Marathon one: A bit…meh?
We're on the start line and strangely I'm not at all nervous, just keen to get going. I've been here about an hour and been ready to get cracking for most of that. After a quick briefing where we nearly all have to evacuate the Richmond Town Hall thanks to a fire alarm, we've all headed down to the start line to get ready and get cracking.
I'm sending an organisational text to Jess to do with kit swapping later when we start moving, so it's clear I'm not in the right head space right now. It's been a busy week and to be honest I'm just not feeling it.
The training has been perfect. Every week for the last two months I've run fifty miles, eighty kilometres. These have mostly been split in three, often back to back, runs a week. I also set my first sub ten hour fifty mile race at the South Downs Way Fifty then still managed to get another fifty in the following week to make up my first ever hundred mile week, then tapered last week with only thirty miles. My body is there and ready so I guess that's part of why I'm not so nervous. I'm now fairly confident I can mentally handle this as well, having spent nearly a year learning from a drop out on a race that I possibly could have continued with. I feel like everything is there and raring to go.
So why do I feel so...meh?
It doesn't bother me as I know once I get into things it'll all change and I'll find my groove. I remember to start tracking the run after a couple of hundred metres and it seems like everyone has set off pretty quickly. I'm keen not to go out too hard as I don't want to burn out later in the day so make sure to find my own rhythm. I'd ideally like to hold onto a four hour fifteen first marathon, be at half way in nine hours then hold on as long as I can until the end and finish in under twenty four hours at least. But it's all changeable and I'm not going to cry if it doesn't happen. I just want to finish at this point.
The normal camaraderie of trail races doesn't seem as high as it normally is, strangely. I'm guessing this is because a lot of people are here on their very first hundred mile run and are just too nervous to talk. It's fine by me though as I know that it'll ease up and to be honest I'm not feeling much like doing this right now at all. But again, I know this'll change. I just need to let it. I'm content to just tick off some early miles and ease into it.
Right at the beginning I'm passed by Paul Ali briefly, who I'm surprised to see and ask him why he's not up the front. It turns out he had an early toilet break so soon heads off but it's nice to say hi all the same. I doubt I'll see him again today though as he's pretty quick these days.
After a few kilometres an older gentleman pops up beside me and asks what time I'm hoping for. I say I'm happy to just get under twenty four hours but my dream goal, the one I always set knowing I won't get it, is twenty hours. That's what he's going for as well but he thinks we're going too fast. He's worried we'll burn out. Each runner has their own way of pacing that works for them and today I'm keen to keep a steady pace that's fairly fast by my standards then naturally let that slow to something close to a crawl later on. I gather he's keener to keep a more even pace throughout and is panicking a bit at how quickly everyone went off.
We end up running together for a good few kilometres chatting about strategies and what we're hoping for today. He's quite softly spoken, though, and my hearing's not amazing so it's a bit of crossed wires at times but we persevere all the same. He asks about food and I say I'm keen to stay on the solids as much as possible and stay away from the sugar train if I can as it's a more even energy source. He's not really too sure what he's going to do, which I'm surprised at as he's done a hundred before but he seems a bit bewildered by the whole thing this morning. I tell him my secret is cherry tomatoes and that if they have them at the aid stations that's most of what I'll be using to keep going. Plus the odd ham sandwich.
We pass by Hampton Court palace soon enough and my Irish friend, whose only flown over for the race, points at it and asks what it is. Coming from little wee New Zealand I'm surprised at the nonchalance of seeing such an imposing building and garden and not really being terribly interested. I tell him it's where Henry VIII lived and we move onto the next topic. But secretly I quite enjoy running past such a stunning building and piece of history.
The path until now has been very familiar as I've run this section before a couple of times so know it well, where to cross over the river and what to do. It's been nice considering the mood I'm in that I've not really had to think about it much and can just go into cruise control for the first few miles. It's quite busy out being the first warm day in quite a while and there are a lot of people cheering and a lot of people annoyed that there is a steady stream of runners getting in their way.
On that note, it's shaping up to be pretty hot. It's weird though as we're following the Thames the whole way so there is a cool breeze coming off the river that takes a bite out of the warmth. I've got a base layer and a warm hat on at the moment as the day hasn't yet warmed up properly but I'm sensing they're not going to be needed later on. I'm also quite concerned at the fact that I'm wearing my warmest tights and don't have some shorts to swap into so am hoping it doesn't heat up too much.
