30 Years of Running Marathons
30 Years of Running Marathons
Fairways and Finish Lines: A Runner’s Tale of Golf Greens and Race Day Dreams
Ever been out on a run, feeling the rhythm of your feet against the pavement, when life throws you an unexpected invitation to the golf course? That's exactly what happened to me this week, and I'm here to take you through the delightful chaos that ensued. My training plan for the marathon was cruising along until a former colleague rang me up for a round of golf - let's just say my three-mile run turned into a nine-mile journey, fueled by the perfect weather and the sheer joy of the route.
Golf isn't just a leisure sport; it turns out it's the perfect complement to marathon training. Who knew that walking miles across greens could work wonders for your fitness? In this episode, I'll reveal how my impromptu golf game played into my marathon regimen without a hitch, and the crucial role of listening to my body's cues over being a slave to the training schedule. I'll also share insights on the subtle art of distinguishing between simple tiredness and real physical exhaustion, and how embracing rest can sometimes be the best training decision you'll ever make.
With race day looming on the horizon for both the Green Park Reading 10K and the Clifton 10K, the anticipation is building. I'm sharing my race prep strategies, the mental and physical hurdles, and the electrifying atmosphere of the starting line that every runner knows and loves. From aiming for a 54-minute finish at the Reading 10k to the camaraderie of fellow runners and the allure of exploring new places, these stories and more are what make the runner's journey an exhilarating one. So, lace-up and join me for an episode that's all about embracing the unexpected twists and turns of training, golf clubs included.
Thanks for listening. Keep on running.
The race is on. The race is on. So let's get straight into this episode of 30 years of running marathons. And this week it's been one of those weeks. I will call it in sickness and in health, because it's been both sickness and health. But let's start with the good parts. The health part, okay.
Speaker 1:So the week started when an ex-colleague of mine he rang up wanted to play a round of golf. So I'm okay with that. Normally, the only thing was I hadn't done a run over the weekend, so I was looking forward to do a long run on the Monday. And this is when he wanted me to go and play golf and we were due to start at 10 in the morning. And I'm very nervous because I don't play much golf. Um, I mean, I find it quite easy to play when I when I play, but I don't play that often, so it's literally as the pun goes, getting into the swing of things. But the good thing about golf is, you know, it's good exercise, complement my marathon training, but I don't let anything get in the way, obviously, of my marathon training. So if I have to get up early and do a run before I go to golf, then that's what I did, but I had in my mind, well, maybe I could only run three miles, because if I'm playing around a golf, ok, it was only going to be nine holes, not a full 18. As I said, I hadn't played for a while, and I know from previous experience, though, that it can be quite tiring, even for someone as fit as myself, so I thought I'd only do three miles.
Speaker 1:The thing was on Monday, it was such a beautiful sunny morning, and I went on my usual route past my Nan's Crematorium, up the hill and round, and then I get to basically these crossroads with traffic lights, and I give it a carry on to go up Gerrard's Cross Hill, and I thought, no, I'll take it a little bit easier. So I turned left and went down the side, where I normally go, and then this nice long slope, which is where I thought I would go, because if I go down this slope, this long hill, just take it easy, obviously always forgetting I've got to come back up it again. And at that time in the morning what it was? Something really early, like six o'clock in the morning, I mean I knew I had to to get this done back and get changed to Shad before I went to goal, so it was really early in the morning. But I was surprised when I turned down this country lane.
Speaker 1:Normally it's so quiet, there's about half a dozen people there and I just, I just you know, just like it begs belief, because I, I just you know, that time of my life, a bit of peace and quiet, not that I make any noise or anything, but I just, you know, I'm a bit antisocial when it it comes to my running. That time of morning I just, I just wanted time to think. In fact, I was very nervous about playing golf, even though I'm probably a better player than my colleague, even though I don't play that much. When I was younger I wasn't too bad, but I never took it seriously enough. I've never had any lessons, but I'm quite good. Anyway, I digress here.
Speaker 1:So this run was really enjoyable. I was running down the slope and you know it was out on back, so I only had to do, you know, one and a half miles out and one half miles back. Well, I really crossed that. I'd got up to three miles already. So my target was well, as I'm coming down this hill, I got up to four miles, that'd be eight miles, because then I was enjoying it so much, I want to get past these people. So I went on to 4.5 miles, okay. And then I'm thinking, well, I've come to this junction now If I, if I carry on, I mean basically I'm going to be doing the 10 miles. So I turned around and this is OK, this is, this is now going to be nine miles. And I was so tempted to go for the 10 miles, but the back of my mind I was thinking, look, I don't want to mess up my golf game. Ok, I don't want to. You know, I've got up at the crack of dawn, done this run. You know, nine miles is still a good run anyway.
