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Having reflected a lot about experiences I have had during running events and other mass participation events I have taken part in, my approach to the events themselves and how I think about them afterwards has changed a lot. When completing some of the earlier events, I would feel happy when it went well and frustrated when it didn’t go as well (generally when the time wasn’t what I had hoped). As I was running along, I would have my head down and would be focused on how fast I was going, and would only take in a small amount of what was around me. This was especially true in my first marathon, when I put headphones in and listened to music, not taking in any of the sights around me.
As I got more experienced and completed more events, experiencing more occasions of not getting the time I wanted (something that is normal when you are always chasing PBs and improvement), I realised that the priority needed to change and the way to do this was to pick my head up and look more regularly at the people and things around me (including the supporters on the side of the road) than at my watch and my time to that point. The more I did this, the better I felt at the end of an event and the better I reflected on the event when travelling home. Time is always something that you want to take note of and track as this helps you to find improvement, keep you pushing yourself and helps to get the best out of you at that point in time, but it should never stop you from enjoying and savouring the experience and feeling good for getting to the end. As part of my career, I have worked in running shops and it is always interesting to talk to people about their experiences. It helped me to put context in my own running journey because, when talking to people of all abilities about their running experiences, in particular marathons, many people have stories to tell about the day they ran a marathon and it didn’t go to plan. Two of the blog posts to date for Turtle in the Room have been about challenging marathon experiences, so I know first hand how challenging they are. The reality is that most people have one challenge or another that means their marathon didn’t go to plan, which tells you how challenging it is and how important it is to prepare and reflect on the challenge in a positive way where possible. This is not a blog post telling you how to prepare for a running event or challenge of any size by telling you what to do, what to eat or where to do something. Instead, the preparation I am talking about is to tell yourself beforehand that the aim of the challenge is to embrace the surroundings, savour the support, take in as much of the event as possible and feel proud at the end of the event for finishing. Every challenge that is completed is a challenge for that person. Whether it is an “easy” challenge for you or one that you have chosen that is really hard, it is still a challenge to complete and finish and, as a result, you should savour every moment. The best bits of advice that I can give for embracing and savouring the event you take on are the following:
These are all small things to remember, yet they are also big things that I have forgotten or not done in the past, and I know that I am not alone. It is natural to focus on certain things (time!) when doing events but they are not the only thing that is important and, in the times when things are more challenging, finding other things to feel positive about can make us feel better about what we have just done. As mentioned in a previous blog, I recently completed my 7th marathon by taking part in the Brighton Marathon. As well as being my 7th marathon in total, it was the second time I had completed the Brighton marathon, the first time being 15 years ago in 2011. It was a very different time for me and, although I ended up running the marathon in a very similar way, the way I saw it and the way I reflected on it were completely different. In 2026, I planned to run the first half quite quickly and then simply get through the second half as best as I could, expecting to walk the majority of it. I ended up completing it in this way and was pleased with the result. In 2011, the plan was not to run in this way and, although the run unfolded in a similar way to 2026, my view of the run for a long time was very different, often feeling disappointment and frustration at the event, even 10 years later.
To explain why I felt this at the time and to see how the expectations set for an event can affect and shape the way we do things, an explanation of the day itself and the lead up to it are the best way to understand it. On the day of the event in 2011, Everything started as normal, although I was very conscious of what had happened the day before. I ate my breakfast as normal and was dropped off by mum and dad. I went through all the normal pre-race things I do and got myself ready to run. I started off the run comfortably, pushing myself because training had gone pretty well (I had run my first sub-50 minute 10Ks and first sub-1hr 50 mins half marathon, so I was in good shape). I was running along with the people targeting sub-4 hours and felt good. The first part of the course is up and down, but with the training I had done and routes I had done before, everything felt OK. The first few miles ticked away and all went well until, at mile 10, I started to feel and sense what was going to happen. I managed to maintain some good pace but was feeling myself slow down/slow my pace, but continued to feel OK. I got to halfway (13 miles) in 2 hours and 2 minutes, but had been gradually slowing mile by mile between miles 10 and 13. It was at halfway, seeing a crowd at this point and heading the other way from the centre of town, that it hit me and not just lightly. It hit me hard! I was empty of fuel and didn’t have the energy to keep running. The night before had caught up with me and I couldn’t maintain the pace and ability to run anymore. From this point, it resulted in me walking and power walking as much as possible, all the way to the finish. Yes, that’s right, walking! A half marathon, having already