True Grit

Two months ago, I was sitting in my house having just come back in from one of my Sunday long runs training for the Manchester Marathon. I looked at my phone as I had a WhatsApp message from my friend Rob. It read, “I’ve had a biking accident, on my way to A and E”.

A shudder of worry ran through me. How serious was it? What had happened? Was he going to be ok? As the hours passed Rob sent through various messages. It was a serious crash while out mountain biking. He had gone over the handlebars after his pedal hit a log, landing on his side, travelling at around 25km per hour. Then he sent a picture. His arm was in a sling. He had broken his collar bone, he had broken some ribs and he had big gash on his arm. And he was in a LOT of pain.

“That dream was over”

Rob and I were due to run the Liverpool Half Marathon together. On that day, we all thought that that dream was over. Over the next few weeks he slowly recovered but remained in a lot of pain. Running was out of the question, it was simply a case of taking painkillers and letting things heal.

As we got to about a month out from the race, it was announced that this would be the last Rock and Roll Liverpool Marathon. Rob’s wife Linda decided to start doing the Couch to 5k programme, so Rob began going out to help her. He started running a little bit himself, but when we met up as they came through to support me at the Manchester Marathon, there was little prospect of him running anything like a half marathon.

“anything I could do… to get him to the start”

Through this time I was cajoling him along. I told him we could walk/run it. Run a mile, walk a mile. We could just fast walk it – with a cut off time of three and a half hours that sounded achievable – anything I could do to perhaps get him to the start line. But I also made it clear, I was perfectly happy to do the race myself and he should not feel under any pressure to do it.

Then a week out from the race he told me he was going to make a decision after going for a run. I was expecting him to do just a few miles then call it a day. He got to ten miles!! Then he told me. “I am going to do it”.

So last Saturday I drove down to North Wales where he lives and Rob and I got ready for a half marathon unlike any other either of us had done before. Rob and Linda live just outside a small village so we went for a bracing walk up the hill behind his house to discuss the plan. There was only one plan. This was not about pace or about tactics. This was simple. It was to get Rob round.

• 

• 

A breezy walk up the hill

Early on Sunday morning we drove the hour or so through to Liverpool for the race. The forecast all week had been for rain and a wind from the south. The wind was significant because the final four miles of the race run right alongside the Mersey. A wind from the south would be ideal – behind us for the final stretch when things were bound to be tough.

The route took us through the city centre then up a couple of steep climbs to about 5km then it flattened out before heading through a couple of the city’s parks and ending up at Penny Lane – an iconic place if ever there was one.

“the bands every mile were great”

That was at about halfway. From there, the course was downhill to the river and then flat. We were going well. The pace was easy for me and while there was not as much support as there had been in Manchester, the bands every mile were really great.

We did not really have a lot of chat. It was not that kind of a run. This was a run for Rob about grim determination, about getting through it, about proving what resilience, a bit of bloody-mindedness and gritting your teeth can do.

After Penny Lane we ran through another park and then we could see the River Mersey. On the way down I had said to Rob, “we have two choices with downhill, speed up, or relax and recover a bit.” We opted for the “relax and recover” part.

“he just wanted to keep going”

I had always made it clear to Rob that this race was for him. I would take my cues from him. We could walk at any point. We could slow down at any point. We could stop. We could pull out. Running is, after all, just supposed to be a bit of fun. But Rob did not want to do any of that. He just wanted to keep going.

Those last miles are tough for any runner, far less someone who has recently broken a bunch of bones in their body. I could see how hard Rob was having to work. His stride length was shortening. There was zero chat. I had to help him put the top back on his water bottle at one point as his injuries prevented him from doing it. But he would not stop. His legs were burning. But he kept on going. Thank goodness we had wind behind.

Mile markers do not really help toward the end of a race, they simply remind you how far a mile is. So after a bit of a zig zag back into town and then back out again, we could suddenly see the finish line in the distance. You can feel the boost that gives everyone in a race, as they give it their all for those last few metres. He raised his arms in the air in the finishing straight(well as far up as he can raise his arm at the moment) and we crossed the line.

