I’ve been frighteningly disciplined so far when it comes to dragging myself onto the street when I really haven’t felt like it. Partly because experience tells me that I’ll end up being very glad that I did, but mainly because there has always been this fear that once I start to slip, it will be the thin end of the wedge, and in less time than it takes a novice to snigger at the word fartlek, I’ll be off to the chippie, via the Oxfam shop to drop off my running gear.
True to form, yesterday I got changed and headed off into the night, despite feeling sleepy and fatigued. After a couple of hundred yards I stopped and told myself how stupid this was. Today (Friday) was due to be a rest day. Why not swap the days around and run today instead? There was no fear of this being the beginning of the end; I’ve put too much hard work in to squander it all now.
So that’s what I did. To make it even better, I was working from home on my own for most of today, rather than with a colleague as I have been recently, so I took the rare chance of a midweek daylight run. How different from normal. Not only was it light, there was even some warm sunshine to enjoy. For only the second time I was able to run comfortably without a tracksuit top.
The run was never easy but I felt much better than I did last night. It took me about half a mile to settle down and get rid of the usual achey ribs, and from then there was no looking back. The lanes were familiar but it was odd to be running them in these conditions. It was wet underfoot but the sunshine was quite strong for February, and gave the quiet rural setting something of an idyllic gloss. The usual dogs were heard but not seen, and I had a momentary panic when I realised that my crimson shorts and pale red T-shirt might attract the odd bull. But I survived without any noticeable clamour from the fields.
I spent the run thinking about the London Marathon in April. Can I really do it? I’ve no doubt I can complete the distance but that’s not the point. The important thing is that I don’t just want to do a marathon. I want to run a marathon. Of course there have to be walk-breaks, but I’ve no interest in running on and off for 15 miles followed by 11 miles of limping to the finish. Anyone can walk 26 miles in 6 or 7 hours. That wouldn’t satisfy me.
If all goes to plan, my final long run is the Worthing 20-miler, 2 or 3 weeks before the big day. If that is a disaster, I will defer my London entry for a year, scale down the training for a few months until May or June, then go for Chicago in October as the first marathon.
Time will tell. There are a couple of really encouraging things though. One is that my body is (touch wood) standing up to the strain remarkably well. When I began the Marathon programme in December I had a dodgy left knee I’d twisted after stepping awkwardly on a kerbstone, a fragile right ankle from my initial 6 week-novice-preparation regime, and a gouty right big toe that was in the habit of flaring up from time to time. The chances of all that lot withstanding the increase in physical pressure seemed remote. In fact what’s happened is that the exercise seems to have strengthened all these weak points, and I feel pretty strong at the moment. But I’m always conscious that it takes only one skid on some wet leaves, or a trip over a brick, or any one of a hundred not-unlikely things, and it’s all down the tubes.
The other encouragement is the way that my speed is improving. When I began the programme in December I was averaging between 12:30 and 13:00 a mile, and was resigned to a 6-hour-plus marathon. Today’s run, admittedly only 4 miles, saw me do an average of 10:29 a mile. This isn’t fast by most standards, but the improvement is the key thing. From 13 to 10.5 in 9 weeks is pretty good going I’d have thought. I wouldn’t be able to keep that pace up for much further at the moment, but it’s encouraging all the same.
The final bit of good news is that I’m tantalisingly close to another weight-loss milestone. This morning the scales told me I was 200.2 pounds.
And completely off-topic, but it cheered me up no end, was today’s news item about the Cleveland Chief Superintendent who has resigned after being caught urinating against the Royal Palace in Lithuania, where he’d been invited to lecture on Ethics.