Speaker 1:When, when I came back, I was, I was so in the zone and I still had this, this, this feeling at the back of my mind that I should have just carried on. Done the 10. You know, nice round figure. I'm one of these people that like, yeah, just get a nice round figure of 10 in the books, you know. But that's what us runners are like. We tend to to work to round numbers.
Speaker 1:So I had this lovely run all the way back home and it's mostly downhills and going back home and, of course, when I get back near home I'm thinking, okay, we'll just just take it just over to nine miles, which is what I did. So I just took it just past. So I went out just about 0.5 and came back 0.5. So it's like made it to 9 10. So I didn't feel quite so bad now because I'm thinking, well, you know, nine is, you know, I could have done the 10, but the 10 would be slightly too much and I just wanted somewhere in between.
Speaker 1:I was tempted to run all the way down the road, actually do another half mile and come back and make it to the 10. But I realized that obviously when I, when I you know the after effects, I'd be all right in this moment, but I know about an hour later, when I had to go and play golf, it really take it out of me. So I thought, no use some self-control, and that's what I did. So I just stuck to 9 10 and I thought, well, you know that that's, that's sort of somewhere in between. And I was fine. When I got back, shout everything you know I was, I was fine. Lots of milk to replenish, that rehydrates really quickly and that, and I had about just over an hour, I guess, before I went to play golf.
Speaker 1:But as that time came around to the golf, I was panicking about my golf game and I started to really feel really tired. You know, legs were a bit achy, I felt a bit drained. I thought, well, come on, it's a lovely sunny day, we're gonna go and play golf. Last time I played golf we uh, played a few weeks ago, um, well, probably more than that, it's probably about a month ago, and it was so swampy, I mean the fairways were like rough. I mean you're just losing your balls. It was. My shoes got so muddy. It was more like a cross-country run, which is more than what I'm used to than than playing golf. So this is going to be a really nice day, so I thought it can't be any worse than that.
Speaker 1:My ex-colleague was taking this course. I hadn't been to before and on my my garmin sports running watch um, I downloaded the course. I've got the course, so it judges the. It tells me. It's like the GPS when you do the running. It tells you how far you are from every shot, so it plots every hole, and it tells you how far you are away from the hole, so it gives you a good idea what club to take. Anyway, that that's fine.
Speaker 1:On the first hole it was really quiet. My ex-colleague has said we've been booked in behind. We had to wait about an hour to tell. I think it was about 11 o'clock because there was a group that wanted to go in front of us and we were going to go in behind. My colleague assured me no, there's nobody going to be following you, it's going to be fine, it's just going to be us. So that's fine. I thought you know, we can take our time. No one watching.
Speaker 1:He tees off. Great tee shot with the driver. I go to tee off. As I go to tee off, a couple of guys standing right behind me, obviously coming up playing next, but to be honest, they shouldn't have been that close to the tee anyway. It's normally a good 10 to 15 minutes between tee times. What do I do? Of course I shank it right into the bushes. Anyway, that's what happened. And of course I get really frustrated because, being the competitive person I am, I'm like I don't. You know, I wanted, I thought you know, I was feeling good. It was a lovely sunny day. I was thinking you know, start off really well and of course it didn't happen. I was smashing it all around, whereas my friend, he did a lovely sea shot and, yeah, it was just so. The first hole was terrible. And these, these two golfers behind us, I mean they were pretty quick as well and we asked them if they wanted to play through so they could go in front, but they didn't want to, maybe for obvious reasons, because then we would be behind them watching them.
Speaker 1:I'd say things did start to pick up. I mean, I was recording on my watch all the time and I guess the first three holes weren't particularly brilliant. I mean, the course was beautiful, it was a lovely course of dry conditions and my friend was playing really well, but towards the second half we had nine holes altogether. Towards the second half I started to pick it up because the golfers sort of stayed behind us and I wasn't thinking about them and, excuse the pun, I literally got into the swing of things and I was playing some lovely golf, lovely golf, and I hit some really good shots and and on the, on the last high, I just finished over par um. But you know it's a great round of golf, but obviously I'm you know I'm digressing here.
