Blog Post drafted February/March 2021. 

My name is Phil Murray. I’m 56. I consider myself to be lean, fit, active, and with a great zest for life. My interests include long distance running, orienteering, rock climbing, hillwalking, and I am a guitar player & have played many live gigs in various bands.

But I have a problem with increased fitness and recovery/health, which, as I get even fitter, and “stronger”, becomes even more glaring  ….

Winning the "OK Nuts" Trophy, Vet Men 45+, April 2021, Surrey

WHERE AEROBIC FITNESS MEETS CHRONIC FATIGUING ILLNESS

I was a sporty young man. As a youth, I regularly ran for my school / college / university in running races. I got better, and at university became notably fast, and successful at orienteering as well.

By the time I was 25, I had won a few races, and had fast pbs at many distances, including 31:58 for 10km, 72:38 for the half marathon, and, on the track, had even won the South Yorkshire 5000m title in 15:26 (admittedly against a mediocre field).  

At orienteering, my progress was even better – at 19, I had run for Great Britain in Europe, and was in the Junior Squad for my final years U20.  At the age of 16, I had even won a 2-day (Junior) mountain navigation endurance race. Endurance was me!

But all this came to a crashing halt in my early 30s, when, having been over-committed to work (in particular, a commute), sport, music & everything for over six months, I was felled by a savage sore throat virus.  To my dismay, not only did I fail to recover from the virus within a week or two, but I was unable to function – crushing fatigue; “brain fog”, racing heart, insomnia, rashes, appalling indigestion, the list is long.  On the very rare occasions I had a “good” day, I would do something trivial, eg. get a haircut (30 minutes), then spend the next week bedridden with crushing symptoms all flaring up.  My exertion tolerance was non-existent; my “post exertional malaise” was savage, and punishing, and it was torture.  I lost the lot. Yes, all of it. I was, for a time, bedridden & requiring care.  

Within 6 months I had a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or “Postviral Fatigue syndrome”. This is now usually referred to as “ME/CFS”, and it was a long, tortuous six years to any sort of recovery. There were many crashes, which I won’t go into here, but as I did more (having felt improvements from rest & pacing), sometimes I would pay a very heavy price. But slowly ... bumpily … I crept back into life.

By 40, I was back in an office, doing a sedentary job, full time, and slowly starting to pick up sports. Easy climbs. Walks. Steady jogging. Mountain hikes. Some of these left me worn out, but I was bouncing back quicker.  A 5km race (18:36! 1^st Vet40!) in 2006 age 42 put me off work sick for 2 weeks – lesson learned (my employer’s Doctor was a non-believer in ME – he was a utter disgrace for whom I have nothing but contempt).

So, a slow process of getting back into my passions began – climbing, in particular, not being aerobically as challenging, I engaged with a lot. My hugely enthusiastic attitude meant I threw myself into this with gusto. Running became more & more enjoyable. I got faster. Fitter. Stronger. As a Veteran, I started competing in orienteering races again – quickly getting better. My first actual running race, in 2013, a 10km, I was gobsmacked to be in the top 3 Vet 40’s and 6^th overall. Wow!  (Won a bottle of red wine!). Shortly after, I won a pair of racing shoes worth £80 in another race. I was back!

By 2017, I was nearly at the top of my age group at National orienteering level. By 2019, as an over-55, I suddenly found myself on the podium in European competitions, and ran for England (winning the individual race) in a Home international.  People muttered about how fast I was running. I didn’t feel 55, and it’s true, I felt I could run really fast!  

Cue a misplaced 10km time trial in May 2020. Lockdown boredom - we’ve all been there.  Four years earlier, aged 51, I’d managed a very pleasing 36:44 in a local road race, so I merely wanted to try to run it in less than 40 mins. I did this – 39:56. But something felt wrong.  I couldn’t recover. In fact, within 7 hours, my old CFS symptoms were back – brain fog, excessive fatigue, irritability, listlessness (but not the more extreme symptoms). My housemate said, & I quote, “it’s like you’re a different person”.  I felt GHASTLY. This went on, AND ON, for six miserable, but not extreme, weeks.

Finally, after several false starts, the relapse faded away, and off to Europe I went, again placing on the podium in a big European orienteering competition, 1^st Brit home.  May was just a blip, right? I spent the late summer & early autumn on numerous domestic climbing trips, with runs slotted in, and the climbing was awesome, I felt fit, and I sneaked in a 67:40 10 miles time-trial on a rainy Sunday having watched the London Marathon on TV as a motivator (and that worked!).

Since then, my fitness has been going up & up. I feel great when I run. I want to run fast. I *do* run fast (for a 56 year old!).  Yet – and here is my issue – I’m not recovering from the harder runs consistently, or well.  Like, I need painkillers to sleep, and sedatives.  The next day, I feel like my head is full of cotton wool, & everything’s a problem.  If all’s well, I’ll be fine the next day.  But sometimes, I’m not.  Sometimes, 48 hours later, I feel ghastly again. And this stays for 2 to 4 days, destroying my activities planned for that period. Those familiar with ME/CFS term this “post exertional malaise”. It’s a dreaded, defining, and horribly cardinal symptom of the condition. Yet…. How can I possibly have ME/CFS?  I raced for England 18 months ago, for heaven’s sake!  No one with ME/CFS does such things – it’s a crippling, long term, real, serious, life-destroying physical condition.

Is it possible that I still harbour a very low-level disorder of the ME/CFS family, ie. it never *fully* went away (for example, the one thing that always made me sick again in the past 10 years was high altitude mountaineering – and I mean sick; I would be unwell for up to 2 weeks after climbing an modest Alp). (Ruining everyone else’s holiday in the process). (“Don’t give up on your dreams!” – I have).

So what do I do? Just go “jogging”?  I could. Then I’d feel well (if a little bored) (and with unfulfilled goals). But I have an appetite for fast running, and racing. I love it. And when I am having a good day, running fast is a wonderful thing.  I even embrace the pain involved.  The problem is…. what happens tomorrow?  

 

(note: I also have an atypical Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, and am on Metformin. I am a lifelong non smoker, enjoy a social drink, and have always been tall & lean/ “thin” / very low body fat).

 ……………………….

(incidentally, there are no psychological explanations that could be attributed to my situation. And as I know this, I won’t give any credence to any suggestions that there might be, either).