I am afraid to say that this post
is likely to turn out to be one long indulgent passage of feeling sorry for
myself. In short, I had a bad, maybe even my worst, marathon! So if you would
like to be spared the gory details, that's all you need to know, basically.
Gosh, how
dramatic. Yes indeed. And so unexpected! I was looking forward to it, and I seemed
to feel on form beforehand....
We drove
to the New Forest on Saturday, and the campsite seemed to be nice, it even had
separate areas for 'couples' and 'families' so well, I thought it might be
quite quiet and relaxing. Only the tents were all very close together so the
couples area was separated from the family area and the nosiest family in the
world by only 20 feet of clear noise-conducting air. Also, my alarm clock on my
phone is birds singing (an attempt to wake up in a relaxed mood each day),
which turns out to be actually a very accurate reproduction of a real bird
singing, and even more, of an actual bird living in the hedge by the campsite.
And so, I woke with a start at 4am, confused as to why I could hear my alarm,
but it wasn’t going off. Sigh.
Even if
not very well rested, I none the less got up with the excited feeling of
anticipation I always get before a race. Which is good on the one hand, because
a bit of nerves/excitement helps with your running, but on the other doesn't
help so much with managing to eat very much at your last carb loading
opportunity.
The race
started at Salisbury Fire Station and is held to raise money for the Fire
Fighters Charity. After picking up our running numbers, we saw the ultra race
start (50km!) and then we had a bit of time to get ready and head to the
start....
It all
started off very well. The first hill wasn't long in coming, Old Sarum where
the old castle used to stand, and as we ran up it some parachutists were floating
in the sky above.
I remember I enjoyed the first 11
miles. It was fun counting the 5-4-3-2-1, especially the hills, to start with,
until we counted 4 within the first few miles, then I was hopeful for a while
that we might have done them all already. But then as we kept going up more and
more I gave up on the counting. Better not to know these things. Realised at this
point that have started far too quickly for a course like this, but too late to
do anything about it now. The 5 rivers part was lovely, so pretty, still waters
with green fronds of weeds beneath the surface looking like the silky hair of a
green river monster. 3 country estates were very nice! One especially had a huge archway of tall
trees framing a lane through the estate. Just like in a picture! 2 castles were
very exciting. 1 cathedral was right at the end and a bit of a let-down, but
more on that later.
After around 11 miles, we climbed
over a barbed wire fence (not sure what happened to the path there) and into a
field of cows. Horror!! You may or may not know I have had some close run-ins running
past cows in the past. Well, everyone else is running past them so I can’t very
well turn back. Deep breath. Ugh, cow poo air. Phew. They are so uninterested.
Having made it through the cow field, we came out into a huge, and I believe ‘rolling’
is the term used, field. I glanced at my watch (it’s a bad sign to start
glancing at your watch at 11 miles) and the ensuing ‘rolling’ lasted a whole
mile. This I noted was the definitive point at which I started to lose it. I
think, this field reminded me very much of a field that used to be in a race
that I did every year when I ran with Southampton Running Club. The clubs were
quite competitive in that series of races, and everyone was encouraged to run
their best every time, and this particular race I had never liked and always
used to get worked up over it. And as my feet hit the ploughed soil over and
over, upwards and upwards, the sun beating down, all my old demons and doubts
reappeared. As well as a blister on the ball of each foot. Nice.
At the top of the hill and the
next checkpoint at about 13 miles, there was flapjack! Joy! This buoyed my
spirits for a whole 3 miles, before I sank into an almost depression like state
again at around 16 miles which lasted for the rest of the race.
I really found it the toughest
yet. I was just all over the place, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t remember why I
was doing it, and I has no desire to finish which is a feeling which I have
honestly never had before. Every time my feet hit the ground it felt like my
feet were on fire, all I wanted was to take off my shoes and sit down...
...Then came the thirst. I hadn’t
taken any water with me, as there were plenty of checkpoints along the way.
But, as in most smallish races, water is provided in cups not bottles, so you
can really only drink as much as you can once at the checkpoint, can’t carry it
with you. I knew this, and should have taken some with me as well, but of
course I’m an idiot and didn’t. After all of my work on getting my hydration
right in the last race and feeling so much better, I am very annoyed with
myself!
The last 4 miles went on and on
and on.....literally. Coming back into Salisbury there was only 1 mile on my
watch left to go. And I felt so bad that I couldn’t even comprehend how I could
run a mile, I literally felt that I wouldn’t be able to do it. The run through Salisbury
wasn’t too enjoyable, the signposts were pretty poor, and there was no one else
in front of me or behind, and running past the cathedral it sounds a bit silly
but I almost had a panic attack because there were crowds and crowds of
tourists and I couldn’t see where to go, and I was having trouble concentrating
on what was going on. One way or another I made it through the crowds and back
onto the river path, and Andrew came up behind me (as we had got separated a few
miles back, but he had recently had some Powerade to power a sprint finish), so
then a relaxed a bit. So we kept going on and on, and finally we finished.....
26.7 miles! 4:20:14, 4th
lady and 37/187 overall.
Big thanks to Norma’s friends who
came to cheer us on at the end, really nice surprise!
Lay down in the campervan and
felt sorry for myself for a while. Then headed off to have a shower, which was
like some miracle cure and I felt like normal again afterwards. Andrew threw-up
L Lay down and felt sorry
for self for a bit longer. Then found bacon butties which cheered me up no end!
And Andrew too J
Better enough after 3 hours to
head back to the New Forest for tea in the nicest pub in the world, scampi and
chips and New Forest ice cream, and everyone was asking about our medals J
I felt OK until Monday night, but
then I guess by being stupid and running too quickly in the heat, up hills and
getting dehydrated and not eating anything, I am going to have to pay for it by
feeling rubbish for a few days. Sigh. My blisters are getting better and I’m
not tired anymore, but I have some weird new symptom of a burning pain in my
chest/stomach. After some Google research which freaked me out, it seems the
most likely and least scary explanation is heartburn/stomach acid, but I don’t know
how that managed to happen! I’m slightly concerned that all the usual things
that I was expecting to go wrong this year by running a lot haven’t, no joint
problems or pulled muscles, but I am accumulating a collection of other unusual
ailments, I’ve trapped a nerve in my shoulder, burst a blood vessel in my eye,
and now I’ve done something to my stomach. I’m just going to sit down for a few
days I think.
