I feel very much like these buttons at the moment. I just don't seem to have managed ANY consistency in this London training at all. Any time goal has gone out of the window and legged it off down the road and I have absolutely NO chance of catching it any time soon! My goal is now to finish with a smile (or grimace and hope nobody notices the difference!).
I wish I could say that I have enjoyed the training, but I really haven't. I didn't much like the training when I did Edinburgh, but it was nothing like this. Take the last two Sundays. Two weeks ago I was up and off at literally the crack of dawn and then spent three hours in the rain running 18 miles. I was so cold when I got home, it took me two hours to warm up again. Last Sunday I was looking forward to my 20, but struggled to move from the outset and by ten miles was down to a shuffle as every step produced agonising shooting pains down my left leg. When a person was blocking my path at 17 miles my vision was so blurry it took me ages to realise it was Russell and he had his camera phone out to take a picture of me running! Monday I realised I had a form of sciatica and tried to use my foam roller to massage it out. Thanks to Ned for his nice elbow work on Saturday morning helping to release it (OW!).
The rest of this week I haven't run a step due to illness. There has been so much stress in my life that my immune system has totally packed up - it was a migraine all last week and this week has been flu (which explained why my 20 had been ridiculously hard). I have had to permanently postpone my 22 miler and now I am just hoping for the best... and the end of the race!
I am not being negative about the race, just my training. I am looking forward to taking part in the London Marathon. I am looking forward to seeing John again and seeing him and K at various points on the course. I am looking forward to my parents seeing me running as they never have and probably never will again. I am looking forward to the finish line and never having to run a marathon again if I don't want to.
I think that after this I will stick to shorter races. I don't want to have to give up my life to a race at the moment. There are too many other good things going on. I want to be able to enjoy my running again and not feel that I HAVE to run because it says so on my schedule and I want to finish in a certain time. I know I can run a marathon. I know I can do it in a reasonable time. I just don't want to at the moment. I am looking forward to running again just for me. I long to be able to get up on a Sunday morning (although it will be Friday or Saturday when I move!) and go for a 10-15 mile run just because I enjoy it.
I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who has been supporting me through this training and the other stuff and keeping me positive. Without you all I would have given up on the race itself and my stress levels would have been a million times higher.
One more thing - it's been a while since I have done a big race - what might I have forgotten to put on my list of things to pack?!
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