Leicester marathon

The ancient Greeks has a philosophy that the mind is like a house with lots of rooms, some of which you shouldn't go into. Today, a door opened to one room and, because of a momentary falter, I had a bit of a peek inside. And very nearly ruined my whole race. It was only at 12 miles and my legs had been tired and heavy all the way through the previous almost-two-hours, and were feeling very sluggish. But this seemed to bring things to a head, it was almost certainly psychosomatic (and hence why I shouldn't have gone into the room), but suddenly I felt very spacey, the tunnel vision descended and my legs felt like lead. For half a mile all I could think about was curling up and sleeping but luckily I came up to  a 100 Clubber taking his daughter round her first marathon who chatted for a bit. That bit of reality shook me out of my funk, I've no idea where it came from, but things got better from there.

The moral is, there are doors in your mind that you shouldn't open during a marathon. They are the doors to doubt, fatigue, tired and aching limbs ( NB. you should open the pain-that-indicates-you've-done-some-damage door), getting carried away and bombing through the first 6 miles, thinking about the finish until you're certain you're going to get there etc etc. And there are doors that you need to open as you get further through a race: confidence, belief in your training, desire to achieve the targets you've set, a healthy dose of competition, determination to stick through the last 10 miles when you want to walk, the rewards of getting the finish you want.

Now I've stretched that metaphor to its limits, back to the marathon. Or rather not, there's not much to say. The second half was better than the first - the half runners were winding me up big time in the first 6 miles and I have never seen such a shocking collection of terrible running styles, arms flailing, legs kicking out every which way, over striding, scuffing, heads shoved forward. It was extraordinary. That's not a comment on half marathoners, it merely seemed like a convention of runners desperate to injure themselves. 

Mentally, I felt stronger the more this race went on, which isn't surprising, it gets easier the fewer miles you have left, and found it quite rewarding to give a bit of encouragement to a few guys doing their first back to back marathon and to a guy going for his first sub 4 (he got it). The last mile is cruelly uphill but my pacing had been a bit more classic today - first half 1'56, second half 1'59 so I just had to keep running for the sub 4. Nice even pacing throughout, after a bit of a speedy start, nice strong finish, not too trashed afterwards, and home by 5pm, not a bad day all round.