Raw

There are lots of words that spring to mind when you think about marathon training – resilience, determination, miles, more miles, even more miles, trainers, diet, and on and on and on. This week I am going to talk about two – pacing and, ahem, chafing.

Now, it might seem sensible to talk about the first one, but the second one, well, just bear with me on that one, as what I want to talk about is something which I feel is a bit symptomatic of things as the race nears, a bit of doubt and indecision.

“very comfortable”

In fact, doubt and indecision is a bit of a theme for the first one too. Not in terms of what I have been doing, but about knowing what to do come race day. In terms of my training, I am really happy with how my pacing has been going. For my long runs, I have deliberately been running at an easy pace and that has worked out pretty well, with consistent times being churned out for each mile and feeling very comfortable.

Last week marked the longest run on the training block so far, twenty one miles, and it worked out really well. That is not to say it was easy, of course it was not, but what I was most happy about was that I chose to also eat on the run as well as an additional thing to try out. Usually on longer training runs, I would stop to take a gel or a bite of a bar which I take with me, but as I will not do this in the race, I have decided to start doing this for my final big runs. Other than having to stop a couple of times to cross roads, I ran the entire way without stopping, even including lapping at the back of the parkrun crowd waiting for the event to start for my final three miles.

“only a half”

I did the same this weekend, though this week is a down week for the long runs, so I have reached the part of training where it was “only a half”, which I recognise is a bit crazy, but it is true. Once you get through the eighteen, nineteen, twenty mile runs, when you drop back to half marathon distance, you get home barely feeling like you have been out for a run.

My doubt about my pacing is simply about what pace to aim for in the race itself. I know I have written plenty before about how my running is no longer about smashing times out and going for pbs, but if I am honest with myself, I do feel I have a marathon pb in me. The target? To get under four hours and thirty minutes. But as my training has gone well, should I go for four thirty or try and push myself and go for four twenty. Given that I have never managed to go under four thirty in my four previous marathons, I think I know where I am going to land, but it is running a bit around my head right now.

Running through Seaton Park on one of my runs this week

Then on to chafing then. Ah, the simply joy of rubbing pieces of flesh so red raw on a run that they might bleed through your clothes, and even if it does not bleed, it might still be raw enough to have you screaming and flailing about like Janet Leigh in Psycho when gushing droplets of water in the shower suddenly crash into the exposed parts. Yeah, it is a real belter for sure and just be thankful I am sparing you any pictures.

“everything hurts anyway”

Onto the doubt part then. Over time, I have had chafing on various parts of my anatomy, but lately, to be not too crude, I have begun to get a bit of, ahem, undercarriage chafing, late on in my long runs. By this part of the run, almost everything hurts anyway, so why bother about the chaftastic stuff then you may ask? Well to be honest, by the time you get past about sixteen miles, the last thing you need is something else really bugging you, particularly when it is something you can solve, and especially when it is in that region….

So this has then prompted a bit of a change of mind about what shorts I am going to wear for the race. I accept that this is late in the day to be changing things, particularly as I only really have one more big run – twenty two miles next weekend – to try them out. But the ones I have bought I have had before and really liked, so I am not going too far out on a limb here. It does play into this wider picture of doubt and uncertainty that can be a big risk at this stage.

“doubting yourself”

I have four weeks to go until the race. This is not the time to be doubting yourself or making big changes to the plan. This is the time to have faith and trust in everything that has gone on through the training. This is when it is a good time to look back on where you started and where you are now. This is the time to be positive about everything.

One real positive this week has been running with some friends whom I have not managed to run with for a while. Marathon training for me is quite a solitary thing so to be running again with friends Cara last weekend and then Jeanette this weekend has been really refreshing and great to catch up with them.

A few miles with Cara, a half with Jeanette

Once I get the marathon out of the way, I hope to get back to running with my friends at the weekend more regularly, something else to look forward to at the end of this long journey.

This is the final big week of training ahead, culminating with my longest single run of the whole plan, and I am aiming for twenty two miles. I am still working on a route, deciding whether to run on Saturday and finish at parkrun again or to go for the big run uphill back home. The final big week does not mean the training is over, but it does mean the tapering down will begin, reducing the mileage and ensuring I am fully rested before race day. Four weeks to go.

Realities

Marathon training programmes are all about routine. They are about regimen. They are about cranking out the miles. They are about winding things up, but in a regulated way. So what then happens if you suddenly cannot follow that regime, and that regularity with which you have been getting your runs done gets severely disrupted? You adapt.

