Today I ran 7.06 miles without stopping. 91 minutes of continuous running. Blimey. They are two near-unbelievable facts. I need to say this: that if someone like me can do this on his 28th run, just 62 days after starting running, then anyone can. When I began the pre-marathon schedule, I couldn’t run for 3 minutes without bashing my head on the Grim Reaper’s sickle. The very thought of running an entire mile was exhausting.
Today’s run was the second ‘long run’ in the 18-week marathon training programme. What seasoned practitioners call, slightly mischievously I’m sure, an “LSD run”, which (I think) stands for long, slow distance. Last Sunday’s task was 6 miles, though it was a run ruined by those constant stitch-like pains behind my rib cage that act like a brake every 5 minutes or so. It made the run a stop-start affair, and I returned home pleased with the distance but disappointed by the manner of it. Today though was non-stop. Halfway through I did get a hint of this pain again but I decided to try running through it, and it passed within a minute or so.
Running in daylight makes a great difference. When I went out today at about 2pm when there was still quite a strong winter sunlight. It was cold though. Walked purposefully up to the crossroads near the football ground, and started to run. I was worried that my left calf might wake up again and halt the nervous progress I’ve made this week since it first happened, on Tuesday. So I was cautious as I set off, though it wasn’t long before I’d forgotten about the rhythm of my breathing or the way my left foot was thumping the road. In the darkness, these things assume a greater importance, but in the daylight there are too many distractions, and particularly the day before Christmas Eve.
There is a dreadful trend developing in Britain to erect gaudy American-style displays of Christmas lights outside your house. It’s tacky and, I suspect, done for all the wrong reasons. The fumes of this burgeoning opiate have even reached this quiet Cotswold backwater, where illuminated Santas and animated reindeer are appearing on house-walls and in front gardens. M thinks “it’s a hoot”. I find it depressing and demoralising.
I eventually reach a T-junction after exactly 1.5 miles, and turn left. I’m pretty elated. If the pains were going to dog me, I’m sure they would have kicked in by now. Talking of dogs and kicks, there is a constant soundtrack of barking canines and rattling chains as I stumble past farmhouses. So far I’ve not been attacked by one of these horrible things but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.
After turning onto the larger road, I hear a lengthy series of gunshots from an adjoining field. I can’t see anything; the noise comes from beyond some trees. But I wonder if, at the age of 44, this is the first time I’ve ever heard a gun firing.
By now I’m starting to get tired, though there are still no aches threatening sabotage. It’s around here that I realise that I’ve a good chance of doing what I set out to do.
I constantly wonder what I must look like, traversing the lanes like some panting, shambling nutter on the run from the local asylum. Poeple mostly ignore me though some adolescent brat on a bike today made a point of grinning at me as he rode past. It wasn’t a friendly, salutation type of grin. It was half sneer, half pretend mirth. Quite bogus, though whether this made it even easier to brush off, or more disturbing, I couldn’t decide, despite thinking over it for some minutes as I approached, and passed, the roundabout that points me back to the direction of the starting point. As I swung round to the left, I saw another figure approaching in the distance. Looked like a young guy, and there was a dog with him. The dog wasn’t on a leash. Oh shit, this could be it, I thought. Another sarcastic grin at least, and perhaps a few dog bites for dessert. But as I got near, I saw that it was in fact a middle-aged guy who issued a cheery “Good morning!” as we passed. The dog meanwhile showed no interest in me whatever. How unpredictable life is.
The 4.5 mile mark was looming as I got back to where this had all begun. By now I was feeling fatigued. My legs were beginning to get heavy and twinges were appearing and disappearing up and down my thighs, like the lights flashing on and off in the Christmas decorations. By the time I got to the roundabout near the house I was hurting. I had to go round the block twice to complete the 7 miles. One circuit is just under a mile. The second time around was horrible. My legs were really hurting.
I don’t often fantasise about the marathon itself – largely, I’m sure, because I still presume that some obstacle will prevent me actually doing it – but today as I did that second circuit I began to wonder what those last few agonising miles must be like. Today’s muscle-seizing pain was happening between 6 and 7 miles – about a quarter of the 26.2 miles of the real thing. There is going to have to be a lot of training between now and then to push this point further back.
When I got back home I entered a brief period of… I don’t know, some kind of state of suspension from reality. After dragging my shoes from my feet, I took a half-litre bottle of something isotonic from the fridge and gulped it down, then went and sat on the sofa. For a minute or two I was somewhere else. My flesh was tingling all over, legs in particular. I could feel a pulsing in my temples and my eyes were stinging from the sweat that dripped from my hair. My ears were buzzing and I could barely focus on what M was saying. This might sound like a horrible sensation but it wasn’t. In fact it felt bloody wonderful.
