Week 18: I did it, and I loved it!

After all the worry about injury, lost training, stomach issues, fitness, my body just not coping with the distance, I actually did it, and in a time I am really quite pleased with.  I keep pinching myself.  Best of all though, I by and large enjoyed it.  I had a couple of moments, but I felt good while I was running, I enjoyed running, and I would absolutely love to do another one.

Week 18 began with the end of tapering and the beginning of carb loading.  Laughing aside I nailed this part of training and those who know me well will realise that on the tapering side of things, that's quite an achievement for me.  I do not do waiting or inactivity well.  On Monday I did 10k at marathon pace, Tuesday and Thursday I did 2-3 miles very steadily with some short strides to shake my legs out, and on Saturday I ran half a mile just to loosen up and keep moving.  On the Tuesday run I realised that I actually had no calf tightness at all for the first time in at least a month and my Achilles felt absolutely fine.  I had no idea how it was going to stand up to a long run, but at least this looked like a good starting point.  By Thursday, having done another calf trouble free run, I realised I was spending more time worrying about digestive issues than injury which I viewed as a good sign.

On the subject of digestive issues, which I suffer horrendously from on longer runs and in particular when I use gels, I have been experimenting with ways to limit this and alternative fuelling.  Unfortunately, the last couple of long runs were canned because of the injury so I hadn't really tested out what I wanted to before the race.  I've found that limiting my fat intake in the build up to hard races reduces the chance of problems, so while carb loading I cut almost all the fat out of my diet.  It has to be said that this did not make for the best carb loading experience and my dreams of running free around a bakery grabbing everything in sight were somewhat spoiled.  I ate a lot of pasta and a lot of dry bread products.  Also a lot of malt loaf.  In fact I think my marathon was at least 50% fuelled by malt loaf.  The malt loaf at least was good.

I woke up on race day feeling excited but also calmer than I had for at least a week, and really up for running.  I did a bit of a dynamic warm up in the hotel room before I even left for the venue, and realised that my legs felt properly good.  Boingy.  I felt fantastic.  I had one of many conversations with the fabulous Stacey Sangster, who has a huge amount of patience with my garrulous nervous running related rambling which calmed me down a bit.  I loaded my belt up with my carefully planned race fuel, a banana for mile 3, with another banana being delivered by my husband for mile 9, three packs of 4 jelly babies for miles 6, 11 and 13, and enough Clif Bloks to have one a mile for the remainder of the race.  In retrospect, I think I could have done another 4 miles on jelly babies, started on the Bloks later and avoided the issues I did eventually have, but that did work a lot better than anything I've done in training.  I also made the decision that rather than picking and choosing where to take on water, I would use every water station whether I thought I needed it or not, and have at least a small drink.  I don't like drinking on the run, I hate water stations, but I was going to use the lot.  I decided to race with music which I've never done before.  I was concerned about claustrophobia kicking in on such a big race.  This was definitely a good decision.

The race was great.  I started at a pace that felt easily maintainable, a little bouncy trot, I resisted the urge to swear at anyone video selfie-ing themselves in the first half mile in the middle of thousands of racers who mostly didn't want to get tripped up or be slowed to a snail's pace, I checked my watch and realised my easy pace was at the very top end of what I'd given myself as a possible starting pace.  I questioned whether adrenalin was making it feel easier than it really was, and decided no, I felt good.  As I went through mile 2 Mr Bellamy was informing me through my headphones that he felt good too, and I was very glad to hear about it.  I thought about letting my legs pick up the bit of pace they wanted to and decided against it.  I'm not sure that was the right decision, another 5 seconds a mile or so may have been feasible without any additional fatigue, it felt like it was, but that was outside my plan and I may have tanked later on if I'd tried it.  I'll never know. I firmly reminded myself of the words of wisdom from the formidable Ian Chant; respect the distance.  A marathon is a long way.  I stuck to the plan.

Just a regular Sunday morning run with Sophie...

The crowds were busy in places and I was feeling quite penned at times, but concentrating on the music and my breathing dispelled that.  I was settling in for a run and I felt good.  At around mile 6 I was caught by the lovely Sophie Eadsforth who I have done the large part of my long runs with.  She started further back so she'd clearly been running quicker than me and she was motoring.  I watched her fly by and hoped she didn't regret it later on, but shortly after she slowed a little and we ran most of the next 14 miles pretty much together.  For a large part it was just a Sunday morning run with Sophie.  I've done lots of those, this is something I understand, and I think it made a huge difference to my state of mind.  We were both running well and passing people fairly regularly.

