Pre-Scriptum I: I
wrote this post last week. But I knew too many people who were running Greater Manchester Marathon, including two runners for whom it was only
their second marathon, to risk freaking them out with my experiences close to
race day! So I put this on hold… and they both duly went on to smash their PBs,
Mark in 3:08’40” in and Matt in 3:21’47” – as did the more experienced Simon in
3:27’03”. Well done Lads!
Pre-Scriptum II: I was
going to publish this yesterday (Monday). But I’ve since had a severe bout of
maranoia myself… so severe that a little copy rework has been required!
A
year… almost an entire year… that’s how long has passed since I last posted!
Haven’t you lot been lucky?!
In
my defence, I spent around half that time writing a book, and the latter half not
knowing what to write about having just published a book. You did know I have a
book out, right? And that you can download it here?
For just £2.48 – probably less than your last drink at the bar?
Anyroad…
…I
came up with an idea for a new post, so thought I’d give it a go. It is spring,
after all. Which means buzzing insects all over the place, chuffin lawns that
need chuffin mowing – but also brighter mornings and, of course, Spring
Marathon Season. Which means long’uns, spilling over from winter, training
plans (for some), dreams of PBs…
…and,
as race day approaches, maranoia.
Sometimes
referred to as “taper madness”, disappointingly ‘maranoia’ isn’t in the
dictionary. But here are a couple of definitions that may help those who’ve
never experienced it (i.e. who’ve never run a marathon) understand what I’m
going to be waffling on about:
Runner’s
World: “mental anxiety found in
marathon runners, characterised by the irrational belief that last-minute disaster
is imminent.”
Rachael Woolston:
“mental anxiety found in marathon runners who
become convinced they are injured or ill. Sometimes associated with an
unwillingness to leave the house for fear of tripping up, having a car land on
their head in the days before a marathon. Some reports of runners wearing
vacuum suits on trains to avoid germs.”
And my
favourite, by Captivations
Teamwear:
“The
nervous state during pre-marathon taper that amplifies every sniffle into
PB-dream ending pneumonia, and every twinge into a debilitating chronic
injury…”
Basically,
it’s the fear that hits us when we start tapering, i.e. reducing our mileage after
weeks of building leg strength with long runs as the focus shifts to reaching
the start, if not the finish, with those legs feeling fresh. It affects all
marathon runners differently, and is ultimately just an indication that a
26.2-mile race matters to us.
More
eminent minds than mine have tackled this topic. And this is not my attempt to shine
brighter lights than sport psychologists or professional athletes might do.
This is just me jotting down my thoughts about what worries me, and what
doesn’t, as race day approaches. Some of it may resonate, some of it may just
sound daft. Take it all with a pinch of salt. And don’t go changing any of your
habits in any great hurry based on my warblings: indeed, if you only take one
thing away from this post, it should be that maranoia affects us all
differently, and that we all need to develop our own techniques to deal with it.
Here’s what I become acutely aware of over the final fortnight leading up to a
marathon, and how I go about limiting its impact on my sanity.
Note: The Urban
Dictionary defines ‘maranoia’ as “A state of temporary paranoia while under the influence of marijuana”.
That’s not the maranoia we’re talking about here. Hope that’s OK.
DISTANCE
“How
far out should I run my last long run?” and “Am I training hard enough?” are
two of the most common questions runners exchange in the weeks building up to a
marathon. The two most common answers to the former, assuming you are targeting
a marathon for racing purposes rather than treating it as a training run or
comfortably pacing someone, are probably: “three weeks” and “two weeks”. Whereas
the most common answer to the latter is: “probably not”.
I
believe in tapering, i.e. in reducing your weekly mileage ahead of a target
marathon. Really, I do. Not that everyone would think so: but then it’s all
relative, and my weekly mileage is generally around the eighty mark. With my A
race (Rotterdam Marathon) on
Sunday, I cut my mileage down to 67 miles this week. Which, I’m aware,
represents a higher figure than many hit at any stage during their
maratraining, let alone a week out. But then my body is used to high mileage,
and I don’t want to give it too big a shock. My mind is equally accustomed to
high mileage, and has been known to fret when I’ve tried to reduce it, as I did
in early 2016. Result: my pace decreased. So I increased my mileage again and
set PBs across all distances. I’m weird like that. Equally, my mind is worried
that my body may get heavier… but more of that later.
