How (not) to Train for a Marathon (Part Seven)

Previously on How (not) to Train for a Marathon: We went to some very, very dark places on the longest training run I have ever done, enjoyed some French Cul-De-Sacs, and got high-fived by Henry VIII.


Things Fall Apart

It's the end of the first week of March, and there are just 5 weeks to go until the big day. It's at this point that things start to go off track - I've largely done what I needed to up to this point, but then everything starts coming at once - injury, illness, travel, like I'm delving into life's bag of Revels and pulling out all the coffee ones. It's a catalogue of disasters seemingly designed from stopping me getting to that finish line, and it's during these dark weeks that I decide that if I do make it through, I'm going to share my stories so that anyone else in the same situation can be reassured at just how miserable things can get without it stopping you making it through the big day. (Oops, spoiler!)

This is amazing - a guy at the hilarious Epicurean's Answer blog actually did research on the breakdown of the Revels across several bags, and it turns out coffee is the least frequent, we just perceive that there's more of them if we don't like them.
How very like life.

9th March (The Surrey Half Marathon)

What I am supposed to do:  18 miles
What I actually do: 1.83 miles jog, 13.44 miles run and a whole load of walking about
How Does it go?

I really shouldn't be here. I've already done one Half Marathon race, and today is supposed to be 18 mile training day. But I've paid for this, and I'm looking forward to it, so I'm going to make it work, dammit.

The race starts in Guildford, so I get off the train there and decide to be the smug one who jogs past everyone on the way to the start line just to get some more miles in. After last week's despair, it feels goood, but it doesn't quite make up for the fact that the race I'm doing today isn't really what I'm supposed to be doing.

Still, it's a lovely run on a sunny spring day, the roads are shut between Guildford and Woking so we can run there and back again through the countryside and not get run over, and there's a dodgy Oasis covers band playing outside in Woking when we get there, which is reward enough for anyone. There are a couple of fairly challenging hills that I manage to power through after my experience in France last week, and as I finish back in Guildford with a half-lap of the running track at the Athletics Stadium, I start to feel much more confident again. It's the last time for a very long time.

Finish line selfies are always popular, right?

Final stats: 13.44 miles in 2:18:44


15th March


What I am Supposed to do: 20 miles
What I actually do: 12 miles

How does it go?

I can't be bothered to make up a completely new route this time, so I amalgamate some others by deciding to get the train all the way from Surbiton in London's Zone 6 to Vauxhall in Zone 1, and run all the way home along the river. It's 20 miles - I tell people on Facebook that I'm going to do it, and I don't think they believe me, but that's probably because I don't believe it either. I've felt the pain of 16, and since then I've not gone any further than that, so what makes me think I can do this?

More Thames-porn.

I turn out to be right - as it happens, everything starts ok apart from nearly getting lost through Battersea Park, but the pace is ridiculously slow (12-13 minutes per mile), and I can feel that my body is completely spent and nowhere near recovered enough for this.

A brief diversion occurs in Mortlake, where I find the Thames Path completely flooded and have to double back on myself through the streets, but it's not enough to take my mind off the undeniable muscle pain, and from Mile 11 onwards every step becomes a struggle. When my knee starts twinging again at the 12 mile marker, I decide there's just no sense in pushing this, and stop by Kew Gardens, go and find a bus home, and eat a recovery breakfast once again cooked by the lovely Karin.

Sometimes, you just have to listen to your body.

22nd March

What I am supposed to do: 22 miles
What I actually do: Nothing

How does it go?

It really doesn't... the day after the aborted 20 miler, I'm off to Athens for a week's meeting with my new job. I drink too much ouzo and Mythos, and hang out with a couple of people with heavy colds.

On Wednesday the 18th, I wake up with a sore throat and a serious cough, and it looks like running might be off for the entire week. Sunday is supposed to be my longest run, and I completely miss it, which doesn't improve my mood. Things are starting to look a bit dodgy for the big day, as from here on out the training plan is all about "tapering" (easing up and starting to conserve energy stores for the main event). I'm meant to be slowing up, but not stopping completely. And I'm not even meant to be slowing up until I've done a proper, PROPER long run. (16 miles is clearly nothing...)

I eventually go to the doctor on March 25th and he tells me to rest a bit more, as for some reason he doesn't think me running 20 miles will actually improve my cough. I ask for a second opinion on Twitter and the consensus is that my doctor isn't an idiot, so I continue to rest, twiddling my thumbs and ruminating over and over again as to whether I will actually manage to do this, or have to pull out.

