A Bit of a Beef
I have a bit of a beef with Manchester Marathon.
It's the only marathon I've ever done and I hadn't planned to do it again after last year. I wanted to do a different one, but then I got a thing in my head.
I've run it once, and completed it twice. Neither run was entirely satisfactory and I wasn't fully happy with either block of training. Clearly Manchester Marathon needs bloody showing, and after a couple of glasses of wine the other evening I was pretty damn sure that I was the one to show it. So there I was, slightly tipsy and on the internet, and BAM before I knew it I was going back again for another go and sixty quid lighter for the priviledge.
The first time I did it was in many ways successful. For my first marathon a 3:20 finish time was pretty respectable although given the form I was in at the start of the training I probably should have been quicker. But I was a twat. A twat who ignored much good advice and trained herself into a stupid and easily avoidable injury. Despite this, the marathon was a largely enjoyable experience. Having realised before the race that my twatishness and the lost training had cost me the time I'd initially hoped for I paced myself well, and ran pretty much even splits which for most of the race. In the last 3 miles I had some severe stomach issues although after the mile twenty five shitcident I actually felt a lot better and finished the race strong, tall, proud and powering past the opposition with a huge smile on my face. There's not many scenarios in which you can feel like a smug bitch having just publicly crapped yourself, but I did and I did.
It's the only marathon I've ever done and I hadn't planned to do it again after last year. I wanted to do a different one, but then I got a thing in my head.
I've run it once, and completed it twice. Neither run was entirely satisfactory and I wasn't fully happy with either block of training. Clearly Manchester Marathon needs bloody showing, and after a couple of glasses of wine the other evening I was pretty damn sure that I was the one to show it. So there I was, slightly tipsy and on the internet, and BAM before I knew it I was going back again for another go and sixty quid lighter for the priviledge.
The first time I did it was in many ways successful. For my first marathon a 3:20 finish time was pretty respectable although given the form I was in at the start of the training I probably should have been quicker. But I was a twat. A twat who ignored much good advice and trained herself into a stupid and easily avoidable injury. Despite this, the marathon was a largely enjoyable experience. Having realised before the race that my twatishness and the lost training had cost me the time I'd initially hoped for I paced myself well, and ran pretty much even splits which for most of the race. In the last 3 miles I had some severe stomach issues although after the mile twenty five shitcident I actually felt a lot better and finished the race strong, tall, proud and powering past the opposition with a huge smile on my face. There's not many scenarios in which you can feel like a smug bitch having just publicly crapped yourself, but I did and I did.
The second time I did Manchester Marathon was in a lot of ways much, much less successful. I was not in good health. The initial Manchester Marathon stomach issues got worse, and worse, and then worse again. My health overall deteriorated, and a month or so into the second round of marathon training I pretty much collapsed on a long run. This was the point I found out the endometriosis I have had for many many years had progressed to stage four and was - among other places - on my bowel. Most of the second block of marathon training was done in a very stop start fashion and through the winter my opinion on what classed as an "acceptable bush" got sparcer and sparcer. Even after the associated health issues like low blood pressure, anaemia from constant bleeding, largely resolved, I just couldn't run more than a mile or two without stopping for the loo. This did not make for good training and I thought about ditching the whole thing but I'd started fundraising for a fairly small niche charity, and the fundraising was going extremely well. I swallowed my pride, accepted being slow, and decided I would do the miles to get through the marathon even if it was a stop start affair. The fundraising became my big focus and I decided to raise as much as I could for the charity I was trying to support.
In the end after several medication changes the stomach issues were largely managed and I got in a bit of good training in the last month or so, a decent build up race, and actually rocked up on the day feeling OK. The first half went remarkably well; at half way I looked on for a similar time to the previous year which would have made me a very happy bunny. I started having fun.
Then I trod in a pothole. I trod in a pothole while trying to get sweets from a small child. What a bloody dipstick. All the injury prevention and strength work I do, and I'm still the clumsiest clutz out there who can't look where she's going when there's the right kind of sugar on offer. I ended up walking the last 9 1/2 miles, in April, in shorts and a bloody vest. I finished in 4:26 although I got that cold I'm pretty sure my nipples finished several minutes earlier. I wanted to quit but the thought of everything I'd been through to get there that winter, how ill I'd been, and the incredibly generous support I'd had from a huge number of people I didn't know, kept me going. That and sheer bloody mindedness. I walked across the finish line absolutely freezing and in pain. I'm bizarrely proud of this achievement. It was a mental victory for me, if not a physical one, although at the time it didn't feel like it. With the support of some very crazy and lovely people we raised over a month's operating budget for a small dog rescue charity who do fantastic work.
In the end after several medication changes the stomach issues were largely managed and I got in a bit of good training in the last month or so, a decent build up race, and actually rocked up on the day feeling OK. The first half went remarkably well; at half way I looked on for a similar time to the previous year which would have made me a very happy bunny. I started having fun.
Then I trod in a pothole. I trod in a pothole while trying to get sweets from a small child. What a bloody dipstick. All the injury prevention and strength work I do, and I'm still the clumsiest clutz out there who can't look where she's going when there's the right kind of sugar on offer. I ended up walking the last 9 1/2 miles, in April, in shorts and a bloody vest. I finished in 4:26 although I got that cold I'm pretty sure my nipples finished several minutes earlier. I wanted to quit but the thought of everything I'd been through to get there that winter, how ill I'd been, and the incredibly generous support I'd had from a huge number of people I didn't know, kept me going. That and sheer bloody mindedness. I walked across the finish line absolutely freezing and in pain. I'm bizarrely proud of this achievement. It was a mental victory for me, if not a physical one, although at the time it didn't feel like it. With the support of some very crazy and lovely people we raised over a month's operating budget for a small dog rescue charity who do fantastic work.
After this specatular crash I couldn't run a step for 3 months. The longest I've been out since I took up running four years ago and I found it hard. I decided to take up drinking large quantities of wine and started keeping custard creams in my knicker drawer for those nightly custard cream emergencies. I put a stone on in three months and become moderately unhealthy. The weight wasn't a major issue given I'm on the slight side, other than I had to bloody carry it when I started running again, but the general unhealthiness didn't agree with me.
Now I'm back on my crack and running regularly. I've not really had my head in the game for running competitively like I used to. I've got slow, got a bit quicker again, and then been pretty happy to plateau at the kind of quicker end of OK for my age. I've felt very defensive about this, then made my peace with it. Running is my happy and I'm enjoying it hugely again. Sometimes I run hard, often I run slowly, when I don't enjoy what I'm doing I stop. I love the feeling of tiredness after a hard or long run, but sometimes I don't want to be out there doing a session on the park in the pissing rain on my own, and I'll just sack it off and run on the treadmill instead.
I want to do another marathon, and Manchester is my beef. I have a number of goals this time but the main one is to train sensibly. I'm not going to run a PB in all likelihood. If I can come in around the 3:30 mark, get the London Good for Age again that I never used but suddenly fancy and not injure myself in the process then that'd be great. I want to train effectively, but not obsessively. I want to experiment with a different way of training that I'm sure I'll go on about more in the coming weeks, and use it as a learning exercise for the point in the future which I think will come, where I will want to tackle that PB. I want to push myself, but not to the point I take the fun out of running.
It would also be nice not to fall over or shit myself.
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