Me. Because I ran 13.3 miles today.
Thank you, Milton Keynes Half Marathon, for telling me that you didn’t want any fat lazy back markers taking up time and road space. I got up today, ate a sample bowl of Kellogg’s Start (the cereal designed to make porridge seem like a pleasant option) downloaded some songs onto my ever-growing and imaginatively-titled ‘running songs’ playlist and hit the road. I decided that I’d run my own half marathon.
After the first 3.7 miles of my figure 8 loop, I stopped in at home to go to the loo. Oh, it was hard going back out again. I seriously thought about just giving up and having a bacon sandwich instead. But I ploughed on, and on, and on. The roads look like this:
and whilst I shouldn’t complain because it was a gorgeous, cold, crispy, sunshiny day, they really don’t vary. Trees, bare hedgerows, road. Road, hedgerows, trees.
I reached 7 miles and sat on a wall. I sent a message to Twitter and drank some Lucozade and had an energy gel. I realised I needed the loo again. I may have availed of a handy hedge. I was actually having quite a nice time, despite being the slowest runwalker in the history of the world. Then this happened:
It’s a song that reminds me of the time just after Dad died and it gets me every time. I sat on the ground and cried. Huge, howling, messy crying. Luckily I was on a road to nowhere so nobody saw me sitting there, and once it was over I could feel my Dad telling me to pull myself together. Stiff upper lip, old girl.
Nobody had stolen my secret stash of Lucozade, so I refilled my lovely new carrying bottle at each rescue stop.
It was really up-and-down, the run. Sometimes I was running and my feet were just boinging along and I didn’t even have to think about it, even on hills. Other times I looked at my Garmin and realised I was running slower than I can walk. I felt a bit sick at one point, which I think was my body trying a new ‘please stop this nonsense’ strategy. I had the usual chorus of grumbles from the body parts who don’t like running, but the amazing ankle support and new socks (actual running socks! who knew?) meant that my feet were floating along. Even when I was walking, and there was a LOT of walking, I was doing it at over 4mph so I can tell I’m getting fitter and better at covering longer distances.
The last mile was amazing – I felt sick, I was exhausted, but I had a sudden burst of energy and was doing much faster jogging with a huge smile on my face.
I walked in to ‘mummycanIhavesomecrisps’ and ‘canweplayoutside’ and ‘wheresmybubblemixture’. Such is the life of a marathonmummy. I escaped upstairs and did my final Paula Radcliffe impression of the day.
Yes, that’s a ice bath. Eddie Izzard swore in his programme the other day that they were the secret to surviving the long runs. He’s made of strong stuff, that man. I got in the bath full of cold water, speaking to Zoe on the phone for a bit of moral support, then poured in the whole bag of ice. There are no words to describe what that felt like, but I’ve given birth four times without pain relief, and I was using every single technique to get me through the first minute of that bath. After that it actually felt quite nice, although nothing compared to the heavenly hot bath with a magazine and delicious bath oil from Maia Skincare. I feel human again now.
At the risk of having a Gwyneth Paltrow moment, I want to say that training for a marathon is incredibly time consuming. There’s an advert which says ‘because we know 26.2 is the easy part’ and it’s so true. I spend so much time blogging, fundraising, running and thinking about running. Meanwhile we still have a house, four children, and a whole menagerie of animals to look after. My lovely husband is doing more than his fair share at the moment, and he deserves a medal. Thank you, K. xxx
PS – results are now in for the Milton Keynes Half Marathon and I’m comforted to see that if I’d entered there would have been 80 people slower than me!
On a day off, with a hangover, when any sane person would be lying on the couch drinking fat Coke and reading the papers, I was heard saying ‘I must just pop out to that new running shop in Bletchley’.
Then, I spent half an hour perusing the polyester t-shirts and garishly coloured running raincoats.
Then, I bought an ankle support, sports tape (a year ago I didn’t even know such a thing existed), a very snazzy little hand shaped water bottle and some Lucozade gels.
And to top it all off, I spent five minutes perusing the running caps.