done one half, all the way to the finish. So, the reason why race day went the way it did! At this point in my running journey, I had an unusual and risky pre-race meal plan which, up to this point, had gone well (but the luck had to come to an end at some point!) My pre-race meal before runs was a Chinese chicken curry from a takeaway with rice and prawn crackers. The (very loose) science of it was that, with the rice, there were lots of carbs and, with the chicken curry, a good combination of carbs and protein. Honestly, I think this helped but it also made me relaxed and was a tasty meal leading into races. Why did it all go wrong? Honestly, the problem on this occasion was that I didn’t like the curry and rice we had and I struggled to eat it, so I didn’t get the food I needed the night before the run. I was staying in a cottage on the outskirts of Brighton, travelling down the day before (but staying for the week after). On arrival, we looked for where the local Chinese takeaway was and found one close by. Without doing much research, we chose it and went to it that evening, ordering the normal order and thinking nothing of it. It was only when eating it back at the cottage that I found out that it wasn’t nice and I really struggled to get it down. I wasn’t keen on the other things I normally have in a takeaway (chicken and pineapple) and it was just an unpleasant meal. I should say that I have no recollection of where exactly it was and, on reflection, it is possibly just my tastebuds, but it doesn’t change the experience on that evening and the subsequent effects on the marathon the next day. So, with the pre-race meal not going to plan and attempts to get fuel in other ways not having much impact (crackers and toast are no supplement for the rice and curry), I went into marathon day without the planned fuel and the result is as I have already explained. Back to the day of the marathon and I have quite strong and vivid memories of the second half of the marathon. I remember that it was a very warm day, the sun shining and lots of people out supporting, particularly at certain points of the route. In the second half, there were points, running through residential areas, where people came out and offered amazing support. I remember that one person in particular had a bowl of jelly babies and, in my need for energy, I took a few, which was very unusual for me. They were very nice and very needed! I also remember, and will always remember, the big signage at mile 20. It was designed to represent the wall, the notorious point for most people at which point they start to struggle and find it difficult, battling at a point where they have probably gone further than they have ever gone before. As well as thinking it was a bit strange to create signage highlighting this (it was only the second running of the event so maybe they thought they were being funny!), I also remember thinking that it was a bit ironic as, on this particular day, I hit the wall many miles before and it was now a battle just to get to the end. Despite the challenges and the walking half marathon within the marathon, I still finished the marathon in under five hours (4 hours and 48 minutes) which was a great effort. It was surreal to go through so much and yet still complete the run in a good time, which was ultimately a testament to the fitness that I clearly had at that time. The preparation for the marathon had gone really well and, at this point, I was probably the fittest I had ever been. As mentioned before, I had run my first sub-50 10K and first sub-1hr 50 half marathon, so the indications were really positive. It helped massively that, in the previous few months, I had been training to become a Personal Trainer, a course which was one week on, one week off of study, so the week of study was spent in the gym and classroom, regularly doing training and support to people also on the training course. On weeks where I wasn’t on the training course, I didn’t do much training, but was walking on a regular basis and working in a running shop, which meant travelling into central London and doing lots of walking as part of the commute. This all added up to improve the general fitness I was building at this time. Everything was pointing towards doing a decent marathon, certainly improving my PB at that time (four and a half hours) and doing well. Because of the circumstances around the marathon day and the fact that I walked half of it, the post-marathon effects were different to what I had experienced before and there were different benefits within this. The couple of days afterwards were typical (a bit sore and slow to walk around, feeling the effects of the marathon as I normally would) but within a couple of days, I was more mobile and starting to walk comfortably again (this usually took roughly a week). Even more surprising and shocking was that I went out for a run the following week and felt OK, running at a steady pace and generally feeling good. On previous occasions, it had taken 3-4 weeks to feel ready to go for a run again so things really did feel different. The whole Brighton Marathon experience in 2011 was a strange one. Looking back, I wish I had capitalised more on it because I think it was the start of something big to build on but, as I now understand as part of getting to know myself and how things have unfolded, it wasn’t the way things went and it was difficult to do this as I didn’t really persevere with it when performances didn’t go as I expected in the following months, which then caused a bigger drop-off. I recently completed my seventh marathon (Brighton Marathon 2026) and, as part of my preparation for this, I reflected on my previous experiences. It was 13 years since my previous marathon and it’s fair to say that my previous marathons had been challenging for a variety of reasons. After gradually getting back into running after a long break a few years ago, I decided that it was time to let go of past marathon memories and re-write how I feel about the experience of doing one (up to now, it generally made me shake my head and come out in cold sweats!) so I gave myself a year to prepare.
