OK, it’s back to business.
The seven weeks since Hamburg have been profoundly unhealthy. In that time I’ve run only 10 times. I’ve stuffed myself with empty calories and fat, and sunk into the sort of lethargy that only a marathon can provoke. It’s a familiar experience.
The (perhaps surprising) consolation is that I never feel a sense of sacrifice or gloom about buckling under again. Conversely, I get a great feeling of relief. When I talk to non-active friends, they seem to think that getting down to four or five months of marathon training must be like walking into a prison cell. But it’s exactly the opposite – it’s like being released from one.
There are 16 weeks to go till the Loch Ness Marathon on October 2. Tonight I pattered out a panting, stilted 4 miles. It was painful and difficult, and unusually for such a short distance, I twice had to stop for a short breather. But there was something almost gratifying about the discomfort; it’s like putting down a marker. Here is where I was. This is as bad as I’ll feel for the next 16 weeks.
I don’t have a strict training plan. I’ll cobble together some hybrid from the bones of previous campaigns. I’ve been through my spreadsheet, filling in the blanks with the enthusiasm of someone planning runs for someone else – which is how it feels from this distance.
The Hamburg experience taught me a lot, which isn’t the same as saying that I’ll act on these lessons. I think I need some longer midweek runs, and I need to have stronger legs, and I need to lose more weight. I’ve scheduled some longer Wednesday runs, but whether I run them remains to be seen. The bike will, I’m sure, transform my legs into unstoppable pistons, so that’s OK. Weight? Oh dear. Here we go again. I’m currently 10 pounds heavier than I was on the morning of the Hamburg race, so there’s a lot of work to do there.
But here we are, this is it. And it feels great.