The
good thing about this particular taper is that I can look back at “what worked
before”, i.e. to how I tapered ahead of my sub-3 last November. Y’all know I
ran a sub-3 last November, right? November 13, 2016: Marathon des Alpes Maritimes, from Nice to
Cannes. 2:59’38”. And I did so having run 70.7 miles between October 31 and November
6, in turn almost twenty miles fewer than the week prior. Not that I am
treating these numbers, or their daily components, as binding: but it helps my
confidence to know that they led to a PB. Which is not to say they weren’t too
many, or indeed too few: so, even with that knowledge, experiments continue.
Hence the slightly fewer miles this time round…
The
above paragraph and image should answer how long I believe a taper should be. Two weeks
works for me. The picture below, in which the red circle is my sub-3 marathon,
should back that up. But if a 3-week taperschmaper works for you, run with
three. I would freak out that I might put on a few pounds, but then I don’t
worry unduly about injuries or heavy legs…
(Oh: and when I refer
to it as ‘taperschmaper’ it’s with nothing but affection. Honest.)
PACE
Reduce distance, not
intensity. Reduce distance, not intensity. Reduce distance, not intensity.
If
I were to give three pieces of tapering advice, in Blairite fashion they’d be
the three above. Which is not to say that I don’t treat myself to a few easier
runs than usual in the final fortnight. But then, as a runstreaker, pushing
myself to the limit every day makes no sense. So I do throw in some 10ks at
around a minute over my target marathon pace (‘MP’). But equally I try to keep
most of my training runs around MP+30”, and even to sneak in some shorter,
faster runs. Which I find really hard, as I race far better than I train. The
fact that races don’t begin at 6 o’clock and average 40ft/mi of elevation probably
helps with that…
…in
a nutshell: I like to approach races with the target pace a relatively close
friend, not some stranger I’m encountering for the first time. But sure, we’ll
have to try and hang around each other a bit longer on The Day, that’s all.
That’s all. That’s…
(Presumably,
followers of training plans don’t worry as much about pace and distance.
Someone’s done the worrying, and the planning, for them. It won’t surprise you
that I do a lot of planning: it’s just that, rather than follow strict plans to
the letter, I create my own schedules based on my own experiences. Which isn’t
to say they’re perfect: but I feel more comfortable this way than I would
following a book. I just need to continually strike the balance between
“feeling comfortable” and “slipping into a comfort zone”, as there is always
room for change and improvement. After all, as runner we don’t stand still, do
we?)
NIGGLES
What’s
the difference between a runner with niggles and a runner without any?
One
of them has a race coming up.
This
is probably the area where having run ten of these blasted things before helps
the most. Because I’ve not only run ten, I’ve prepared for ten. Indeed, I’ve
prepared for eleven: but let’s not mention Manchester 2014, eh? Suffice to say
that I
didn’t complete it… Oh, and can we also gloss over the fact that 2013 and
2015, as well as 2012 (which I didn’t run), were later deemed to have fallen 380m short of
the mythical 42,195km distance? I’m still counting them!
Right:
back to niggles of the physical type…
A
10-mi run generally requires putting one foot in front of the other over a
dozen thousand times. And each and every time we do that we’re putting pressure
on our feet, our joints, our bones… we’re risking twisting our ankle, or
falling…
…running
is one of the most natural acts in which we could engage. Which is why it’s at
its most dangerous when we switch out of automatic mode and think about it.
I
have run on niggles, but have never run on an injury. Considering I’ve run
every day for the past 1,635 days, that tells you how lucky my body has been
over the past four years with injuries. And how comfortable my mind has become
in dismissing niggles.
