Had you asked me ten years ago what I wanted most for myself, I would have told you that I wanted the return of my no-good, cheating, lying, conning boyfriend. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have admitted it to you, but that was the truth. Toxic relationships work like that, there’s an addictive quality, where you know what you need is never to see their pointless face again but what you want more than anything is to have just one more fix, even if that sets you back to square one and no closer to the day when you are rid of them, not just in your life but in your head.
The way I got my ex out of my head was to take up running and the final kick that sent him splattering out of my ears and off the end of Brighton Pier to drown metaphorically in the swelling sea was to absolutely nail the 2016 half marathon in Brighton, the town where he lived when we got together, the town to which I almost moved to be with him and which contains the ghosts of what was, what could have been and what I wish had never happened.
If you’re at all familiar with my blog, my life or with me you will know that the 2016 Brighton Half Marathon was the pinnacle of my running career, because two weeks later I fell over and broke a rib, then a few months later I broke a leg, and then it was one injury after another. I started to cling to the memory of my 2016 running ability the way I clung to that execrable relationship. Eight years and twenty-one half marathons passed. Occasionally I would think I was closing in on my 2016 times, only to cop another injury, another disappointment. In 2022 I got within four minutes, only to promptly fuck my infernal leg so badly I needed a month off work. And I will admit when I realised how bad that injury was I cried nearly as much as the day my ex walked out.
In the two years that followed some things happened which required me to get a grip, by which I mean two of my close friends were diagnosed with proper nasty incurable cancers. As well as this being absolutely fucking awful for them and for me (and I don’t mean to gloss over the awfulness but I don’t want to derail a post about my half marathon by talking about actual important things) it has made me shift my opinion. I’ve always pitied myself where athletic stuff is concerned. Poor me with my lipoedema and hypermobility, puts in twice the effort, half the speed. Always injured, always in pain, always dreaming of my never again day of glory. There’s nothing that pulls your out of your self indulgent mope quite as quickly as knowing the people who you used to envy now can’t run at all. And that not being able to run is possibly the least of your problems when you are facing death.
Of course this didn’t mean that I actually gave up trying to beat my half marathon PB or grumbling about my leg though. It just made me feel faintly ridiculous when I did it. It also made me embark on a weight loss plan (no more of this “well I am only a little bit fat and I do lots of exercise so it doesn’t matter”) and join a Heavy Weights Gym and generally stop fucking around, because if it’s happened to them there’s absolutely no reason it shouldn’t happen to me and I’d better get on with all the things I want to do before it does.
And this is how I found myself on the start line of the 2024 Brighton Half Marathon 12 kilos lighter and a bit more muscly than in 2016 (also 37kg lighter than 2013) , wearing my best Sweaty Betty leggings because if this was finally the day when I cracked it I wanted to look good in the photos. It was my fifth Brighton Half and by now I know the course very well and had formulated a Plan. It is always good to have a Plan, but whether the Plan goes to plan is always another matter, I find. I knew that the last 5k is always hell because you are always running into the wind (why does the wind always blow the same way, I wondered idly to myself later, as it choked me and threatened to blow me into a beach hut) so the Plan was to bolt out the first 10 miles as if being chased by a rabid donkey and then hold on for dear life. I calculated that if I hit 10 miles in 1:54 and then didn’t walk, I would be home and dry.
I actually don’t have a lot to say about the race itself. I just kept chugging along at the planned place, trying to get an even balance of admiring the scenery (I particularly love the first 8km which is out and back along the cliffs with a couple of medium inclines) and avoiding trip hazards. I continued ambling around the town centre, The Level, the road out to Hove… As always, I said hello and goodbye to my alternate reality, where I stayed with Unsuitable Ex and was living in a grotty basement, drinking every day, fat and miserable and desperate and probably not even out of bed to watch the race, let alone take part. As always, I thought thank fuck that isn’t my existence, just think of all the things I would have missed, the people I would never have met, what a complete and utter waste of my life that would have been. Ambling definitely started to become a bit of an understatement of my effort level and my bad leg hurt and my good leg hurt and then everything hurt but not badly enough to affect my speed.
And then I was at 10 miles in 1:54:08 and I hit the wind and I didn’t walk, and fuck me, just for once in my lousy life things were going to plan. I slowed down as much as I thought I would but I had banked enough time and while my predicted time according to my Garmin fell from 2:29 to 2:30, 2:31 and finally 2:32 that was all absolutely fine because it was still faster than 2016 and finally the finish line was coming towards me.
I can’t tell you how many times I have dreamt about this moment. I know I sound like a complete and utter loser but I don’t care. I have played it over and over in my mind, doing speedwork, lifting weights, dragging myself out for a miserable bedraggled run in the pissing rain. And I’ve felt it slipping away when limp-walking half marathons in well over three hours, when doctors have told me that there is nothing they can do to help my injury and when I’ve looked at my 2016 Strava in awe thinking that could never be possible again. And then I’ve tried to let go of it, thinking of my friends, thinking that I am lucky to be able to run at all, wishing I could give it all up in exchange for their health, knowing that actually my half marathon time matters to no one and changes nothing. But through all that, if you asked me what I wanted most for myself, it would be to beat that 2016 time. Just the once. Just to get back that moment when I absolutely nailed it and kicked that moron out of my head.
And as I stooped into the wind and spluttered across the line of the 2024 Brighton Half Marathon in 2:32:30, waving my hands in the air and grinning like an absolute imbecile, forgetting the 7325 people in front of me and expecting to be handed a gold medal, I did. 2016 was no longer the pinnacle of my running career. Eight fucking years and twenty-two fucking half marathons later, I was back. And if tomorrow my luck is over and I never run again, at least I will have had that moment.
(And if my luck isn’t up, I might try for 2:30 next time….)
7:07 