The November Nightmare - Day One

Once again, being stressed at work stopped me panicking too much about the challenge ahead.  A blessing in disguise maybe but one I could do without. Never mind, it meant the nerves were only really kicking in last night and this morning when I had the usual thoughts along the lines of  "I don't really believe I've ever run a marathon before and I'm not sure I can do it today"  followed by "Well, I've said I'm going to try so how am I going to explain myself if I don't bother". I hadn't slept well so didn't feel great.

It was a foggy, damp autumn morning, probably perfect conditions for running a marathon. I went to pick up running friend Chris who was planning to run a half marathon with me and we headed for Lightmoor. I had a vague idea where we had to park and we soon saw several runner type people who directed us to the start, just a short walk, cross the main road and another short walk and there was the start, also the finish point, which we would see another 32 times during the marathon distance.

We were all given laminated cards with numbers 1 to 31 - these would be punched on each lap, except the last one where we would get our lovely medal.  We chatted with a few people, found out there were 15 of us who are planning to run 6 marathons in 6 days (me being the slowest I think but no surprise there!).  There was a quick race briefing and then we were off.

I'd worked out a vague race plan of run two laps, walk one, just to get an idea of the sort of pacing I should aim for to achieve a time of 6 1/2 hours, as recommended by ace coach Colin Lancaster.  Once we had started it became apparent it was quite a hilly lap so that made the race plan a lot easier - walk up the hills and run down them. My calves felt so tight on the first few laps, in spite of a massage yesterday, that there didn't seem any point in bothering to try running up the hills. The terrain was tarmac in places but with lots of mud, gravel, fallen leaves and potholes and I actually found it a lot more comfortable to run on than a flat tarmac surface. At Birmingham HM a couple of weeks ago, I was quite concerned to find my feet ached the whole way round although they were fine the next day.  I'd hoped the track today would be more forgiving and it was.  I really enjoyed the laps, we chatted most of the time, it was a lovely day and quite a scenic route and it was nice seeing the friendly faces at the start/finish post on each lap.  There was a good selection of snacks and drink although I found I didn't need much.  For the whole of the race, I probably had 10 crisps, a snack pack of raisins, a 9-bar and two chocolate buttons and, unusually for me, a couple of drinks of coke - I haven't drunk coke for years but it looked appealing when I ran the Run to the Castle Ultra and again today.  Very strange - several years ago I used to drink it every day but after I gave it up I found I really disliked the taste,  Except on long runs it seems.

I was glad we had the cards showing how many laps we had done as I wouldn't have been able to keep track.  I rarely looked at my Garmin, I'd decided to just go on how I felt.  When we'd covered the HM distance, we saw friend Deb with her medal but she came and ran a couple more laps with us before walking home.  Chris is a lot quicker than me so he found that by run/walking at my slower than usual pace he was feeling a lot better than he usually would after that distance so it soon became obvious that today he would accidentally become a marathoner !

Running at this easy pace there was none of the usual mental battle you can get on a long distance race, it was all fairly comfortable. My calves had got more comfortable after the first few laps, my feet were aching but not too badly and my back ached.  I took a painkiller for my back at about 18 miles a couple of laps later the ache was better and I really enjoyed the last 7-8 laps.  We noticed we were stopping to walk a bit further up the hills and starting to run again sooner after them and I had to tell myself to stick to the "plan".  It was lovely and sunny by now and I was enjoying the sunshine filtering through the autumn leaves.

Eventually,  the number 31 on my card was punched and we were on the final "Victory" lap.  We finished in 5:53 so a bit quicker than planned but I don't feel tired, just achy so I'm hoping that's good enough.  It's also my first blister-free marathon !

We had a short walk back to the car and decided we deserved a sneaky visit to the pub on the way home. Cider tastes good when you've run 26.2 miles !

Hot bath, stretches done, waiting for my roast dinner.  I'm not expecting to enjoy the route tomorrow so much - it's an out and back route that we will need to do twice for the marathon distance and the track has a nasty camber that I know will hurt. It's all flat. I think I'll find it harder to judge the run/walk intervals and harder to start running again after walking.

One down, five to go.