Marathon 6 and a half: The Corona Marathon

Coronavirus- "a marathon not a sprint". 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Hey friends, I keep hearing that the race we’ve all been involuntarily entered into is a ‘marathon not a sprint’. I’ve been chewing on this for a while so, having run a few marathons recently, I’ve jotted down a few thoughts/tips 🤔 and if it helps, great, if not, well it was good for me to get it down in writing and it helped me process a few things in my own head. 

Caveat: I’m not an expert. I’m not a scientist, coach, athlete nor healthcare professional. I’m a guy in his mid 40s who’s run a few marathons - I’m in the middle of doing 15 in 15 months, with 6 down and 9 to go. It’s been a real journey of self-discovery and I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way. I thought a few of these may be applicable to our current situation so I share these insights/ramblings in the vain hope they might be mildly useful. 🙂

1. Develop a Marathon Mindset. I encourage us to not set off at 100m or even 5k pace. We may look back on the weekend just gone as being the ‘easiest’ of the lot, we did a few fun things as there was lots of good weather, Mother’s Day 💐 to enjoy, the children hadn’t started home school yet, and the fact we were not quite in lockdown yet. There’s lots of ideas on social media of ways to keep us and our families entertained and healthy. But really we’re in the very early stages of what is going to be a marathon - or even an ultra-marathon. So we need to save energy- emotional, mental and physical- 💪 for the hard yards which are yet to come, and will be gruelling. That advice might not so quick in coming; the sun may not be shining; there may not be anything to celebrate and the end may not be in sight. Nothing prepares you for that period between 17-23 miles when you’re really aching 😬 and the finish line is a long way off. It’s so important to pace ourselves and to get our mindset right. 

2. Control the controllables. There’s things we are in control of, and there are things outwith our control. On race day I can control the race I run, no one else’s. I can’t control whether the aid station has orange lucozade and not blackcurrant🍹. I can’t control what the government impose. I can't control whether Coronavirus comes to our village, but I can control my attitude, the prevention of its spread by washing hands, educating children, keeping my distance, being resourceful and not complaining that I’m having to eat a can of kidney beans mixed with spaghetti as I couldn’t get hold of lean mince and Parmesan cheese to make a proper bolognese. 

3. Take on board the encouragement of others🙌 , and offer encouragement to others too. I ran my first marathon in London in 2014 and without doubt would not have made it round the course without the kindness of strangers, people you’ve never met urging you on as they call the name on your shirt. And I’d have never made it through the first six of the current 15 marathon challenge without the support of close friends, families, co-workers and co-runners 🤗 . Helping to prepare, offering lifts, dropping texts, sharing training runs. And it’s great when a fellow runner shouts you encouragement, as we’re all in it together. It’s the same now. Get people around you, reach out to those you’ve not seen for a while, not everyone is on social media. it does us all good and helps you run the race. As a family we are trying to call or WhatsApp one group of friends or family every day, this is already helping build up mutual resilience which we all need. Do call me or message me if you’d like to, I’m not going anywhere soon! 👍The truth is, we are cheering each other on in an endurance race we never expected to be running. The difference to the usual marathons is that we are all running it, whether we are young or old, fit or unfit, rich or poor. We need that encouragement now more than ever and we will need it in the weeks ahead. So 'keep encouraging each other, just as you are doing.'

4. Stick to a good nutritional plan🍽; let’s eat well, so far as the shops’ shelves will allow us, and let’s not binge or blow out on the first lap. We need our immune systems to be as strong as they can, so let’s resist temptation to over eat or drink ‘because what else is there to do’. It’s true the weekends will bleed into weekdays and vice versa, but if you tend not to drink alcohol or eat certain foods during the week, keep your discipline now more than ever and enjoy Friday evening and Saturday evening drinks 🍻🍸 as you would usually. I've learned a lot more about nutrition and preparation for marathons recently (thanks Peter Cheeseman) and it makes a big difference.

5. Enjoy the sights, sounds and smells. Always early on in a marathon I try to take in the surroundings ☀️ 🌳 🦅 . Where possible during this time, breathe in the sunshine and the smell of the flowers and sound of the birds, it will be uplifting. So take photos, record your kids playing, the sound of nature if you’re lucky enough to go outside during this time. This will also help us build resilience against ‘injury’ or other problems later in the race. 

6. Wear the right kit👕🥾... If Saturday was day 1 or mile 1, what does day 20 look like three weeks from now - or day 36? Be prepared- I don't mean panic stockpiling but prepare other resources. Can you cook something now and freeze it in case one of the family needs you, or your neighbour needs it next week, or if you or your partner/family are ill/ quarantined? What’s going to hurt you most? Can you plan ahead and mitigate it? For me running marathons it's at 20 miles and it’s bleeding nipples😱! So I put the plasters on before the race. They seem pointless for 20 miles and you literally feel a bit of a t*! 😂 but thank goodness I put them on. It's agony when you leave them off. Are there things we need to put in place to prevent 'injury' later on in this race? 

