Marathon Day

2 years ago I came up with the random idea to run a marathon and raise some money for charity. Initially I thought this was something I could achieve in a relatively short space of time but after training for my first half marathon I realised this was going to be a slightly longer term goal. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t really see myself going through with it: as is the case with a lot of my ideas, I thought I would run out of momentum with this one. 

Fast forward 2 years and I’m sitting here reflecting on the fact that just 5 days ago I ran my first marathon, and I can hardly believe it. 

The training was tough – I’m not going to lie. Those first 10 weeks of my 20 week plan seemed to go on forever. Perhaps it was because the weather was pretty rubbish for most of it: cold, wet, icy and often snowing. Then I developed a foot problem and had to adapt my training plan to manage this, which meant incorporating strength-training into my weekly regime and spending time at the gym using the treadmill. The weeks became so busy with training that I felt myself tripping along just trying to keep up to speed with the training and all the other aspects of my life.

I spent a large number of weeks focusing on managing my foot issue and obsessing over footwear to help with this. Every run involved trying to vary my gait at the slightest twinge from my foot, paranoid that it would worsen. By around 5 weeks to go I was getting a bit fed up and was looking forward to the training being over. There was so much else I wanted to be getting on with: work in the garden, getting back to tennis, spending a bit more time with my family and just not feeling so tired all the time. 

With 3 weeks to go the paranoia reached epic scales. During my longest run of 20 miles my legs felt so fatigued, my knees ached and I wondered how on earth I was going to manage the final 6.2 miles. Every time I ran after this a new ache would appear somewhere else in my knees, my toes or my calves. I was worried that I hadn’t done enough weekly mileage and that my body wouldn’t manage the full distance. 

A week and half before the big day I got the confidence boost that I needed: my best run in months. 5 miles in the sunshine, with strong legs and without the usual fatigue. The taper was clearly working. I just needed to make it to race day without catching a cold.  

Somehow, I made it without any further aches and no signs of a cold. I had done all I could to prepare for the marathon and it was time to just get it done. I was elated to be at that start line with thousands of other people. How many times I had thought about that moment.  

The run itself was better than I could have hoped. It was a foggy day, chilly in fact. Whilst waiting around at the start I was too cold to be nervous. I just wanted to get started and warm up. Being so far back in the pens the start was quite uneventful. We all just began walking forward and this continued for about 10 minutes until we saw the start line and just started, well, to run.

About 50 minutes into the run I realised I had forgotten to switch on my heart rate monitor. Dammit. I wasn’t stopping now. I switched it on and hoped to goodness it would pick up my heart rate. It did, thankfully, but wouldn’t connect to my Garmin. I cursed myself for forgetting to do this.  

When I got to the halfway mark I felt a strong sense of being pulled towards the finish line, although, I knew this was still a very long way away. I got an idea of just how far somewhere past Longniddry, where the coast curved round to the left, into the fog, and I saw thousands of runners bobbing up and down for miles ahead of me.  

This is a long way, I thought.

At 18 miles I felt strong and had managed to maintain an average pace that would see me finishing the race in under 4 hours. I wondered if I could maintain this. I thought about my dad and whispered…look at me doing a marathon, dad. I imagined him ahead of me, holding my hand, pulling me along. At 20 miles I realised my knees were not aching and wondered how long it would last. I was fed up with eating gels at this point and instead focused on drinking my water and watching the kilometres go past. Just 10k to go. The mile signs seemed to take forever at this point to appear and I was glad to have my watch set to kilometres.  

People were stopping at the side of the road to stretch their sore, tired legs. 9k to go. I thought about our friend’s little girl, going through something so much harder than this, with her leukemia treatment. 8k to go. In less than an hour it would all be over and I could rest. 7k to go. I would see Ross and Mikey soon and get to wave to them. 6k to go. My legs were getting very tired and my quads were aching. 

This is hard, I thought. 

I saw someone at the side of the road with an oxygen mask on their face and hoped they were ok. My legs were slowing. I looked at my pace and saw my target of under 4 hours start to slip away. I didn’t care. I looked at my heart rate monitor and saw it was flashing red: suggesting my heart was working very hard. I dropped my pace and it went to green, to a more moderate level of activity. I thought to myself: I would rather finish this healthy than fall over on the side of the road trying to push myself to under 4 hours.  