I obsessively Google "running injuries", "run marathon after 16 miles training", and "am I totally screwed?", reading everything I can find to see whether I'm going to be able to do this, or end up face down in a dock somewhere near Canary Wharf.

Still, at least Athens was pretty, eh?

On Saturday the 29th of March, I say bollocks to sitting worrying on the sofa, and decide to do something about this. If I lose all my running fitness, what's going to happen? I'll have to walk the whole distance, won't I? So I put on my walking shoes, and off I go on my normal 10k route, trying to walk it as fast as I comfortably can, just to see what my pace would be like. I average 16 minutes a mile, calculate that it would take nearly 7 hours to do the Marathon at this speed, decide I'd accept that, and move on with my life.


30th March

What I am Supposed to do: 13 miles
What I actually do: 11 miles (of which, 9 are running)

How Does it go?

Spurred on by being able to walk, I decide to give running a go -it's my first for over 2 weeks and it turns out to be the last one I do before the Marathon.

I manage 6 miles before having to stop and walk for a bit, then I do intervals of 2 miles run / 1 mile walk to see how that goes as a possible strategy for the main event. The running miles feel ok, until the very last one - when a familiar twinge in my knee signals that today's training is over.

With two weeks to go, I decide that it might be time to seek professional advice but before that, I turn to my trusty Twitter buddies who tell me to buy a foam roller and roll out those Illotibial bands. I go to Sports Direct and get one, bring it home on the bus to some odd looks, and start using it on the floor in the living room - into which Karin appears fairly shortly to ask me why I am torturing warthogs. Yes, it's a painful old thing which results in me groaning and grunting in a most unbecoming way, but it really does help, so I carry on with it anyway.

At least I: a) Keep my shirt on and b) don't look like Simon Cowell.

Physio Killed the Radio Star

On April the 2nd, I finally go and see the Physio at my gym, to explain my dodgy knee symptoms.

"Ok, so when did you first feel this, was it when you were running at the weekend?", she says.

"Um, no, it was about 6 weeks ago.", I admit, sheepishly.

"Wow, ok, so have you been resting since then?" 

"Noooot exactly, no...."

She gives me a deep tissue massage, which is probably the most uncomfortable thing I've ever experienced, as part of it involves pinching the offending tendons between her thumb and forefinger, running down the length of them to try and work out the knots (or something - I don't know what she's doing really, she could be trying to see how much it takes me to start crying, for all I know...)

"Everything is very tight - you should really have come in weeks ago!" - Yeah, no kidding. "Oh well, we'll get you to start doing these exercises and then you should be ok to carry on running again in a few weeks' time."

When I explain that I'm doing the London Marathon in 11 days' time, she first looks confused, then amused, and then realises that I'm serious about this, and puts on a brave face and starts trying to help me. I get exercises to do, she tells me my glutes are pathetic so I need to squeeze my butt cheeks together with every step as I run, and she tells me to keep on with the foam roller, but not to do any more running until the actual race.

That's right, none at all. Her logic is that at this point, I can't gain any more fitness, as that time is past, and all we can do now is damage limitation. It's incredibly unlikely that I'll be able to run the entire way, we both agree, so I tell her about my plan to run a certain number of miles, walk a certain number of miles and she agrees that it's probably the best result we can hope for. She also suggests that I take pain killers with me and take them every few hours in the hope of keeping the inflammation down.

"Good luck!", she says, sounding like I might be the client of hers that's needed it the most.


5th April

What I am Supposed to do: 8 miles
What I actually do: Help my sister move house

How is it?

It's quite a good day, actually - thanks for asking. I don't do any running, but I do drive across London to Deptford / Greenwich, and find cones out all over the place, signs up warning people of delays, and pubs advertising "Marathon Breakfast".

Shit just got real.

Mmmmm....

Eeeeek!

Ewwwww....

The Final Countdown...

In the last week, you're supposed to do as little as possible, rest as much as possible, and eat as many carbs as possible. I manage the last one, but 1 and 2 are a bit buggered by virtue of having to travel to Roskilde in Denmark with a very excitable colleague, who insists that we try and do something every evening, is obsessed with walking everywhere instead of getting cabs, and is somehow charming enough with her annoying persuasion that I go along with it. Even when she insists on calling me "Henry" for reasons too complicated to go into.

Hence, there's not much rest, but it's ok, the short walks we take get the muscles going again, and I've brought all my gear with me - the running shoes and clothes, the foam roller and my exercise mat, and I spend any free time I do have doing my exercises from the physio and trying not to panic about what's now less than a week away.

