by When you read this, I will either be in the air or in Germany.
Yep, it’s time to run a marathon…again, my second in the space of five weeks.
When I started running, I doubted I would ever be able to run that far.
I couldn’t predict how my body would ever hold up to the rigors of training over such a distance.
But I learned that you don’t have to accept that your body is this way; you can change it through training, changing your mindset and what is possible in the process.
Sometimes it’s important to reflect on how far you’ve come.
I know I’m guilty of always striving and looking forward when it comes to running. It’s rare that I look in the rearview mirror and take some credit for what was accomplished.
It’s only during those few golden hours after a race that we take stock and bask in the glow of an event. The next morning we all left, discussing what to do next.
But whatever happens on Sunday at the Berlin Marathon, I feel like I won. It’s always a battle to reach a marathon start line if you train correctly.
The weeks and months leading up to it rarely go smoothly and that’s part of the challenge.
Take this week for example. It’s entirely predictable, but both of my kids have colds while my son, Logan, had to be taken to the emergency room with a broken arm after falling off a monkey bar (luckily, it turns out that this is just a sprain, which has only been bothering him for some time). bedtime these last few days…).
But that’s life – you adapt – you either take it easy or get thrown from pillar to post wondering what could go wrong next.
I tried to be kind to myself in terms of expectations on Sunday.
Naturally, I’ve been feeling tired since the Helsinki marathon at the end of August and it’s new territory for me to run two marathons close together; It’s not something I’ll be looking to repeat anytime soon.
Honestly, I don’t really know what to expect; I have a goal in mind to go under 3’20 but I’m going to be kind to myself before, during and after.
I’ve asked a lot of my body over the last six weeks, a bit too much in fact, and perhaps I have to accept that I haven’t put myself in a position to reach the absolute peak of the Berlin Marathon.
That doesn’t mean I won’t give it my all on these 26.2 miles in the German capital.
But the training did not happen as naturally as at the beginning of the year. I struggled to get back to the levels I had shown before the Cambridge Half Marathon in March, when I set a new personal best and tore a calf muscle in the process.
I still had a lot of fun, but I wasn’t able to find that dynamic in my training. It will come back if I make the right decisions and show these two crucial qualities that every runner must demonstrate to progress: discipline and patience.
Doubts began to set in earlier in the week after an “easy” course which was not surprising.
I’ve taken some time to scroll through my runs on Strava over the last six months and it’s amazing how many runs you forget. We all focus on the races we wish we had done rather than the actual training we did.
My leg of the Round Norfolk Relay has given me some confidence in my ability to achieve my goal, but most importantly, I’m looking forward to having a bit of fun.
I feel very lucky to be able to manage Berlin again and it’s definitely not something I take for granted. Participating in these big events abroad brings me so much joy and I’m going to do it for as long as my body allows me.
That said, I’m looking forward to a little break after the weekend, mentally as much as anything else.
I want to be able to run without a bit of structure for a few weeks and really evaluate what I want from my running in 2025. The races are already starting to fill up and I have a few things on my radar but I’m going to keep this for another column.
I can almost feel Neil Featherby, who has been such a mentor to me (and so much more), telling me to just focus on Sunday and forget about the rest.
And I don’t want to be on his bad side, so I’ll end this column by saying how grateful I am to the entire Run Anglia community for the support you’ve given me in my running journey so far .
I’ll have another story to tell next week…and I can’t wait to see how this one ends.
We’ll see you on the other side.