5 k to go. Just a Park Run. The crowds were now out in force, urging everyone on. I believed every single one of them when they shouted ‘it’s not far to go now’. 4k to go: less than 3 miles. I started to feel a bit sick from all the energy gels and electrolytes. 3k to go: less than 2 miles. Ross and Mikey would be there soon. 2k to go. The sickness feeling passed. A man at the side of the street stood there, pumping his fist, bellowing ‘you can do this’. I thanked him and he called out my name. People that had stopped to walk starting to run again. There was the 25 mile sign! I wanted to hug it. 1k to go: just 1000m. How many times I had run that on a treadmill. I scanned the crowds for Ross and Mikey. The 26 mile sign: I was nearly there. Then I saw them: Ross and Mikey, grinning and shouting for me. My little boy holding out his hand for a high-five. I let out a kind of squawk, high-fived them both and continued to the finish line. A lump came to my throat, for after the next bend I would see the finish line. I had to fight back the tears as I could barely breathe. I turned the corner and there it was: the finish line, bright in the sunshine that had just appeared. I was going to make it. I got my breathing under control and made my way to the finish line in 4 hours, 3 minutes and 29 seconds.

I did it. 

5 days on and I can now get up and down stairs without clutching the banister for dear life. And with this comes a little sadness. For at least when the legs were sore it reminded me of this incredible thing I had achieved. Now it just feels like a dream and I wonder if I actually did it. Perhaps it’s a little too surreal to completely fathom, for 26.2 miles is far to run, yet on Sunday it didn’t feel as hard as I expected it to.  

And then there’s the feeling of…what now? I imagine most people that complete a marathon go through a period of transition: from marathon day euphoria, to feeling a little lost without the training and the goal always being in the distance, to returning to life as it was before marathon training.  

Who knows if I’ll do another marathon. In the meantime I’ve signed up for the Aviemore half and have filled up my diary with another training plan. It feels empty without one. That’ll keep me occupied for the rest of this year. 

I may have also had a little peek at the Loch Ness Marathon website for next year. Just looking...

Maranoia

With just over 3 weeks to go until my first marathon the paranoia is beginning to set in. Big style.

It's really my foot’s fault. It was fine up until my 14 mile run. In fact, it was fine during my 14 mile run, and the day after. It wasn’t until 2 days later, that I noticed an ache underneath the left foot and, after some internet research, diagnosed myself with plantar fasciitis. I prescribed myself with a bit of rest for a few days with the plan to do my 15 mile run the following weekend. Unfortunately it was worse during this run and I took my sorry self to the physio for a proper diagnosis.

''The foot is just a bit overloaded, but I don't think it will be a problem," Dave the physio declared cheerfully. ''I'm pretty confident we'll get you round that course."

It wasn’t plantar fasciitis, or a stress fracture, or anything else that wasn’t manageable. I was elated. All I needed to do was to rest for a few days, cross-train, then gradually re-introduce road running up to the point of pain and use the treadmill to make up any additional mileage. I had a new plan.

Since the physio visit the initial foot ache seems to have disappeared but I’ve developed a whole new range of niggles in various parts of the feet, ankles, knees, calves and toes. Each time an ache appears I feel a sinking dread and the endless questioning begins: Is it going to turn into something worse? Will I need to make another physio appointment? Will I collapse during the marathon and never be able to walk again? Then 10 minutes later the ache disappears and I’m left feeling a bit silly.

But it’s not just the aches and pains. There's the growing fear of getting sick. My son woke up with a stuffy nose a few days ago and I promptly opened most of the windows and tried to avoid smothering him with my usual barrage of kisses. Then I woke up in the middle of the night with a slightly sore throat and was convinced it was the onset of swollen glands. After taking a swig of water I realised I was just a bit thirsty.

I’ll be glad when the marathon is over – not because the thought of running 26.2 miles is terrifying, but because all this constant paranoia is exhausting. 

Just 3 more weeks to get through with a bottle of hand sanitiser by my side.

The Beast from the East

We've had quite a significant dump of snow this winter. Nothing by Canadian standards I'm sure, but more than my little Volkswagen Polo can handle and certainly more than my trail shoes were designed for. This has led to much chin scratching over how to get my marathon training runs done.

