The definition of insanity

It’s a very strange feeling when you accomplish your goals after years of failure. All I ever wanted for myself was a half marathon PB and a sub 30 5k. I didn’t really think about what would happen when I got them, which is of course absolutely nothing. I have entered the realm of unremarkable, average runners. The Ministry of Bog Standard Runners have not been on the phone to invite me to the Median Olympics. I have not been able to give up my job and make a living running at a moderate pace. I have not been bombarded with offers of dates from similarly middle-of-the-road runners. No one has been able to bottle up my success and turn it into a cure for cancer. It has, in short, achieved absolutely nothing except a little minute of glory when I felt like I owned the world.

These highs never last, though. I found myself even feeling a bit cheated. I had expected a long and painful build up to my first sub 30k, full of faceplants and 30:02s, a summer slogging over speedwork and a triumphant end of season finale at Bromley parkrun. Now what?

Oh yes. There is still that one thing, isn’t there? To do a marathon and have the same experience that I have in shorter races. The experience average runners have. To finish the race with only strategic, deliberate walking and none of that I have nothing more to give and just want this to be over walking, without the night starting to fall and the sweep up truck on my tail. To be able to relate my time to interested parties without embarrassment or mitigating circumstances, for them to nod, taking it in in its glorious blandness.

But on the other hand. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes. Just look what happened last time. And the time before. You fell apart. It was too much for you. It took over your life, made you hate running and feel like a failure. And your leg literally broke all by itself because you were doing too much running. Why would you put yourself through that again?

“But,” said a little voice in my head, “but now you are thin and you lift weighs. And you are AVERAGE. And you are nearly fifty and your time is running out. You need to give it one last go, while you are on the up. Because this won’t last.”

Just to gauge public opinion, I asked my friends on Facebook. And apparently my options were to sign up for the marathon that I actually wanted to do, or to take up trail running, or ultra marathons, preferably the multi-day desert spectacular Marathon Des Sables. I definitely did not wish to take up trail running or ultras so the only remaining possibility was to sign up for the 2024 Yorkshire Marathon. With pounding heart and sweating palms I filled the form, even daring to select “sub 6” as my estimated finishing time. Then I squealed and closed the page. Then I did it all again. Finger hovering over “submit”. Come on finger. Click. It’s done. “Congratulations Suzi, you’re in”. In – sane? Oh hell. What have I done?