There are a few things that marathon runners don’t tell first timers when they start out all keen on their marathon training journey…
- That your running pace will get slower and slower
- The shoes you’ve run in for many months will suddenly start giving you blisters
- and your favourite sports bra will remove a layer of your skin
- and old favorite m&s knickers will do unspeakable things!
- However much you run you wont magically become a lean mean marathon runner because you’ll be permanently hungry.
- That you will spend over 2 hours on a Sunday morning listening to radio 2 because you’ve exhuasted your running play lists
- running will sometimes become a chore and you’ll feel like a slave to ‘the plan’
- you’ll have days/weeks when you really don’t like running at all
Well I’ve had one of those weeks. Putting off my runs day after day, culminating today in me running as far as Hyde Park Corner on a planned ‘three times round the park’ long run and finding that my heart just wasn’t in it and giving up and walking and really not wanting to run again so walking home.
To be honest I think the problem is that I’m just plain knackered. No, Not from over-training. While most people mourn the loss of the summer as September approaches I reach a frazzled crescendo by bank holiday weekend of over domestication after a summer of shopping, cooking, organising, visitors, driving teenagers around and so on. I long for September and the return to London, routine and start of the school term. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m a lucky girl, and love my summers on the Isle of Wight but you can get too much of a good thing and too little of the ‘summer’ part of the summer holidays!
I think it’s just been a bit too long a time having to juggle and organise runs where it not automatically possible to run straight out the door and fitting it in with conflicting plans and people. Too much looking after everyone else and not putting running as a priority. So when my running motivation waned last week, if it’s taken extra energy to fit in a run I’ve taken the easy route out and not run.
Anyway I’m not throwing in the marathon towel yet. I’m told it’s always better to be under trained than over! It’s time to pick myself up and move on with my plan. I am going to do lots of BMF next week where the motivation is full on and free and some good company will get me back on track…
Rant over, thanks for listening!
Normal bouncy service to be resumed…
September 2, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Oh my god, to everything that you listed at the start – YES!!!!
I’m so glad that my faltering pace is normal, I was beginning to think I should just give up running after my marathon altogether as compared to the start of the year, I have become slower……
And I totally understand the ‘unspeakable things’ you mean. Stinging showers are horrendous.
September 2, 2012 at 7:56 pm
They don’t mention those things because they don’t have the good sense to write them down before entering the next one in a post-marathon high. I hope September gets you back on track and enjoying the journey again.
September 2, 2012 at 8:27 pm
I’m exactly the same. Everything hurts. I had hoped today’s long run would redeem the midweek runs which were feeble at best, apart from one. All I want to do is eat and sleep. I’ve put it down to a ‘seven week itch’, so am drawing a line under my week of under-performance and starting afresh tomorrow. I’m not used to putting my faith in plans or schedules, but guess I have to persevere; otherwise I’ll have to pay a couple of New Yorkers to drag me around the course! Fair play to you for having the energy and drive, especially when you have kids. I wouldn’t know where to begin! Big respect!
September 2, 2012 at 9:46 pm
So true! Hope you get back to feeling like yourself again soon.
September 2, 2012 at 10:41 pm
I’m with you on most of those but particularly the chafing! Next week will be better.
September 3, 2012 at 9:08 am
You’re doing really well. Marathon training is a massive investment of your time and to fit it in with the commitments of family life, knowing that you really have to put the miles in whenever the time allows, rather than when you finally psych yourself up for a run, must be incredibly difficult.
All the physical stuff you mentioned is also really demotivating, PLEASE get some larger trainers. My toenails are still not back to normal after the VLM which was over 4 months ago. As your runs get longer you really need trainers a size larger than normal as your feet swell so much during those longer distances.
Hopefully now that you’re back in London you’ll find that you slip into a more mentally comfortable routine. However, really do try to get those long runs under your belt. I did 20 miles as my longest which all the plans said was just right, but to be honest, I think I’d have felt better on the day if I’d managed 23 beforehand. Those last 6 miles are an awfully long way.
I know you’ll get there and believe me it’s an amazing feeling when you realise that you’ve RUN A MARATHON!!!!! xxxxx
September 3, 2012 at 4:19 pm
I’m here to listen….now get back to it!!
September 3, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Totally agree with what everyone has said, and you have done really well so far, don’t beat yourself up. Taking an easy week to get yourself back on track is really not going to make any difference at all on the day.
I find that the podcast of Marathon Talk was always really good to listen to on my long runs. Weeks 10 – 4 of the training plan are hard, the runs are getting longer and more time consuming. But as Kim said, absolutely nothing can beat the feeling of seeing that finish line and knowing you have just completed a marathon
Article below from my running hero Bruce Fordyce, sometimes less is more xx
http://www.runnersworld.co.za/columns/columnists/bruce-fordyce/running-continues-to-surprise-me-the-kaftan-21/
September 3, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Now I know what I can look forward to 🙂
September 5, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Another nail in the lid of my wavering desire to run a marathon or not!!!! Hope things turn a corner for you very soon.
September 8, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Very true. I fall in and out of love throughout marathon training. Weird old relationship, but you’ll get there. Hope it starts to pick up for you this week. 🙂
September 8, 2012 at 5:11 pm
NB. I have just got in from a similarly horrible run, which is why what I wrote above makes no sense! I meant fall in and out of love *with running*.