They’re
just part of the running package. I’ve never told anyone till now, but I had a
niggle for around four weeks ahead of Nice-Cannes. Somehow the plant of my left
foot didn’t feel right, especially at the start of a run. This left me with a
choice to make: go online and self-diagnose myself with plantar fasciitis before
putting the running shoes away for a few weeks, or carry on running and see if
it got any worse. I carried on running. It didn’t get any worse. I PB’d.
I’m
in a similar situation now. There’s ‘something’ I’m aware of which I’d gladly
make disappear with a magic wand, or even a magic sponge. But I can’t. It’s
been there for over a week now, during which time I’ve set a new 5k PB and
logged some gratifying training runs. Most importantly, it’s not got any worse.
It’s ‘there’, but it’s not affecting my running. So why worry?
Besides,
this is another example of how the more we run, the more we learn how our body
works. The panel on our water filter’s lid no longer indicates when the
cartridge needs changing. But then I never did pay much attention to it. What I
did go by, and still can and do, is whether any calcium is left flowing at the
bottom of the kettle. When that becomes the case, I change the cartridge.
Equally, I don’t go by Strava e-mails nor manufacturers’ recommendations in
deciding when to retire a pair of shoes. Upon becoming aware of this latest niggle,
I knew exactly what the problem was: I needed to retire my second pair of
Saucony Virratas. I’d felt a similar niggle just before retiring the first
pair. Only now am I checking the mileage I got out of both pairs, confident
that they will back up my argument. The ones destined for next week’s recycling
have covered 870 miles. The ones I retired fifteen months ago, having bought
both pairs at the same time (January 2015 sales!), had covered…
…831
miles. I’ve genuinely only now checked. And a 39-mile difference makes perfect
sense considering I had tried to slip back into my first pair after that 95-mile ultra, when my legs
probably needed a wee bit more support than now…
04/04/2017: Right,
remember that definition of maranoia I highlighted at the beginning? Namely the
one describing it as “the
nervous state during pre-marathon taper that amplifies every sniffle into
PB-dream ending pneumonia, and every twinge into a debilitating chronic injury”?
After a
highly encouraging 15-mi run on Sunday, I was out on a comfortable 10k recovery run yesterday when my right calf suddenly
felt ‘wrong’… in a way I’ve never experienced before… I wasn't pushing, I wasn't running far, I was just ambling along on what should have been the most innocuous of runs…
…I soon
stopped and stretched a little. Not knowing what else to do, I did what I
usually do when I don’t know what to do: and ran. I was 2.3mi into the run at
that stage: I could have done a lot worse than heading straight home, which
would have probably made for a round 5k anyway. But I carried on. Sunday’s run
had featured my first sub-90’ Half in training; yesterday was just about
loosening up, running progressively faster miles but none in less than 8’10”. And
the mile splits suggest I achieved that goal perfectly. However…
…the
pain increased once I’d got home and stopped. The fact that it’s race week no
doubt heightens awareness: but for most of yesterday heading up the stairs
entailed turning the right foot outwards and taking the steps one at a time.
Walking on the flat wasn’t pretty, either. Maranoia didn’t help, but the pain
was real…
…out
came the ice pack, and I asked Mike for advice. This resulted in a hot bath and
a couple of texts to Karen pleading her to pick up some Ibuprofen gel. Mike backed
the “cheap generic form from Tesco”; Karen picked up an even cheaper, equally
generic form from Home Bargains. You know it’s cheap when she doesn’t ask for
her money back…
…I
headed this morning, with an open mind: anything between a mile and 3.1 miles
(5k). Not least because I wanted to pay Tesco a visit, I ended up running 5k: and they were nowhere near as pretty as
yesterday’s 10, although not as bad as I’d feared last night. I certainly didn’t
hang around once I got home, heading straight for a hot bath. Another will
follow later. Compression socks are on, courtesy of advice from Alex and others
on Strava, where, after yesterday’s reluctance, I shared my woes. This also
prompted Ciaran to drop me a line suggesting a stretching technique that’s
worked for him: it doesn’t seem to be doing me any harm, so far…
…if how
I go about heading up the stairs is my KPI, then things are improving. Time
alone will tell whether they improve in time for Sunday’s race to remain a PB attempt.
