So, I just wanted to say huge apologies for my blog being rather haphazard over the last few months. Haha, or should I say completely non-existent?! I really have dropped the ball. This is mainly due to most of my brain power being channelled into writing up my final MD thesis. Just as my taper started, three weeks before the marathon, I was gearing up to finish off my corrections and re-submit my thesis, for the second time, to my examiners at UCL. Friends often ask me – how on earth did you manage to train for a marathon and write a thesis at the same time? But, actually, in many ways, the training helped me to focus on the writing.
Planning training around writing gave me structure, rewards and breaks. Striving for one goal fed into the other. Achieving a new distance or pace in running, helped me finish a chapter or finally formulate a difficult argument in my thesis. On the other hand running also helped me to ‘not focus’ sometimes and have the brain breaks I needed – It forced me to get up from my desk, stretch my legs, wrench my eyes away from the computer screen, and get out into nature. During my runs (especially the slow ploddy ones!), writing ideas would come to me. I would find myself re-phrasing paragraphs I’d been wrestling with for ages, and reconstructing sentences in my head. In fact, if I had to make a list of do’s and don’t for marathon training, or a tick list of what worked for me – the first thing I’d say is….
Pair up your marathon training with another mental challenge in your life
For me the physical and the mental complimented each other quite well. For the rest of this blog, as I ramble on, I think I will hash together a list of tips, similar to this one, that personally helped me achieve my marathon goals. Please note though, I am very much emphasising the word ‘personally’, as these things may not necessarily work for everyone. They are, however, the things that worked for me. So here we go…
Do the big half as a warm up - this is a really good calibrator!
I had a great time doing The Big Half about one month before the mara. I got myself a great PB and this really made me believe I could do a 3.30 marathon. Knowing what pace I could manage for a half (during hot conditions) allowed me to extrapolate what I was capable of in the full marathon distance. This really brought me confidence. I would highly recommend doing a half distance ~ 1 month before, as a calibrator to predict what you can do in the final mara. It’s also a great buzz to run over the mighty Tower Bridge (albeit in the wrong direction!) – but this reminds you how iconic the London Marathon really is, and this helped me mentally rise to the challenge.
Get your friends to pace your MP runs!
Off the back of The Big Half, I needed to prove to myself that I could do 20 miles at marathon pace. This was not in my Jack Daniels training plan, but I really wanted to know if I could hold MP for that long. SO, the lovely Lucile and Alicjia (Eagles ladies) agreed to pace me on the Sunday club long run. I sandwiched the usual midweek long run route with the Sunday club run, to make a total of 20 miles. It was a hot day, and I got a horrible stitch going over the bridge, but I nevertheless I held MP pace until the end. Lucile kept me on the straight and narrow in terms of hydration, making sure I used the fountain on the bridge – Thanks Lucile!! And it was really good to practice to know that if I I did get a stitch in the actual marathon, I would be able to keep going and run through it.