Battling the marathon demons

My half marathon times and my 10k times suggest I should be capable of at least a 3.40 marathon, but I’ve only once broken the 4 hour mark and more often than not the marathon has broken me.

My non-running friends wonder why I do it. Some of them can’t think of anything worse than putting their bodies through 26 (don’t forget the) point 2 miles of agony, forsaking boozy nights and lazy mornings to pound out miles in punishing rain, wind or the kind of heat we’ve seen this summer.

And yet, I have running friends who seem as though they’d be able to knock out marathons in their sleep. They’ve completed dozens of them.

I can only gaze in awe as they pump out several 20 milers in the run-up to their marathons, with what seems like minimal effort.

Sometimes I wonder why I do it. The marathon demons on my achy shoulders mock me. ‘You’re not cut out for this’. ‘It hurts, so stop’, ‘Why don’t you try something easier like eating chocolate and drinking wine?’, ‘Isn’t it just easier to walk?’

Take last week for instance. It was Week 5 of my latest marathon training plan, which culminates in a return to my roots – the Yorkshire marathon in October. After a month of slowly building up my training, every bit of my body hurt. Because I’d been away for the weekend, I did my long run on Monday, and had planned 12 easy miles along the glorious coast, basking in the sunshine of a lovely summer’s evening.

Sadly, within a couple of miles, I realised there would be nothing ‘easy’ about this run. The wind whipped against me, making every step feel like I was running backwards and the celebrations of the weekend compounded the misery. A supposed short-cut to avoid being blown off my feet on the promenade saw me getting lost and I stumbled home, half hobbling, half-crawling, having completed 13.1 miles. ‘How on earth would I be able to do twice that distance on marathon day?’ I asked myself, mocked by the marathon demons in my head.

I dragged my bewildered and battered body to the gym two days later. The instructor offered to override the facility that only allows you to run for half an hour, too polite to question why anyone in their right mind would want to run more than 30 minutes on the ‘dreadmill’.

But, spurred on by the memory that I once did almost all my training for a marathon indoors, and with the wind blowing even more of a gale than it had done for my long run, plus hamstrings that felt like they might snap at any given moment, the treadmill was the best option. An hour later, I’d finished seven miles at marathon pace - one more tick in the marathon training box.

My mood wasn’t improved by a painful 5 miler on Thursday and as I looked ahead to the weekend, I felt disillusioned at the prospect that I wasn’t even half way through my training and I had only run half the distance I would be running on the big day.

But then Saturday dawned, all blue skies and gorgeous, the air cleared by a thunder storm and my mind cleared of the stresses of work. I’ve taken to doing a tempo run the day before my long run and the Park Run down the road provides the ideal opportunity to do that.

And though it wasn’t fast, as I lay on the grass afterwards stretching my wretched hamstrings, and talking to some of the other runners, it reminded me of why I do it. I run because it makes me happy, it makes me feel alive, it introduces me to a world of like-minded people.

When I was a little girl, I would run and run around the playground. My daughter does the same now, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Yesterday I set out for my long slow run, determined that the only thing that mattered was that I would enjoy it. One foot in front of the other. Free to run because I can.

And I did. I came home, a little dehydrated, after 2 hours and 20 minutes of running, having completed 15 miles. It was only two miles further than my previous long run, but what a difference a week makes.

I might not be knocking out the 20 milers with the frequency of my friends any time soon, and even if I am walking like a cowboy for a little while longer, I’ve sent those marathon demons packing and I know it will be worth it when I cross that finish line on October 20.

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