I will definitely travel, and I am 99% confident of running: should the 1%
materialise, I’ll support Mike, Sarah, Philip and Steven from the sides with Judy
and the two Lucys. But, with another marathon (London) coming up a fortnight
later, deferring my PB attempt is an option. One I probably won’t exercise. But
one which is helping alleviate maranoia, right now… as I try desperately to not
aimlessly seek to alleviate frustration through snacking, especially given my
maranoid weight gain concerns…
Fortunately,
I’ve now raced enough to know that no training I put in this week is going to
boost my form ahead of Sunday. It’s all about fine-tuning now. So, whilst I’d
love to slip in a few miles around Sunday’s target pace, I’m not going to
stress out if I don’t. I have to trust the training to date: and I’m happy to
do so, because it’s been good training. If I get to Sunday’s start line with no
grand pains, I can still give my goal a shot. If.
Right:
that’s it as far as today’s addition goes. The rest was all written before I
was struck down by maranoia. Or a trapped nerve. Or a tight muscle. Or whatever
it is. Given my right knee had been hurting for a few weeks, maybe the pain’s
just trickling down my leg, with a view to leaving for good once it’s ensured I
keep the miles down this week…
SNEEZUMS
Offices
don’t suddenly fill up with sneezing colleagues in the build-up to a race. It
just seems that way.
Fortunately,
I work from home, so I don’t worry about germs floating all over the pace. Not
until The Boys come home from school, that is…
…I
did worry two weeks before my first marathon, mind. We went out for Mother’s
Day and my brother-in-law brought his stomach bug along. I survived, but it did
play on my mind. By that stage of proceedings you’ve done the bulk of the hard
work, and you know it – just like you know the recovery window opens as wide as
a roof window, and can be just as hard to reach. There is little you can do but
believe in your immune system, or in the nature of someone’s stomach bug being
such that it won’t easily transfer. But there’s no denying these are two weeks
when working from home is more appealing than ever, even if last week I did run
13.1mi into my office with an 8kg backpack. Can’t see that happening over the
next few days…
NUTRITION
Another
staple favourite of runners’ conversations…
I’ve
got some cracking books on running nutrition. “Training
Food”, “Performance
Nutrition For Runners” and “Go
Faster Food” all contain some awesome recipes. My favourite?
Hmmm…
let me cook one of them and I’ll let you know.
I’m
genuinely sure I’d love most of the dishes featured. But here’s the snag: I
can’t cook. My wife can, but is fairly traditional, not least as we both have
to balance our culinary preferences with raising two young boys. Their
preferences go a long way in shaping our weekly meal plan: and, considering
that when I return to Italy I always give advance notice to my 101-year old
Nonna as to what I’d like her to cook, I can hardly grumble. And it helps that
we eat fairly well anyway: pasta, rice, chicken, pizza, fishcakes… a runner
could be far worse off. Although, after last weekend’s
fishandchipsandmushypeas, I can’t wait for the next time I treat myself to
them, post-Rotterdam…
Where
carbloading is concerned, I again look to take a balanced view. Ahead of an
Ultra, I’d start on the quinoa three or four days before the event. But, ahead
of a marathon, I try to steer relatively clear of carbs during the first half
of the week, to deplete (or at least reduce) my glycogen stores and not feel
too bloated, before going a little more carb-heavy for three nights ahead of
the race. Which doesn’t mean stuffing my face, rather increasing the percentage
of carbs within my usual calorie intake. Not that it ever seems to fall below
60%, taperschmaper or not: it’s pretty much the rule. It reflects what we like
in this house. In the thirty-six hours ahead of a marathon I’m just a bit more
aware, and may give whole-wheat pasta precedence over the usual stuff, or
indulge in a Clif Bar just ‘because’. To some extent, this has become part of
my routine, which generally entails a lengthy journey by air or rail for which
I like to ensure I have my own food and am not at the mercy of what’s around me
and when. It’s a routine I’ve come to enjoy: the race may take three hours (or
so), but its appeal owes a lot to the build-up and the aftermath. That’s why,
and how, over the past four years I’ve come to forge my own little rituals,
from stuffing bagels, packing cereal bars and scheduling when I should eat them
to planning the race-day breakfast I’ll eat in my hotel room. It’s not just
about the science… it’s about the peace of mind, too!
