I attempted my first 15 mile run today. I wasn't quite in the mood. I'd been at a party last night and though I was good and only had a few glasses of wine and went home early, I was still a bit tired and unwilling.
But I know that I have to put the miles in if I am not going to come a cropper on the big day, so after some prevarication I set off on my way.
I was immediately in discomfort: me legs felt stiff and began to hurt almost immediately, almost as if they were aware of my lunatic plan and were trying to talk me out of it. On other occasions I have been influenced by their limby whining and given up, but today I was determined. If my legs were to chose to behave so childishly during the Marathon I would have to be strong enough to ignore them. Provided my brain doesn't join in the mutiny I should be able to get through it. I feel a bit sorry for my legs; after all they literally do all the leg work, whilst most of the rest of my body is just a passenger in this experience, and they get no thanks. And I never will thank them. You will never see me thanking my own legs.
After about three miles my petulant legs seemed to realise that I wasn't paying them any attention and they stopped with their hurting and began to enjoy the ride. I was going well below race pace, but things were relatively easy and comfortable. I tried not to think about how far there still was to go, and I picked up a few CNPS numbers so all was going well.
It was quite exciting carrying further down the Thames Path than usual and I estimated that if I got to Kew bridge (having already run from Hammersmith to Putney and then back up the other side and onwards to Barnes) and then turned for home, I should have done the requisite distance.
But at ten miles I started to feel hungry. This has never really happened to me before (I do mean during running, though when I'm not running I usually manage to stave off hunger by constantly stuffing my face with food - it works. You should try it!) and was slightly worrying, but I finished off my Lucozade sports drink and felt a bit better.
By 11 miles my legs were back to complaining and then some. It was pretty painful and I was concerned that I might have to stop. Luckily, I rose to the mental challenge and managed to convince myself that if I stopped now that the previous ten or so miles would have been a waste of time. Today it was extremely important that I got to 15 miles, running all the way. I pushed my famished, ravaged body onwards.
Things were made worse, when I realised that I wasn't now approaching Barnes bridge (three and a half miles from home), but hadn't even gone by Chiswick bridge. My heart sank, but I pressed onwards. I was disappointed with my time too. Having done a competitive half Marathon in just over 1:55, it seemed pathetically slow to have been running for two and a quarter hours and not even got to twelve miles. I didn't feel that I was going that much slower and tried to convince myself that my GPS tracking system wasn't working correctly. I'd probably done 15 miles already. I could stop and walk.
I wasn't fooling anyone with this, let alone myself. I kept going.
It took me over two and a half hours to get to 13.1 miles. In just over a month I will have to run twice that. Today I felt like every step could be my last. It was getting very difficult and suddenly 1.9 miles seemed a very long way indeed.
But giving up will not be an option on April 18th and so it couldn't be today. I couldn't fail to achieve my goal after coming so far. I plodded on, almost shuffling along, but still technically running.
A few miles back I had realised that to get all the way home I would be running closer to 16 miles. I had foolishly thought that I'd be able to manage it and thus do better than I'd set out to do.
But now, with my stomach complaining as much as my legs, I began to take some comfort in the fact that I would pass the 15 mile mark, pretty damn close to Pret a Manger. If I stopped and walked then it would just take me longer to get to my sandwich.
My calculations proved very accurate and my watch said 15 miles just as I got to the pelican crossing opposite the shop. I stopped running, crossed the road and my only regret was that I didn't have enough money to buy every sandwich in the shop. My fifteen mile Odyssey had taken me just over two hours and fifty five minutes, almost exactly an hour longer than my last half marathon, and only 1.9 extra miles covered.
But as I think I noted last week, running on your own is so much harder than running in a race. You have to find your own pace and your own encouragement. It is much more of a psychological battle and though I was disappointed (and worried) that I tired so quickly, at least I kept going and made my goal.
I am sure I will run a lot faster in the race (if for no other reason than the fact that running for five hours is going to be a lot harder than running for four). I am pretty sure that I won't get a sub-four hour time, though maybe the occasion will lift my spirits, but I think my aim has to be to just to finish, having run all the way.
I am doing an 18 mile run on Saturday and then a 20 mile run the next weekend. I think these will be amongst the most Hellish things I will ever have to do. Then I will truly understand the meaning of the phrase, the loneliness of the long distance runner.
Please sponsor me. The more money I raise, the more guilty my legs will feel for making all this stupid fuss.
