Runners high runners low.

There is a concept known to those who run as runners high. It's (in my experience) a flood of endorphins that washes over you, making you feel high and it is amazing. Interestingly I have only experienced this once, and that was week 6 of the c25k program, after I ran for 20 minutes straight for the first time, in my life.

Looking back this achievement was huge, I had committed to something, and worked hard to achieve that goal.

I don't get runners high anymore, but I get lots of runners low. I describe this as when I simply can't run the way I want to.

In some ways I am like a perpetual toddler who is frustrated that he can't walk, he takes a few steps and falls down. This is how running feels to me at times, I make some big achievements but then get injured, or busy or lazy and I don't run the way I need to to get to that next goal.

I have been thinking a lot about goals for next year, what comes next.
Do I focus on longer distances, maybe an 50k or something?
Or do I go shorter and faster, aim for a 1:45 half marathon?
Do I run because running is what I do?
Do I look at tri's?

I just don't know where I want to go with running next year and there really are so many possibilities.

At this stage I am starting to think that I want to maintain a level of fitness so that once a month I can run into work, which involves a 4am wake up, and 3 and a bit hours running, and I think this would be an awesome foundation for next years marathon.

I know I probably focus on the marathon in 2 weeks, and now what happens next, but the setting of my next goal is a part of what will get me through the 42.2k in less than 2 weeks time. Last year after the marathon I experienced an extreme sense of being lost and I attribute this to net having my next goals set.

So my goals right now are:

I am going to run 42.2k on Sunday the 9th of October
Run to work at least once before the end of the year


On an interesting side note, I discovered that the historical distance for the marathon was actually 24miles, not the 26.2miles we run today. This was changed in the early 1900's at the London Olympics as the windsor family wanted the start line at once of their castles and the distance to the finishing line at the stadium was 2.2 miles longer...

Hurting

I just want to be running right now, and that doesn't seem to change.

But i have injured my left leg. And even better this years injury was completely avoidable. There was just no need to be doing flips on the trampoline with the kids, they would have been just as happy with me doing basic jumping with them.

Anyway the leg is healing slowly but surely but the build up to the marathon is becoming a nightmare that feels like it will never end. With 2 and a bit weeks to go until race day I should be running a lot, instead I'm nit running at all. This means 2 things to me, firstly, I may not do much better time wise than last year, and second, I am not dealing with the stress of work, and the build up yo marathon anxiety very well at all.

I have lost my outlet for stress and this is going to be a big problem for me over the next fortnight.

It's ironic really, runners need to taper before a long run, for me in training this usually means the dropping of one run late in the week to "save some running up" for the weekend long run. It's interesting to note that sometimes when I taper I feel like a spring has been wound up really tight in a toy car, and when I do run, I w ant to run really fast and hard until the spring returns to a normal tension.

Tapering for a marathon means very little running for at least the week before, the issue I have with this (and this may just be my personality) is that I get very anxious about the distance, I start with the negative thoughts and this year they are all about wether I can make the distance or not.

The longest run in training has been 30k and I bounced back from that really well, much much better than last year. If fact 3 days after my 30k I was able to run a 10k which last year the time would have been more like 5 days after.

So I am fitter this year and my recovery times are great, but a 30k is more like running half a marathon than 3/4 of one. Last year the hardest part was the last 7k, this is when I really suffered from cramping, emotionally I was just there to push on, cover the distance and to hell with trying for a time.

This year I want to do better, deep down I really do, but I am struggling with the commitment that I need to guarantee I will do better. I can commit emotionally, but I am feeling very time poor at the moment. I have a super supportive family who let me disappear for 1/2 a day every weekend for my long runs, well my wife does, the kids have started to understand that dadda will be out all afternoon running. But I still feel like I am stealing time from my family to fuel my run, and that means I have to be very selfish to run long runs, and with that come guilt. I know that the family understand don't
mind me running but I just can't help feeling guilty.

There is an offset to this, the kids are catching my passion to run. They live to run, they still talk about wanting to do another family run, as we did the mothers day classic as a family this year. I want them to run, I wish that I had grown up with that outlet. To think of all the places I have been as a teenager and young adult and not run breaks my heart sometimes. But I will never force them into it, they need to do it because they want to, all I can do is set the example and see if they follow, and this is the way it must be.

So as the pain in my leg throbs away, hopefully healing my damaged muscle, and the heaviness that is settling on my psyche starts to weigh down on my demeanor, I will try to focus on one thing " I run because I love to, I will run the full 42.2k, I will smile, I will hurt and I will love it"

25 days

With only 25 days until the marathon, the gnawing hound of anxiety is starting show it's face. Like last year it really huts me when I see the MCG which is twice a day on the train to and from work.

Best I take that hound for a run.

Pledge

There are 4 weekends until the marathon, and I have formulated a plan.

Weekend Sept 10/11- 30k run.
Weekend Sept 17/18 - no or short run.
Weekend Sept 24/25 - 35k run.
Weekend Oct 1/2 - 15k run.

This coupled with 2 10k runs during the week, a massage session on Friday the 9th and another one around the 23rd.

The race day anxiety has started to creep up on me, I feel it especially when I go past the MCG on the train. I don't need to tell anyone who runs what a massive undertaking this is for me, but for the non runners, to put it in context, the marathon takes a commitment to pain, suffering and mental anguish. You need to commit to dipping into the extremities of the human body's energy stores and pull out every bit of it....just to pit foot in front of foot.

I find the distance of a marathon interesting, it stems from the roman herald
Pheidippides running to Sparta. He ran 240k in 2 days to the battlefield, then ran another 42.2k to athens, where he dropped dead. The point is that the distance has very old origins, and it's particularly interesting that it's just far enough to test the abilities of most runners.

I ran 30k 2 weekends ago then 3 days later another 10k, last year after the marathon I ran a 10k a week after the marathon, but because I had dug so deep on the day, within hours I got flu like symptoms and ended up in bed for 3 days, in my opinion this is a treat example if what distance does to you.

Aside from the physical aspects and the health benefits, the psychological growth that occurs during marathon training is huge. You learn so much about your self, like what it takes to push on no matter the pain you are feeling, what it takes to kick you own ass out the door to clock up more k's all so you can do it again on race day.

Then race day comes and you start to think about what you have done to get here, the race becomes only a small part of the whole endeavor, and really it is, my running has been shaped around race day for the past 8 months at least, running faster and harder in short runs, and then lately slower and longer to get my body used to punishment for long periods of time.

There is more I could have done to prepare, more k's I could have run, I could have eaten better, cross trained more but all these things require commitment, and I'm digging deep in commitment as it is, family, work, now uni, and running are sucking me dry on that front.

On the day I will run, I will cover the distance and I will do it faster than last year, and that's my commitment to running.