This was designated the highest mileage week of marathon training, cheerily ending with Easter Sunday and its customary feasting. The pasty-faced women in the picture are rejoicing the halfway point in a 22-mile Sunday long run in a rather subdued fashion. We’d been expecting Easter sunshine and lollipops and had been presented with heavy grey skies and a feeling of vague malaise, probably occasioned by the clocks going forward in a distinctly un-springy way and a sharp, biting wind whistling around Woolwich. When you’re exhausted and still have a dozen miles to run against the wind you wonder why you ever signed up for this in the first place.
As we slogged along the Thames Path Sarah and I reminisced about all the London Marathon highs and lows we’d been through together. Our highest point, both figuratively and literally, was when we attended a running weekend in the Scottish Highlands. We stayed in Balmoral, did our marathon training miles along forest paths and into the hills. The skies were bright blue, there was frost underfoot, we cooled tired muscles in the River Dee and felt ready for the Big Race in the Smoke. I scored a PB that year (3:43) and Sarah’s time was somewhere around the 3:30 mark if I remember rightly. Ah, happy days.
Much water under the bridge since then. We run together and support each other through the ups and downs, and dig out the joy from the deep exhaustion. Sunday was a case in point. I would have lapsed into a self-pitying walk somewhere around mile 17 if Sarah hadn’t been there.
I’ve also been suffering the first twitches of maranoia. That’s when you imagine the disasters that could scupper your chances of making the start line on 21 April. This year, the anxiety has been exacerbated by senior moments regarding whether I even entered the bloody race. I received my Good For Age invitation but did I pay the entry fee and secure my place? When I log into my profile on Let’s Do This, the race platform that is supposed to record a runner’s upcoming races, has no record of my application. Would that be why I haven’t received my exciting London Marathon magazine and instructions for the Big Day? I’ve checked my credit card statement and see I definitely paid Let’s Do This £69.99 on 28 November, so I must be entered….or am I?
Enough. The taper is coming. I’m feeling nicely stretched from Bikram Yoga and the fatigue of yesterday’s 22 miles is messing with my head.
The old man and I are off to Norfolk tomorrow morning, for a little Early Music Festival. I will relax and run some easy miles by the sea and be soothed by lute music. It’s April Fools Day, but there’s no need to behave like a paranoid nutter.
The Week’s Running:
Tuesday 27 March: track, 8x400m, bookended by three miles WU/WD
Wednesday, 28 March: six miles easy
Thursday 29 March: six miles with a few bursts of MP energy (what all be my marathon pace? Do I dare dream?)
Friday: Rest, St John Passion and home-made vegan hot cross buns. A Good Friday
Saturday: parkrun with a couple miles WU/D (rather slow 25:19, not sure why. Thought I was going quite quickly)
Sunday: Long, long, uncomfortable 22 miles.
I usually like this week to add up to 50miles. It hasn’t. Too late now.
Marathon Gran 