Speaker 1:This is this podcast is obviously about marathon running. But what I will say is is that doing nine holes of golf like that, I mean you do nearly sort of three miles because the watch actually recorded as an activity and it's like nearly three miles of walking. So it it that it does keep you fit as long as long you know, as well as the swinging of the golf club, the actual walking I mean there's a lot of people say you know it's a good walk sport, but it's um it, it is actually quite fun. It wasn't fun for me first few holes, but the second half was really good, and then to see that I've done nearly three miles walking and then that's top of the nine miles already. I mean, to be honest, I don't think it was the uh run in the morning that really tired me out. I just think you know I'm I can get very nervous when people are watching me, especially playing golf, and it's not my forte. You know running is my forte, but you know it's another activity to keep me fit and yeah, it was lovely and we had a drink afterwards and yeah, it was a good morning and you know we'll probably play golf again and I was quite happy because it didn't really interrupt my marathon training because I got to running in the morning.
Speaker 1:Maybe I could have done the 10 miles. But you know, sometimes I get like that. I think I always have to do a 10 mile run and when you're, when you're training for any uh race, even if you're training for the marathon, there's this, you know, perception that you've always got to do long runs. And I guess that's's where I go wrong, because you know, the further I run, the more stress free I get, the more I feel. Just, you know, everything fades away all my problems, everything. I just love it. I don't. You know, I don't play music when I run. I just normally listen to nature and just clear my head of everything and maybe think about what's going to happen during the day and how I'm going to approach things and that. And you know that the more I go into a run, the more I love it. So it takes me a good mile or two to warm up.
Speaker 1:That's why we said, you know, the park runs of 5k, three miles, I've always been a bit too short for me. I'm, I have to say, my favorite distance is the marathon, although last few years I've been getting into ultra marathons, which are great because then there's no time limits on you whatsoever. It's literally no one cares about the time you know you're just conquering that every, so to speak. So I do love the ultra marathons as well, but obviously you've got to be tip top on your training for that. I mean obviously you have for a marathon, but even more so for the ultra marathon. She's talking like two, two uh marathons back to back and that's like 50 miles. You know any, any distance over the 26 miles is included as an ultra. But a lot of the ultras I've been for being at least 50 miles, sometimes 60. So you're really good at top of your game and my training's been in and out at the moment.
Speaker 1:But, um, yeah, so so back to the uh, back to the golf. Um, the golf was a uh, you know, a great distraction for my running. I was happy for the day because obviously I still got my running in, but that is the end of the story. So obviously the next day, on tuesday, I'm having a rest day. My watch normally tells me what recovery period I need to take to say, like you know, you need so many hours to recover.
Speaker 1:If you have a bad night's sleep. Then it says you know it's been delayed by poor sleep and you know you can have a bad night's sleep for whatever reason, if you're thinking about stuff or you've still got an adrenaline high from the day's activities. Um, you know, and obviously there's. There's different types of sleep, but I won't go into that. But you know you've got your REM, your deep sleep and that. So you know you could get eight hours, but it might not be good quality sleep. We could get far. I mean, normally I only have about six hours anyway.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so the next day, tuesday, I was obviously going to be on a rest day anyway. So I wasn't about tuesday, wednesday. I was thinking, well, maybe, maybe I could, you know, before work, do a short run, but that didn't happen. So then I was looking to Thursday and that that gave me a good gap in between, because we're talking Tuesday, wednesday, you know, a couple of days rest, which is probably the ideal rest. I mean because often I do go back into runs before my watchers even said that I'm fully recovered. But that's just me. I tend to listen to my body and you can't always, you know, go by technology listen to what your body says, and that's what I do. I mean, no one knows our bodies like ourselves. So sometimes, you know, you take the technology with a pinch of salt. Certainly that's what I do. Sometimes it works out well, sometimes it doesn't, as you may know, but you know, you've got to take both, you know, and look at both elements of it. Anyway, I'm rabbiting on here so I'll get back to the story.
Speaker 1:So I went on Thursday. I was planning on doing it, but I was just very lethargic. And it wasn't just a case of being tired. I was just so, so just that the body just felt so drained. And sometimes it takes a wiser person just to say not to do the run. There's a difference between feeling tired and oh, I just can't be bothered and I'd rather have a lie in, or between being physically drained and knowing that you're not going to get any benefit from doing that run. You're more liable to injury.