That finish line feeling

Almost immediately after crossing the line and having a hug, we saw one of our friends, Jason, and it was great to see him, his mum and his wife. They were there as his sister was running the full marathon. It is always such a boost to see people you know and we got some great pictures which I think really capture how happy we were to get it done and get the bling!

After a chat, then some water and a bit of food we made it back to collect my bag from the drop off zone and got some more pictures taken before heading back to Wales to celebrate with some proper drinks and Sunday lunch in the local pub. What else could you want to round off an amazing day!

• 

• 

• 

• 

Celebrating together

Rob’s achievement was in getting to the start line in the first place. Something which I had thought would have been impossible when I got that first What’sApp message. To then get through and run the entire race without stopping was even more amazing. Truly phenomenal. Running continues to prove to me just how much people can achieve when they set their mind to it.

When I got home the following day – note to self, a seven hour drive after doing a long run is not great for your legs – I added my Liverpool medal to my hanger which has all of my 10k and half marathon medals. Every so often, I love looking through this. So many great memories.

My 10k and half marathon race collection

Now I have no races planned and nothing in the calendar. My hope to race a 10k this weekend was dashed when I discovered the race had sold out, so it is back to finding a new routine for my running. It feels slightly weird to have nothing to specifically train for, but I am looking forward to settling into a routine of JogScotland running, parkrun and then a social run with friends on a Sunday.

But on Thursday night Rob did message me. “When are we doing our next one?”. I guess we still have some unfinished business then, but that can wait until he really has properly recovered. Something to look forward to for next year.

Break

You train for months. You run five times a week for months. You push yourself for months. You make sacrifices for months. Then in one day you run your marathon race. It is done. It is finished. Now what?

It is not unusual to get post-race blues once the big event is over. To set a goal to achieve and then complete it, especially one which occupies as much of your time as marathon training does (but I believe this applies to any distance), it is perhaps not surprising that you come off the back of all of that and find yourself a little bit lost. That goal is no longer there. The defining target which you had since you signed up has disappeared. What on earth am I going to do now?

Well in my case, I have taken a break. This was always the plan, as my wife and I had not had a holiday together this year. This was partly due to me being away in Tokyo for three weeks in the middle of summer, so was timed to coincide with the week after the Manchester Marathon. And I believe it was the best thing I could have done.

“I did not miss running one little bit”

To ensure I was not even tempted to run, I did not take any running stuff with me for the holiday (beyond what I had for the marathon itself) and you know what? I did not miss running one little bit. There are two aspects to this – the physical and the mental.

On the physical side, yes I was pretty stiff for a few days afterwards. The day after a long run, I have painful heels first thing and then just general stiffness in my thighs and this was amplified the day after the race. We stayed in a hotel in Manchester and it was in some ways reassuring that when we went down for breakfast, I was not the only one walking around like I had just crapped myself. We were doing a driving holiday so that added a bit more to the stiffness as we drove further down south to Bath and then Devon in the days after the race, but the plus side was we did quite a bit of walking in those places – enjoying fabulous weather too – and that definitely helped ease things off. By Wednesday, I felt fine.

• 

• 

The weather was amazing for our break

On the mental side, the break was great just to decompress; to process the race and everything which happened. I really struggled to sleep in the couple of nights straight afterwards. I think a combination of thinking about the race, the achievement, the struggles, how the whole event went, and also being in an unfamiliar hotel bed did not really help. But beyond that, being out in the fresh air, eating too much, drinking too much, just spending some quality time with my wife and relaxing was the best thing to do.

When I have done marathons before, I have almost immediately just gone back to work – sometimes with international travel – and I think in some ways that diminished the achievement. It gave me little time to really consider what I achieved and maybe just focused on the physical as opposed to the mental side of recovery. This time I had a week away from home, a week away from work (two weeks actually as I am still off) and this has enabled me to really reflect not just on the day of the race, but also on the months of preparation which went into it. As I have said many times before a marathon is not the twenty six point two miles you run on the day, it is the hundreds of miles you run to get you to the start line. That is the real achievement.