At mile 10ish while listening to Simon and Garfunkel singing about a lady of questionable moral standards by the name of Cecelia, I saw the lead man coming back in the other direction.  I genuinely love these reminders that there's always someone compared to whom one is a plodder.  They give perspective.  He looked awesome and apparently went on to set a course record.

At the half way point, bang on schedule, I had my normal half way wobble.  Some people love that over half way feeling but I do not.  In my head it always turns into a realisation that I've worked quite hard for quite a while, and I have to do it all again from a more tired starting point.  I put my focus onto my picnic schedule and where on the run I was likely to see people.  To this point I know there had been a huge amount of support on the course from the wonderful people of Long Eaton Running Club who travelled up there, but it was largely in the busy places and I'd been zoning out to deal with the crowds.  I felt briefly very guilty.  By mile 14, now on to Paul Simon who was Under African Skies at this stage - frankly the last place I'd want to be running a marathon - I was mentally back on track and preparing for the fatigue to hit and the need to dig in.  I started focusing on the mile markers as target points where I would eat, then forgetting about distance and concentrating on my music in between.  This really worked well for me, and I know on a couple of occasions I did sing out loud, because I did get some of "those looks", as one does when one sings out loud with headphones in. 

Mile 16

For the next few miles I just ran, and ran, and ran, and with each mile that went by I realised that I was feeling stronger than the people around me were looking.  I was holding steady at around the 7:37 mark and realised that getting under 3:20 was perfectly reasonable.  My legs felt good, my calf wasn't grumbling, my stomach wasn't grumbling, and I was tired but not that tired.  

At mile 21 while listening to the fantastic Mr Manson telling me about his Tainted Love, and having just seen the brilliant LERC support crew, I was passed by my good friend Tim Baggs on his bike.  He pulled in next to me and gave me a few words of encouragement, along the lines of "you're destroying them all", and rode off.  That was definitely the boost I needed and at that point I made a decision that if I still felt OK at mile 23, I was going to push for a sub 22:30 5k from 23.1 miles to finish.  I felt like I had it.

By mile 22 I was overtaking a significant number of people and feeling truly determined.  My middle toe on my right foot started to threaten cramp, which would have meant a stop and a massage, so I moved my foot strike right back to squarely on my mid-foot for a half mile or so until it eased.  It didn't slow me down although I felt clumpy and probably hammered my calves quite hard for that half mile.  At mile 23 I felt good and started to bring the pace up ready for my spectacular finish, absolutely sure that I had this.  

Half a mile later my stomach started to object, seriously object, to my hour long diet of bloks, and suddenly I was faced with incredible cramping and the knowledge that it was only a matter of time until the inevitable happened.  I went from feeling grand to struggling to stand up straight in around a minute or so and this carried on for over a mile and a half.  My pace dropped right back and instead of picking it up I was running almost 8 minute mile pace for the first time.  When the inevitable did happen I was a lot less bothered than I'd thought I would be and actually somewhat relieved to be able to run again.  Shortly after this Freddy Mercury began telling how about how The Show Must Go On, which frankly amused me a huge amount, thank you sir for helping me from beyond the grave.  I picked the pace back up for the last half mile glad that I would be able to finish standing up straight and running strong.  If I had to make a list of the best people to bump into immediately after soiling oneself in public Tim Baggs would definitely be top of the list, and seeing him again at mile 25.5 just as I was starting to actually RUN again gave me the boost I needed to make a strong finish.  It would have been perfect if my magical music hit list and given me We Are The Champions to finish, but it wasn't to be.  I honestly can't even remember what was playing as I crossed the finish line, I'd picked up the pace and was paying no attention to it, but I did feel good and I did feel like a champion, albeit a fairly stinky one.

Still a little something left in the legs...

I didn't quite make the 3:20 in the end, but for my first marathon and after all the problems along the way, 3:20:12 on a run that I by and large hugely enjoyed is a definite win in my book.  I will do more marathons, I get why people love them, I will train more sensibly, manage nutrition better, and run quicker.

For now, however, I did it.  I haven't always managed to do the things I've set out to or wanted to do in life, some of the more difficult ones have often escaped me, but on this occasion I set out to do a truly challenging thing, and I did it.  I cannot help feeling proud of myself.