Soon enough we reach the first checkpoint, Walton-on-Thames, at eleven miles and I can definitely tell it's time for some food. Energy levels are a bit low and I know I need to pay more attention to them if I'm going to make it through the day, so grab three cherry tomatoes and a ham sandwich before getting my bottles filled. This proves a right pain in the jaxy though as they're fiddly little things to begin with before you start getting a ham sandwich in the way. I get there eventually, grab three more cherry tomatoes and tell my new friend I'm carrying on and will see him when he catches me up. I don't want to stop here so carry on running and eating at the same time. It's quite a knack but not too complicated when you get the hang of it. On the down side though it does take ages to eat so it’s a constant battle to be able to breath but hey, swings and roundabouts, eh?
From here on I start to get my rhythm and feel like things are starting to pick up and I soon clear through the first half marathon in a little over two hours which is pretty much exactly where I wanted to be so I’m pleased with that. I do feel more tired than I had hoped to this early on though, but there is still a whole day for that to change so I’m not too worried about it at this point. I chat to the odd person here or there but am mostly on my own for now, which I’m okay with as it’s nice to set my own pace and drift off into dreamland.
I have to make a brief diversion back to reality when I get nearer checkpoint two at Wraysbury and for the five kilometres or so just before, I’m really feeling it. This one is also eleven miles further into the race meaning that in twenty two miles or thirty five kilometres roughly I’ve not really eaten too much at all so as I’m still a while away I take a gel. I’m trying to avoid them wherever possible to stay away from sugar crashes but this early on I need to be focusing on getting energy in. It picks me up a little but I’ve left it too late.
This happens always at this same point. Around thirty to thirty five kilometres in, I crash as my glycogen levels go low. And yet today I didn’t think ahead and let it happen. Oh well, at least I can get something and get around it. So I plod on to the next aid station, feeling grumpy with myself for not really being ‘in’ this race yet and then when I get there I stock up on some food.
After that, unsurprisingly I feel better and am in a better mood so am okay to keep going. I pass through marathon point in around four hours and forty minutes, which is around half an hour slower than I’d really hoped but I have to go to the pace my body dictates rather than my watch so it’s all good.
Marathon two: Cruising and chatting
I start to feel a small dull pain in my left foot. Of course this early on my brain starts to panic and think I’m going to have to drop from the race and then when overdrive kick in I wonder if I’m going to die. Obviously far too extreme, but the mind does funny things through the various stages of a race and this early on it’s still in the ‘nothing can go wrong or I’ll quite possibly die’ stage. Thankfully it’s quite handy as it’s then easy to take that absurdity and throw it away. Which is exactly what I do, knowing and expecting that the pain is a small niggle that will soon pass and I’ll have forgotten about it by the end of the race.
The next checkpoint isn’t too far away at Dorney in only another eight miles, which is a much nicer gap and my energy levels should still be okay by then. That seems to be about the limit that I can last for without having to think about energy so long as I eat enough at each station and thankfully I don’t think there will be any more gaps any further than this.
The time passes and the miles tick along. I’m quite looking forward to reaching Dorney as I did a duathlon there early last year so it will be nice to see the town again, but it passes through pretty quickly and doesn’t go near the rowing lake where the race was so I don’t, in the end, recognise any of it.
The weather is most definitely getting brighter than I expected, which is a little worrying as I really don’t want to get heatstroke as it means I’ll then really struggle this evening. Sadly, I don’t have anything other than my thermal leggings and no sunscreen so I feel my sad little potato head start to fry. Oh well, not too much I can do about it now.
Not too far after the Dorney aid station a woman catches up with me and we start chatting. She’s got a pretty energetic outlook on the day and is feeling pretty good, which is obviously a nice thing to see a bit over six hours into a race so we end up staying together for a while.
At around thirtyish miles and fifty kilometres it’s also quite good to have a bit of company finally as this is the point where you can start to feel a bit over running. Only today we’re not even a third of the way through the race.
We keep chatting right to the next aid station at Cookham where I quickly fill up my bottles, grab a bit of food and say that I’ll walk ahead and she can catch up as, at this point, I’m still keen not to hover too long in aid stations. I’m also never sure of the etiquette of whether or not it’s best to stay with someone you’ve been chatting to, as that would imply the expectation that they have to continue talking to you. And, being Britain, they’d politely feel obligated to even if they were secretly waiting for this point to get rid of you as they don’t like you. Probably not the case but hey, best to give options.