• 

• 

The Lake District was our final stop on holiday

When I got home, I added my Manchester medal to my other marathon medals display in my home office. After not running for a week I arranged to meet up with a friend for a run on Sunday after arriving back home from holiday on Saturday afternoon. Had I missed running during that week? Had I woken up one morning and wished I had taken stuff with me? Did I long to go out for a little 5km as the sun came up? No. Not one bit. I loved the fact that I was not running and did not feel guilty in the slightest.

Adding my Manchester medal to my long distance collection

It was probably quite appropriate then that, having had the most magnificent weather while I was away, that my first run back would be in the pouring rain along Aberdeen beach with my friend Susan! Ah well, you cannot have everything. What surprised me was how well I felt. Yes, towards the end (we ran almost 10km) I felt a bit of stiffness in my thighs but to be honest I was just happy to be back out running once more. I have also run a couple of times since, and I have been running with a purpose.

After not raced at all since March 2020, I now have a second race in two weeks as on Sunday I am running the half marathon at the Rock and Roll Liverpool event in England. This was a race I was due to do in May of last year, but it has been postponed twice due to the pandemic. For me, the marathon in Manchester has always been the focus and this has been a bit of an afterthought to be honest. I am running with my friend Rob and in recent weeks this race has taken on a greater significance.

• 

• 

All set for the Liverpool Half

A couple of months ago, Rob had a serious accident while mountain biking, so for quite a while it looked like he would have to pull out. I have always planned to do the race and as Rob has recovered I have encouraged him back to a bit of running, suggesting we could run a mile, walk a mile for the actual event. The decision of whether to run or not is his of course, but it looks like he is going to go for it. If we do, and complete it together, then that will be one hell of an effort. And I come back to what I wrote about last week – doing it Together.

I ran Rob’s first 1okm with him – in Edinburgh in 2018. I ran Rob’s first half marathon with him – in Chester in 2019. He did brilliantly in both, but I genuinely believe that when we complete the run on Sunday, it will be an achievement to outrank anything he has done before.

• 

• 

Rob and me after his first 10km and half

And this brings me back to a common theme from my writing in recent months. Time is irrelevant when it comes to things like this. Running has given me an enormous amount of pleasure in recent years, but the true pleasure is not in the times I have achieved or the medals on the wall or the t-shirts in the cupboard.

The true pleasure is in the friends I have, the new friends I have gained, the times we have spent with each other, the sense of achieving things together. Whether it was the half marathon in Inverness with Cara, the marathon with Jeanette, running a virtual 10km with Jon, Roberto and Mike, running with people from work, running with my brother or running with friends at JogScotland, that is where the pleasure lies. I know how much every one of my running friends has helped me and I hope I have helped them along the way too.

This weekend will mark another stage in my running journey. And to share that with a great friend – what more could you ask for?

Together

“This is for DJ. This is for DJ”. I am repeating this in my head. Not too often, but every so often. This is my reminder for why I am putting myself through this pain. This is why I am twenty miles in to the Manchester Marathon. I am running this in memory of my friend, Donald John MacDonald, to raise funds for a mental health charity which meant so much for him. “This is for DJ” is my mantra for keeping myself going through the tough times. And then my friend Jeanette, whom I am running the marathon with, spoke.

“Craig, I need to stop”. We move to the side of the road. Knowing that if we actually stopped, it could be very hard to get going once more I say to her, “ok, but let’s keep moving, let’s not stop.”

We walked for a few metres then started running again. “It’s even more painful when I walk, let’s keep running,” she replied. Twenty miles in to a marathon is a tough place. In training, this was the maximum distance we had run, so to an extent beyond twenty miles is running into the unknown. Both of us have run marathons before so we knew what we were in for, but regardless of preparation, the experience of the final 10km of a marathon is something which is very hard to replicate in any other circumstances.

We were more than three hours in to our race. We had more than an hour to go. Six miles is a distance we would run without thinking about any day of the week. Except this day. A whole world of pain lay ahead. It had felt very different just a few hours before.

We had started off well. Jeanette and I had travelled down separately for the event, but we managed to meet up in the runners’ area before the start. We had been due to be in different start waves but we managed to negotiate the entry procedures to the start area so were able to line up together.