The first major flurries of snow came last Wednesday morning and pretty much continued all day. It was quite mesmerising to watch it from the window, floating in from the east at a 45 degree angle. Then it started to pile up and gradually our little wall separating us from our neighbour disappeared, leaving an undisturbed expanse of brilliant white fluff that seemed a shame to disturb. Unfortunately this did not bode well for running on the pavements. I pulled on my running gear nevertheless, complete with a menacing snood and set of sunglasses to keep the wind chill away, and slid down the front staircase in search of somewhere suitable to run 3 miles. I found myself trotting along the main road, which aside from a snow plough and a few abandoned cars was deserted.

By Saturday the roads were clear, which meant cars were back on them, so 10 miles would have to be accomplished elsewhere. I ended up doing 22 laps of our local woods (a popular dog walking area) where I was cheered on by my husband leaning out of our upstairs window and chased occasionally by an enthusiastic Vizsla.

By Monday the snow was starting to melt, but not quite enough for speedwork so it was off to the treadmill for an hour of sweating. I had hoped by the following Wednesday the snow would have cleared, which it had not, but I thought I would give a trail run a go as I had run in the snow before and, albeit a bit slow, it hadn't been that bad.

This time it was hell. Hell on earth. Complete and utter awfulness with several expletives thrown in. Slushy-slipping-sloshing-wading-in-icy water-frozen-toes-knee-deep-in-untouched-snow-hell.

But enough said about that. Tomorrow will be the furthest I have run so far - 14 miles - and I hope to goodness that sun has been doing its best to melt those little pesky ice crystals.

My husband reminded me that it's those hard miles that earns you the finish line. He's absolutely right and I'll look back and think damn I earned that marathon. In the meantime I'll not be sad to see the back of the Beast from the East.

Being my own personal best

I recently completed my third half marathon and as seems to now be the tradition, I didn't achieve the time I expected.

Instead, I SMASHED it!

The odds weren't exactly stacked in my favour as the weather was foul (Sunday 1st October was welcomed by some of Scotland's finest drizzle, frequent downpours and occasional gusts of wind) and my training hadn't begun with a PB in mind. A week before the race, when I realised my previous hamstring niggle was not bothering me, a thought entered my mind...maybe I could get a PB...

On race day the legs were feeling fresh and I thought, as I bounced up and down trying to stay warm at the start line, let's aim for 1 hour 53 and see how it goes. I started off slow, as is always my race strategy, and took advantage of the first downhill to let my legs turn over faster and begin to build up pace. Once over the Kingston Bridge I had settled into a steady rhythm and my average pace suggested I would be able to beat my previous Great Scottish Run half marathon time of just over 1 hour and 54 minutes. Halfway through the race I was on track for a much faster time than I expected and I wondered...could I get 1 hour 50....or even less? I chomped through my last energy gel and continued on through Pollok Park.

With 4 miles to go I was maintaining a good pace: faster than I usually run but still feeling comfortable. The temptation to get 1 hour 50 was incredibly strong and I wondered if I could actually maintain this pace. At 1 mile to go I saw a girl on a stretcher being driven to the medical area in Glasgow Green, so close to the finish line. My lungs felt like they had reached their maximum capacity and for a horrible moment I wondered if it would be me next on the stretcher.

The Broomielaw felt like the longest road on earth. I don't remember it seeming as long the previous year. That might have been because the weather was so much better and the crowds were out in force. Still, the Macmillan team banging on their drums on top of a double decker bus and the wonderful supporters that had braved the weather conditions to come out to cheer people anyway was enough to dig deep and find some remaining drops of energy.

I entered the finishing tunnel and attempted a final sprint, but the legs just didn't have it this time. I settled for one leg in front of the other, kept breathing and didn't take my eyes off the big clock above the finishing line.

1 hour 50 minutes and 26 seconds.

It's a wonderful thing to feel a sense of accomplishment. As the years go by and our lives are occupied with jobs and families it can be easy to forget our own need for achievement. This is what running gives me. It's not about being better than anyone else, but always about being better than myself.

So it's on to the next challenge: Edinburgh Marathon. My husband has advised me to just focus on finishing it, which is truly sensible and greatly appreciated advice.

But there's that little voice again...I wonder if I could I get under 4 hours?

Unfamiliar Territory

This time last year I was in the final training week of my first half marathon and I remember feeling very excited and nervous at the same time. A year on, I’m in the final week of training for my third half marathon and, as much as I’m excited about taking part in a big running event, I no longer feel the same nervous anticipation that I had a year ago.