Speaker 1:So I backed out of of thursday and I think it's friday. It was early morning working, so I couldn't get one in before and I I knew I wouldn't get one in afterwards. Uh, sat, um, so that left. What was it? Uh, saturday, um, so saturday. I was thinking, yeah, I, I was maybe thinking of a park run, but I was working so I was going to go really early for a long run because I was thinking that would make up for the gap in between. So that make up for the gap in between the monday and the saturday. You know, doing two, two long runs did nine mile. If I could do like 11 miles every 20 miles for the week, which is good mileage for the week, you know, that's that's, that's adequate mileage, enough for at least for half marathon training. But even for marathon training and you know I've got some half marathons coming up in the middle of the summer but marathons a bit later on.
Speaker 1:So my main priority at the moment is is the 10ks. I've got some 10ks coming up and what should arrive in the post, but my reading 10k number. So this gave me more motivation to actually get on and do some running, because receiving that number and I think it's a lucky number for me, the number's 217. I always like a number with a seven in it, because lucky number seven, so hopefully it is lucky for me. Anyway, so that you know that always gives me the motivation Once I get the running number for my race. I know that, you know, always gives me the motivation once I get the running number for my race. I know that. You know I'm definitely going to be there and running it, and it's only next week now. It's only a week away now, so the nerves are picking up.
Speaker 1:Um, so that's what I planned for on saturday, so that was yesterday and lo and behold, it didn't happen and yet again my body was totally out of it. But what was even worse was the fact that I literally had the runs, and not in a good way. It's been hot the last few days over here in the UK and I've been literally working nonstop and probably not eating enough, probably not drinking enough. I had these really bad stomach cramps and then I had the runs. So the diarrhea, and it's been nonstop for the last few days. And you know, you know, if you've had diarrhea, you know these stomach buds or it really drains, you really takes it out of you and I've not been eating properly, not drinking enough fluids, and it's really laid me low and I've still got a bit of a stomach pain. Today the diarrhea isn't quite as bad now and I'm hoping that maybe tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow here in the UK is bank holiday, so not working tomorrow. So I'm hoping you know to get up really early and go for a nice long run. I'm hoping that run along the canal would be really nice. It's going to be sunny tomorrow morning. I think we've added some rain here today. At the moment. I think it's going to be sunny.
Speaker 1:The good thing about if I run along the canal is I can set my own target. So there's a mile marker for each mile um, all along the um slough arm of the canal. So I know that if I get all the way to the end, I know it's five miles. So five miles there and five miles back. You know that that's 10 miles, but often I'll turn around the corner and I run to the next lock. You know you're talking like an extra mile, so you're talking like 12 miles.
Speaker 1:It soon turns into a half marathon before you know it, and that's what I'm thinking. I know it sounds crazy, as I've just had a? Um, a stomach bug or what I believe to be a stomach bug. I think it's probably just a lack of of fluids and eating, not eating, not stopping. You know, I think it's just that. I don't think it's an actual stomach bug, but obviously it's not a good idea to run too far literally if you've got the runs, because you know you're going to be caught short literally. But, as I say, it's much better today. So I'm hoping and also because I've been working so much, being so stressful, which is probably why I've had the diarrhea I'm thinking, well, I just need to get out and do a run, any sort of run, just to de-stress me and because if I don't go running for a few days, I just get really, really stressed.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not good for my mental health. I do need to go for a run every few days and you know my legs are fine. If you listen to my previous episodes, you know I've had problems with my shins. My shins are fine at the moment. So, ironically, my shins are fine and it's just other stuff going on. That's just life. You just have to work your way around it.
Speaker 1:But, as I say, what normally happens is I get these spurts where I don't do any running for a few days, either because of injury or something like this illness and that, and then I feel I have to make up the losses, which is probably not something I would advise when you're starting out, because if you've not trained for a few days. Obviously it gives your body the chance to recover and rest, but then to go out and do another long run. You know, this is just me, to be honest, I'm just a bit, you know, like that. I just love to go out there. I mean, what I'm thinking about is tomorrow. I mean at this current time on a sunday afternoon, I'm thinking I'd love to do a 10 mile run. Uh, tomorrow I'd love to get to the end of the canal and I haven't run the the canal, I don't think since last summer, but I tended to go the other way, because it's got more hills and it's it's more, more.