Ready for the start

Before I had met Jeanette, as I walked down to the runners’ area, I had also, purely by chance, bumped into two other friends from our JogScotland group who were also doing the race. Callum and Stewart were on their way to start their race and it was a great boost to also get to see them and have a quick chat.

Seeing Callum and Stewart was great!

All our preparations were done and Jeanette and I joined the wave of a few thousand runners walking down to the start line. These are always nervous moments. No matter how your prep has gone, the marathon is such a challenging distance you do not really know how it is going to go. As we edged towards the line waiting for our start time to arrive, I was deep breathing to keep myself calm. This prompted Jeanette to ask if I was ok. I think she was worried I was going to collapse before we got going! After reassuring her that I was, in fact, fine, I turned to her and offered some final words of advice. “Right, let’s not be sh*t”.

“the warmest part of the day”

The weather was unusual for Manchester in October. Not only was it not raining, it was actually quite warm. Because the race was being held on the same day as the half marathon, the marathon was starting later than it normally would. That meant we were starting shortly before twelve o’clock and would be running through the warmest part of the day. This was less than ideal but it was what it was, it was another challenge to overcome.

A short while later and we were off. I had gone into the race hoping to go under four hours and thirty minutes, which would be a new best time for both of us for the marathon. So we stayed behind the four hour and thirty minute pacer at the start, then slowly edged in front as we moved through the first couple of miles. Running behind a pacer often involves quite a lot of bunching of runners, so by running in front we avoided that. We were also aiming to run ten minute mile pace, which is slightly ahead of four hour thirty pace anyway.

“large crowds”

As always in a marathon, the first few miles drift by and are very easy. We got into our usual running rhythm, chatting a bit, Jeanette usually running a few paces ahead of me. I joked that I always ran as her anchor. She spotted a friend as we ran into Manchester City Centre which was lovely and we also got there a taste of the large crowds who came out to support all the runners.

As we headed back towards the start area, at around eight miles and close to the Old Trafford football stadium, home of Manchester United, this was where my wife and friends were going to be. You cannot quantify what a boost it gives you to see a friendly face and so it was great to see Fiona and friends Rob and Linda. They stood in a place where the course looped so I got to see them not once but twice. And then off we continued, out towards the halfway point.

Eight miles in – and Jeanette just out of frame ahead of me

I know it looks cloudy in the photograph, but it was actually pretty warm by this point and would only get warmer. This would begin to be a factor later on but for now we were going well. We were not chatting as much as we normally would on a run, which worried me slightly, but this was a race so is a different challenge to a normal Sunday training run.

The crowds were amazing as we ran through various suburbs and small towns on the outskirts of the city. Jeanette saw another friend as we headed on a long, five mile straight out to where we reached halfway. At thirteen point one miles we were at two hours and thirteen minutes. Our pacing was bang on. We had hoped to be able to run the second half quicker than our first, but even if we just maintained our pace or even slowed a little we would be comfortably inside our target time.

“there was nothing I could do to ease it”

My only challenge at this point was that I had a really sore stomach. I had taken a couple of gels in the first half as planned and had nibbled my usual peanut bar which I had with me, but this was like a permanent stitch which I was running through. I had practiced all of this with no issues in our long training runs, but here we were in the race and I was suffering a bit. However there was nothing I could do to ease it, I just had to keep going.

The section between halfway and twenty miles in a marathon is one which I have found very tough in the past. And while the Manchester Marathon is overall very flat, these next few miles featured a few short, sharp climbs which were quite sapping. As we got through fifteen, sixteen and seventeen miles, I felt the miles were just ticking by. The mile markers were coming through ok but one thing was worrying me. Our conversation was virtually non-existent. On a training run this is always an indication that one or both of us is struggling, but our pace was still consistent, even if we had begun to slow a little.

“I had never experienced before”

As we got past nineteen miles, my first real warning sign. I began to feel a slight muscle spasm at the back of my left thigh. This was something I had never experienced before in any run I have ever done. Was it cramp? Was it my hamstring getting ready to go? Was it another muscle that was about to give up? But what was the last thing I was going to do? A bit like the fact that I had had a sore stomach for miles, the last thing I was going to do was to tell Jeanette.