I think back to my training last year and the overuse problem I had with my hamstring. I remember doubting if it would improve and spent months frustratingly building up my mileage using a run/walk technique to give my leg a chance to heal and adapt. I continued with the run/walk technique during the half marathon at the Edinburgh Marathon Festival in May, as I still didn’t trust my leg, and had almost convinced myself that at 40, I was probably asking too much of my body to endure the mileage I was putting it through. 4 months later I’m stronger, wiser and can pinpoint exactly when the tightness starts in the hamstring and have a technique of stretching it out without the need to walk. I’m now confident that I’ll be able to complete the Great Scottish Run half marathon this Sunday without any pain and I’m even hoping for a personal best.

I never would have imagined that I would say training for a half marathon has become relatively easy. This may come across as incredibly arrogant, which I certainly don’t mean it to be. I respect the distance and I know if I was to try to run as fast as an elite runner it would be anything but easy. I think what has happened is the distance is no longer daunting. It has become very familiar and with this comes a comfort and ease as I know it's something that I can manage, with correct training and nutrition.

But after Sunday, it will be on to the next goal: the full marathon. I’m daunted by this as I've never done this before. When the miles start creeping past the half marathon mark I will be entering unfamiliar territory and at present I don’t know how my body will respond to the new demands put on it. I can only hope that the experience I've built up over the last year and a half will help. I’m glad I didn’t attempt to do the marathon this year and have given myself time to build up resilience to endurance running rather than pushing myself to do something I was not strong enough for, and potentially succumbing to injuries that would take a long time to heal.

One thing I've learnt over the last year is that people are capable of things they never thought possible. Running any kind of distance, whether it is a 5k, 10k, half marathon, marathon or ultra marathon is achievable by respecting where you currently are with your running and by building up gradually and sensibly. I hope to remember this when I set out for my first long run that takes me beyond 13.1 miles.

A new perspective

I have reached a point where I am scared to switch on the news, for fear of what latest terrorist incident has taken place. What frightens me is I don't see an end to it, for I see no reason in it in the first place.

People say we should not live in fear, and I would like to agree with this. But I would be lying if I said that I haven't started looking around a bit more when I'm in public places, thinking about what I would do if there was an attack. I would also be lying if I said I'm not concerned about going into big cities, going on public transport and attending big events.

A few days after the Manchester bombing I found myself sitting with my son by the side of a little bike track near where I live, blowing bubbles and watching them float up into the sky. I had been feeling particularly wretched after hearing about some of the victims of that night and wondering what sort of world I was bringing my son up in. There was something calming about watching those bubbles and listening to my little son's giggles, with nothing much around us aside from the trees swaying gently in the wind. At that moment I couldn't have felt further from all that is bad about the world.

It's funny, for recently I started trail running and much to my husband's frustration, have asked the same question over and over again: do you think it's safe for me to go out alone? Not from a getting lost point of view, or from a twisting my ankle point of view, but from the tiniest possibility of some nutter lurking in the bushes, waiting to jump out on me.

In light of the recent atrocities in England, and many other parts of the world, this seems utterly absurd and I've never felt safer than in the country. 

It seems wrong that something so tragic can offer a new perspective on other aspects of our life. Perhaps that is just part of the human condition, to strive to find something positive in the darkest of times.

It's ok to stop and walk

So I completed my 2nd half marathon at the weekend. Not quite as fast as the 1st but this time there was one big difference...it was pain free.

Anyone who read my previous blog 'Overdoing it' would know that my 1st half marathon went well until around the 8 mile mark then it was a case of hauling my leg around the last 5 miles. This time I had a game plan, one which I devised during the latter part of my training, when I realised I still have a slight issue with my hamstring tightening. 

So what I decided to do this time was to stop running before any pain set in (after about 30 minutes), walk for 2 minutes then carry on running. This has made such a difference and I was able to run the Edinburgh Half Marathon with this strategy and no pain.

I used to always think you have to run the entire distance of your race to really feel like you had achieved it, but sometimes our bodies are not ready for this. I like to think by walking a little I'm giving my legs a chance to build up strength before an injury sets in.

After this weekend, I now feel the marathon is more of a possibility than ever and have signed up for next year's full marathon in Edinburgh. My plan will remain the same during my training for this - simply to walk when required.

I can't wait to start training.