Thank God!

Training continues to go well. I have now completed all three John Carr 5k races in the 2010 series. These are really pleasant races to do aside of the fact that they are fast 5k's! There's a certain camaraderie about them, everyone is trying to beat their time each week, there's close to 400 people running and always a good turnout from Eccleshill Road Runners from the youngest, a 14 year old to the eldest, a 75 year old. In addition my two boys Tom and Marc usually compete too. Marc this year managed to get his time down to 20 minutes 29 seconds in race 2 but as was the case for most of us didn't better it in race 3, great times for a 15 year old though.

Emails were flying round last week as those of us who have done our marathons try to keep focused by entering more races. Sophie has encouraged us to enter one or two races which include the Harewood Chase 10k, Otley 10 mile, Hull Half Marathon and the Woodland Challenge. Coupled with the up and coming Vets races and the Washburn Valley Relay that should keep us going for a while!

Meanwhile I think God was looking down on me as I changed my entry from the Edinburgh Marathon to London, I haven't got the full story from the runners yet but if the temperature in Bradford was anything to go by it will have been horrendous conditions for running yesterday and I'm so glad I wasn't on the start line.

Just because I want to.......

For the first time a quite a few months I met some other runners from the club on a lovely sunny Sunday morning and went for a run - just because I wanted to! That was a great feeling after months of being fearful that if anything went wrong on marathon day it might be down to lack of training. Thankfully I didn't think that - in fact quite the opposite, I knew if anything did go wrong it would be due to some other factor. This had still placed considerable pressure on training regimes from December last year. So today it was a great feeling to be able to leave Woodhouse Grove and head for Guiseley with a spring in my step.

Some of the runners set off in a different direction for a longer run, we girls set off for a 8 or so mile run. I knew just how Jo and Lisa felt, this was their final 90 minute run before Edinburgh the following week. Just under an hour and a half later we arrived back to the car park having leisurely chatted our way round the route we had done so many times over the last few months, so the penultimate group are about to embark on their marathon. All that remained was to wish them 'Good Luck' and wait to see them on their triumphant return.

Post London

Today I completed the Leeds Half Marathon in a time of 2:07:04 and really enjoyed it.

I wasn't sure if I had maybe entered this in error! I had heard so many stories of people having 'marathon blues' and being on a 'downer' following a marathon, so I booked it well before London along with the John Carr 5k series with thoughts that I would have something to focus on afterwards.

In a way I think I did the right thing as I didn't so much have 'marathon blues' but did feel that in light of so many months of training and the build up the marathon itself it seemed to be over so quickly when race day finally did arrive and I was left feeling somewhat shell shocked and bewildered! It is only now, a few weeks later, that the enormity of all that training in the snow, ice and general bad weather and then running 26.2 miles at the end of it has really sunk in. It could have turned out differently and I might not have been in any fit state to take part in the John Carr or Leeds Half but thankfully this was not the case and just short of a week after the marathon I was back at club and looking forward to getting back to my 'normal' training routines. So my advice is listen to your body and if you feel up to it - do it. Whilst I value other peoples advice greatly, it sometimes conflicts in all aspects of running so I tend to take note but then do what I think is right for me.

Speed and Hills session at club tomorrow so I'm going to have to reign myself in and take it easy, shouldn't be too difficult, or should it?