In my last post I shared the run pretty much as I experienced it as I was running it yesterday. In this post I want to share a few thoughts now that running the damn thing is in the past and emotions and thoughts have had time to settle.

People have been gently taking the piss whenever I have said that this is my last marathon. But I was being serious and the experience yesterday just confirms that decision. It just wasn’t fun. And doing it on my own was just horrible. So on reflection there are a number of things I learned yesterday.

1. There are no shortcuts in a marathon. You can’t wing it. If you haven’t trained enough it’s not going to go very well. I was undertrained. I knew that. I tried to follow a plan that was actually too hard for me. I couldn’t sustain the weekly miles and therefore ended up missing some runs – usually the speed or strength runs and I didn’t have the miles in my legs to reach my A Goal (which was 5.45 if anyone cares)
2. Even if you are completely marathon fit and physically everything holds up over the distance, marathons are mental. You have to really want it. You have to have a reason. Without that reason it is almost completely impossible.
3. Kath is my reason. I see no point in running 26.2 miles if she isn’t doing it with me. I mean there’s just is no point. It’s just a long lonely fucking boring run. I didn’t have anyone to share my thoughts, to laugh at things, to cry with and to share the whole experience with.
4. Marathons are partly about how much pain you are prepared to tolerate. That means that you have to want it, really want it which takes us back to 2 above. I was in a fair amount of pain and I didn’t want it enough to push through that pain barrier.

I was ok until about 9 miles. I struggled a bit after seeing Dad at the cheer station because it was emotional but I settled again. Then the tummy cramps started. With hindsight it is blindly obvious that they were the beginning of period cramps. A week early but period cramps they were. I’m sort of pleased really because it means that I ran a 6.28 marathon on day 1 of my period. Some months I barely crawl out of bed on day 1!

My head went when I lost all the time in the toilet queue. My confidence went when I realised that rather than being ahead of pace I was now behind and the minute that happened I lost the chance of a sub six hour finish. I can blame the fall all I want, that’s not what did it. Losing confidence and letting the loss of time get to me is what lost me the 6 hour finish. That’s just the way it goes.

The fall was just one of those things. The pain will go. I walked almost all of it from the mile 15 marker where I fell with very few runs but I can’t honestly say how much of that was physical and how much of it was mental. I am glad I finished. I do think that long term I will look back at the grit and determination it took with pride. Right now I am just glad it is over.

I’m sore today. We both are. I must have been compensating to protect my knee because my right ankle and lower leg are tight and sore. My hamstrings are very very very tight. My hip is stiff and feels bruised as does my knee. My left knee keeps twinging and my lower back is grumpy. I am tired. We woke up early, really early and sat in bed with a cuppa and a piece of flapjack before going for a walk round the Serpentine (our Hotel was just opposite Hyde Park). We walked very slowly and for about 3/4 of the walk it felt good and felt to be loosening things but it was perhaps just a little too far and pain crept in again towards the end. Flat and straight is fine, any camber and going round tighter bends is awkward, uphill uncomfortable and downhill just evil. Stair are a bit hit and miss so there’s lots of wincing because the pain comes as a surprise. Up is better than down.

After the busyness and noise of Sunday it was lovely to watch herons fly across the Serpentine, see geese and their goslings, moorhens, ducks, swans and all manner of birds including what we both think might have been a reed warbler. It’s what we needed and it was in such stark contrast to the marathon. We need green and air and creatures and natural noises. That’s where we thrive and that’s where we need our adventures to be. And most of all we need to be together.

We’re home now after a relatively easy journey and it’s nice to be back, to have the cats around us and to just relax completely. Work tomorrow but I won’t be going anywhere fast! The heron card Kath made me which I mentioned in the last post survived the run and I need to decide if I want to frame it or if I want to keep it with me. It’s something really special, so special that I was initially reluctant to share it – but here it is.