NDJ's London Marathon - week 6

Tuesdays are jinxed, I’ve decided. After last week’s Silly Injury Tuesday, this week I enjoyed If It Ain’t Broke, Mess With It and Suffer the Consequences Tuesday. Yes, I bought new running shoes. No, I shouldn’t have been seduced by the ‘you must buy new shoes for the marathon’ hype. Which was beautifully proven by a 45 minute run in which I felt like I was landing on concrete blocks, got aches and pains in parts of my legs that have never before complained while running, and basically got thoroughly pissed off.

The shoes have been sent back. Normal service has resumed.

So Thursday’s run, by contrast, was of course lovely. Hill running route, all feeling good, no messing. Which was lucky, because I was already nervous enough about Sunday’s 10 miler. I’ve banged on about this at length, I know, but this marked the transition from running a time to running a distance, and it freaked me out.

So not surprising then that I was feeling incredibly jittery when I set out, and had to keep slowing myself down so I wouldn’t burn through all my (nervous) energy in the first half. 10 miles is 16km, and logically enough, once I got into my stride, the first 10k was absolutely fine – it’s my comfort zone after all. The next couple of kilometres, taking me to three quarters of the way through, were slightly slower, but I was still feeling pretty good. Then it seemed to take forever to get from 12km to 13km. It didn’t really, of course - looking back via Nike+, my pace barely changed. But it felt like forever. The voice in my head started saying “I can’t, I can’t”, and it was increasingly difficult to disagree. I just felt drained of energy – my breathing was fine, my legs were tired but fine, I just felt like I was slowing to a crawl and there was nothing I could do about it. All I could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other, and try not to give in. And then suddenly I was at 14km, there were only 2km to go, I knew I could do that, and I had a surge of energy. Not a big, sprint finish type surge, but one that was just enough to speed me back up to normal pace, put a smile on my face, and get me through those last kilometres in fine style.

I’d wanted to do it in under 2 hours. It took me 1 hour, 59 minutes and 8 seconds. Next time, it’ll be faster.

 

Don’t forget, I’m running the London Marathon in support of Crisis. If you’re enjoying this diary of my suffering, why not donate a few quid to help end someone else’s? http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/nikidjlondon2015