I’m not going to beat around the bush here. I’m going to pile straight in with the bad news. I’ve slogged my way through 16 weeks and 562 miles of training, and I’ve negotiated a dodgy knee and extremely painful blisters along the way. So having got through all of that lot, I was really looking forward to race day. But unfortunately the marathon is a cruel mistress.
Having not been ill all winter, I’ve succumbed at the worst possible time to a pretty nasty, energy sapping cough and cold. It’s not as bad as full blown flu, but is definitely worse than man-flu. i.e. it exists, and it has seriously derailed me.
I knew I was coming down with something on Thursday, felt pretty bad Friday, and then absolutely horrific on Saturday. I got a bit of sleep Saturday night, and, having awoken feeling a bit better on Sunday, I dragged myself out for my slow 12 miles. That was a big mistake.
My heart rate was nearly off of the scale, even at a pace way down on what I have trained to do on the day. By the time I got to mile 9 I was wishing it to end and if I feel as bad as that on Sunday, there’s no way I’ll even finish, let alone get the time I’ve been after.
Fresh from that disaster, and nearly flaking in the supermarket on Sunday afternoon, I got up on Monday and went to work. Big mistake number two as I felt so bad I had to go home at lunchtime. I slept for nine and a half hours on Monday night (longer than at any point since we’ve had Evie) but still felt rough and had to take Tuesday off too. I went back to work on Wednesday but I’m still not feeling anywhere near right. And as you can probably imagine, this has left me more than a bit down in the dumps and feeling sorry for myself.
Part of the allure of the marathon is that you can’t just bowl up and do it, which is what makes it so special. But that also means that I’m not going to miraculously fluke my time by feeling about 75% on the day. If I try to, it’ll all end in tears and quite possibly the most painful two hours of my life as I try to hang on grimly for the end.
This is annoying in the extreme for me, but it has made me spare a thought for the elite athletes. I’ve spent four months, sacrificed quite a few nights out and made quite a few early starts for this, so I’m gutted. But for the people at the front, and in particular those aiming for the 3 remaining Team GB slots for the Olympics, I can only imagine how they must be feeling. They have four years, or in some cases, a life-time’s work riding on it which will be gone in an instant if it all goes wrong.
Even worse than that, they could run the best race of their life, but so could someone else and they might still end up not getting in. Now that would be a killer, and something that I’ll try to bear in mind whilst I watch the Olympics and see people’s hopes and dreams either realised or going up in smoke.
I appreciate I’m wittering on, but the gist of this is that I’m trying to tell myself that when it does all go belly up then really, it doesn’t actually matter at all. It’s only a time, and it’s only me that knows deep down whether I could have gone better or not. And if I don’t do myself justice, I’ll have still raised a significant amount of money for a very good charity. And picked up PBs in 5KM, half-marathon, and 20 mile races along the way (and maybe even the marathon too, depending on how it goes).
The two final things to say are… a huge thank you to First Capital Connect, for choosing the one weekend when quite a few people want to get into London early to do their engineering works. Thanks for that, I really appreciate it. Turning a 25 minute journey into a 2 buses plus 1 slow stopping train, 2hr 27 slog. So if I look absolutely knackered when I get into work on Monday morning, it’ll partly be because I’ve run 26.2 miles, but also because I’ve had to set off at a god-forsaken hour thanks to circumstances out of my control.
Now onto that other final thing which involves two small quirks of fate. When I googled how far you could get from London with the 562 miles I’ve clocked up in training, it came out with a number of places. The most intriguing was that it was just 6 miles short of San Sebastian, my favourite European city. I then wandered into the Marathon Expo to pick up my race number and there it was. None other than a stand advertising the San Sebastian marathon!
I’ve promised Clare and Evie I won’t run another one for quite some time, but I took a photo of the stand and picked up all of the paraphernalia anyway. Just in case like…
 |
| Great memories of a cracking city - the San Sebastian marathon stand |
I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF). They help all sorts of vulnerable people in the county.
For example, last year they donated £1,000 to the local branch of the Phoenix Group for Deaf Children. The Phoenix Group began as a voluntary group of parents and professionals in 2004 to find ways of supporting families of deaf children by developing and delivering workshops and training courses to tackle specific issues. An extremely noble cause, I’m sure you’ll agree.If you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2
No comments:
Post a Comment