Becca Jane St Clair

On October 27, I participated in the AOK Quarter Marathon as part of the Dresden Marathon. I came in last place, but I don’t care because I did it.

Back in 2022, when I was in Dresden for Christmas with Tim and my friend Jen, we saw information about the Dresden Marathon. Jen is a runner and she was keen to sign up for it and I thought the shorter race (at the time, we thought it was 5K) would be fun, even though I had never ran before in my life other than a few feet here and there to catch busses and trains. Plus the opportunity to participate in my first run in my favourite city in the world was too good to pass up on. So I told Jen I would do it with her in 2024 and I downloaded the Couch25k app. In March of 2023, I ran Week 1, Run 1. It took me six weeks to be able to fully run all three Week 1 runs. I developed shin splints and calf cramps, but solved these issues with compression sleeves, and then knee high compression running socks when the weather became too warm for the sleeves.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but I soon became frustrated when trying to move from the Week 3 to Week 4. I just couldn’t seem to get my head around it, and then I sprained my knee that August and I felt like I needed to start all over again, so I started Week 1, Run 1. This time, it only took me the one week to do all of Week 1 runs and I was soon onto Week 2 and then Week 3…but again, struggled to move on to Week 4. I finally decided to try extending the initial walk time from 5 minutes to 10, thinking that perhaps I needed the additional warm-up walking time. It worked, and I even ran more than the original Week 4, Run 1 interval called for.

We also discovered that the shorter race wasn’t a 5k, it was in fact 10.55k, a quarter marathon. I studied the route carefully. I know Dresden fairly well and my route took me basically across one bridge, followed the path along the river to another bridge, across that bridge, and then along the river again. Perfect.

Then I discovered a method called “Jeffing”, which is basically interval running and honestly, this is where I shine. I downloaded an app that will ping at you when you should switch between walking and running and I started out with 30 seconds of running, 45 of walking. This wasn’t doing much for my pace, so I changed it up to 15/30 and even tried 10/15. 10/15, despite sounding crazy really works for me!

A few weeks before the race, one of the bridges across the Elbe collapsed. This was a bridge we were expected to run under along the riverfront. I panicked a little, but the organizers assured us the race would happen, they were researching alternate routing. About a week before the race, we received the alternate route. We would run across the Marienbrücke instead of the August, then go slightly away from the river before coming back to the river path, going across, then routing slightly through old town on the Marathon route to avoid the closed off area. This also added a little elevation, though I really didn’t pay much attention to that! I just kept training.

I was racking up the 5K runs in my village and getting my 5K time to around 48-52 minutes. I set my 10k goal for under 2 hours at this point.

The weather forecast was honestly all over the place in the weeks leading up to the race. At one point, we thought it was going to be 6 degrees (Celcius) and would need to run with long sleeves, thick socks, headbands, and gloves! Fortunately, the forecast changed a few days before we packed, and the forecast showed a high of 17, but it would be chilly in the morning. Jen suggested I pick up a cheap jacket or jumper that if I lost it I wouldn’t care about and so I grabbed one for £1 off Vinted. I was still wearing thicker compression socks, but I figured I’d be fine.

The day before the race, I made a big mistake. We walked all over Dresden, clocking in over 10KM of walking. My legs were absolutely killing me to the point that I bought muscle relaxing bath salts, a knee compression sleeve to sleep in, and new, thinner, compression socks from a stand at the running expo. My outfit was going to clash, but who cares? I carefully laid everything out. I was going to wear my contact lenses for the run, so I had a cheap pair of Primark sunglasses (in case I lost them) in my belt, along with a spare set of headphones in case my Shokz failed. I also packed my inhaler, paracetamol, some High 5 gels, a little bag of gummies, a cereal bar, and a small battery charger for my phone that plugged directly into my phone. I prepared a bag for Tim to put in his rucksack for after the race that included a change of socks and pants (in case I felt sweaty after), some body wipes, and deodorant. I might have shoved a clean T-shirt in there, too.

Morning arrived, and yeah, I was pretty nervous and terrified. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I had been collecting songs from my friends to add to a playlist for the run and I had arranged the list so that I had a half hour of motivational music before it started, and after around 50 minutes, an uplifting song from Tim, then another 50 minutes of good, upbeat music, and then I added in about 15 minutes of additional motivational songs. I ate a light breakfast and we got ready to go….

