WE DID IT!

So, … we made it! All 26.2 miles of it….in the bag! It’s still quite hard for me to believe I actually completed it! I was so nervous, stressed, even slightly unwell the week before. Even though I couldn’t wait to get going, I don’t think I fully understood what I was taking on, let alone whether or not I was capable of it! And it didn’t matter that Peter and many more of you told me I could, I didn’t believe it because I couldn’t really feel it! I reached half way with some still left in the tank and that felt spectacular! But around 30K the wheels began to come off, 1 by 1!

I began to walk and run, and ask Peter over and over again if I’d make it. My steps became laboured…it wasn’t pretty! And when I met family at mile 24, I cried and told them all I couldn’t make it! It’s amazing how long 2.2 miles becomes after you’ve done 24 of them! But we made it, and the joy, the celebration, the disbelief of that is something I’ll never forget!

 

Running a marathon is by far and away the toughest thing I’ve ever done, but its also the most rewarding thing I’ve ever completed and by far my proudest achievement!

Nik and I had coffee this week and we talked about this a lot. What is it that makes running a marathon so special? We’ve both run halves completing GNR together and we both ran a marathon. We agreed that the training and the events themselves are another level entirely!

I think this is to do with the intensity, the hard work and the fact that while you are participating in a race, you are ultimately running against yourself. You’re raising the bar for yourself. Regardless of what you might prove to the world, what the marathon is really giving you is that space inside yourself. That space where you face the fact that you trained to become one of that very exclusive 1% club…the 1% who have completed a marathon! You worked and cried and pushed to finish when every cell of your being wanted to stop!

It took me about 30 minutes to stop crying when I finished; I was tired, emotional, cold, overwhelmed, and so utterly proud of myself. As I sat there eating chips through floods of tears, it was Nadiya Hussain that came to mind. Her beautiful victory speech on bake off where she says ‘I’ll never again say something is too hard, that I won’t, or I can’t, because I can, and I will’!

This marathon feels like a life altering event somehow, and I’ll treasure every last memory of it.  From the people we met, the laughs and deep chats Peter and I had on our training runs, all our fundraising missions, all those who supported us (before, during and after the event), you have all contributed to something so incredibly special for me.

If anyone had told me after my first parkrun that I’d run a marathon one day, I’d have laughed silly and probably not come back! But that is the magic of our parkrun family/community and I am truly blessed to be a part of it. Thank you Peter, from the bottom of my heart, for being my eyes for 16 weeks, and for giving me such an effortless, easy run that I didn’t have to think about! You are a true legend and a beautiful soul that I’m blessed to call a friend.

 

Lots of you have been asking ‘what next? Well, I’m quite happy to stick to parkruns and cake for a while (my physio says it’s all part of my recovery!) only, …, while I was finishing off an Easter Egg earlier, I discovered a few guide runners in the South West who support ultras …, #JustSaying

Who knows what’s next; for now; I’m just blissed out wearing my medal with pride and milking the magic of Brighton for as long as I can! Thank you all for tracking us, supporting us, and sending the love, your energy, prayers and kindness all carried us over the line and contributed to an incredible day that I’ll never, ever forget!

 

Reflections on the wall (and how to get over it!).

 

This one goes out to all those of you who are training for, or even contemplating a marathon at the moment.

Marathons are tough (no surprise there, I know!), but one thing people don’t always tell you is, while the physical training is super important, it maybe accounts for 40% of the work you need to do. The remaining 60% is all about mental strength! As a yoga student, I know all too well how powerful the mind is, and how good it is at telling us stories! It will tell you that you’re not strong enough, not disciplined enough, not slim enough, not this, that or the other enough, to complete the challenge, and as it repeats these stories on a loop, they sometimes take route!

Its important to challenge these stories before they take hold of you. The best way I find to do that, is challenge them head-on, and with a pro-active approach.

 

When I began my marathon training, I started to have pain in my left leg. Some of you will remember, I got an injury just before the Great North Run in 2022. In my mind, this pain was the re-activation of that injury, and I wouldn’t be able to run at all! Thankfully though, while rehabilitating that injury, I had the support of Heather over at @next_level_performancegla

While Heather still offers physio, her focus is much more on preventative techniques. When looking at the pain in my left leg, she helped me realise it was less about stimulating an old injury, and more about building strength on the left side, following a movement pattern that had contributed to weakness there.

 

Over the subsequent weeks, we began undertaking strength and conditioning work. Its been tough, and the pain hasn’t fully gone, but it has reduced, and strength has grown. I’ve learned how to manage my energy, and balance different forms of cross-training in order to maximise my runs, and overall well-being. I think its easy to watch social media, and think that, if you adapt your approach to mirror another person’s running technique, or follow the same training programme as someone you admire etc, that you’ll have the magic bullet. The truth is, we’re all different, and we bring our physical and emotional histories to the challenges we undertake. We can either see them as obstacles we need to ditch or change, or we can view them as assets, or at least, core parts of our complete being to work with. It is certainly possible that my lack of sight has lead me to over-compensate for a physical weakness I sense, on one side of my body. I can either get hung up on that, or see It for what it is, and gently challenge the movement pattern to build strength, and alternative muscle memory. I can also be hugely grateful to the body I have, that intuitively works to keep me safe in every situation; how cool is that!

 

Heather is keen to support any readers of @vision2run who would like to explore physio or movement challenges of their own! So, if this feels like something that might serve you, do connect with her, and don’t let the great wall of marathon take over your mindset. Any obstacle along the way is just a challenge, waiting to be overcome.