There's even genuinely healthy food to help me stock up my body, and I'm able to use the excuse of running a marathon at the weekend to avoid putting my feet in one of those fish-nibbly tanks that my colleague is desperate for me to try.

"Oh Henry, you're so boooooring!"  - ah, but you know, Marathon comes first! "Huh, alright then...". Win.

Unfortunately, I neglect to tell British Airways that Marathon comes first, and after bumping us off our return flight from Copenhagen in exchange for a 200 Euro gift voucher which actually doesn't materialise, we then end up two flights later in the evening, and without our suitcases.

Suitcases. Which contain literally everything I need for the marathon - shoes, clothes, foam roller, headphones, the lot. It's 11pm on Friday night, in the morning I need to go to the Marathon Expo to register, and in less than 24 hours' time I need to be tucked up in bed with all my gear laid out ready for me to grab and go.

See, even the last Revel in the bag usually turns out to be coffee.


Next time: It's the day before the big day (the small day?)

How (not) to Train for a Marathon (Part Five)

Previously on How (not) to Train for a Marathon: We learned about all the very yummy things you're not really supposed to put in your mouth whilst training, but will anyway because you feel like you deserve it. There was probably some actual sensible advice there too, if you looked very hard for it...


In the Long Run...

Way back in the mists of time, we talked about the marathon training plan and I glossed over what is arguably the most critical part (likely because the memories were still all too raw). Sufficient time has elapsed now since the last time I found curious red stains on the chest of my T-shirt, or hobbled into a Sainsbury's Local trussed up in lycra to look for something, anything, to make the sky stop spinning - so let's go back to:

A. Long Runs

These are the most important parts of your training programme because, without them, you will never understand just what you're letting yourself in for, meaning you're probably on a one-way trip to the back of an ambulance on race day. Many people who get into a marathon through the ballot get to the post-10k stage in long-run training and find that they just don't like it, they actually can't do it without getting injured, or that, you know what, it's cold and it's wet and Saturday Kitchen is on, and they really love that James Martin, and yeah never mind...

"Look, I made you Yorkies and everything!"

This is where it comes in VERY handy to have a charity counting on you, and people who've paid good money to watch you humiliate yourself in a stripy singlet and lycra meggings. As soon as you realise what's going to happen if you don't actually make yourself lace up those trainers and get out there and do it, it suddenly ceases to be optional. Another top tip is to post on Social Media when you're just about to go out for the long run - if you've professed your intention to run all the way to Abu Dhabi before lunch, it's kind of humiliating when your well-meaning friend posts a few hours later to ask "How did u get on hun?" and you're still sitting in your pants playing Candy Crush.

Of course, it's also a good way to get your Facebook friends/Twitter followers who find the whole idea of running unbelievably smug to hide you from their newsfeed/ unfollow you, and that's ok. You're only going to annoy them more and more up to race day anyway, and you can easily spot who they are, because they're the ones who don't answer "Yeah, I saw" to everything you tell them next time you meet up with them in person - meaning that you can easily remind them to unhide you after the event.

Similarly, a nice bragtweet or automated Endomondo Facebook post after your run is a good way to a) Shove your athletic prowess in everyone's face and tell them to suck it and b) get lots of admiring responses from the few people who do care, and if you're even 10% as narcissistic as me, that's actually a huge motivator.

So, these long runs then? What are they about, and how do you do them? Well, short of the obvious answer of "running the distance it says in your training plan by means of putting on shoes, leaving the house and placing one foot in front of the other for the necessary length of time", I'd say they're about:


- Getting used to pounding the pavement for literally hours on end, hopefully without losing the will to live

- Practising how much water and food you need for differing run lengths

- Getting used to getting up nice and early one day at the weekend and heading off to do something shit-scary for a few hours before coming home and watching Formula 1 whilst eating a fry-up (great practice for the big day itself.)


They're also good for finding new ways to distract your mind during these seemingly interminable hours with only your own thoughts for company - it can be very lonely out there, especially when most fellow runners (in London anyway) won't even deign to so much as tut patronisingly at you as they go past.

The best one I found was to mix up the routes as much as possible. From 0-10k, and on my short recovery runs, I found it easiest to just stick to various sections of a 10k loop that I'd been doing for years - from Surbiton down to Kingston along the river, carrying on towards Richmond when necessary, and upon the final glorious day when I realised I could do a full 10k again, turning left in Kingston, over the river and back down the other side to Hampton Court. Once you've started on this final part of the loop, though, there's no turning back, and it's flipping quiet and lonely over there, so you'd better be sure you mean it.

