My Marathon Run

Just before Easter I ran my first (and last!) full marathon to raise funds for Suffolk Mind’s ‘Sammy the Sea Squirt’ emotional resilience project for youngsters, and also for local small charities supported by the Club through our Benevolent Fund distributions.

Having set a target of £500, we have now raised £1554 to date, thanks to my 59 amazing supporters!

After 15 months of training, which involved three runs plus one cardio session each week, I felt as ready as I’d ever be!

Actually, that’s a lie. I didn’t feel ready at all. I should have had an additional three months of training if I was to run the marathon in June as planned. I can’t blame the pandemic for curtailing my activities, but the reality was that I’d had enough, both physically and mentally.

When it looked as though the Orwell Challenge would be deferred until September I grasped at the opportunity of a quick exit. Not being a quitter I knew I had to complete this run, but I just couldn’t keep going with the training much longer, certainly not until September!

We all know that exercise and movement are extremely beneficial for mental wellbeing - but marathon training IS NOT!! It is an unnatural stress on the body and for months on end you’re pushing the pain and endurance barriers, expecting the body to cope with more and more.

I see enough people through my line of work who are struggling physically and mentally through stress and I realised I was becoming one of them! I felt constantly exhausted, especially after going back to working full time after Lockdown 2; but most importantly I felt stressed at the thought of my next run, particularly the weekend long runs which were lasting 2 - 3 hours towards the end. I’d then be completely shattered for the rest of the weekend, and never fully rested in order to start a full working week.

And so with huge apologies to the Orwell Challenge Team for not being able to hold out until June, I decided to thrash it out on the Saturday before Easter. And no - I didn’t feel ready at all!

On my penultimate training run my hamstring started playing up and I had real problems with walking, stairs etc. Even gentle stretches made it feel much worse. The three weeks leading up to the marathon was meant to involve a few short ‘taper’ runs just to keep things ticking over, and plenty of carb loading. The carb loading I could do - no problem, but I could hardly walk, let alone extend into a trot for any length of time!

I’m very aware through my work practises that the brain plays a huge part in the pain response to injury. The brain’s job is to keep the body safe and very often it will send messages of pain which are far in excess of what the injury actually warrants. So I realised that much of what I was experiencing wasn’t down to the injury at all - I just had to convince my brain of this! Pushing through injury had worked in the past, but this one was a lot more tenacious than previous strains and niggles.

So basically I stopped all training three weeks before the run, save for a very gentle 3K trot to experiment running in a hydration vest just three days before my planned run. The hamstring was distinctly unhappy after this short run and I realised then that to run a full marathon with this injury was going to REALLY hurt!!

So leaving nothing to chance, I had my butt taped up with kinesiology tape and preloaded with ibuprofen the day before the race - and just went for it!! My thinking was - what’s the worst that could happen? We’d planned a route that had virtually no hills and I was determined to get round, even if it meant I had to crawl! I’d also awarded myself a week off work to recover, so as long as I could hobble after that I’d be OK, right?!

And here’s the thing. After the first half hour, I didn’t notice the hamstring at all - not only that, it didn’t hurt even a tiny bit afterwards either, and nor has it since! It is in fact completely cured!! So how much of that pain was my brain kicking in to protect my body?

The run itself was amazing!! It was just a brilliant day - perfect weather (cool, with a breeze), really dry under foot and with wonderful support from family members and Eva - who scurried around the countryside trying to find me as the live tracker didn’t work as expected. (Thank you Eva - it meant such a lot!)

I was sad not to be able to follow the Orwell Challenge route exactly, especially the bit along the foreshore, but I took heed of advice and for once in my life and made the decision to make life as simple as possible - hence the flattest route we could find!

I had offers from family and friends to run various parts of the route with me. Initially I felt overwhelmed and pressured by this - I didn’t want to hold them up, or struggle to keep pace with them. But once again, I fought my head and agreed to run the Levington Loop with a long lost school buddy (a 26 time Ironman veteran, no pressure then!), and the final leg with my son and his partner. They were all great company and made the time go really quickly. I felt no pressure to keep to pace - we all just went with the flow!

My total run time was 5 hours 39 minutes - and it went in a flash! Not at any point did I feel I ‘hit the wall’ as they say, neither was I willing for it all to be over. I didn’t check my watch for distance or pace at all and felt I reached the landmarks really quickly. Despite carefully plotting the route, we were 2K short of the distance at the end (I may have cut off a few corners here and there!) so I had to add on an extra loop through Landseer Park, but even that didn’t feel demoralising in the slightest!

I realise now that it is well documented in athletes who compete with an injury or who are in recovery tend to perform much better than expected. This is because the brain kicks in once again and gives permission to fail or to perform below par. I’m sure this is what happened here - I’d completely absolved myself from the limits of stress and expectation and just thrashed it out - and had a great time!!

So for all those months of saying how much I hated running, I now realise it’s not the running I hate but more the pressure I had put myself under to keep up with the training. 

And what’s next?

I will definitely keep up with running. I love exploring new paths and there are so many out there waiting to be discovered! I don’t need to go out in all weathers though, and will be avoiding frost and searing heat!

I definitely don’t need to do another full marathon but maybe a half marathon at some point (certainly not this year!)

Lessons I’ve learned:

1. Remember to pick your feet up! (I took a tumble halfway round and ended up with a fat lip and a Shrek nose!)

2. Listen to, and trust in your body

3. Don’t get hung up in the process, try to make time to enjoy the scenery

4. Accept all offers of help (the hardest lesson for me!)

5. Get out in nature and appreciate what we have on our doorstep

6. Great journeys are never just about the destination; it is a search for the self. If you wander around long enough with your eyes open, soon enough you’ll find things!