But just after the spasms started, my problems paled into insignificance. My challenges were not stopping me running. Yes, they were awkward and uncomfortable but I was able to manage them, to keep going. As soon as Jeanette said she needed to stop, there was only one thing which mattered. Getting to the finish line together.

“no way we were not going to finish”

That one word. Together. DJ and I worked together. We played football together. We went to the pub together. We spent time in each other’s houses together. We went to parties together. He died suddenly at Christmas, a few weeks after we had what would turn out to be our last meal out together. I wish we were still together now. Jeanette and I had gone through all our training together. There was no way we were not going to finish this together.

We ran. We walked. We walked some more. I talked about DJ. As we got to about twenty two miles, the four hour thirty pacer caught us. We ran again, passing them. Briefly. Then we walked. The pacer passed us once more. Jeanette kept urging me to leave her to go and chase the time. At one point as we walked up one of those sharp climbs, she said, “Right Craig, serious conversation time. Leave me, go get your time.” But that was not going to happen. I realise that there are few opportunities to run a marathon and achieve a personal best, but I had resolved in my head that we were going to do this race together. From start. To finish. (Now before you all think what a saint I am, I should also point out that if she had stopped to go to the toilet then I would have had a real dilemma!!)

There are few more horrible experiences than looking for mile markers and looking for water stations as you get towards the end of a marathon. Trust me. But that was where we were. Each mile marker seemed to get further away. The water station at thirty five km (about twenty two miles) could not come quick enough. The water station at forty km – around a mile and a half before the finish – seemed to take an eternity to appear.

“I felt almost overwhelmed”

It was between these two points that I felt almost overwhelmed. On one of the sections where we were running, the crowds were really large. Strangers, seeing us struggling, called out our names, urging us on. I suddenly had a flood of memories about DJ. I had to catch myself as I felt I was about to burst suddenly into tears. The emotion of what we were going through was passing over me in waves. So many people had sponsored me. So many people were supporting us. This experience was very tough, but we would get through it.

The further we got, the more we walked. I was walking faster than Jeanette so we held hands to make sure we would walk at the same pace. I am very tall and Jeanette is not. So at least this way we would be going at the same rate. When we could, we ran again. As we headed up a slope, I could see the final turn into the finish straight was coming. We began to run, running for the final time.

As we got to the top of the rise, the crowds were huge. We turned into the finishing straight. The near overwhelming emotion returned again. I think this was now relief which was streaming through me. Relief that we were going to make it. Relief that it was almost over. As we kept going, a large group of runners virtually stopped in front of us. These were charity relay runners (teams who run 10km each as a relay rather than the whole race) and the whole team wanted to finish together. You have no idea how annoying this was as this huge bunch ground to a halt as they waited for their final runners.

We ran around them. Suddenly, I could physically see the finish line. I pointed it out to Jeanette – all we had to do was keep running. I was looking for my wife in the crowd. The energy of the crowd was spurring me on. Suddenly I felt like I could run forever as I spotted Fiona standing about 100 metres from the line. As Jeanette and I ran towards the line, I grabbed her hand and raised it up. We raised our hands together. We put our arms in the air and we crossed the line. Together. We had done it. We hugged. It was over.

With the all important bling

A few minutes later, having had a drink, collecting our medals and t-shirt and walking through to the runners’ finishing area, the immediate pain began to ease for both of us. It is hard to describe the sense of relief I felt. I was really tired and really thirsty. My stomach was still a bit sore. All I wanted to do was find my wife and go and sit down. Bizarrely I was not hungry, really not at all. Jeanette, who had also recovered, headed back to where she was staying and I eventually managed to find my wife (after an unnecessary detour around Lancashire Cricket Ground).

Did I achieve my target time? No. Does it matter? No. Do I care that I did not break four hours and thirty minutes? I really do not. The achievement of completing a marathon is so great that time is totally irrelevant. I have now run four marathons and all my times are within eight minutes of the others. Yes it is great to have targets and to achieve them, of course, but there were more important things in play on Sunday in Manchester.

• 

• 

All of that for a lump of metal and a t-shirt

Sunday’s run was about friendship. It was about trust. It was about memories – remembering some, creating others. It was about belief; belief that if you stick together then you can achieve something which at times feels like it is impossible.

