Attempting my second marathon of the season was always going to be a risk. After Brighton, it was so tempting to take my eye off the ball and embrace the beer and pastries. The result was that I was sporting quite a belly, not to mention a devil-may-care attitude when I entered the sub-4-hour pen in Edinburgh on 28 May.
I felt pretty heavy legged from the starting klaxon, having slept badly for most of the week. The first mile or so being downhill didn’t prove to be much of a bonus. The entire course was much flatter than Brighton, but I still ran six minutes slower. Rick filmed me running the last 100metres, which was not a pretty sight. In my head I was giving it my best sprint: the video evidence shows an awkwardly shuffling elderly woman with knock knees. I found it really depressing but put a brave face on it, sank a pint and a couple of packs of salt and vinegar, and looked to the future.
I fully recommend the Edinburgh Marathon. It’s handsome, taking in the royal mile, the race course, the coast, beautiful views and a park bit around a stately home whose name I forgot. It was a hot day but runners could find shade, water, gels, refreshments from the cheering crowd. Perfect for a PB. Just not my PB.
The drama and difficulty surrounding this house move continues to affect my stress levels and therefore my fitness. Trailing around the house and garden, in a heat wave, sorting things into charity shop, dump, keep and burn is exhausting and unremitting. All I can comfort myself with is the fact that I am engaging this notoriously disruptive life event while still (comparatively) young. I mean that I have the physical strength to walk to the charity shop under the weight of one hundred books several times a day.
The moving day is set for six days hence. We’re not ready.
Two days after the move is the North Downs Run, usually a favourite of mine, but an 18-mile trail run after a physically and mentally taxing week is probably less than wise. Still, I’ll go for the fun, a good few of my club mates are running it so we’re guaranteed a few prizes. I just probably won’t qualify for any of them.
Three days after that I will give blood, and take a little time off running (will just keep up with parkrun so as to earn my 250-T-shirt in time for my birthday; it’s a fetching green colour). I’ll devote July to sorting out life, mental health, writing goals and giving back to those who have been mopping me up during this past year.
I’ve been reading a lot of Diana Athill, to whom I relate quite strongly. She died in her 100th year but was remarkably bracing about ageing, intelligence, religion, fidelity in relationships, and of course, a stickler for good grammar and succinct writing. In the memoir – Somewhere towards the end – , she talks of letting one’s sexuality ‘fall away’ as life as a post-60 woman rattles past. She found it quite a relief. I’m not quite there yet, so life as an Invisible Woman still causes me grief, for many reasons I cannot go into here.
Athill says that once sexuality has finally left the building, as it were, you can apply your intelligence and power to the more consequential matters in the last portion of your life. I’ll still be trying to improve my parkrun time. and keep my dignity in this difficult stage of life, somewhere around the middle of the end.
Marathon Gran 