But it gets worse. Then I went into the shopping centre, and was excited to see there was a Sports Direct I’d never noticed before (that’ll be because until recently I was sane). So despite the fact that I was on my way to Waterstone’s bookshop for a coffee and a read, I took a detour into yet another polyester clothing emporium.
Then I went into the bookshop, picked up two books on running, and had a coffee (and a chat with my Twitter chums).
But then I came home, like a sane person, and had dinner, didn’t I?
Oh no.
I popped into the house, picked up a couple of bottles of Lucozade Sport, and drove round my running route for tomorrow IN THE DARK and stashed said bottles behind gateposts and in a ditch. Like I said, I’ve lost the plot.
In my world, 7mph is really fast. It’s my zooming-on-the-treadmill maximum speed for interval training.
I am slow. Super slow. Super-ultra-mega-slow.
Just to put it into perspective, if I’d run the whole 2009 London marathon at 7mph (that’s an 8:34 minute mile), there would have been 6,682 people in front of me. I’d have finished in 3:44, which is if memory serves me right the sort of speed that foxy marathon chicks Marathonmaiden and Carpeviam complete in – in fact they’re both faster than that. They don’t hang about, those two.
Anyway, there’s no point comparing myself to two racehorses when I’m more of a carthorse. I did a lovely interval workout today on the treadmill, inspired by watching Eddie Izzard’s 43 marathon challenge last night on television. I say lovely, it was torturous but made me feel quite pleased with myself afterwards. Gosh I’m boring, aren’t I. I’m even boring myself. Stay awake there at the back.
Congratulations to Heather, fellow horse lover and 80s chick, who guessed the terrible music I downloaded today.
Heather’s bar of chocolate will be flying over to Ohio this weekend!
Everyone secretly loves a bit of Tiffany. Oh admit it, you do, don’t you?
I saw the physio again this morning. My knee is all better, hooray.
Even with lots of poking and prodding (I’m sure there’s a technical term for that) it didn’t hurt, and so the amazing powers of ultrasound have worked.
I’ve never seen a physiotherapist before now, so I had no idea what to expect. So far I’ve balanced on one of these wibbly wobbly cushion things:
and a similar wooden wobble board to improve my ankle strength and done lots of exercises which have showed me that I’m rather one sided and unsteady.
Today after telling the physio that I was still feeling a bit of pain in my shins, she made me hop.
Ouch. Left leg, fine. Right leg, sore. More poking and prodding, some ultrasound, and some exercises.
I can happily sit like this:
That’s usually painful for people with shin splints, so that doesn’t make much sense. Also the discomfort I feel seems to go as I warm up and get moving, which doesn’t make sense either. Rachael in not making sense shocker. How unusual.
So, mainly because I looked worried and there’s no point in having the perk of private medical care if you don’t use it, she suggested a scan to rule out a stress fracture. I’m going to see a podiatrist because she’s convinced it’s a biomechanical issue. But as it’s 99% certain it’s not a stress fracture, I’m allowed to carry on training. Slowly, she said, just walk and jog. I burst out laughing. That’s all I ever do, I said.
In other news, I’ve been offered a place in this weekend’s Milton Keynes half marathon by a friend, but I’m not sure it’d be a good idea so I said no, even though I really want to say yes. Unless we do it at snail’s pace, with lots of walking? I might go and check the website FAQ. Hang on.
How fit do you need to be?
Fit enough to run the whole way around. We do not encourage walkers to enter. While this sounds harsh we rely on the goodwill of 80 volunteers. We cannot expect them to wait for hours until back markers have walked around.
Oh. Back markers. Is that the technical term for fat lazy chocoholic wannabe marathon runners?
I’ve just found out a fab t-shirt printing place for our marathon day tops, so I’m going shopping. The good thing about being a back marker (hrmph) is that there won’t be loads of people crowding round us, so everyone will be able to appreciate our lovely running t-shirts.