I have no idea at this stage if I will run another marathon. I have little motivation to do another – but I will enter the ballot for New York (and have already entered the ballot for London). In my marathon journey I have done enough. I am content with all my efforts and everything I have achieved. I need do no more. I have nothing to prove to the only person who counts – me.

But I do have another race on the horizon – the Liverpool Half Marathon next weekend. I hope to run it with another friend, but we shall see. He is fighting to get fit in time. But that is a story for another day. Manchester Marathon? Completed it mate.

That was for DJ.

One More Time

The final training runs are done. The hundreds of miles of the training programme are over. The early morning runs, the runs in the heat, the sunrise runs, the sunset runs, the runs with friends, the runs on my own. All done. All I need to do now is one more run. Yeah, all I need to do…

That one run is the Manchester Marathon, so it is slightly more than just another run. But I feel ready. I feel well prepared. There is nothing more I can do now other than turn up on the day and see how it goes.

As anyone who has followed my blog over the past months will know (and thank you for reading), I have found this training programme a struggle. This might be my fourth marathon, so I knew what I was letting myself in for, but the combination of missing three weeks just when the distance was beginning to build up and a warm summer and September in Scotland has definitely tested me.

The most positive thing is that the final part of my training has gone well, the last twenty mile run was probably my best of all the long runs we did, and I have managed to get through the taper without going completely crazy. Reflecting on my training last year, perhaps I overtrained for the virtual Dublin Marathon and I certainly do not feel like that this year. If anything, maybe I am undercooked, but I am going into the race feeling well rested and strong. I can ask for no more.

The final training run for me and Jeanette together

It is also time to thank all the people who have helped to get me to this point, particularly my Sunday long run (and other runs) partner Jeanette. We have both dragged each other out every Sunday morning for months, pounding out the miles in the streets of Aberdeen. Sadly, our other training partner Derek had to pull out a little while back, but I also really value the miles he helped me round as well.

My other regular running partners Cara and Susan have been fantastic too. Running is so much more than just the fitness part. Having a social run, a bit of a laugh and a catch up (plus they are both pretty quick) takes a lot of the stress out a training programme, which at times, can threaten to overwhelm you. My last training run was a very gentle couple of miles with Susan, who was able to tell me all about her amazing run at the London Marathon last week. It was really nice to chat to her about it and discuss some last minute tips.

Nice t-shirt!!

Everyone from my JogScotland group that I have run with since back in June has been a great help too. Leading the groups has given me a different focus and appreciation and it has been really nice to meet lots of new people. Again, running at a different pace (sometimes a slower pace for me) has given that variety to the training programme which I would not have got had I just set out to follow a mileage plan every time.

All I have done this week is two short morning runs, partly down to the weather forecast being better on the days when I ran than doing it in the evening, but also as a chance just to chill out in the evenings and relax. Rest is such an important aspect of training and undervalued. It is not about being lazy it is about giving your body the best chance to recover from the rigours which you are putting it through. It also meant I could enjoy sunrise views.

Sun coming up over the moors

The plan now is to have an easy day in Manchester on Saturday, with the added bonus of dinner with friends whom I have not seen for around two years on Saturday night. That will be such a special moment for us all, never mind running the actual race on Sunday.

I always go into a marathon thinking that this will be my last, and certainly when I started training for my first I was very much of the mind that I would be a “one and done” marathon runner. But here we are three and a half years on, about to embark on my fourth. And you never know, there may be a fifth.

The ballot entry for London 2022

I would love to run the London Marathon, or New York, so will continue to enter the ballot in the hope that one year I may get lucky and my name gets chosen. And then I would get the chance to put myself through what I have just gone through for the past four months. Who says marathon runners are crazy? Race week is here.

Waiting

You are eight years old. It is the week before Christmas. You are almost bursting with excitement. Counting down the sleeps until Santa comes. At times you feel that time passes so slowly. Why can it not be today? Why can it not be now?

For me, exchange being eight for being fifty two and change Christmas to the Manchester Marathon and that previous paragraph pretty much sums up my state of mind at the moment.