Speaker 1:How can I say it's more conducive to my training? Uh, certainly the other way, because it's got more hills and it's it's more more. How can I say it's more conducive to my training? Uh, certainly the hill work, because I'm not doing any sprints or interval training at the moment. I need something to build my speed up and by having hills in your training it does improve your speed overall as well gives me a bit more of a challenge. It's hard work, but it's a bit more of a challenge.
Speaker 1:Having said that, along the canal it's a very narrow tow path, so it's literally trail run. So you know it's not as easy. As you know, as people may think. It's not like a straight sprint along the road, so your times still aren't going to be as fast, but there's no hills or anything. It's certainly more scenic because the other one's more along the the road. Um, I mean early in the morning it shouldn't be too bad. Obviously it's bank holiday tomorrow, so it should be pretty quiet on the roads anyway.
Speaker 1:And often I stop in at my old place, as you may know, and stopping the fields there for a bit of a break on the way back. But so you know, each has their pros and cons, as I say, because I haven't done the canal one for such a long time. If it's going to be sunny tomorrow morning, it's really beautiful and peaceful on the canal. It's just one straight route out to get to the end and then if I turn around and do another mile, you know you're looking at almost half marathon, but you know I can set my own target. So my own, yeah, my first target is always going to be to get to that first mile post and then next to the two, then to the three, then to four, then the longest mile, I'd always say, is the last mile, which is literally not the last mile but it might be the last mile. Out is the forward to the four mile marker, to the fifth mile marker, and that does seem to drag on um, whether they have measured it correctly or not, I don't know. Or it's just that feeling because you're anxious to get to the um, to the canal basin, because you know that when you get there you turn back, you're gonna have done a nice 10 miles.
Speaker 1:But you know I'll probably wake up tomorrow really early. I'll get up some crazy time, like half four tomorrow. It'll take me about an hour and a half to get out there and, depending how I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll be like, I don't know, let's just see how I do, just let's see if I can do one mile. I'm just hoping my stomach feels better tomorrow so I can go for that run. But yeah, I really need to do a run tomorrow and this is going to be quiet tomorrow because it's bank holiday in the morning. It suits me because it should be more peaceful than that. And I don't mind getting up really early because if I give myself enough time to get out an hour, an hour and a half, then you know, that's fine. I haven't got anything to do for the rest of the day. There's no golf tomorrow, tomorrow, so I shall go out there, take how long ever it takes to do the run, enjoy the run, come back nice breakfast, and that will set me up for the day. I mean I'll be so, you know, the old endorphins will be going and I'll be so happy and so relieved and also it'll be helping, you know, give me confidence for the 10K, this Green Park Redding 10k, which I've got next Sunday. Um, you know, it'll give me that confidence boost and that's what I need.
Speaker 1:Because after I did the the run on Monday you know that nine miles I was feeling really good. I was thinking, yeah, this is setting me up two weeks ago to Redding, and you know a nice nine miles. You know, 10k is only six miles. I say only six miles, but obviously it's run a lot faster pace than I would marathon pace. So, you know, doing that nine miles, I'm thinking, yeah, I feel good, actually I don't feel tired. It's giving me the stamina for the 10k.
Speaker 1:And then, obviously, what happened next was, you know, I hadn't run for the next few days. That's why I really want to get a long run in tomorrow. That would set me up nicely and then the rest of the week. I'll just bring it down a bit because I don't want to time myself out too much. For Sunday I know there's not going to be any PBs. I did my PB there a few years ago and that was something like 44 minutes. I'm looking at more 54 minutes because I haven't had the training to get to that sort of speed level at the moment. I know what my times are and I know seriously what I can get. I think, moment you know I know what my times are and I know seriously what I can get, I think I can do 54 minutes based on my training and my half marathons this year. I mean, I've mentioned this before 10k's aren't my favorite distance.
Speaker 1:I think I hate them even worse than the 5k's. The part runs because literally a 10k, it's still how can I put it? It's one of those in between. It's still how can I put it? It's one of those in-between distances. It's approximately a quarter of a marathon. You know a 5K is approximately three miles. So, okay, you can push yourself flat out for that because you know it's only three miles, whereas this is twice the distance. It's a 10K, but you've still got to push yourself pretty quick, you know, okay, maybe not quite as quick as the 5K, but you're still going pretty fast. Whereas a half marathon, you know you relax back, you're not going as fast, and a marathon, you know even slower, and then you get up to the ultra marathons. But yeah, so it's.
