*The Debatewise Blog
What running has taught me – part 6
It’s been a tough week. Apparently running 19 miles on a bad leg is not the cleverest thing in the world and I spent most of last week in pain. Well actually that’s not true, I was fine provided I didn’t move. Stairs were worst, the only way I could navigate them was by doing a little Palomino-style kick with my right leg. I looked great.Back to the clinic then. This time to be treated by the driver of the New Zealand Olympic bob sled team; no, not the driver of the minibus, the bloke at the front who steers the metal tube down the ice chute at 70mph. He beat me up a little in the name of making me better and told me to run the next day if I wanted to. I wanted to.
But I couldn’t. Had to walk back from the Heath after a short, slow, run in a lot of pain and a very bad mood. Had to face the prospect of the rest of March off. Wondered if I’d even be fit for the end of April. Realised I was probably being a bit of a drama queen and should get round. Don’t like missing training though.
My thinking goes like this: the only way to hit my target is to reach or exceed every milestone from here to marathon day. Which means I’ve now either got to let go of the idea of a sub four hour race, or adopt the belief that I can still do it, even if I have to miss a few speedwork sessions and a long run or two.
My dad once showed me our 70 year-old gardener slowly scything through long grass. “Watch him”, he said, “he might not go as fast as younger men but he can keep that up all day and will end up doing more than they”. This advice has stayed with me ever since. I’ve never actually lived by it of course, but I have always remembered it.
Guess now’s the time to try it; necessity being the mother of doing what you absolutely don’t want to and all that. Truth is I don’t have much choice. I was supposed to run for four miles on Saturday, I managed two. Yesterday was another 19-miler, I managed five. And that’s on top of missing two runs mid-week.
But as the wise bob sled driver man said “the point of training is to get you better than you were before, not worse", so there’s no point me pushing through now and being laid up even longer. Tried that, didn’t work.
As I write I realise just how obvious the solution is and, because I’ve only just realised it, how much I resist it. Well I guess there’s nothing else to do but rest till I’m ready the build up slowly and see what happens in four weeks. The countdown has begun.
Talking of which, a few people have said they might come down to watch me run and I thought now would be as good a time as any to say, YES PLEASE. Can’t tell you how much a lift it would give me to see a friendly face at different points round the course. It’s supposed to be a great day out too, one of those rare times when London gets together. That should be celebrated in itself.