And finally (I can hear the sighs of relief from here; this one is a bit disjointed and rambly, isn’t it?) I just did 50 mins walk/jog/stagger on the treadmill and it was fine. Oh, the music of shame. I have been downloading some corkers from iTunes. Let’s just say I’ve been embracing my inner 14 year old with some 80s girly fluff. A bar of chocolate to the person who guesses one of the songs I was listening to today. A clue: I was 14 in 1987.
Stop press – have just had a text back from physio, after I texted her to tell her my 50 minutes on the treadmill didn’t hurt at all and that I felt fine. Scan now on hold for a week, and all systems go. Hooray.
Tara over at Sticky Fingers has a mission: to get people posting pictures based on a theme which changes every week. And I know I’m biased, but when I saw the theme for the very first week was beauty I had to find this photo and post it here. So this is little no4, one of the marathonbabies, the grandchild that my dad never met. I think he’d be very proud of him.
I need to look up something on the London Marathon site but whenever I do I am spooked by the gigantic countdown clock on there. One month, twenty one days, three nervous breakdowns, two sore shins, one sore ankle and several sleepless nights until I have to make my way round 26.2 miles of London streets.
I finished reading Julia’s book last night, having eked it out over days because I didn’t want it to end. It’s been lovely to read about another mother trying to fit in running around after school clubs, sick children, work, and life in general. Having had the best part of a week off from running to rest my leg, I realise just how all consuming this marathon training and fundraising really is.
I’m looking forward to running round London though; when you spend every run either staring at the numbers on a treadmill or looking at road and bare, wintry hedgerow, the idea of houses, people, pubs and tourist attractions sounds exciting. Everyone says I’ll be too busy running to take in the whole atmosphere, but I’m planning to savour every moment of it. Let’s face it, this year has taught me something: I’m not a natural marathon runner, so I think this will be a one off!
I’m feeling a bit yuck today, so I’m going to cut this short and go and have a rest.
This post is brought to you by the letter c (for chardonnay) and w (for wine) and definitely not by r (for running).
Physiotherapist tomorrow morning. Smallest child being left with lovely friend so I can whizz there straight from doing the school run with the big three. Was meant to run yesterday when biggest one (you think it’s confusing? try living with them) was doing ballet but Mr Marathonmummy was taking middle two for haircuts and didn’t make it back in time so I had smallest one with me. I tell you what, Paula Radcliffe doesn’t have these problems, does she?
Does Paula Radcliffe even have children? I have no idea.
Anyway. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be pronounced fit enough to hit the streets of Buckinghamshire. More then. Meanwhile, I have wine to drink and dinner to eat. Have a lovely Sunday night, everyone.
PS – Olivia. Every time I think of the physio, I start singing ‘Let’s Get Physical’ in my head. Like I say, I bet Paula Radcliffe doesn’t have these problems.
Does a whole pot of decaffeinated tea count as pre-run hydration? Hrmm.
The Garmin is charging, my PE kit (as we call it round here) is in the dryer, and I’ve had some malt loaf and a banana. It’s two hours until I run whilst no1 does ballet. Just a gentle run for 40 minutes, though. I’m seeing the physio again on Monday, so I’m fiddling about with my training programme for this week. Long run will be on Monday, on the treadmill, I think. Just as well I have loads of stuff on Sky+ to watch, because it’s going to be a long 3 hours of run 4, walk 1. I can hardly wait.
The good news is that we’ve now raised £555 for Heart Research UK and there’s still two months to go until the marathon! Thank you everyone who has donated, both online at Just Giving and offline. The date for the fundraising quiz night and disco will be announced soon, with some lovely prizes to be won.
When I first joined Twitter I made friends with a lovely fellow runner, fellow mother of four, fellow Being Human and Doctor Who fan, and fellow slightly deranged person, Julia.
She has been an inspiration and a great moral support, having already run the marathon in 2005 to raise money for the Children’s Trust.
Oh and one other thing. She’s a writer. A proper, has-books-published writer of lovely books like this one (buy it, it’s really good!)
And here is her very first book, which arrived as a surprise present in the post for me this morning…
complete with a lovely inscription
So I’m off to have a cup of tea and read it now.
Thank you Julia! Follow her on Twitter at @jccwilliams or read her (very amusing) blog here.