7. Prepare your route 🗺 🧭 - again this is easier said than done in the current situation. But do you have a plan as to which room you’ll quarantine yourself in, what you’ll do with the kids’ food if you're unable to cook, how you’ll cope if a family member elsewhere is severely ill or dies, and you can’t visit? Have you shared your bank website login details with your nearest and dearest in case you can’t access anything for a week or longer? It's worth having some awkward discussions😬 now rather than leaving it too late😥.

8. Recognise that there are many more bumps to come. The first few miles may be reasonably smooth but the blisters will start, they’ll be rubbing🥵, and it will be painful, so be prepared for the things that annoy you most to be really hurting after a few days or weeks - do what you can to prevent it, but know what helps to cure or soothe it too. If you're an introvert🤫, how can you get time alone? If you're an extrovert👐, how can you share your energy when you're cooped up indoors? In a marathon you may expect there to be an aid station at 15k but when you find that it's at 15 miles (21k) it can be a real shock. 6k is a big difference - so you may have to dig in for those extra few miles unexpectedly😬. The race maybe longer than you thought. When I ran the Portsmouth coastal the mile markers were not syncing with my GPS watch; in the end I ended up running 27 miles not 26. It was agony in the last mile. it took 11 long minutes but felt like 11 hours. Be prepared that the markers are wrong and we may have to run further than we thought. 

9. Celebrate the small successes. Getting through every day is a win! 🙌Getting to the end of our first ‘school day’ yesterday felt like a good success. Just like going past every mile marker, or getting to the first 5k, or reaching a certain landmark. Celebrate the small things - a few of these added together make us feel good that we’ve achieved something bigger and helps us towards the main goal. 🏅

10. Listen 👂 to your coach. Many of us are not specialist healthcare professionals. I’d never run a marathon before 2014 but had a coach who had, and she guided me through. Her experience was vital particularly when I hurt my knee four weeks beforehand and thought it was all over. But I trusted her and we changed the training plan and made it through🙌. Clearly no-one has been in this position in our lifetime, but our coaches i.e. the Medical Professionals and Chief Scientists have studied epidemics and pandemics for years, and they have a far greater understanding of how we prevent it, mitigate it or in time cure it, far more than I do. So if they say isolate or distance ourselves we should trust their judgment. 

In closing I totally get that these analogies have their limitations; for the majority of us marathon runners it’s because we’ve chosen to run it and/or we’re a little crazy😜, we’re running for charity and we have our different motivations. Mine can be found at www.marcathon.blogspot.com

But the reality is that we’re running an endurance race 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️we didn’t choose to run, and as such we’ve not done months and months of training ready for the big day. That’s true, there’s nothing we can do about that. So even more so we have to get our minds and bodies ready for the long run ahead. 

And develop a marathon mindset. 

love and strength to you all.

M

Marathon 6 of 15: Done Deal - the one where I ran on Marathon Day 26.2

Deal Castle

Five weeks had passed quickly since the Gloucester Marathon and I was feeling good. A few sub-25 minute parkruns and a couple of well-paced long training runs had me confident of a good time as the race approached.

The donations to the Sands fundraising page had continued to come in and although the music concert had to be postponed due to a nasty bike accident for the pianist (rescheduled to 11 July), I had set up a curry night for May to help the fundraising efforts and it had been met with an excellent response, so things were looking good.

However, the best laid plans and all that… the poor weather in the week before the race had me checking the BBC weather app with unnecessary frequency, and an increasingly sore heel had me worrying about my ability not only to secure a good time but to even start or finish the marathon.

The Marathon Day Marathon is held every year on 26.2 (you see what they did there?) and this year was a Wednesday. So as usual I had tapered down from a 3 hour run 3 weeks before the event to 2 hours a fortnight before and an hour the week before. It was after this run, to collect the car from the pub the night before, that the heel began to plague me. Even walking became a chore and I convinced myself I had plantar fasciitis – a running friend had been diagnosed with the same condition so I assumed I had just over-trained or under-stretched and despite advice on ice, rest and new socks I felt glum with five days to go that I was going to have to postpone or just hobble through the race.

Thankfully, Rachel, a very close friend of ours and former practicing podiatrist came to the rescue, not for the first time in our lives I hasten to add. Over the phone she gave some really helpful advice and between us diagnosed that it wasn’t plantar fasciitis but more likely a callous or suchlike caused by constant running on a dead patch of skin on my heel. So we agreed ibugel, rest and paracetamol was the best treatment to try to get me through to the marathon on the Wednesday. On the Monday I took a short test run whilst in London and it seemed to hold up well. So with a new spring in my step and with the encouragement of my fab Sands colleagues in my ears I headed home in better spirits.

Early morning course reccie

On the Tuesday one of my closest friends Kev drove us to Dover for an overnight stop ahead of the early start in Deal. It was the first marathon I was heading to without Jayne as she had to work on the Wednesday and take care of the children before and after school, so it was a strange feeling to not have her alongside me.