So I go over a small bridge to continue on and at the other side of the bridge is a photographer. I burst out laughing and tell him not to take a photo as I’m still stuffing my face. He does anyway.
Almost straight after I see Alice coming up behind me again so wait until she’s caught up before carrying on running again. Turns out she was enjoying the company as well as a distraction from the running.
On and on we soldier, getting through the next checkpoint without any issues apart from that small pain in my foot not going away and worrying me a little. Pace wise we are still going pretty damn well. I’d secretly hoped to get to the half way point of fifty one miles at Henley in around nine hours, figuring I did it in ten on the South Downs Way Fifty and that had hills. It’s slowly slipping away which is a shame but I never really thought it was going to happen anyway. Bizarrely though, it looks like even ten hours is going to be a struggle, which does worry me a little as I feel more tired now than I did then and this has been completely flat. It turns out hard ground does take quite an impact on your pace.
All the same we reach the checkpoint and this is the first point that Jess has driven up from home to find. It’s a nice boost mentally for me to see her. It’s also the point where we can access our drop bags.
Marathon three: The wheels come off
I’ve been running in my Brooks Cascadia’s for this first half as, despite really worrying me, they were perfect on the South Downs recently, so I figured they’d be even better today with less mud as they don’t handle slippery stuff very well. Turns out that was right and that they were perfect for this first half but as the day wears on, your feet swell and mine are struggling to fit in these normal sized shoes anymore.
I’d recently bought a pair of Skechers GoRun Ultras specifically for this race. I’ve tried them a couple of times and they’re weird to say the least. Extremely cushy but it’s easy to slip around in them and they feel a bit haphazard in terms of control. I’m nervous about testing them on such an important run but the thing is...they are roomy. Given this I decide I I'll swap them out and instantly feel a lot better before I’ve even got up out of the chair I’m sitting in. I’m also eating a pasta delicacy from the aid station staff so energy levels and comfort levels have both risen incrementally in the seven minutes I’ve been sat down. Jess is trying to offer to get me further snacks or things but I tell her I’m fine. As crew the only job I really wanted her to do was be there.
A few, hopefully not that frequent, runners get really demanding on their crew and scream at them but personally I just find that pretty rude. They’re there giving up their time to help out so you’ve no right to then throw it back in their face. So all I’ve asked Jess to do is turn up, smile and encourage me. She seems a bit worried it’s a trick and that she needs to be doing more and flapping like the other crew but I’m fine so a smile is enough.
Considering the shoe change and the food we’re off again fairly quickly and I’m pleased, although slightly guilty, that Alice has waited for me as I know she didn’t need to stay as long as I did. I’m really pleased though as we are both moving at a good pace and spurring each other on, which is going to be particularly necessary on this next section through the night.
On that note we reach a bridge that seems to go half way out into the Thames before curling back on itself, and we both notice that it’s getting pretty dark. The aid station staff made us put our head torches on our heads but it’s at this point where we think perhaps we should actually turn them on. She’s wanting to save battery on her torch with high lumens and I like to use natural light as long as possible but at the end of the bridge there is a puddle which I make a mess of so figure it’s probably about time to start using the torch. Alice also points out that we managed to get to halfway in ten hours which I’m over the moon about and gives me another boost.
On the downside, though, my foot is really starting to hurt now. I’m still trying not to mention it out loud to keep the team spirit up as that’s definitely what we both need but inwardly I’m really starting to worry as it’s now spread to the top of the foot as well. I can still run on it and I can still keep putting it out of my mind for now, but I’m worried I won’t be able to keep that up until the finish.
So I put it out of my mind again as best as possible, compartmentalise the hurt and pick up the pace. The new shoes are helping a bit and have made it feel a bit like I’m running on fresh legs, not to mention the fact that I now have quite a bit of extra energy from the food. So whilst before the half way point we were keeping quite a steady running and walking pace, we now crack on for quite a few kilometres with almost no walking breaks until eventually Alice says she’d like to stop for a bit and, once we do, I realise that she’s probably right and that I was getting a bit ahead of myself. It felt great while it lasted, but conserving energy is definitely important on this second half of the race.
By now it’s fully dark so we are having to keep a pretty keen eye out for the course markers. They’re pretty frequent but if you take your mind off it for too long it’s very easy to not realise you haven’t seen one for a while and end up lost. We’re still in pretty high spirits at this point though, and still chatting away pretty well, which is surprising considering we’ve been running together for many hours now. Again, I remind myself that I’m pretty lucky to have someone to run with through the night and that we’re still getting along as tempers explode pretty easily on things like this. So the team effort is pretty stellar which is great.