When reflecting on my last marathon, Barcelona in 2013, there was so much that happened that it is no surprise to have had the reaction I did when someone said the word “marathon”. Both the day itself and lead up had lots of moments that could have been so different, yet they unfolded the way they did. When looking back, it is scary to think that what now feels like small moments have felt like huge moments and potentially stopped me from doing more or doing things differently. But they did and they have. On the day of the race, I woke up and felt fine, having my breakfast and making my way to the start line of the Barcelona Marathon. When standing at the start line, I felt fine and was just patiently waiting for the start, as I often did. I remember thinking that it was different because all previous runs had been in England or France, so the general chat was different as it was in Spanish. There were a few English people there and I remember picking out a young English couple who were chatting, but I didn’t speak to them (although, at this time, it was rare for me to chat to people while waiting for runs to start). During the first few kilometres, I felt fine running along and was running at a decent enough pace, but was starting to feel tired from fairly early on. Then it happened, at 14km (a third of the way through the run). My calf pinged and I found it hard to put meaningful pressure on the leg. I was able to walk and do a form of power walking, but normal running form went out the window from that moment on. After my leg went, I kept moving with some form and went into a form of power walking, reducing the impact on the leg and stretching it out. For the next few kilometres, I found a way to carry on going. THEN… as I hit 20 kilometres, I realised, at a point where you turn back on yourself on the route, I was very close to the hotel where I was staying. Around this point, I also saw mum and dad, who had come to support me at the marathon. On seeing mum and dad, what I should have done was pull out at this point, gone back to the hotel, got changed then gone to the start line and picked up my bags. However, because of having travelled all that way and paid out for this adventure, I felt that I couldn't get back on the plane to fly home without the medal. I was also thinking about having to go to the start line to get my stuff and the faff of doing all of this, all without having a medal to show for it. So I carried on, through the immense pain, to find some way of getting to the end and completing the marathon. People passed me perpetually, up to the point where there was no-one to pass me anymore. I was even passed by a group of three people that had power walked the marathon. I don’t remember too much about the course and where I was running. I can’t remember the districts that I ran through or the support that I received along the route. That is all a blur (apart from when I was overtaken by the power walkers, where I remember there were palm trees lining the road). I do remember the finish area (helped by seeing photos afterwards to jog my memory!) There were no real crowds at the finish line as I was finishing and I just remember the fact that they were already starting to take down the hoardings and the sponsorship banners. I also remember feeling the pain but also being a bit surprised and disbelieving because, even with the bad leg and with the course finish line being disassembled, I still completed the marathon in under five hours and thirty minutes. That was only ten minutes slower than the London Marathon the year before and it was a really challenging experience to go through. The period in the lead up to the Barcelona Marathon was quietly chaotic. At this point, I had been managing my own project (an online platform to inspire children to be more active and discover different sports) for 18 months and was starting to become fatigued by the pressure and challenges of the project. It was around this time that I was thinking about changing the direction of the project and was trying new things. I was also trying to compete and challenge against other projects doing similar things and it was taking a toll on me as I was inexperienced and overwhelmed by all that was going on with it. I was also struggling with dealing with family loss in the previous years but found it difficult to talk to anyone about it. Because of the many things all happening at the same time, it meant that I didn’t do very much training for the marathon, with 13 miles (a half marathon) being the longest training run that I completed. This meant that I was very under-prepared and didn’t feel very fit. I also felt tired on a regular basis. I was able to capitalise on this being my 6th marathon and using the muscle endurance gained from previous marathons, although the physical capabilities stopped there and it was a marathon too far when profiting from previous experience. When I was out in Barcelona, I also had difficulty with food in the lead up to the event taking place on the Sunday. As I didn’t know the city very well and hadn’t done the research on the city, it meant that the search for good food to eat in the lead up was really hard. On the Saturday before the event, we went into the centre to find a restaurant to eat dinner and found it challenging to find somewhere to eat. In the end, we found a restaurant that did pasta, which was OK but didn’t stand out as an amazing meal. The search for the restaurant had been tiresome and the benefits of the meal probably got outweighed by the difficulty in finding it in the end. The effect of the experience in Barcelona was profound. The recovery from the bad knee took weeks and it took a while to start running again. I have also been very cautious about doing another marathon, signing up for one in 2019 but deciding very quickly that I wasn’t going to do it and not deciding to do another one until 2026 (a gap of 13 years). I also vowed after Barcelona that I would only do another marathon if I did the right training. Fast forward to 2026 and, although I got very nervous in the weeks leading up to the marathon, the sense of pride, satisfaction and relief when I crossed the finish line were massive. The tears flooded out and 13 years of carrying the memories of Barcelona melted away. It felt amazing and made me realise that, although we have difficult experiences in life, there can be many reasons for this and it is important, if you really want to, to have another attempt at completing a challenge. I have learnt that it is worth doing it and the joy when you succeed is immense! |
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