I started the week still feeling pretty bruised and battered from the rotten 18 miler, which is the only justification I have for failing to realise that if I was planning my 20 miler on Friday, I would have to bring forward my two other runs to Monday and Wednesday; a fact that didn't actually enter my consciousness until Tuesday. To cut a long story short, this meant the only run I ended up doing was a miserable twenty minute 'recovery' trot a couple of days too late, in which ankles, knees and hips all refused to cooperate.
But hey, I was sensible. I went to pilates, I did my physio, I stayed in, ate carbs, and remained sober on Thursday night even though the Leaders Debate would have been enlivened by a few drinks...
And then suddenly, it was Good Friday. Also known as 20 Mile Friday.
I confess, the main motivation for bringing the run forward was to get it out of the way so I stood some chance of enjoying the Easter long weekend. And also, when you've spent weeks hammering your body with higher and higher mileage, once you can see the peak ahead you just want to get there!
I was determined to learn from my mistakes, and not to bonk: I started off slower and forced myself to keep that pace; I started on the sport beans much earlier, rather than waiting till I already felt low on energy; I enlisted my husband to switch my empty water bottle for a full one halfway through.
I kept a steady flow of running 4k then walking 0.5k, and for the vast majority of the distance I actually felt pretty good. I trotted along fairly happily, listening to an Agatha Christie novel on Audible (thanks to Ellie and Keith for the podcasts/books instead of music suggestion), and even though it poured with rain for almost the entire time, I still managed to smile at points. If anything, the rain was quite refreshing, except the couple of times a drop landed in my eye and almost took out my contact lens.
Once I hit about 17m though, it got pretty tough. I was still running - I definitely didn't bonk - but my knees and ankles were starting to feel like they were on fire. I randomly remembered something I'd read about fixing on something in the near distance and running to that, then doing the same again, and again... So I fixed on a red postbox a hundred metres ahead, then a yellow bin a couple of hundred metres ahead of that, then a green sign fifty metres ahead of that... and that's how I ran the last few miles. Well, except when I ran to the half drunk bottle of Fanta impaled on a railing and then spent the next five minutes fantasising about drinking it (I didn't obviously, that would be gross. I guess I just wanted more sugar). And then finally I ran to the red poop scoop bin, and it was done.
I walked the half kilometre home, starting to limp a bit, drank two pints of orange juice and water, ate a cereal bar and some salty crisps, did stretches, and cried when I saw my husband had posted about me on Facebook and people had said lovely things and made donations to Crisis. Then I had a bath, three platefuls of chicken fajitas, a beer, and nine hours sleep, and woke up feeling pretty much fine.
So now it's taper time. Three weeks of slowly bringing down the mileage to get ready for the big day. And now, I honestly can't wait. If I can run 20 miles after weeks of relentlessly building mileage, then I think I can run 26.2 miles on fresh legs. I have to believe I can, anyway.
I'm running the London Marathon in support of Crisis, the homeless charity. I am grateful for every penny that people have donated, and if you haven't done so already, please consider sponsoring me here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/nikidjlondon2015
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