A timely reminder

London Marathon Training
Week 4, Day 3

I’m not fast. I’ll never be fast. The P&O ferry turns quicker than me. I trundle along at my own pace only too aware that I’ll always be near the back of the pack in any race I enter. That’s fair enough. I’m in my mid-40s, overweight, with dodgy feet and legs and on half-a-dozen pills per day for life for various chronic ailments.

Why am I saying all this? It’s to remind me that, despite all of the above, I get out there and I do it. To send a reminder to myself that there are those who would absolutely love to be able to run. To stop being selfish, to stop feeling sorry for myself, to appreciate what I can do.

There are days when I’m frozen rigid with fear and worry that I can’t run, that I’ll forget how to run, that my previous runs were little more than flukes and that, sooner or later, I’ll be found out.

Today was one of those days. Despite having a good week last week – my best for a long time – my confidence had totally evaporated, mainly because I had convinced myself that there was no way I could possibly repeat those efforts.

How wrong I was.

Exactly a week ago, I recorded my best 5k time since November 2015. So what did I do today? I only went and smashed another 73 seconds off that time! Today was my fourth stand alone 5k in 17 days and, in that time, I have gone progressively quicker with each run, translating into a difference of 3 minutes 28 seconds between that first one and today.

Maybe I need all the nerves and apprehension before a run to feed off when I’m out. It’s a horrible feeling beforehand but perhaps I’m able to channel it somehow into energy or determination.

For today’s run I set off knowing I was going far quicker than I normally would but it felt ok. I almost set a new PB for a mile although I didn’t realise it at the time. It was only after coming home and checking my stats that I saw how close I was. I made an effort to slow things down a bit after that but it didn’t really work, not that I’m complaining. Indeed, looking at my km time splits my third was actually quicker than the second, whilst four and five were also well within my target range.

But I’ll need to slow it down tomorrow, I’ve got nine miles to do, surely there’s no way I’ll be able to keep that pace up. Although, hopefully, my renewed confidence from today’s run, will stay with me until I set off in the morning. I’ll just need to figure out a strategy and try to stick to it for the first few miles at least and then see how I feel.

Watch this space.

London Marathon Training (49 miles – 13 runs)
Week 1 – 12.2 miles (4 runs; average 3.05 miles per run)
Week 2 – 9.3 miles (2 runs; average 4.65 miles per run)
Week 3 – 17.7 miles (4 runs; average 4.4 miles per run)
Week 4 – 9.8 miles (3 runs; average 3.26 miles per run)