Manchester Marathon and the recovery weeks

It's been 3 weeks since the Manchester Marathon and I haven't written down my thoughts, so I suppose I ought to.

I had a good build up, I'd been running quite well and all thoughts were geared to a sub 4 marathon. So that was it. Tapered down sensibly and waited.

In a blinding move, I'd booked the same hotel as last year, which was the Premier Inn right opposite Old Trafford therefore bang next door to the race village. It is nice to be so close to the start of a big event, no porta-loo queues for me, ha ha! So I rolled out of bed, made all preparations and assembled on the start line listening to the announcer's comedy chat. Didn't manage to see any of my club mates or anyone that I knew, so just waited and felt quite relaxed about the whole thing really. The gun went, it didn't take very long to get over the line and I jogged off to the announcer saying "there are 7000 finely tuned athletes here today" which drew a collective chuckle and snort from from about 6999 of us. The first few miles had a reasonable amount of support, and I was pleased to hear an unexpected friendly cheer from Jen quite early on, and to see one of the lads from another local running club on the other side of the road. It was going well. I thought back to last year, when the conditions had been hellish, and the conditions this year were pretty much perfect. Game on.

I can't really describe what happened to me, but somewhere around 8 miles things felt slightly harder work than they should have done. I think we went up over another road via a flyover so call that a "hill" if you like. It just felt harder work than it should have done. There were no problems with pace, I hadn't gone off too quick, so I tried to shrug it off as one of those things, but the next slight incline and I felt the same again. I wasn't injured but "it" just wasn't there. So I carried on, and got to halfway in about 1:57, realistically I was still on target for that sub 4 but in my heart of hearts I knew that I was going to be slowing down in the next 13. And it happened. I went through the suburbs, the support was great but it was a really really hard carrying on knowing I was doomed to not hit my target (I resisted using the word "fail" there).

I did learn something about myself. To carry on at 8 miles for another 18 feeling totally crushed was really difficult in the head department. I had 2 options - 1) was to make the best of it and hang on as best I could, 2) Was to turn it in to a jelly baby eating, child high-fiving, "woohoo I'm having a party and a reeeeally greeeat time" type run and clock a much slower time. I went for option 1) as I'm also aware you can have a bad patch and then have a really good patch in the blink of an eye, so I thought maybe something could be salvaged, even when at 22 miles I felt a massive BANG! in my trainers..  Broken toenail? Nope I later discovered a massive blister had gone pop but I didn't really notice any pain till I took my sock off later. Thankfully it didn't cause any running pain or change in my pace. In a comedy stylee I got overtaken at some point in the latter stages by a woman dressed as a giant tit. Humiliating and hilarious at the same time. You've gotta laugh. Fair play to her!

Do I look like a tit when I run??

There isn't much more to say. I jogged along the miles until about 24, when I caught sight of a similar club vest in front of me. My clubmate E had been going for a sub 4 as well, my calculations said he wasn't going to hit that target. It was a motivator seeing him, and I managed over the course of that next mile to catch up with him. I asked if he was OK, to which he basically replied "I'm f**ked, go on, save yourself" so I carried on hoping he would at least try to hold on to my tail. The support leading up to Old Trafford in that last mile or so was amazing, and if lifted me a great deal and I turned in to the finish straight and put on a bit of a sprint, saw R's husband on the line. Now normally when I see him I'm all "waaaaheeeey...woooo" with my arms in the air, but this time I had a real face on me and just stopped my Garmin on the line. I carried on moving and round the corner waited for E who came in a few mins later.

Happy face vs "a bit cheesed off" face

We made our way through the race village, and E got his bag in about 60 seconds which was a big improvement from 2012, and we both sat in the middle of the recovery area surrounded by happy smiling people looking like a right pair of grumps. He'd had a nightmare parking and we predicted a nightmare getting out of Manchester so I gave him shelter in the good old Premier Inn and we had a post mortem for a while. I think having to "look after" someone else was probably a good thing and took my mind off analyzing my own race. But when I did get round to it, what did my own post mortem discover? I did a decent amount of miles in training, and a variety of sessions and I have complete and utter faith in all the training I did. I turned up on the start line almost a stone lighter than 2012, and with bags more experience - 4 marathons in 4 days means I don't feel 26 miles is a long way, but trying to hold a certain pace over them is the gotcha. I'd had a couple of colds, but I think I was well recovered from the last one before the big day. The only slight thing I wonder about is having a bit of a dental infection going on around the same time, did it have an impact on my performance? It's all sorted now thanks to my lovely dentist but it plays on my mind. I concluded that I've had plenty of brilliant days in my running career so one bad day I'm not going to get upset about. 4:08 having had a shocker is not that bad.