I always knew that last week was going to be difficult to fit in everything on the Venice Marathon training plan. Away abroad with work, working over the weekend, running in an unfamiliar place. All of these things were going to conspire against me anyway, but as it was a down week (one where my overall mileage reduced in comparison to the previous week), I was not too concerned about it.

“struggle for motivation”

What has hit me hard this week, has been a bit of a struggle for motivation, which is unlike me, and also not really what I need when I am this close to the end of the training programme. It has been time to just get it done.

Last week, when I was in Amsterdam, it meant that I had to change the days when I ran, and that has continued into this week. Mondays and Fridays have been my rest days for all of my training, but because the way the trip worked out, that was not going to be suitable. So last week I ran Monday, Tuesday and Saturday – and that was it. Coming on the back of one of my biggest mileage weeks, it was quite a pleasant change to be honest, though that is not to say my runs were not uneventful.

I have been fortunate to visit Amsterdam many times, and also to have run there before, so I felt pretty confident when I stepped out on Saturday morning to do my longish run of the week. As I was working at 9am, I had planned a route of around nine miles, but was heading out at 5am to get it over and done with in time for me to get back to the hotel, cool down, shower, change, have breakfast, then travel to where I was working.

“keep my long runs really easy”

It was stupidly early to go out and run among the few people who were out and about, and for them, it was very much still Friday night, particularly around the twenty four hour fast food places around Dam Square. But the majority of my run was on near deserted roads, and as Amsterdam is so flat, it was never going to be a tough one. I am determined to keep my long runs really easy this time around, slowing right down and just focusing on getting the distance done.

The beautiful clock tower close to Ann Frank’s house in Amsterdam

The route was pretty straightforward and I was confident about sticking to it and clocking off the miles. From my hotel I wound my way through the dark streets, passing the occasional couple walking home after their night out, occasionally catching the noise out the window of a party which was still ongoing, or avoiding the cyclists who, even at that time of the morning, were making their way through the streets. I ended up at about the 10k point at the RAI Exhibition Centre, where I was working at a trade show, and from there turned and headed for the hotel.

Outside the RAI at 6am

The route back from the RAI is one which I have done dozens of times – both walking back after the show and occasionally running – but this time, I got things horribly wrong. One wrong turning turned into another, and then when I realised I had gone wrong and took out my phone to look at Google Maps to work out where I was, I failed to orientate myself properly and instead of turning right, I turned left. And then ran for approximately a mile before I began to think, “uh oh, this is really not where I need to be”. Sure enough I was now way off course…

“a bit of a slog”

Time was also marching on, so I turned around and headed back in the opposite direction, all the while realising that my nine mile run was now going to be quite a bit longer than that. In fact, when I eventually made my way back to the hotel, I was closer to eleven and a half miles. Given I was due to run a half marathon that day, at least I got closer to what I was supposed to do, so I should take that as a positive! Though having done that distance and then spend all day on Sunday on my feet at a trade show was a bit of a slog.

I don’t only run, I do, sometimes, do some work

Running on Sunday was not going to be possible and then I travelled home on Monday, thankfully avoiding the worst of the chaos that descended on Schiphol Airport that day. But now back home, I found myself a bit demotivated. Please read my previous blog to understand why. This just came at the wrong time. I have come so far that this is not when to falter. This is when to refocus and push on.

“I have to complete the training plan”

It is not that I have not been running this week; it is not that at all. It is just that it has taken a really big effort to get out and do it, and once again, to fit things in, I have ended up running on a normal rest day. Ironically, I feel supremely fit. The eleven easy miles in Amsterdam was such a breeze – sense of direction apart – that I feel positive about how Venice is going to go, but I know I have to complete the training plan to ensure that this is the case.

Twenty miles is on the plan for this weekend – this is now reaching the furthest distance I will go in my programme – and once again I am planning the route with a mind to finishing at parkrun. This has worked well for me the previous times I have done it, so let’s hope it does so again. It will involve a super early start in order to get in the seventeen miles I need to do before I start parkrun, but that is a small sacrifice to make. Five weeks to go.

Harsh

I walked up to a guy I knew whom I had not seen in three years. As I walked up to him, I thought, “wow, he has lost a ton of weight, good on him.” We shook hands, we exchanged pleasantries, I said to him, “hey man, you are looking really well” and he replied, “hey, what happened to you? I got thin and you got fat”.