Jen was running in the half marathon, but my friend Connie was also running the quarter, so we lined up. My playlist wasn’t working because I forgot to download it, so I was stuck with music physically on my phone….BNL and Carbon Leaf. Which was fine as they are my favourite bands, but not all their songs are good for running. I should have stuck to my original plans of run/walking, but I started running at the start and did the first Kilometre entirely as a run. I then switched to walking and walked pretty much until I hit the halfway mark. There was a water stop for the marathon runners and I just happened to look over at it and the one volunteer yelled at me (in German) that it wasn’t for me. Which was a little annoying as I hadn’t been planning on getting a drink, I was just looking around!

I got to the Waldschlösschenbrücke and decided to start running my intervals again…and I found myself in the midst of the half marathon runners! I moved all the way to the side of the road part of the bridge. The pavement was lined with people cheering for the runners, and because my name was on my bib, I got lots of shouts that included my name! It honestly was a fantastic feeling as I crossed over that bridge, hearing all the cheers.

I turned off away from the half marathon runners…and I was on my own! I didn’t pay attention to my pace, I just kept going. at KM 6.5, we had a water stop and I wound up pouring half on top of my head to cool off. I had a water bottle on me that I had been taking sips of, but it had a bite valve so couldn’t be poured. I also at some point took off my headband and tied it to my water bottle holder.

The end was near! I was passing the 9km mark when I felt pain in my calf. It felt like someone had punched me in the calf or like I had been hit with a tennis ball, but it was quick and I kept going for another KM until I had so much pain I screamed and had to limp over to a barrier to hold onto while pain absolutely ripped through my calf. It was quite nice of the race photographers to capture the exact moment!

A few people who had already finished the 10.55K stopped to see if I needed any help and I didn’t know how to say “Calf Cramp” in German, but we managed to work it out with their bit of English and me pointing at my calf. The one woman told me I was 500m from the finish line and offered to walk with me for support if I needed it. Two of the medics came over to ask if I needed help and I chatted with them for a few minutes while I massaged and flexed my leg. They gave me a little sugar boost, and I was back on my way, slightly limping.

I limped across the finish line in under 2 hours like I planned on. I was second to last place over all and last in my age group, but I don’t care. I FUCKING DID IT.

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Offical race photos provided by Marathon Photos Live

A strange thing happened to me after I voted. Someone decided to challenge my right to vote, along with many other overseas voters in NINE counties across Pennsylvania. A hearing was set for Friday (I was informed on Wednesday!). I found out the person who was challenging my vote was a prominent member of the Lancaster County Republican Committee who I had never heard of, but after locating their Facebook page, it was clear who they supported. I also verified with Lancaster County that I was registered to vote.

I posted on our facebook group for Pennsylvania Ex-pats, and a half dozen people who voted in Lancaster County replied that they had the same e-mail. One of the members passed me the email address for a lawyer within the PA branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The lawyer wrote to me and explained that they were contacting Lancaster County and informing them that if they did not withdraw the challenge, the ACLU would be stepping in and suing the county. Within an hour, I received the following:

Funny how the fear of a lawsuit made the person withdraw their challenge.

I’m glad there wasn’t a hearing because one of the questions they were poised to ask was about my ties to Lancaster…and I have none, other than some cousins and second cousins in other areas of the county. Would have been fun explaining. But, under federal law, overseas voters vote where they last held residency. For me, this is Manor Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Hopefully in four years, I don’t have any trouble.

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[This post was written in May, but I never pressed post. OOPS!]
Yes, I know. So did pretty much the entire population of the UK and most of the US, too. You’re probably sick of posts about the lights. But we saw them and it was just incredible.

On Friday, Tim and I were driving back from our friend Jen’s house in Teeside when I scrolled on Facebook and a friend down in Kent posted a picture of the Northern Lights. I started looking out the window while Tim was driving, but as we were on a main road there was a lot of light polution, but I managed to see a few faint streaks of green, so we decided to pull off the road and go down a dark country lane until we could no longer see any lights and we just observed. With the naked eye, we could definitely see green and blue streaks. Tim’s camera took better images than mine, so I’ll include his as well as mine. It was amazing. It was a once in a lifetime chance and something that Tim had never seen before in his life (I saw them when I was in a Northern part of Canada years ago).

To our surprise when we got home, we could see them from our driveway! More images were taken, and as it was already well past 1 in the morning, we stayed awake a little longer and I went outside around 3 and it was even brighter than it had been.

Seriously, what an incredible sight to see.

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Pennsylvania REAAAAALY doesn’t want you to vote absentee from abroad, let me tell you. Originally, I just though it was Lancaster County being awkward, but no. It’s the whole state.

