Running the Marathon

As I struggled to manage 3 miles on a treadmill this afternoon it occurred to me that exactly one year ago I was preparing myself to tackle all 26 miles of the Belfast Marathon. It seems like a distant dream now, or perhaps a half-remembered nightmare, but for the benefit of those people out there who are today facing the same prospect, or perhaps to a future version of myself (if I ever decide to do it again) I thought I would record my thoughts about what I leaned from the experience.1. BEFORE THE RACE It will sound strange, but I found this the absolute worst time of all. Never mind the months of training, the almost constant pain, the exhaustion, the injuries or the gruelling, heat-exhausted 26 mile slog on the day, the hardest bit by far for me were the few days before it. The previous one hundred and sixty days had been spent in almost constant training, then for the last week: nothing. A couple of very short runs and a long walk was the height of my last week’s exertions. Never mind the fact that muscles used to enduring hours of punishment were itching-screaming-for exercise, I felt like a mountain climber confronted for the first time by the north face of the Eiger. The sheer scale of what was about to be attempted became very real and after the training I was in no doubt what it would be like. Self-doubt crept in. The only word I can think of to describe the feeling was “daunted”. I genuinely wondered could I could really do it? This is not something I am used to experiencing. What got me through this? Telling myself to pull myself together and get over it was a start. Fate also intervened and that very week the Finnish Viking Metal band Turisas released the song “Stand up and fight” (