I cannot tell you how much that hurt. How much those few words, perhaps innocently meant, possible said in jest, truly ripped right to the bone of my soul. As someone who has struggled with body image since I was young, to have someone say that to me was truly horrible.

Perhaps it is true. Perhaps, as I look back on where I was in 2019, when we last met up, that is true reflection of how I looked then and how I look now. Perhaps all the running I have done since then has been for nothing and I am fat and unfit, or at least that is how I am perceived by that one person. And maybe that should not bother me. They are not me. But in that short phrase, it felt like they defined me.

It made me question all the things I have done. Perhaps I should be starving myself to get back to my lowest weight. Perhaps by not being as thin as I was, I am losing respect from my peers. Perhaps I should abandon the work that I do to attempt to stay thin and healthy and just go back to being the fat old guy that I was six years ago. Perhaps everything I have done does not count for anything. If that one guy sees me as being fat, then is that not the case that everyone sees me in that way?

Now I know that there is only one opinion that truly counts here, and that should be my opinion, but when my own view of my own body image is so distorted by outside influences – how I looked in the past when I was much younger, how I looked at my thinnest, how I feel that my weight has yo yo’d a bit in recent times, how I think I would look if I stopped running – it is very hard to disconnect the opinion of others.

Body image is key. It is about how you feel about yourself. As the person who talks most to yourself, then trying to be positive about yourself should be paramount. Others might have whatever opinion about you, but you should at least be kind to yourself. But I am a harsh critic of myself. I am the one who agonises most about the decisions I make. I am the one who lies awake at night thinking about how things have gone at work. While work does not define who I am, it is a part of who I am, and therefore I find it difficult to disassociate the two things.

So when I feel negative about myself, then all of these things can come in to play. Self worth is all relative. Feeling positive about yourself is not a given. Something so small as this one throwaway comment can have a major impact on that sense of self worth. If that guy thinks that, then surely that is what everyone thinks. And if everyone thinks that, then perhaps I am kidding myself about how I feel about things?

I have no idea how to change this. Give up running and perhaps go back to how I was? Give up eating healthily and go back to how I was? Change my mindset which I have had since I was a child about my relationship with my weight? (this one is frankly unlikely….) Or just keep doing what I am doing?

The truth is, the last one is the only realistic prospect. In my brain (and my heart), I know I am doing the right things. I do wonder why I do not look as thin as a rake given all the running I am doing, but I guess my metabolism has simply slowed down as I get older and so it has just got used to my training regime as the norm. As a consequence, I do not burn off as many calories as perhaps I did in the past. Weirdly I do not think I eat anything like as much as I did a few years back when I was much heavier than I am now. The prospect of doing more than I already am, just in order to lose a few pounds, really depresses me.

I am not writing this as a plea for help. I am writing this as an illustration of how one comment, one phrase, one throwaway set of words, can have such a significant impact on the opinion of someone else. I am sure the guy who said it has not even given it one more thought. But for me, in the days since he said it, I have given it much more thought. In many respects it will dominate my thoughts. And as I run in the future, I will likely think about it a lot more. Words are powerful things. Perhaps they should not be, but they are. And those few words really cut to the core.

Choose Your Direction

It is the night before a long run or a race that the doubts can creep in. As you lie on the sofa or in bed, the mind can wander into negative territory.

Have I drunk enough to be properly hydrated through the run? Have I eaten properly to make sure I do not run out of fuel? What is the route going to be like? Ouch, what was that twinge in my leg? Was that a touch of cramp or have I strained something? Why can’t I sleep? And on, and on, and on.

I regard all of this as quite natural now. It is natural to have doubts. In fact it is not just ok to have doubts, but it is probably healthy. No point in being overconfident, believing it will be easy and then getting found out. But it is only healthy if you can deal with those doubts in a positive way and not allow them to overwhelm your preparations.

One of the views on a morning run this week

I have doubts all the time – not just about running, but about work, about family, about life in general. It is just part of me. I read something somewhere which was about high achievers (bit of context here, I do not consider myself a high achiever at anything), and how they constantly question what they are doing. They are always striving to be better, perhaps even lacking confidence in what they have already achieved, as they believe that there is always more to do. This is in contrast to confident people, who may be less able, but project that confidence outwardly and just bluster and batter their way through life. I think we can all think of people like that…..