As an American abroad, my vote gets counted in the last township I physically voted in before I moved. So in 2008 when I first voted from abroad, that was my mom’s address in Lancaster County. Despite the fact that no one in my family lives at that address or in that township, that’s still where my vote goes as it’s my last address on file in PA with DMV.

As a Pennsylvanian abroad, I am restricted to Federal and State elections only. I tend not to bother with the state elections and only vote in Federal elections and I have voted in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 by absentee….OR SO I THOUGHT.

I filled out the forms from Vote From Abroad back in September to request my absentee ballot. A friend of mine in PA said that PA had a delay in preparing the ballots, so I shoudn’t worry….but then my friends who live abroad who are from PA started getting their ballots….but nothing for me.

I contacted Democrats Abroad, who told me ot contact Vote from Abroad, who gave me the contact email for Lancaster County…

Yeah. I was apparently dropped from the roles for NOT VOTING….uhm. But I voted! So there was more back and forth with them where they asked me if I was SURE I voted in 2016 and 2020. Uhm. YES. So then I got told to re-register, except that the form I had filled out said it covered registration as well as an overseas ballot request. In my reply, I said “It really is beginning to sound as though you do not want overseas voters to vote in this election”…and what do you know? I was suddenly registered!

But then….then comes the CRAZY hoops you have to go through as a PA voter to get your online ballot…which still has to be mailed back, but at least I don’t have to wait for anything to arrive in the post here.

Step One….You get an email that contains a PASSWORD for your ballot PDF and instructions on how to access the “encrypted email”
Step Two….You click on the link in the second email that leads you to the encrypted email with PDF attached.
Step Three…You use the password provided in the first email to open the PDF. Only…my PDF is 4 pages long and only contains instructions…no ballot. WHAT THE HELL PA?

Fortunately, they are on the ball with replying to email, so I sent off an email and explained that my PDF contained 4 pages of instructions and a declaration form, but no ballot…..but here’s the HILARIOUS part. They wrote back and PUT MY BALLOT AS A FILE ATTACHMENT WITH NO PASSWORD.

Uhm.

Soooooo loads of emails and instructions and they can just email me the ballot. Nice.

Anyway, I voted.

Posted it on the 16th of October, so it had plenty of time to arrive and I received an email on the 24th stating my ballot has been received.

Now, we cross our fingers.

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Around Mid-August, I noticed my hair was getting dry and brittle. At first, I chalked it up to summer because my hair also had started going blonde since we had so many bright sunny days and when we were on holiday in Austria the temperature never got below 25 during the day. But even using my aloe bar shampoo and conditioner from Foamie with my 2-3 times per week Garnier Papaya Hair Mask and Aussie leave-in conditioner it was still really dry. I went off to Boots with the intention of perusing the hair care aisle to find a product that would help my dried out hair.

Charles Worthington is a brand that I have used in the past – mostly when travelling as their travel sized containers are more like foil packets that can squish as they get empty – so when I saw they had developed a line of products designed for peri- and menopausal hair, I decided to check out the shampoo, conditioner, and hair mask (no link for the mask! Sorry!).

They claim that their products reduce 90% of breakage that occurs during peri- and menopause as the products contain Hyaluronic Acid that will “deeply hydrate and condition hair with a lightweight, non-greasy formula to deliver stronger hair that looks and feels healthy.” So I gave it a go.

On the days that I only used the shampoo and conditioner, my hair definitely felt a little softer and less brittle. I noticed less hair coming out on the hair brush, which I thought was amazing since I have such thin hair to begin with! The mask…not so much. The mask left my hair feeling dryer than just using the conditioner and I also felt that I couldn’t go multiple days between washing my hair like I usually did.

The two bottles plus hair mask lasted 6 weeks, and cost £21 at Boots during a 3 for 2 sale.

Will I buy it again? I’m wavering between probably not and maybe. I think the shampoo and conditioner could be great products to use when my hair is feeling dryer than normal or if perimenopause makes my hair situation even worse. But I won’t buy the mask again, as I think I get better moisture out of the Garnier mask (and it certainly is better value).

I’m writing this in September and saving it for Blogvember content, so I’ll update this post with how my hair feels going back to my bar products!

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Welcome to Blogvember, where I plan on blogging at least every other day in an effort to get blogging again, since I haven’t really blogged since 2020 and WOW a lot has happened in four years!

This post has been pre-written, since at the time of publication, I’m on a train somewhere between Wuppertal and Brussels, on my way home from Dresden, where I participated in the Dresden Marathon (I ran the quarter). I’m sure there will be an entry about that at some point this month.

Anyway, if you’re still around….thanks!! I appreciate the support.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission.

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