And
still, for all my habits I’m far more relaxed now. I began taking my own food
with me after Chester 2014, when, on the Saturday Mike, Sarah, Alex, Dani and I
struggled to find a table to eat as early as we’d have liked. But a week on
Saturday I’ll be sat in Spaghettata in
Rotterdam with Mike, Sarah, Phil, Judith, Lucy, Steven and Lucy. The key
difference? This time we’ve booked.
Carbloading
isn’t the answer to all distance running challenges it is something portrayed
to be. Failing to carbload isn’t synonymous to failure. Just be sensible, and don’t
panic. As much as anything, eat something you know you’ll digest easily. Which,
fortunately, ties in nicely with eating carbs.
WEIGHT
This
is where maranoia still gets me…
As
per the section above, I don’t get hung up about what I eat. But, as you may
have gleaned from the stats I just quoted, I do calorie-count, and not just
during taperschmaper time, to keep my weight in check. The mere act of having
to log something helps me avoid snacking more than I already do, a genuine problem
for the homeworker whose hand somehow seems to always end up in a cereal box
whilst the kettle’s boiling…
In
the week building up to Nice-Cannes, I spent Monday to Friday in Warsaw on
business. Prior to flying out, I was terrified I’d find myself putting on
weight as a result of eating out four nights in a row and indulging in work
lunches. Truth is, I was able to eat delicious food but not to excess, as
dining out does away with the temptation of second helpings, if not thirds… and
the broad-ranging menus meant I could take in more proteins during the first
few nights than had I been home in sunny Portishead.
According
to the likes of Running For
Fitness, my marathon time should go up or down by 2’10” for every kilo more
or less I take to the start line. Roughly speaking, that’s around 5”/mi. That
may not sound a lot to the uninitiated, but sounds like a lifetime to members
of the Marathon Runners’ Club…
130”/kg.
That’s heavy stuff. Do I believe it? Am I going to spend the next week
desperately trying to shed as much weight as possible?
No.
I do want to shed a pound or so, yes: and that sounds a bigger challenge when
decreasing mileage, which is one reason I just can’t help myself from running
seventy miles a week ahead of a marathon. However, in my own personal
experience I’ve pulled it off, mainly because Strava overestimates my calorie
consumption and therefore I am more likely to shed a little weight when both
estimated calorie burn and intake are lower than usual. But I still need to
live…
Some
people worry about how I go about logging weight. That I’m obsessed. Which I am,
yes: but with data and stats, not with weight (and fat percentage, water
percentage and BMI day) itself. Yes, as raceday approaches I weigh myself more
than the usual once a week: but that doesn’t alter the fact that weight has
become a secondary stat for me. It was the primary one when I took to running: had
I not weighed nigh on a hundred kilos when I was operated on in November 2011,
I may never have laced up five months later. Today, however, all stats bow to
running indicators. Am I a bit heavier than twelve months ago? Yes. Am I a bit faster?
Yes. And guess which bit matters most to me? But I still like keeping an eye on
the numbers, if only to keep the other eye out for correlations between how
much and how well I’m running and what the scales say.
Moreover,
Running For Fitness’ own Owen Barder, who’s behind the
excellent site, lays out the perfect
disclaimer:
“The calculation
assumes that everything else is held constant – so that the body’s capacity to turn
oxygen into energy is otherwise unaffected. This means that VO2 max would
change in direct proportion to the percentage change in weight. The predicted
performances are derived by simply calculating the predicted race performance
at the new VO2 max.
In real life,
however, everything else would not be constant. A reduction in weight might be
accompanied by:
- a higher background level of training;
- lower muscle mass;
- reduced immunity;
- reduced glycogen stores;
- lower levels of hydration
All but the first of these
would be expected to lead to a deterioration in athletic performance. These
changes would have to be offset against the direct benefits of the weight loss.”
