31.5.09 Edinburgh Marathon 26.2miles
I cannot bear to put my time and splits onto my blog, I would rather not have the permanent reminder!
I didn’t want to do it, I knew it would be awful and there was only one reason I had for starting; it was on my fundraising list! In terms of completing it though I had the above reason going through my head, the thought that if Debs could complete the WHW race having to walk so far through 2 nights and some terrible weather then I could finish Edinburgh and that there was no way pacepusher was completing was completing it and I wasn’t, when I was the one who got him into marathon running in the first place!
There were specific reasons for knowing this was going to be hard and the heat did not help either:
- I have not done enough long road runs or indeed enough running in general. Felt rotten from January to end of March really, part virus, part exhaustion from last summer I think.
- It took me ages to recover from the Fling, I barely ran in between events and I should have expected that really.
- Lack of proper food and enough sleep in the run up to Sunday, I am usually good at this but my heart wasn’t in it!
- Weighing a stone more than I did this time last year. This is really getting me down now, I have been like this since January – due in no small part to certain pills I have been taking again since, funnily enough, January! I am now fed up with this that I am comfort eating a lot and making it worse!
- I love the heat, but it’s not the best for running a marathon, the worst thing about it though was that I was too hot to stomach eating and so only ate 2 jelly babies the whole way round. I had quite a bit of lucozade laterally but would have loved more earlier – of course they had run out!!!
- My feet got really sore from about 15 miles, partly due to my feet swelling in the heat and also sore underfoot. I think this is maybe as I have not been used to doing so much road running recently and partly because my shoes might be reaching the end of their life!
I feel the year has been a disaster so far, due to the horrible time I had between Jan and end of Mar. I took an age to finish the Fling, the marathon was terrible, slow times in the Alloa 1/2 marathon and the Women’s 10km and I have lost all speed and endurance I had this time last year. It was soul destroying going round the marathon route on Sunday so painfully slowly in the last 8 miles and remembering how good I had felt the whole way round last year and how I had kept a pretty constant pace the whole way.
I don’t see how things are going to get much better for ages now. I have four weeks today (scary!) before going to Malawi so will be trying to get a bit of running back in including 2 runs hopefully on the WHW. Then I will keep some running up in Malawi, although I think my running partner from last year is at university in the capital city now. But then I will go and climb Kiliminjaro and goodness knows what that will do to me. I then have the Devils 8 days after returning from Africa, athough 2 weeks after finishing Kili.
I want to give myself recovery time after that and not feel forced into doing anything. So I am going to get my sister-in-law round the Glasgow 10km (I suppose I should really call it the Great Scottish 10km) in under 1 hour, instead of doing a rubbish 1/2 marathon.
I took her out last night for 2.47 miles and she did really well. She does not run far off the pace needed already, so we need to concentrate on the distance. I think three times a week – one concentrating on distance, one on some fartlek and one on alternating hills and tempo should be fine. Any comments/other ideas?
She has run it in 1.01, before having a baby (now nearly 2) and having now just finished the PGDE in Primary Education. Plenty of time to train I reckon.
I am then planning on working towards Eddie’s half marathon on 1st Nov I think and will maybe do Inverness 10km before that, or another one, and these should give me a goal for a couple of months.
I need some suggestions for next year. I have a place for London but also really want to do the Fling again (and the Devils) so am unsure what to do. I want to do another marathon and I would like a good time in it and the Fling, assuming I don’t do London instead! Paris is only 2 weeks before the Fling so I think that might be too close to do both justice and then again there is Edinburgh 5 weeks after the Fling again (I am just presuming this actually) but not sure if I want to do that again. Any other ideas? Think it has to be spring really as I am pretty much assuming that I will be away most of the summer again, those teacher holidays are too good to waste – but I work very, very hard for them!
Any ideas/suggestions welcome on this…… and on motivation for running and losing weight! I am tired of not fitting most of my clothes and it was terribly traumatic going shopping today for swimwear for the triathlon on Sunday!
