When you were my lover, all gunfight and thunder

When you were my lover, all gunfight and thunder

Really, it’s hard to know where to start. What should have been a welcome back, let me tell you all about how I got here, and we-had-a-lovely-time-in-Bordeaux-on-the-way-thanks-for-asking warmup preamble has turned into us sitting in a small bar in Vielha, eating all the tapas

and watching the UK government eat itself alive kind of a vibe. With the breathless hope that there’s still enough day left for Priti Patel to dip her quill in some venom or the blood of her enemies or frankly, please, ANYTHING AT ALL and get that letter written. Delusion is alive and well in the Spanish Pyrenees, in spite – or possibly more likely because – of the notable quantity of Albariño I’ve inhaled in the last 24 hours. This, and the cobbles stage of the TdF with shouty Spanish commentary, is pushing my circuits into overload today – honestly, it’s almost as good as Big Jet TV from way back in February.

The hawk-eyed amongst you will have noticed that we are not, in fact, in Les Gets. And you’d be right. We’re in Spain. In the wee town of Vielha, to be precise. I’m sure it’s lovely, but it’s been pishing with rain since we arrived and really, I didn’t order this. Still, my trusty weather app tells me that tomorrow will be scorchio, so I might yet unpack my shorts. I’m still wearing the same jeans I had on when I left Cardiff at arse o’clock on Friday morning and that’s just not very holidayish, is it?

Tomorrow, I should be running the Peades d’Aigua. This is the entire reason for our uncharacteristic deviation from the well trodden path down the east side of France. Alas, conquering 55kms of mountain with 3,300 metres of climbing will not be on my agenda tomorrow – I’m on the injury bench with a dreaded stress fracture and I can barely walk. Sigh. Remember the I’ve never pushed through an injury in a race quite like this one bit of my race report back in May? Turns out I shouldn’t have, either.

My Dad is fond of telling me many things, but right up somewhere near the top of the list is “Katherine, your tenacity is one of the things I admire the most in you”. Swiftly followed by “Katherine, your stubbornness is absolutely infuriating”. Seems that some of my chickens have come home to roost on the insertion point of my left fibula – and my goodness me, it stings a bit. On every level.

I’ve been injured before – all runners break a bit occasionally. I’ve had my pelvis realigned by Mark The Sadist, my osteopath who cheerily claims that “your pain is my pleasure”. I’ve had all kinds of muscular breakdowns and achilles dramas over the past 10 years, but nothing like this. My natural instinct is to go at it with guns blazing and every ounce of my fighting spirit, so the slow realisation that whilst gunfight and thunder is perfectly acceptable, possibly even welcome in one’s personal life, totally submitting to this and digging deep into the well for some patience is what’s going to get me through in the end.

So, tomorrow won’t be the day I’ve been planning for the last 2 years, but it will see me on the finish line, cheering every runner who goes out there and does this thing until they’re over the line.