My foot starts to play up again so I’m now keen to take a few more walking breaks so it’s the other way around with Alice having to slow for me a bit more. At one point I go for a quick comfort break in a bush and come out to find a man leaning out of his narrowboat calling us disgusting for ‘defecating in the woods’. I try to explain nothing of the sort has happened but he’s having none of it and just talks over me saying I’m disgusting.
Yeah, because hanging out of a narrowboat in the middle of the night without a light on smoking a fag and calling passersby disgusting is a completely normal thing to do. I want to point out the irony in his situation. I also want to point out that if I was defecating I’d probably admit it and tell him proudly. Instead I just carry on, with Alice following behind a little bewildered as she wasn’t sure what the hell he was on about.
We reach Reading aid station, fifty eight miles in or a couple more considering a couple of small detours, and Jess is there again. It’s getting late now and people are starting to look pretty frazzled. The demeanour of the runners at this point is pretty defeated but we take a short break to eat some food and say hi to Jess, then we’re off again. This is the last stop with crew access for a while so Jess is going to book into her bed and breakfast and will keep her phone close in case I need her. Hopefully she can get a bit of sleep and find me happy and moving in the morning. Hopefully.
As we leave the station it’s starting to feel a lot colder and I start to shiver uncontrollably. Having dropped from a race last year when in exactly this same situation I’m pretty concerned but just tell myself not to worry and that it will pass in a few minutes when my body adjusts. It’s really hard to follow that advice though as I start panicking. Sure enough, though, I do warm up, although only to a manageable level rather than to warm.
It’s nine miles to the next section and it feels it.
We slow the pace to a walk at this point to try to conserve energy for the morning and decide that we’ll walk the remainder of the night section then pick up the pace again when the sun picks up. At first I keep a pretty full on pace going as I’m still pretty keen to get home in under twenty four hours, but it does feel like that is slipping away as we are pretty borderline time wise as it is and we’ll likely slow down to the point of being over that time. No to mention the fact that I’m really in a lot of pain now. I’m not yet ready to give up though so we keep plodding on.
I’m starting to feel a bit crap due to the injury so am not as talkative as earlier as this section wears on. Alice is still keeping in good spirits though which is good as a boost but I just hope that me being quieter doesn’t bring her mood down and try to keep chatting at points where I can but I’m sad to say she’s holding the team up a bit at this point.
Again, the energy levels dip quite a bit so I have another gel fairly far into this section which helps a bit but not much. The other thing about this section is that the field has thinned out considerably. It seems like everyone else is having the same idea as we are and is walking this section so we pass and are passed by almost no one.
Mentally it’s pretty easy to fall into a black hole at this point but luckily we are still able to keep up a fair bit of conversation as we just slog it out.
We reach Whitchurch aid station eventually and it’s a real sight for sore eyes. Alice doesn’t want to stop really at all but I say that I really have to sit for a couple of minutes to rest my foot as it’s really in agony at this point. If I don’t give it bit of a break and listen to my body I’ve just got no hope of finishing as I’ll cause it too much extra damage. In the end we get an unspoken compromise whereby I do sit down, but not for very long and we head out again.
She's completely right in wanting to just keep at it as the cold puts me into some really full on shaking when we get back out even after just a couple of minutes sat down but again it’s just a matter of keeping walking and knowing it will pass, which it does. The other upside to continuing on is that it doesn’t allow the leg to start hurting which is obviously important to stave off as long as possible, as cramps can really put a dampener on a run. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m now limping I probably would have wanted to just grab some food and push straight through as Alice was wanting, but alas I need to think of that as well.
The next station is only four miles away which is quite a nice relief and a lot of this section Alice knows, having done the Thames Trot earlier in the year so luckily we don’t have to worry too much about the navigation as we can just follow her memory a large part of the time. It’s great not to have to worry about it too much as we slog on to get to the next one in a fairly average pace.
I again need to sit down and get some decent food and again Alice is keen to keep moving. I really just need to rest my foot even if just for a couple of minutes as each step has become really painful now. I feel bad as I know I’m a bit of a broken record but I’ve really reached breaking point and unfortunately the pain has to be my number one priority if I'm going to have a hope.
We leave the aid station fairly quickly all the same, this time with the shivers feeling more like a seizure but again passing after a few minutes. We realise that we are past the seventy miles that I didn’t complete last year and also was her longest race distance previously. We were both thinking we’d be ecstatic at this point but in truth the moment passes pretty uneventfully. We’ve still got thirty miles to go and I’m in a lot of pain.