The day after Manchester my legs felt tired but OK, and I headed off to Birmingham New Street to give blood. I turned up with my sports bag, and a passing comment by the nurse "been anywhere nice this weekend" "well...Manchester draw your own conclusions" "What did you do there" "Ran the Marathon" caused all the sirens, buzzers and red flashing lights to go off at the donor centre. After much chin stroking, huddled whispering and a phone call, I was allowed to donate after an inquisition about my water intake before, during and after the Marathon. As I was being de-needled, the man remarked that my next donation would/will be 50. Then a few days after my gold card appeared so I'm confused, but I'm pleased I've been healthy and been able to give so much.Thinking about it, perhaps giving blood the day after a marathon was not my smartest move, as I feel like I've had a bit of a slower recovery than usual, but I'm part of a study so there isn't much leeway with timings. My legs feel OK but on some runs my HR has been astronomical. Things are getting better though. I just have to be patient, sometimes I forget that.

In other news, the weekend after the Marathon I headed off to the lakes to see my friend, who was having a varicose vein operation the day I arrived, I did the hospital run. She is a tough lady, but had a bad reaction to the anesthetic so at 8pm I was at the Lancaster Infirmary having my formerly sensible, now space cadet friend wheeled down to my car by two nurses. After a 45 min drive home she got out of the car and promptly threw up (my drivings not *that* bad is it!!) but I got her in the house and to bed and was woken up the next morning to the sound of her doing housework. She has managed to get a job transfer to Cornwall so will be moving to her new house as soon as she can, which means more fun in the sun as opposed to fun in the rain.

Last weekend I went to see my parents (who are still adding creatures to their aquarium whilst continuing with their fish finger addiction). My mum has lost a bit of weight and is moving a lot quicker on her new knee now, I'm really pleased about that as it means she can do more stuff and keep up with the speed machine that is my father. I also swung by Wimpole parkrun, just up the road from where family lived, are buried, still live and where I spent a lot of time as a child. A great parkrun, a toughie but absolutely beautiful surroundings. I was pleasantly surprised to clock the time I did there. I will be back!

Just follow the country code, OK?

That brings us up to this week, the Hagley 10K on Wednesday night, which never gets any easier. I had an OK run, 2.5 weeks after a marathon I can't be expecting great things. It was good to get stuck in to a bit of effort though. I'm getting there. I've had my 1-2-1 with my new employer (we are all TUPE-ing from one company to another) they seem to be offering much better terms and conditions than my current company so I cant complain there. I think it will bring a lot more opportunities for all of my team which is a good thing.

Yesterday we had a work "It's a knockout" competition for Charity. I'm sorry to be un-pc in the light of the revelations about Stuart Hall (we drew the line at calling our team "the Stuart Hall fan-club ) :-S but I have still got the "It's a knockout" theme tune going round in my head as they were playing it on a continuous loop all day.

It was at the gorgeous setting of one of the company owned lakes/reservoirs. A few stalls and raffles, bouncy castles for the kids, a food stall (yes I queued 30 mins for some burned vegetarian noodles). I always feel these team events are a bit crap and cheesy, but I had a total blast and LOVED IT and the weather held out too - AT LAST! Perfect conditions. We were the most ramshackle team there (speaks volumes about IT?) everyone else was super organized and had team t shirts, a gameplan etc and we rocked up in different shades of navy blue tops. So I spent the afternoon doing inflatable assault courses, being a human table football player, dragging a little lady around on a mat, being responsible for a sumo wrestlers hat, and going on adult size space hoppers amongst other stuff. I encountered something I never knew existed, "tandem" space hoppers. Unfortunately myself and my colleague had no coordination here, and to the crowd looking at us the way he was frantically bobbing up and down it must have looked like he was enthusiastically taking me from behind - I was in hysterics, I haven't laughed so much in a long time. We gave up and reversed the hopper back to people who knew what they were doing. Despite our lack of skills on that event, 7th out of 22 teams wasn't bad.

Built for speed?

So next weekend I am crewing for a friend at the Grand Union Canal Race (Google it if you don't know what it is), looking forward to the adventure and outdoor life. So much I may invest in a she-wee, I'm sure being able to pee standing up will make me a completely superior being.