Hi Rick
Congratulations on your run. Two minutes off a 5 km is impressive. It’s a gruesome distance to run, so you might as well get it over with.
So, London just wasn’t my day.
All those months of preparation and careful tapering blown out of the water by a dodgy stomach. Cold weather, nerves, grapefruit squash in the morning, a bug from one of the kids. I never was quite sure.
In fact, my gut had been feeling strange for several days, and felt so for several days afterwards. I had thought it was just me eating too much in the last carbo-loading days, but found out there was rather more to it once I set out.
Maybe the fitness behind me was the only thing that kept me going whilst feeling so off, since I’d probably have bombed altogether otherwise. Maybe like Tiger Woods being ill in the bushes on the first at Augusta yet still finishing the round – and playing badly on many occasions recently and still making a half-decent score. Scrambling and getting round, somehow. The annoying thing, though, is that I’d probably have done better just running the thing with far less forethought on any of the previous six or so weekends. But that’s the way it worked out. That’s the marathon for you, of course I know that. Right, so here’s the deal.
I feel that the marathon still owes me some change. And, on the positive side, I recovered pretty well. That could be one unexpected benefit of running the second half slower and with tightly clenched buttocks, perhaps. So, I’m wondering if this might leave a thin line of possibility. Depending on family commitments, there’s a smaller, but flat, marathon I might be able to run on 20th June … It’s hotter in England then, but the race is in Blackpool, some way north of here, and on the sea front. There might be wind and rain, but Blackpool is at least not known for its tropical conditions. Leaving a two and a half week taper, I’d need to run a 20 in the first week of June.
There’d be 9 weeks between the two races. Of course, every time you run a marathon, it’s easy to think ‘now I can run another next week’. I know it’s not real, but the thought strikes me every time. This could be foolishness, then, but maybe it could just work. Impossible is nothing, I know, but practicality and reality are different things altogether.
Perceptions can lie, though, so, as the man with multiple marathon experience, what do you think ?
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