This is a phase of the training programme for a marathon that is just a bit weird. Weird in the sense that after all the running I have done for the past four months, now it is all about not running anything like as much. In fact it is as much about NOT running as running itself. That is fine but it also means you have a bit more time on your hands; a bit more time to think. And in that case a bit more time to worry about things.

I know it is a bad thing to wish your life away, but there is a fair chunk of me which just wishes it was next Sunday night, the race was done and I am sitting in a bar drinking and eating. All good things come to those who wait. And wait I must.

“it was all in my head”

This week I reached the stage of “oh my god why does my (insert body part here) hurt?”. Perhaps it was the phantom knee injury I thought I picked up while running up that hill on Thursday evening, or maybe it was the ankle tweak I felt when I was out on Tuesday with the JogScotland group, or was it the back pain i felt when standing at the sink doing the dishes. What ever it was, it was all in my head. I am fine. I know I am fine. It is just my mind playing tricks on me. The key thing is, nothing is hurting when I run and frankly, that is all that counts.

The last week has seen the mileage tick down following the twelve mile run which Jeanette and I did last weekend. I found the first few miles of that quite hard, even more unusual given that it was mostly downhill but it was quite breezy and I do find it difficult at times to regulate my breathing when running into a headwind. I really find that having calm, stready breathing is such an important factor for me when I do long distance running. It gives me confidence to just keep going if I feel I have control over this aspect of my running.

Jeanette and I enjoying a closed road run for once

The rather farcical thing of this meant that I actually felt way better by the time we got to the hills heading home at ten, eleven and twelve miles than I did when we were going through miles four and five. The important learning from this is that when things do not feel right, just keeping going, pushing through that tough moment will get you to a better place. An important thought to hold when long distance running I think. Sometimes it is about taking yourself out of the moment – something which is hard to do – and be positive.

“motivation… a whole lot easier to find”

I went to JogScotland for the final time before the marathon this week, leading the five and a half mile group. Leading at JogScotland, since I did my Leadership in Running Fitness course back in May, has been a real pleasure. So far I have led groups running five, five and a half, six and six and a half miles. Not only has it been an enjoyable experience and a chance to meet a host of new people, it has also made discovering the motivation for midweek training a whole lot easier to find.

But with no JogScotland after Tuesday, on Wednesday I ran with friends Cara and Susan. A special run with Susan as this was our last time running with her before she takes on the London Marathon tomorrow. I just know she is going to do so well and have to confess to being slightly jealous of her getting the chance to run this iconic race. I will be tracking her on the app and keeping a watch on the coverage to spot her in the throng of runners. And while I always say I have not idea if I will run another marathon I will certainly be entering the ballot for next year’s race when it opens next week.

Thursday and Saturday were therefore solo runs but running on my own has never been a problem and the two very different sets of conditions I ran in gave them their own distinct character. Thursday was calm and on the brink of darkness. Saturday was breezy and a bit moody around dawn at the beach.

• 

• 

The sunset on Thursday, before sunrise on Monday

Eight miles is on the plan for tomorrow, so Jeanette and I will meet up at 8am on Sunday morning for one final time before the big day next weekend. I have a route in mind that keeps us relatively close to where we live, but with a breezy and showery day forecast it might be a challenging one!

I should also confess two more things. One is I have already got most of my running stuff looked out for next weekend (you can never be too organised can you!) and the other is that, yes, I have been looking at the weather forecast. So far, it looks ideal but this is the British weather we are talking about, so let’s not get too carried away at this stage. A lot can change in a week.

The start of the packing process

One bad thing to happen this week is the strike action by metro drivers is back on for next weekend, which will be a total nightmare for everyone taking part if it goes ahead. The Metrolink system in Manchester is a key part of getting everyone to and from the start and finish. I think I am within a couple of miles of the start so can walk there if need be, but given that I will then be running 26.2 miles afterwards I would rather not. Something else to stick in the anxiety box for the next seven days.

Once we get the eight miles tomorrow done, then during the week it is simply about ticking over with a couple of three mile runs. Nothing I am going to do now is going to change my fitness level for the race, apart from if I did too much. And that is not going to happen. One week to go.