Speaker 1:I put the 10K in the class of maybe a 400 meter race around the track, which everybody knows is an absolute killer. Those sprinters who sprint around the track and those amazing times. I mean it's just crazy. I mean that is a killer sprint. I class that as the 10k. I mean this particular 10k is a fairly flat 10k. I'm going back to Reading, where I ran the red half marathon a few weeks ago. As I say, I got my pb there a few years ago, as it is fairly flat up until I think about the fourth mile where I start to go uphill up over the motorway, if I remember rightly. But it's a nice race. Real runners race, a lot of fast runners there, good atmosphere. Hopefully the weather will be nice. You know, I'd rather it's a bit bit hotter, obviously. I don't want it too hot, rather than it was raining, so I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:It's the first of many, because the following week, on a saturday, only six days later, it's going to be the evening race, the clifton 10k race, which I'm looking forward to because it's part of the series. I've already run the banksville trail run, 5k trail run. Earlier on in the year I do this, and then the burnham half beaches marathon, which I do every year, which is local to me, and once you get all three medals they all fit together nicely. So that'll be nice. I've never done done the Clifton 10K before. It's like a country estate here in the UK and it's going to be quite hilly. I know it's a hilly, so it's certainly not going to be any PBs on that Complete contrast to the Redden 10K.
Speaker 1:And the thing about the Clifton 10K as well it's run in the evenings. It's run a quarter past seven in the evening. Now some people are evening runners, I'm not. I like to get my run up and done early in the morning, so I'm going to be so tired and I think I'm working on the Saturday before, so albeit I finish early, so that'll be interesting to see how I react to. I mean, I have run in the evening before, when I've done into a 24 to 24 hour race.
Speaker 1:I ran in the evening, I ran early in the morning, like one o'clock in the morning, so I have done it before. But for me, subconsciously, my body seems to shut down at that time. But you know, you got to get out of comfort zone and try these things and I always like trying new races. That's the thing about running. You get to see new places, you know different environments, meet new people. It's, it's one of the good things about running. If you're running these events, get to other parts of the country. It's a good excuse to travel and see these places, and even though this Clifton estate is quite a touristy place, but I've never been there and it's not that far from me, so shame on me. But at least I'll see it on this run anyway.
Speaker 1:But I know it's going to be a tough one, completely different to Reading. But you know I take one race at a time. First is Reading coming up and before that obviously tomorrow. I'm hoping that my stomach's settled down. I say it's a lot better today and go and do that tomorrow and try and get a nice, nice long run in and then, just to make matters even worse, this week my phone is packed up and my phone I have my my training app on there, so the Strava app which a lot of runners use. So on my watch I've got the Garmin watch. It records my runs, then it downloads it to the Strava app which I have on my phone which records on my runs. Now my phone's packed up, I think it's going to take me a few days before I get a another phone. So my garmin watch will record my run and it will store it. But obviously I'll have to wait for a few days until I get a new phone with the strava app so I can download it onto the phone.
Speaker 1:So that's just a little bit frustrating. I mean it's it's not exactly the end of the world, it's more of a first world problem than anything else. I mean I remember the olden days when we used to have to write it down in a you know, notepad and pen, and now it's all this technology. But it's amazing how much we rely on technology nowadays, especially our phones. I mean that on my phone I'd literally do everything you know, online banking, all my training stats, so the Garmin watch would download there, I'd see my activities, that I've done the golf, all my runs on the Garmin and the Strava app, my sleep, everything. I'd even meditate. I've got meditation apps on there as well and it's only when you don't have it you realize. You know, nowadays we we do more on our phones than probably anything else. We probably hardly ever use the phone is to do all the other stuff in life.
Speaker 1:And, as I say, it's first world problems and maybe these next few days I'll appreciate not having the phone and the other things I could be doing, rather than obviously wasting time probably scrolling on the phone. But that's another story. But anyway, so I'll have to wait a few days, but that's not a big problem. You know, my training runs will be stored on my garmin. In a few days it'll be downloaded and I can see you know how well I did on my watch. Just had to wait for a few days for it to be downloaded, almost on my um straw wrap when I get my new phone. So that was another thing that went wrong this week. But you know, apart from that, I really mustn't grumble.