Bloody gorgeous, mind you. Which does help.

After a while though, I craved variety, and so I started inventing ever more elaborate routes, as you will learn from:

Selected highlights from my Long Run Diary (no, wait, come back... it's not as dull as it sounds)

Top Tip for winter training - plan how long your route ought to take you, and make sure you go out at least that amount of time before sunset plus another half hour to 45 minutes. If you're anything like me, you will fanny and fart about getting all your gear on to go out, do a leisurely warm up walk before you get going, stop to buy some water, adjust every gadget you've brought with you so they're all synchronised - and before you know it, you end up doing this...

December 30th

What I am supposed to do: 8k
What I actually do: 10k
How does it go? I decide to do my usual loop in reverse this time to mix it up a little, which means running down the brightly lit main road from Surbiton to Hampton Court first, while the light is still fine. Seems like a plan. On reaching Hampton Court Palace itself, the light is really starting to go, and there's a choice to be made - I can either turn back and run back the way I just came (sensible), or I can plough on regardless down the completely unlit, positively rural tow path from Hampton Court to Kingston and hope that I can cover the 3 miles in the 5 minutes of daylight that remain (less sensible.)

Needless to say, I plump for option 2. As I start down the path everything looks ok, the regal glow of Hampton Court's floodlighting guiding my way, but very quickly, I realise I can't actually see anything apart from the houses on the other side of the river. This is a bit of a problem but I figure that the faster I run, the quicker I can just get it over with, so off I go. When I plonk my foot into a giant pothole in the towpath filled with dirty water and god knows what else, I decide that I have to do something about this, so I get out my phone and use the pathetic built in torch to light up the ground for 5 feet in front of me as I go.

This sort of works, but I also discover that however much you want to make your body run fast in the pitch black, your brain has a kind of built-in "don't be a twat" feature which prevents you from really giving it your all. Which is probably just as well when part of the path is flooded, there are several fallen tree trunks blocking your way, and there's enough mud to keep the spa at Centerparcs stocked for months.

But, wait, there's an upside! Because I've been held back by my own, deeply hidden "sensible filter", when I finally make it back to civilisation and sight, I feel I have more to give, so off I go back across Kingston Bridge and home to Surbiton along the road, pounding that pavement and striding like a running colossus (albeit one who is still a little bit scared of the teenagers hanging out in the dark doing who knows what), and as a result I hit the 10k mark. I'm a runner again!

Final Stats: 6.23 miles in 1:08:13



January 26th

What I am supposed to do: 10 miles
What I actually do: 10 miles!

How does it go? 

The first of many milestones -at this point in the training plan we go from "60 minutes" or "80 minutes" to an actual distance. And because I've been running so slowly so far, this represents quite a leap up in distance - from 6.5 miles on Monday 20th to a nice round 10.

I'm crapping my pants on the day. In fact I'm crapping them all week, telling everyone I meet that I'm going to have to run 10 miles at the weekend, asking them for tips about where I should go and perform this epic feat, asking if anyone wants to come with me (they don't). To make matters worse, when I get up in the morning, I look out of the window to see that the apocalypse is apparently about to begin, which is nice of it.

Brand new trainers. Cheers.

So of course I do what any sensible person would do, and go out anyway, dressed in my usual cold-weather warm running gear, but with the addition of a standard, ultra-sweaty waterproof jacket. Off I head towards Hampton Court again, but this time carrying on past the palace in the other direction down the tow path, Westward (ho!) towards Molesey, Walton and Weybridge. The variety in the route is key, as your brain really needs stimulation when you keep on running these long slogs - and I'm almost pathetically excited to finally carry on beyond the A309 and see what's there, a bit like that time I stayed on the tube after Hammersmith to see what happened and I ended up in Rayners Lane.

It's a good job that the scenery is nice and that my mind is grateful for the change, because it takes my mind off the fact that it's been steadily drizzling the whole time I've been running, and that the path is not only full of puddles, but in some places I wave to hippos as I splash past, nearly losing my shoes in the process. But after the first few miles, I settle into a nice rhythm and gradually speed up as I head towards my goal and the path becomes a little firmer, flying along feeling invincible (must be the roast and apple crumble from last night.)

I finally arrive at Weybridge train station, exactly 10 miles and cool-down walk distance away from my flat in Surbiton, buy my ticket home, text my mate Mark to brag a bit (he still hasn't replied), head down to the platform and do ostentatious stretching for a few minutes, hoping someone will come and ask me what I've been doing, then buy a cup of tea from the lady at the kiosk just to have someone to talk to.