We set off down to the start line just outside of Deal, which really is as far South-East as you can get. The sun was bright and you could see northern France on the horizon. But with the sunshine came a bitter wind, so as we walked along the front to assess the conditions we knew that the ‘out’ leg of 2.62 miles would be tough into the wind, but that the ‘in’ leg of 2.62 would be more manageable. 5 laps of 5.24 miles would take me to the 26.2 miles.

 

Blustery but bright morning

We found the organisers sheltering between some trees with their papers well secured from the wind, and found out that there were 85 runners, so it would be pretty low key. The event reminded me of the friendliness and convenience of the Saturn X-Run Marathon I had run in October, though I was hoping for a much better time despite the wind. This event was organised by Saxons, Vikings and Normans, which conjures up images of middle aged men dressed in chainmail brandishing heavy swords rushing at each other as part of a summer re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings. I’m told it was named by a group of runners after the Saxon Shore Way which runs from Gravesend to Hastings itself, some of which I was about to run. So if you swap the chainmail for lycra and the swords for Garmins maybe it’s not that different after all. They’re an amazing team and I would definitely recommend doing one of their runs throughout the course of the year. 

 

With Cat prior to the race 

We meet up with Cat, a running friend who works at NHS England and who generously paid for the entry fee. Cat is a Kent local and has run many events with SVN and recommended this to me last summer. She had completed her own 12 marathons in 12 months challenge last year and was part of the inspiration behind my own challenge. So it’s extra special to see her, and her lovely mum gave her a donation to give me for the fund too :-) 

We meet Sylvie from East Kent Sands who is also an amazing supporter, representing the local Sands group who do so much to support bereaved women and families whose baby has died. Seeing her in her Sands top is an unexpected emotional moment, as it brings back to the front of mind why I’m doing the challenge in the first place. And deep breath.

 

lovely Sylvie

After a short briefing we’re on our way and into the wind. It felt good early on and I’m soon in the rhythm, with the first leg going as planned. On the return leg I see Kev and Cat cheering me on, and then towards the first turn point at the aid desk I see Sam, another Sands volunteer, who had been in touch the previous day. It’s fantastic to see her smiley face at least half a dozen times between now and the end, and really grateful to her for some of the photos too.

Thanks Sam for the pics

I’m in the rhythm for the first 3 laps, broadly keeping to the planned 9 minute miles accompanied by the Fighting Talk podcast and then Popmaster, which help me buffer against the 4 degrees maximum temperature. Kev and Cat join me at this point – mile 16 - and before I know it I’ve completed 20 miles in 3 hours and 3 minutes, well ahead of the 4h14m pace at Gloucester.

We keep the pace going – naturally it has slipped a bit but it’s only the last three miles that go over ten minute miles as fatigue hits in. This is much later on in the process than usual – I think the body is getting used to the exertions I’m putting on it. And I’ve pretty much forgotten about the heel injury, being more worried about a slight blister I can feel on the toe of my other foot, but it's minor compared to the extra toe which appeared after the New Forest Marathon. Sylvie and Sam are on hand with lots of water and cheering to keep us going.

Three amigos with about 4 miles to go

Sylvie and Sam create a mock finish tape at the end of the 26.2 miles. I’m amazed and delighted to complete the marathon in 4h08m, another 6 minutes off Gloucester and a full 50 minutes quicker than the one in Reading back in the autumn. 

The finish line!

The improvements have come about through determination and commitment, long runs and stretching of course, but also due to the nutritional coaching from Peter Cheeseman who runs a local fitness company and who has supported me to not only lose weight (through the 60 days fat loss club) but to improve my running performance significantly over the last 3 months. I’ve lost the best part of a stone and a half and feel so much better for it.

greater discipline has brought greater consistency...

It has also been possible due to amazing friends and family, Jayne in particular for supporting the challenge in so many different ways, all the sponsors for their encouragement, Kev for driving and for him and Cat running with me. Kev’s ten miles was his longest ever run, and was a hugely impressive effort!

So after a few photos with the obligatory medal and the fab support team, it’s all over for another few weeks.

Amazing support team!

Every marathon has been an adventure, with many highs and lows along the way, and an opportunity to cross paths with some extraordinary, ordinary, people: this time in particular Sylvie and Sam who represent so many of Sands’ amazing volunteers across the country. They give their own time to help newly bereaved families overcome the loss of a baby, raise money for training and resources, raise awareness and are generally superstars. Thank you both - and all those at East Kent Sands - so, so much.

 

Kev and I retreat into Deal to replenish after our efforts, fish and chips seems too lardy so a la Gwen from Gavin & Stacey I venture ‘do you know what I fancy Kev, I fancy an omelette, I does’. 

I won't lie to you, it was crackin' 

Within a few hours we are back home eating another great meal and a beer with Jayne, Suzie, the children and other good friends of ours. We check the fundraising total and it’s well over £1700 now, for which we are hugely grateful.  

Onwards then to Manchester on April 5^th and what will likely be a very different occasion with tens of thousands rather than tens of others. But for now, with injury scares and severe weather warnings long forgotten, we are left with nothing but positive memories of a fantastic Marathon Day Marathon.

Done Deal.