Speaker 1:As I say, my legs are feeling okay. Uh, no, no problems. Uh, touch with shins at the moment, uh, just being a bit drained by this uh stomach bug. If it is a stomach bug, I don't know, I think it's just, uh, being too busy, lack of food and hydration. But if I can crack out a good run tomorrow then you know my training will be back on track. So I'll do a long run on monday and then probably have a couple of days off and then thursday. I could probably still do a six mile on thursday because, remember, I'm preparing for half marathon marathon, so it won't hurt me to do another six mile on a thursday, then maybe a couple of days off or one day off, and then on sunday take the train down to redden and we'll see how it goes everything. If I can get 54 minutes I'll be happy with that. That'll be a good race. And then obviously the following 10k will be a bit tougher. And then in the summer I've got this lovely 10k called beat the boat, which will be fun, where we race a boat. So a few 10ks coming up on my priority at the moment. But obviously it's getting my training back on track.
Speaker 1:But you know when? When you get um, how can I put it? When you get a puncher or a flat tire. Um, it doesn't mean you should go and you know, burst all the other three. You know if, if one of your aspects of your training goes out of kiln for a few days, you're not suddenly going to lose all your fitness. You know people think, oh no, I haven't run for a few days, I've lost all my fitness. That's not the case. Your body actually recovers really well and you can actually last longer without training anything and you won't lose the fitness that quickly. Okay, it probably takes you longer to build up your fitness than it does to lose it, but you can go a few days and you'll still have your fitness there and that's what I'm banking on. You know my, my body will have a good time to rest once I get over this stomach bug and I'll be ready to go again.
Speaker 1:For me, it's not about worrying about training, losing my fitness. It's more about my mental health. It's more about I'm far happier when I've been for a run. Then I think you know everything else in my life falls back into place. I go for a run, everything's all right with the world, certainly for that hour or whatever. Nothing else matters. No problems in life. Nothing gives me a chance to clear my head. I come back fully refreshed, everything's okay for the day and I'm feeling good. And that's what running does for me, you know. It just puts everything else in my life into perspective and keeps me on an even keel. So for me it's not so much about the fitness, it's the mental side of it. But, as I said, you know, if I can do a run tomorrow, then it'll be a lovely bank holiday monday for me and obviously I'll let you know how it went. So, fingers crossed for me, it'll be fine. Next podcast I'll let you know how it went. I should get another episode in before, yeah, sunday, sunday today. So hopefully, uh, next week, I should at least be able to get like a short little episode in letting you know how race week's been.
Speaker 1:Uh, race week, I'm always nervous albeit I say only 10k, as I mentioned before every race you've got to take seriously. It doesn't matter how short or long it is, and I still get nerves after all these years. So, but in some ways those nerves are good because it means I'm coming up to another race again and I love, you know, generally I love running on my own, but I do so much love races, I love meeting people. I love the whole race atmosphere and I guess I even love the nerves beforehand. If you didn't get the nerves, then why would you do it? You know there'd be something wrong with you if you didn't get nerves before a race, because that's what brings you alive, that's what like you know it just. It gives you that that tingly feeling inside that you're doing something incredible and you are, no matter what distance it is, what time you do, it is something incredible and I'm just grateful for every race I can do.
Speaker 1:While I can still run, I will run, and races are great atmospheres. It's a great place to be. There's nothing like being in amongst a pack of runners waiting for the hooter to go and off you go on another race and it's just. You know you, you're completely in the zone for however long it takes, and then afterwards you've got this lovely race high, you've got the endorphins going and hopefully they'll be nice and it'll just be another magical race day again and I'm so looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Obviously, at the moment, because I haven't run for a few days not since Monday I'm not particularly happy, you know. I start to get niggles and doubts about my fitness, even though, as I've just said. You know you don't really lose it, but that's just all a psychological thing in my head. Tomorrow, as I say, I'll probably wake up. I really won't feel like running. But if I can get out there and do a run, if I can get up to that, that round figure of 10, then I'll be so happy. And you know, I'll let you know next week what happened. But, yeah, fingers crossed for me. Anyway, I'll leave it there for now and, yeah, on the next episode I'll let you know how it went and I'll see you then. Thank you very much, bye, thank you.
