes.
AS. You mentioned “The Shoes” briefly earlier. Carbon-plated shoes have revolutionised the times some people are now running. Do you think it will make a difference to your marathon time when you come to do your next marathon?
JW. I think it will make a difference compared to if I just turned up in my normal training shoes. Given the age difference, when I ran my best time, I mean that was 10 years ago that I was running my personal best times, and I was in my 20s. I didn’t have children, a lot has changed. I’m not the same athlete. I’m not the same person. I’d like to think that maybe the shoes could kind of cancel out some of the ageing. Kyle and I were talking about this and we’re both quite proud that our personal best times are pre-carbon. If they’d had carbon shoes in 2014, who knows what I could have run over many distances. So many of my personal bests are a minute and zero-something seconds. I’m sure the carbon would have at least got me under that minute. I’m interested to see what I can do. Who knows if I’d manage a personal best now?
I don’t know whether I can train hard enough now to have a serious attempt at a personal best time. But I also know that I’ve never run a perfect marathon before. Maybe with maturity, I could approach it more sensibly and get a better result on the day without actually being a faster runner, I could just have a better run. It’s maybe just getting the training mix right in terms of volume and key sessions.
Between 60 and 80 miles, used to be my ticking-over mileage. I wonder how I ever fitted it all in, but then I had more free time in those days. I think I’m approaching things more sensibly for the athlete and person I am now anyway.
BALANCING FAMILY, WORK AND TRAINING.
AS.There’ll be probably Mums reading this also trying to juggle many things. How do you personally balance having a family, a full-time job, and trying to run 80 miles a week?
JW. It’s very difficult. The children have to be an absolute top priority. The running, I just have to hope I can fit it in. My poor husband is neglected some of the time because if you have goals, you have to find the time to train. It’s difficult. It’s a lot of early mornings, a lot of running on the treadmill after the kids are in bed, not getting dinner until 9 o’clock and then thinking, well, I better get to bed before 10, because I’ve got to be up at 5 to do this all over again the next day. So it’s difficult, but I don’t struggle for motivation. I want to do it and most of the time I am enjoying it and it’s something I do for me, and it makes me feel like myself and not just mummy. But yes, it’s very tricky and with the kids being young, it’s hard to stay healthy because they just bring home every illness, My husband’s home at the weekend, so he’s great then because he’s there for the kids and I can just go off. But then you get the mum guilt of, “We should be having family time together. But then if I haven’t done my run no one wants to be around me.
AS. You certainly have a deep-seated love for running. You’ve had it all your life, and you can thank your dad for instilling that in you at a young age and nurturing it. As you said, you don’t know if your children will be runners, but hopefully, they will grow up with a love of the outdoors as they grow older.
JW. I do hope so.
AS. That’s a good place to leave it, I think. Thanks so much for your time. Take care.
FOR Further info on the Sri Chinmoy 100k/50k ultras
Watch a Short video with drone footage by Stuart Ross of Stuart Ross Media HERE
Full results from the Sri Chinmoy 100k/50 ultra races HERE
Our Blog on all the records that fell at Perth is HERE
Micheal Philp’s Perth Picture Gallery is HERE
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Adrian Tarit Stott.
The author is a former GB 24 hour ultra international with over 100 ultra race completions. He has also been involved organising ultra distance races for over 30 years. Still an active recreational runner, he is currently a member of UKA’s Ultra Running Advisory Group (URAG) and part of the selection and team management for both Scottish and GB ultra teams.He is also a freelance writer in his spare time, contributing articles and reports to several websites and magazines including Athletics Weekly and Irunfar.
