Looking back, I’m surprised I thought my marathon training could have ended any other way. How many times have I said that my entire life has been defined by Leyton Orient’s experience in the 2014 League One play-off final? From 2-0 up at half time to losing the penalty shoot out. In other words, the exact moment when you think you have it in the bag and can’t possibly fail, is the point at which everything falls apart in spectacular fashion.
It turns out that the slightly tweaked calf that I joked about in my last post was a bit more serious. I felt it tighten up as I went up a very small hill at Basingstoke parkrun on Saturday (one of the first ten parkruns in the world, incidentally!) By the time I reached the Woking Premier Inn on Saturday night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was brewing and that maybe I should skip the half. But it’s so hard to tell with running injuries. If I didn’t run every time something hurt, I would never run at all. I’ve seen as many people go into a spiral of non-training due to being over cautious as I have knacker themselves pushing through an injury. It is a shame one can’t see inside the body to see what is going on and make an informed decision.
Anyway, I was there so I thought I might as well go to the start and see how I felt, and once I arrived I got a sports massage and felt marvellous and decided to give it a go. I resolved not to push myself and just plod through. And after a pain free easy first km, I felt relieved. Just do that 21 times, collect medal and average time, go home.
Then I felt it, a creeping burn along the back of my calf. Within a few metres I was hobbling and could only walk. Obviously I knew immediately that this was big trouble, since even if the pain wore off and I was able to start running again I had another 20k to go and if it was already hurting when I was fresh there was no chance of this ending well. I kept walking, into the back of the ambulance where I declared that I was finished and needed to be swept up by the sweep up truck. Then I changed my mind. I’ve never set foot in a sweep up truck in my life and I didn’t intend to start now. I would just have to walk it. So I did.
And it was utterly miserable. Passed by the average runners, then the slowish runners, then suddenly everyone was gone and the streets were empty and quiet and the spectators were saying things like “at least you’re doing it” and my head hung in shame because just doing it isn’t enough for me any more. I had worked so hard not to be here. I was supposed to be average. And as much as I admire the back of the pack because I know only too well that the slower you are, the harder it is, but I had no desire to be back amongst them. And then the thoughts came creeping in: now you’re back where you belong. You had a good taste of what it is like to be someone else, you achieved your dreams, but that wasn’t you. This is you.
I heard a loud rumble and for a second I thought it was the sound of my marathon dreams shattering but it was actually the onset of a thunderstorm. The heavens opened as I approached the never ending out and back and I cried into the rain. I have never felt so sorry for myself in my entire life.
I was only saved from winning first place in the Self Pity Olympics by the actions of one of the marshals who happened to be walking back to base as I entered the last mile. She said she’d seen me pull up at the beginning of the race and had wondered if I had been able to finish, and we joked about people saying “at least you did it” and “great running” and how disheartening it is and how I would almost rather people shouted “what a load of crap” and “oh get on the sweep up truck for god’s sake” as it would be an acknowledgement that I am clearly an Average Runner and this is a below par performance. Just someone taking the time to talk to me and hear my story made all the difference to my mood and as I crossed the line in a 3:10:56 definitely to forget my resolve was to get myself to as many medical professionals as quickly as possible to see if the marathon can be salvaged.
The verdict is that I have a small (3cm) tear in my gastrocnemius (try pronouncing that after a tequila of shame) and that I *could* be fully recovered in four weeks, and therefore the marathon, which is five and a half weeks away, is “not impossible”. The fact that I was a month ahead of schedule in my training and have already done my 20 miler is in my favour, likewise the fact that I can swim to hang on to my fitness (though I’ve had to take a month away from the gym). So it’s now full time in the 2014 play off final, extra time to come and it looks like marathon day could be a penalty shoot out. On the whole, this is not how I wanted things to go, but this is how it is to be. At least I don’t need to worry about whether I should aim for sub 5 any more.
7:07 