Couldn’t
have put it better myself. But still… 2’10”/kg…
SLEEP
Tip:
get some.
Ahead
of my first marathon, I read somewhere that you should look to get a good
night’s sleep two nights ahead of the race, as the chances of you sleeping well
on race eve were slim. As simple pieces of advice go, one of the best. And all
the truer for me, as two nights before a race I’m generally in my own bed,
whereas on race eve it’s usually a Premier Inn. The mattresses and pillows live
up to their “Good
Night Guarantee”, but some of their walls have proven thinner than ideal –
especially with a 5am alarm set..!
Fortunately,
I don’t lose sleep over the risk of losing sleep. I’ve generally always been
good at dozing off; and I may even have improved in recent weeks, since
reintroducing an old friend to my cocktail of drugs. Anti-epileptic drugs, that
is. My consultant advised me to take Phenobarbital just before I go to bed, and
I can certainly see why. Whether I feel slightly less springy the following
morning is down to the med or to the general state of things, or indeed whether
I feel thus because I was warned I might, I don’t know. But I have set 5k, HM
and 20mi PBs since starting to take it again just over a month ago, so it can’t
be doing any harm…
COURSE DISTANCE
C’mon,
let’s not deny this…
As
I mentioned earlier, the first two Greater Manchester Marathons I completed
were belatedly called
short. By the time that news broke I’d set a new PB, at the 26.2mi 2016
event: but, for many runners, it meant the history books were being rewritten.
Times were changed. Some who’d sprinted below the magical three-hour mark found
their revised times to still begin with a 2, but felt cheated and robbed
nonetheless. And thousands for whom this was probably going to be the one and
only marathon were left wondering if they’d truly joined the Marathon Runners’
Club.
I
went to tweak my Manchester 2016 PB in Nice some eight months later. I was
fortunate to stop the clock a full 22” before the hour counter changed to 3,
and probably around two minutes before suffering an epileptic seizure. My GPS
watch, however, recorded the distance as 26.4 miles, as did those of most other
runners whose activities I subsequently glanced at for this very purpose. 26.2
is the shortest possible distance in which you can cover the course, and bends
and fellow competitors mean you will generally run a little further. But what
if that ‘little’ turns out to be enough to deny you your goal? After all, only
last week news broke that last year’s Brighton Half Marathon was 146m short… two months
after Edinburgh HM was discovered to have been 149.7m short… how
hard it is to measure a course? Please, please, please get it right!
(Not too worried this
time. We’ll be in the Netherlands. In the city of Phillips, for that matter.
They won’t let us down. Or short.)
LOGISTICS AND KIT
As
epilepsy prevents me from driving, I rely on trains and planes to get me to my
key races. They’ve yet to fail me yet: but then I do build plenty of cushion
time into my plans to allow for delays…
Linked
to this is the fact that I can’t just fill up my car boot with running gear. I
have to pack selectively yet comprehensively, generally allowing for multiple
weather scenarios. As with most things, this is an area where experience helps:
hence none of my bags have matched the size and weight of the one I packed for
my first marathon, duly labelled in that four-year
old post as “The World’s Heaviest Bag Ever (‘TWHBE’)”.
It’s
worth highlighting that one reason for my decreased packing maranoia is that,
amongst the many things races have taught me, one is that the running community
will always take care of its own. I now travel knowing that, if I have
forgotten something, another runner will be able to help me out. As did Mike
with ShotBloks in Chester… but the same would hold true about kit, I’m sure. Much
as it’s a theory I don’t wish to test, that’s not due to lack of confidence in
it.