"Cold out there, isn't it, love?", she says.

"Yes, it is, although I'm more wet than anything, I JUST RAN HERE FROM SURBITON YOU KNOW..."

"£1.50 please, " she replies, disappointingly.

Final Stats: 10.01 miles in 1:49:02


February 9th

What I am supposed to do: 12 miles
What I actually do: 12 bloody miles!

How does it go? 

We should probably take a moment to enjoy my outfit
before we go into it too deeply...

Badly. Horribly. I start out going in the other direction, towards Kingston, and I'm aiming for Hammersmith, which I've worked out is almost 12 miles along the river, past Richmond and Kew.

But there's a problem, those leg muscles which propelled me to such success last time out are feeling empty, drained, in that way your arms do when you try to carry too much shopping home from Tesco - and my motivation, so high after my apple crumble fuelled success, has completely gone. I trudge, slowly and completely ungracefully down to Kingston and out the other side, doing 11:30+ miles. Am I sick? Shall I stop?

Suddenly, I turn a corner at the 4 mile mark, and I'm into uncharted territory. Ham House comes up on my right, the legendary Eel Pie Island (former home to The Who's studio) is on my left, and then there's Syon House across the river. Before I know it, I'm putting in miles at 10:15, flying along and enjoying being out there and alive. Things start to get a bit tough after 10 miles, but then I think "ahh, two miles, that's nothing", and blot everything else out as I force my legs to keep on going.

I come to a halt, lungs burning and legs on auto-pilot by now,  as my Endomondo tells me over the sounds of Royksopp's "49 Percent" that I have reached my goal. 12 whole miles. I have a stretch against a pretty tree, look around to see if anyone is impressed by me, spot only a man in an anorak taking pictures of birds, and then start sauntering off to the tube station, which unfortunately is a further mile away from where I've stopped. At least it's a nice day and a pleasant walk.

When I get home, I have a read on the internet (they have everything, you know) about finding the first few miles of a long run very difficult, and discover that it's a well-known phenomenon, and that I can expect to have this every time from here on out. Jolly good.

Final Stats: 12.03 miles in 2:11:49


February 14th

What I am supposed to do: 14 miles
What I actually do: 14 miles, but God knows how

How does it go?

It goes, just about. I decide that it's not a good idea to have any part of this run be on the boring, unmotivating paths I've trodden a hundred times before, so I spend hours using a website to devise a cunning route that I'll enjoy running all of - taking the train to Putney Bridge, starting off in Wandsworth and then heading over the bridge of the same name, before turning left and coming back along the other side, through Fulham (past the almighty Craven Cottage), and down to Hammersmith. Then I add on a massive loop all the way down to Chiswick, where a man in a woolen waistcoat is walking a cat on a lead, over Kew Bridge and back again down the other other side through Mortlake and Barnes, before ending up back in Hammersmith (Apparently I really do love that place.)

If there's one thing I've reminded myself by writing this blog, it's that London is a wonderful place.

It's mostly ok, but I slow down a whole minute per mile over the last four miles, and really start to feel it around 12 miles, as I slog through Barnes, for the first time in this whole process thinking that I might have to give up. But I don't give up - there are people out there with Parkinson's counting on me to raise them some money, and not only that, but at a critical point, "Fighting Fit" by Gene comes on shuffle and the lyrics start speaking to me in ways that they probably weren't intended to:

I can't take it 
Too much time's been wasted
So come and get my plateful
I am fighting fit and able
...
I've tasted life and I'm ready

Suddenly feeling inspired, I push myself to finish, dragging myself over Hammersmith Bridge towards the point where I can finally say I made the imaginary finish line and end this ordeal.

"Are you alright?", says a guy coming the other way across the bridge, as I push myself beyond the point that I ever thought possible - and I suddenly realise, as the latest song fades out on my iPod, that the sound like a distressed sealion protecting its young, which I've been ignoring for the last 15 minutes, is me breathing. It's a tad worrying, but not as much as when I finally stop and end up slumped against the wall of the nearest church, trying to stretch out a bit in the graveyard, but basically unable to stand up. I'm dizzy, I think I'm going to vomit, and bending my right leg makes my knee excruciatingly painful, which proves to be even more of an issue when it turns out that getting up and down steps is nigh on impossible.

Which makes it a bit difficult to get back on the tube and go home.

Still, at least there's another lovely tree to check out.

Final Stats: 14.02 miles in 2:35:32. And a lovely dose of Illotibial Band Syndrome.


Next time: Practice races, and really, really, really, long runs.