Why should I be surprised? I’ve said more than once that the satisfaction I get from a run seems to be inversely proportionate to the level of expectation. I didn’t enjoy today’s 10 miles very much, and I’m still trying to understand why.
I felt tired and lacking in energy. Why? Plenty of reasons. So many candidates in fact, that I don’t know which was the main culprit. For one thing, I had only 5 or 6 hours sleep last night; got up late and had the usual Sunday breakfast dilemma: do I eat and risk feeling too bloated for running? Or skip breakfast and risk being under-fuelled? I chose the latter. What else? Well, Friday’s relatively fast run was still making itself felt. Then there was the tracksuit top I wore to keep the rain at bay. I’ve worn this thing many many times, but this is the first time that I’ve felt it an encumbrance. I felt overheated in it. And there was my too-quick start. And finally, I seemed to be weighed down with stuff today. I took some Power Bars, gel, a bottle of some blackcurrant substance, as well as the usual mobile phone and keys. It shouldn’t have made much difference; after all it certainly weighed less than the amount I’ve lost in the past week. But I was always aware of this junk rattling around, and I felt overburdened by it.
Which of those was mainly responsible? Oh, I don’t know, but I think they all played a part.
Some positive news first: this morning saw my weight dip below 200 lbs for the first time in a long time. When I gave up smoking, 7 years ago, I immediately put on about 3 stone which has never moved back below this critical level – until now. Keeping the weight off will become an issue to tackle once the marathon is over. I’ve yet to decide, or even really to think about it.
It was also a smugly satisfying opportunity to try out my new gear. The lycra shorts, sheepishly concealed beneath my normal ones did a fine job in eliminating chafing. The new gold Coolmax T-shirt was covered by the jacket, so remains unappreciated – both by me and the watching world. Star of the show were the socks. The socks! A total triumph. On this evidence, Thorlo socks are a watertight investment. Such luxuriant padding; such impressive tailoring – for the first long run I had no worries about that irritating seam in the Asics Nimbus 3s I bought some weeks ago, and that have hurt me from the outset. I want more Thorlo socks. Give me Thorlo socks…
The rain was a shame. After Friday’s sunny run, I fooled myself into thinking that the wet spell had finished. But no. The one benefit (apart from testing the resilience of my new gear) was that I’m not sure I’d recognise the local long-run lanes I use without the rain now…
It started reasonably well. Too well. The first part of the route is dull – past the shopping centre and along a wide road through a rather bleak modern housing estate. Perhaps my desire to get through this section spurred me on, but after 2 or 3 of miles I was astonished to see that I was several minutes ahead of schedule. At the time I was pleased but I now wonder if this was the cause of my subsequent knackerisation. Just after 3 miles, I suddenly just stopped, feeling really quite wiped out. Remembering my cumbersome resources, I chewed half a Power Bar and felt immediately better. This thing tasted good. Sweet, and with an intense, chewy density. I ran another mile and ate the other half. Another mile or so on the clock convinced me that this was what I’d been lacking – some carbohydrate-fuel. But as I continued, I felt sort of heavy and started to struggle again. Now I wondered if eating on the run was bad news for my guts, however much I needed the energy.
From then on – about 5 miles – it was difficult. The scenery, through the now-familiar rustic lanes that separate Yate from Chipping Sodbury, was a great improvement over the earlier drab housing, though I didn’t take much of it in. In that distance I had to stop 4 or 5 times for a couple of minutes walk. As I approached the final mile I realised much to my surprise that I was still well within my initial target time. The long run is suppposed to be at marathon pace, so I had decided before I set off today that I’d be quite happy with a 2 hour time for 10 miles at the moment. Despite my snack stops and my several walking breaks I still managed 1:57, so perhaps (combined with all the other factors mentioned) it was mainly me starting too quickly that did me in.
Let’s keep this in perspective. Today’s experience wasn’t terribly happy, but nor was it a disaster. I ran 10 miles. Until recently that would have been a laughable prospect. Now I am disappointed that I didn’t coast round the route. As always, I have a choice here. I can choose to be depressed about today, and hold it up as evidence that "I’m just not cut out for this kind of thing". Or I can decide to look a look at what went wrong, and learn from it, so that on April 14th I can do it differently. After all, that is partly what the long weekend runs are supposed to be about. They are dress rehearsals. They are a time for experimentation – with time targets, with clothes and shoes, with foodstuffs and drinks, with eating regimes, with attitudes and strategy. Today has been a fantastically rich source of raw material for me to go to work on.
One of today’s thoughts as I was running that last painful mile, ensuring that I finished within my target time, was that marathon training helps you to accept that sometimes the reaching of one major goal, the winning of one big prize, can only be achieved by working through a multitude of unpleasant, undesirable tasks, one after another. It’s like walking over broken glass to reach the promised land. Like undergoing a course of painful injections to be cured of a fatal disease. If you have sufficient desire to reach the destination, you accept the discomfort of the journey, while all around you, your critics and detractors only see the blood and anxiety of the daily grind, and fail to understand the lure of the target.
And so it seems to me that marathon runners are visionaries who can see the value of this prize; the prize that must perhaps remain invisible to most in order to preserve its potency.
And with that piece of questionable insight, I now officially bring to a close the first half of my 18 week marathon training programme. 9 weeks are now gone, and there are 9 more to go.