We set off at the same walking pace as we were going at before, that I was already struggling with, and mentally I have to take a stock check of my body.
How bad do I want this? Bad.
How bad does my foot hurt? Really, really bad.
Can I actually do this? If I wasn’t injured…definitely.
But I am injured. And I need to go easy on it if I’m hoping for it to last. I slow my pace down. I don’t want to mention it to Alice as I don’t want her to feel guilty or like she has to stay with me. And also, I’m hoping just a little bit that this will pass in five minutes and I can catch her up. But it doesn’t pass and I see her head torch ahead of me getting (excruciatingly slowly) further away. I want to shout for her to slow down. But I also want to shout for her to carry on without me. The first option would be unfair. The second option leaves us both on our own which neither of us want. The third unspoken option, that I pick the pace up, just doesn’t feel possible.
In the end I pussy out and do none of the above and just keep plodding for just a couple more minutes.
Alice reaches a gate at the far end of the field and waits for me. She asks how I am and I say I’m really hurting. She offers me painkillers but I’m keen to do this under my own steam or not at all so decline. We carry on and I apologise. She says it’s okay but I think we both know it’s not going to be, although neither of us want to admit it.
Over the next massive field I keep up the pace a little better, then again have to slow and watch her disappear into the distance only to wait again very kindly for me at the next gate.
Tonight on 'Stars in their Eyes', Matthew, I’m going to be a volleyball called Wilson. My friend Alice here, she’s going to be Tom Hanks. We’re going to re-enact that movie 'Cast Away' and drift away from each other in an incredibly lengthy exchange of wide angle shots with Alice/Tom not knowing how best to resolve the situation and get their friend back to continue on the epic journey and Benjamin/Wilson looking blank. Why blank? Because ones a fucking volleyball and the other is just fucked. He’s blankly devoid of anything much other than a sharp pain in his left foot right now.
I catch up to her again and tell her that I’m going to sit down the next chance I get, the pain is too much, and that she should carry on. I don’t want to do it but it’s got to the point where I can’t carry on like this, I need to slow down, but she can and will finish.
She doesn’t want to accept it and is really helpfully telling me not to give up, not to sit down, that it’s a bad idea and I can carry on. I really appreciate her unwillingness to break up the team and to slog it out with me but in the end I reach a low wall and sit down. At the end of the day I’m in a lot of pain and I need to rest it and go really slow on it for a while. She needs to carry on at the pace she is doing really well at and not have me slow her down. So I stay sat down and after a couple of minutes she agrees to carry on, telling me that she’ll see me at the finish and I won’t be far behind her. I know it’s not true but thank her and wish her luck.
Marathon four: To be concluded
I give Jess a call and tell her the situation. I tell her I’m not pulling out yet, that I really want to carry on but am not sure if I physically can. She’s conscious of making sure I stay positive as when I dropped out of the Wall last year it was down to something pretty much the same whereby I got really cold and made a snap decision that I couldn’t finish when I, truth be told, probably could have.
Unfortunately today that’s not the case. Mentally I feel good and like I can carry one and my body, apart from this one issue, feels good too. So I resolve to carry on and see how I am at the next checkpoint. I sign off and start walking again.
Immediately my foot sends a jolt of pain right up my spine. I know it’s just because I’ve been sat down but I’m pretty upset by it all the same. I know it will get better but I just can’t say it will get better enough to continue much further.
I start to hobble again and am barely moving at any pace at all. I check the map and realise I still have about ten kilometres until the next aid station. I don’t know how I’m going to manage it but there is not much else I can do other than hobble along.
So I do exactly that. People pass me here or there, some asking if I’m okay and some just pretending they haven’t seen me. I thank the ones who enquire and tell them not to worry.
The next couple of kilometres I manage to hobble along in one go which brings me a little closer to the aid station but still a very long way away. It takes around twenty minutes and then I take another little break. I’m mindful of the fact that I don’t want to sit down for too long as there is the possibility of hypothermia if I’m not careful as it’s still pretty cold.
I walk another couple of kilometres and sit. Then I walk another couple of kilometres and sit. Each time it takes a bit longer as my pace slows and my pain increases. I’m now struggling to know whether or not I can even walk as far as the next four kilometres to the next aid station...or whether I’m just going to be stranded here.