“focus on the things which I can control”

While I may have doubts, I believe I can set them in some kind of context. I really try and focus on the things which I can control, the things which I can do to make things have a more positive outcome. Perhaps that is listening to music, or watching TV, or doomscrolling social media, whatever, but it is just something to move past the phase where the doubts become dominant. That is not a good position to be in.

The other way I try to deal with it, is to visualise things about the race itself. I do think this is a useful technique to consider. When I talk about visualising things, I do not just mean the feeling of crossing the finish line – though to be frank, that is probably the one I think of the most of course! What I mean, is actually thinking about the times which are going to be tough, and how to handle them. There is no point going into a marathon and thinking you are going to breeze it round (though good luck to you and well done if you do). To prepare properly, it is worth considering what you are going to do if things are not going to plan.

“I think about coping strategies”

In my view, this is not about being negative, this is simply good preparation. I think about ignoring how I feel in the first few miles (generally I always feel pretty grim and just need to get through it), but then I think about how I will cope once I get much further into the race. How will I feel at halfway? How will I feel at eighteen? How will I feel at twenty two? And so on. And then I think about coping strategies; positive things to say to myself or to think about, in order to get through. For example, on my latest long run, I began to think of some of my favourite positive, inspirational songs (I do not run with headphones) and recited lyrics from them in my head to make me feel strong, to make me feel powerful, to take the energy from the song and almost infuse it into my tired body.

On long runs, I find I go through phases – phases of feeling good and phases of feeling alright, and, occasionally, phases of feeling totally, totally crap. Through this training programme, things have so far gone to plan. There have been ups and downs, some runs better than others, but my long runs have all been done so far, and after nineteen miles today, I only have three more runs which are longer than that – and one of them is the race itself!!

The run today was a downhill start and a flat route, but with another of Aberdeen’s large hills at around nine miles. By this stage I was well into my running, so while it was tough to get up it, I never doubted that I would, and it was a fabulous feeling to get through that particular milestone on the training journey. But the peak was only at ten miles, and I still had a further eight to go.

No prizes for spotting the big hill on this route!

I decided today not to stop when I was taking a gel, or having a bite of the peanut munch bar I take with me to eat on long runs, as this is something I will be doing during the race, so it was good to try that out. As always, I find the gels a bit hard to rip open, but at least I remembered my one pro tip – to open the peanut bar before I start – so it was easy to eat, rather than fumbling with sweaty fingers to get into it.

The fueling strategy worked well, I felt comfortable at an easy pace pretty much all of the way round, even though it was quite breezy and still warmer than I had anticipated. I had planned my run to finish at parkrun – a friend had offered to give me a lift home – but as I neared the start I realised I would be a little early, so I added in a couple of loops just to ensure I would not have to stop and stand around before the event actually began. This meant I would end up running more than nineteen miles in total.

“strong, positive memory”

I bumped into a couple of JogScotland friends on the run and ran a little bit with them, and it was great to have a bit of company for the final stages of my run, even prompting a bit of a sprint finish to get to the end. Reaching that nineteen mile milestone is a big one for me – I have a very strong, positive memory of the very first time I did nineteen miles – and after that, then twenty six point two does seem a bit more achievable and manageable. And today, my fastest miles, were my final miles. That is a real positive to take from today.

Happy with my pacing and a strong finish

This came at the end of a really positive week. Strong running, lots of good miles, nice running conditions, though still not quite cooling down as much as I would have thought, given that we are now officially in September, but it is all good miles in the legs. This will be another week running more than forty miles, as I have one more run to do, a run on the runway at Aberdeen Airport at midnight for charity! It is only a couple of miles but it will be a fun, and different, run to do. And my run this morning also took me past eight hundred running miles for the year. Given it took me six months to get to five hundred, it has only taken me two months to add three hundred more. That is what marathon training will do to you.

Evening views on my solo midweek run

And that is just as well, as next week, my training plans will be disrupted as I am traveling for work to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. This part of the training plan just happens to be a down week – one where the mileage reduces before stepping up again the week after – and I will change my rest days to run on Monday and Tuesday before I leave, then perhaps run on Thursday and Saturday early morning over in the Netherlands. I am due to run a half, according to the plan, next weekend. I simply do not think I will have the time to do that, so I will see what I can manage. If I cannot do it, I am not going to lose any sleep over it, and am certainly not going to allow it to spawn more doubts in my mind. Seven weeks to go.