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"