I sit down again about two kilometres away and it’s too much. I call Jess again and tell her how much worse it’s got but that I’m still not willing to quit and want to continue if I can somehow figure out a way to do so. The sun is about to come up and I can tell it’s going to be magical.
We finish the call and the sun does indeed come up. I carry on hobbling and each step is now sending a shoot of pain right up my spine as it did only after a rest earlier and I know I’m not going to be able to carry on. I’m still not willing to give up though and I still want to continue. My mood is actually getting a lot better with the sunrise and my legs still feel fresh after going slowly for a few hours. I feel like I could finish this race.
I check the map and the aid station is nearby. I spend twenty minutes getting the kilometre to where the map is directing me to the rowing club only to find it’s not the right rowing club and there is still a way to go. It’s pretty devastating mentally but I quickly put it to one side as it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
I stop by the side of the river and look at the reflection as dawn breaks and take it all in. The past day, the past night, the past seventy seven miles, one hundred and twenty eight kilometres all sinks in. I feel proud of my achievement so far but upset that it looks like I may not get to continue.
I carry on walking and spend quite a while searching on the maps to see exactly how far away it is. It’s really hard to tell as the GPS clearly doesn’t know where I’m trying to go but I guess I shouldn’t be worrying about the GPS anyway and should just be content with getting there when I get there.
I’m just crossing under a bridge when my brother Tom calls from New Zealand. Jess has told him I’m struggling and he seems a bit surprised to find me happy and positive. I tell him that everything is fine except for the injury and he pulls back on the inspiration talk he had planned as it’s clearly not needed, that’s not the issue, and tells me that he just wanted to check I wasn’t being a ‘sooky baba’. I tell him I’m not and still haven’t made the final decision but am pretty sure I know what it’s going to be despite still being pretty determinedly in denial. He tells me he’s proud of me, which nearly makes me cry after nineteen hours of, ahem, running and we say goodbye.
The final kilometre takes me twenty minutes of hobbling. I finally reach the aid station and the volunteer walks up the road to meet me, grinning and asking how I am, knowing full well I’m no good but wanting to throw some positivity my way. I tell him the situation, go inside and sit down and they ask if I’m done. I tell them I’d like a few minutes to decide and they tell me that’s fine and wrap me in a survival blanket and leave me to my thoughts.
The problem is…I don’t have any thoughts to process. It’s really easy to overcomplicate running with GPS, GPX, heart rate BPM’s and pacing mentally and physically for a race of this magnitude. But the truth is…it’s really damn simple. Listen to your body. That’s what I’ve done all day and it’s been serving me well. Because I've been listening to my body I feel perfectly fine apart from a sore foot, which I know I can’t run on and despite desperately willing it to, probably won’t get better.
So the thought process is as simple as asking…
Am I mentally and physically okay? Yes, perfect except for one small thing.
Can I continue ignoring it and finish under the cut off time? Maybe…hang on…
I check my pacing and work out that the last ten kilometres took me three hours. I have around thirty seven, let’s say forty, to go. Even if I can keep the current pace, which I probably can’t, that’s going to take twelve hours. I have eight.
I call Jess and call it a day. She comes to pick me up, I go and have a shower and some food and then we go to the finish to get it checked. The medic tells me I’ve done the right thing, that it’s probably not broken, but that it looks pretty severe and to go to hospital if it gets worse over the next few days.
So am I upset?
No, I’m not. I’ve spent the last year upset over not completing a race and single-mindedly hoping to turn that around. Now it’s happened again and, truth be told, I thought I would be upset but at the end of the day the decision wasn’t mine. It’s easy to look back on and say I should have carried on but I’ve got a photo of the injury to remind me that I couldn’t (a good trick to remind me later down the line but not one for a blog). At the end of the day you know what? I’m not going to cry over this. I’m not going to be upset that I only ran three marathons. I will, however, go out running again and as soon as I’m confident I’m healed I’ll enter another one and get this train back on track. At the end of the day I’ve only been running seriously for a year and a half so it’s no wonder I’m not able to complete an event of this length. Once I’ve got the experience to match my ambition, I’ll no doubt get better at this.
On my fifteenth birthday my Grandma gave me a card that said to shoot for the stars and you’ll get to the moon. So watch this space. Because next time, this fourth chapter will be a bit longer and maybe I’ll get all the way to the stars. Time will tell.
Huge thanks to Centurion Running for yet another slick event, Alice for putting up with me for so many hours and Jess for the unwavering support.