Of
course, the critical piece of kit, the one you might be able to borrow but
really wouldn’t want to, are your shoes. Which are often the last thing I pack,
purely to reduce the impact of their smell on everything else! Now, there was
no travel packing required for last month’s Bath Half Marathon: indeed, had
there been I might have raced in the shoes I’d planned on wearing. But I only
realised I’d put on a different pair when Jonathan, my traveling companion for
the day, pointed out I’d not tied my timing chip to them. And even then it took
me a short while to realise it wasn’t a case of the chip having slipped off,
rather of the shoes on which I’d placed it not having been slipped on…
…a
few stressful minutes ensued, but I ultimately managed to get a different
number and, later in the morning, a PB (1:25’58”). I’d long
been pondering between the shoes I left behind (Saucony Fastwitch)
and those I grabbed (Saucony Kinvara
7): the former felt nippier, the latter comfier. A nippy run in the tighter
Fastwitch two weeks before the race had left me with a blister that, whilst not
life-threatening, I wasn’t keen to test unduly. So grabbing the Kinvaras was
probably a blessing in disguise, even if it did cost me £15 in the shape of a
new number. I’ll let you guess which pair is coming to the Netherlands with me.
Well, which pair I plan on taking, anyway.
(The design of the
Kinvaras is such that you would be forgiven they’d suffered a rip near the
tongue. Especially when maranoia’s about. Not that I thought that when I put
them on for Sunday’s run. No sirree. Not me.)
WEATHER
Last
but definitely not least…
This
is a tough one. When an extra second matters, so does an extra rain drop or
gust of wind. Not that we can influence the weather any more than we can assess
the course length. But that doesn’t stop us from constantly refreshing our
apps, hoping it’ll show a few white fluffy clouds!
Adverse
weather conditions, by which I don’t mean a tad of wind and a couple of drops,
can render months of training fruitless. It’s a sobering thought. I’m generally
good at not worrying too much about what I cannot control, but I’ll own up to
being an addicted weather app refresher. So much so that I can tell you that
the current forecast for Rotterdam on April 9th indicates a sunny
day, with highs of 15 and a 9mph Easterly-South Easterly breeze. I’d gladly
swap that for the forecast for twenty-hours prior, with a few more white fluffy
things hanging around, a high of 14 and a 7mph wind. Equally, I’ve long stopped
believing in weather forecasts…
…I
don’t know if this is climate change-related or not, but their reliability has
been declining, least in my neck of the woods. So I should be pretty successful
in holding off the app for a good few days. After that, I can but hope it’ll be
dry and not too windy. All the better if it’s not too hot, but growing up in
Italy may rescue me, as will the numerous water stations.
. . .
There
you have it: what I worry about, what I don’t waste mental energy on. Weather
excepted, I generally worry about what I can impact, and don’t let what I can’t
impact worry me. And there’s nowt wrong with worrying about something you can
do something about, as long as you do something about it. Which is why I’ll be
showing restraint when we sit down for lasagne later.
Hope
that was worth your time. It was fairly easy to write, with ten marathon finisher’s
medals by my side. Fewer than many, but more than many more… and the
preparation for each and every one of them has taught me something, whether
because successful or a failure.
I
can vividly recall the build-up to my first, four years ago, when I was hanging
on to every magazine article and every piece of advice on social media, which
is easier said than done, when you routinely come across conflicting advice.
But that just goes to show how we learn what really works not by reading, but
by running. By preparing for races, by planning our strategy, by how successful
we are with executing it or adapting it. It’s not that there isn’t a manual:
there are thousands. We just have to pick up nuggets here and there and write
our own. Then refine it until we’re truly comfortable with it. All along, of
course, whilst continuing to seek out elements that we can improve, or that
need tweaking because of specific circumstances about the race or the shape in
which we find ourselves approaching it.
No
matter how much we discover about ourselves through running, we can always
discover more. And tapering’s no exception. So, if you are preparing for a
marathon, no matter how far out, good luck with the training leading up to it,
with the taper itself, and with the race that is the culmination of it all. I
know which of the three I find hardest.
Right
– I’m off to
stretch… again! Then it’ll be almost time for more Ibuprofen… and I’ll
make
sure I manage another hot bath tonight! And I'll go OTT with the Radox,
having restocked this morning. I badly felt I needed to score another
bottle yesterday. I've never smoked nor drunk to excess, but I did feel
like an addict close to running out of his drug of choice...
