Marathon Diaries – A4
When everything goes right you have to stop and soak it up, inhale it hard and don’t diminish your moment!
Training hard, watching the clock and the scales can be such a results driven game. It’s easy to forget the feeling, the love, the passion for what you’re doing, for what I’m doing.
This week I kicked things off with a pretty full on training session with my PT, Kevin. I’ve made such good progress since working with him. I’m always a little hard on myself at our sessions about what I am not yet capable of, forgetting to stop and see how far I’ve actually come. In a weird way this past week, this shot, made me realise just that.
I feel so much stronger, and maybe more importantly, confident in my strength since we kicked off a good few months a go. I never work as hard in a single hour as I do in PT, and I really have to thank him for a lot of the progress I’ve been making! This week we mixed a tabata style workout with some tough strength and core exercises. Safe to say I was as always a sweaty mess!
I ran two 5/6 milers during the week. One with run club and one with my friend and Amsterdam marathon companion! Both left me as a sweaty hot mess! Good times, good people and good running on both, especially as the sun was relentless.
At park run on Saturday I had my heart and mind set on the sub 25. I knew I had it in me, that I was more than capable of hitting and holding my pace, and that I just had to believe in it.
I decided to leave it to the watch and pace it around the 8 minute mile mark. Our park run is along the seafront promenade so you’ll always have wind to contend with on one way. I smashed out a 7:35 and 7:55 with the wind mostly on my side and knew I was in good shape to reach my goal. I crossed the line in 24:28 a massive minute off my previous PB!! In all honesty with out the wind on the way back I felt like I could have easily made it into the 23 minute club. I know it’s not fast for many, but for me it was a huge milestone and set me up perfectly for the big one!
So today I went for the 18 miles, I’m 7 weeks out from the marathon and I know it’s a little early, but with a holiday coming up and pushing my speed it just felt like the right time, and I’m so glad I did!
My friend Martine and I left before the sun came up and were running a nice flat out and back. If you would have said to me a few years ago I would enjoy being out before the sun, running for 2+ hours I would have laughed loud in your face. It was however the perfect morning, a cool temp, a light breeze and the dreamy flow of settling in to a long run. We chatted and laughed away the first half in what felt like a moment. A long run is never pure ease but this one felt as close to that as we could possibly get. We ran the whole thing at a really strong pace, and I finished feeling like I could have easily bumped it up to a marathon. A feeling I rarely ever get, so one I relished!
It’s easy to say oh that’s just one good run, or just a 5k PB; to diminish it on a journey to something bigger, or worse to hold it up against others success as just not as good! I didn’t want to do that this week and I don’t want anyone else to ever do that. Your milestones, your good and bad days are so completely unique to your journey and what you’re working towards.
I’m so immensely proud of what I’ve achieved this week in training, knowing that it is all down to the pure hard work that I’m putting in right now! Yet at the same time I’m acutely aware it is just one week. I know I have to try and be really present for these moments because there is so much tough to come.
But for right now I’m glad I just get to sit here and enjoy my moment of feeling like it all might just be coming together!
c-x
ThinkingClarely 
Awesome job and inspiring ! Thx