You don’t need your voice for running, but you do need it for delivering guided tours. That’s why I’m sitting at this laptop instead of standing under my umbrella holding forth about Dame Louisa Brandreth Aldritch Blake in Tavistock Square. The sitting and typing feels like a treat, but I’m awash with guilt as my poor husband has had to take up the slack and lead my tours as well as his own. He draws the line at the running ones, which is why I must retrieve this AWOL voice before Monday, when I have a private client who wants a mile-by-mile commentary on the London Marathon route. We’re running the first half (Greenwich Park to Heartbreak Highway) on Monday, and the second half (Heartbreak Highway to The Mall) next month. She’s not doing anything by half when it comes to mental preparation. Except the physical preparation, if you see what I mean.
My London Marathon preparation is also a bit half cocked. Thanks to my running the Tunbridge Wells Half marathon last Sunday, I am now both ahead of the Training Tilt/Vegan Runners training schedule and behind on weekly mileage. The official schedule states that we should be doing a ‘Half Marathon Dress rehearsal’ this coming Sunday, with just a few strides this Saturday. Instead I’m planning to do a fast, flat 5k in Poole on Saturday and a short slow run on Sunday.
We will see how all that goes. In the meantime I need to sum up the week just past. Two weeks on from my initial malady, I’m still suffering from sore throat, cough and aches and pains. It’s highly likely that my failure to rest properly has dragged this whole sorry episode out for far longer than necessary.
Last Friday I rested voice and legs. My volunteering stint at Hillyfields parkrun, supposedly saving legs for the Tunbridge Wells Half on Sunday, turned out to be a little more energetic than I’d hoped, as I was a tail walker, so that was three miles (with a couple more there and back). Then I had the walk to the hotel in Kent, all the while fretting ceaselessly about whether I should be running the next day’s race. In the rain.
Things went better than I dared hope. A few ibuprofen down, and a simple dinner and glass of wine in the Hand & Sceptre, Southborough, settled me for a decent night’s sleep. I was sharing with a club mate of my age, and we chatted (well, I squeaked raspily) about Veterans’ Issues and buoyed each other in the tragic, stormy seas of PBs long gone. She told me the story of qualifying for, and running in, the historic Boston Marathon, when the rain came down in buckets and she nearly passed out from hypothermia in an icy portaloo (porta-potty to our American friends). She still finished in a really good time. We went through our pre-race rituals companionably the next morning, and strode through the rain to the race HQ in the local sports centre, thanking our lucky stars for the shelter.
The race itself was a delightful, if hilly, exploration of the pretty villages in the neighbourhood. There were drum bands and cheerful Kentish families lining the route. I sensibly stopped at every water station to wet my whistle, sucked a few throat lozenges and tried to keep my mouth shut as far as possible when running reasonably briskly for 13.1 miles.
I felt ok, finishing more confidently than I’d started, with a time of 1:54, which I’d have been disappointed with in a healthier state (I’d been hoping for sub 1:50). I took a selfie at the end, but forgot to take any other photos, so have attempted to flatter a really god-awful image by going moody monochrome.
The lurgy continues to compromise my training, however, and as for choir practice, I’m nowhere with that and on March 16, I am supposed to be taking part in my first choral adventure since I was in school uniform.
A light recovery run was achieved on Tuesday, a longer, tour-reccing run was endured yesterday, and today I sat here, contemplating Hogarth and eighteenth-century London for a walking tour while trying not to be distracted by my training schedule and the fact that March is next week and I’d intended to reach a weekly mileage peak of 50 miles before April heaves in sight.
No need to panic quite yet, but if the next blog sees me still hitting the ibuprofen I shall have to start running around with my apron over my head.
Friday 16 Feb: rest
Saturday 17 : rest, walking
Sunday: half marathon (1:54)
Monday: rest, Bikram yoga
Tuesday: 3-mile shuffle
Wednesday: 9-mile shuffle
Thursday: rest
Friday 23 February, I predict a rest.
Marathon Gran 