This time, four weeks ago, I was feeling downright ill with nerves for the Brighton marathon I had to run the next day. This evening, the night before my next marathon, I couldn't be more relaxed as I lounge on the sofa - what a difference lowering my expectations has made! ;)Brighton was a very important goal race for me - we'd travelled down there for the weekend, lots of people knew I was running, I desperately wanted to get a great time, and I was really feeling the pressure. The Halstead Marathon tomorrow is completely different. It's just a race that I signed up for as part of my training for the ultra, it's around a truly beautiful course which is enjoyable and well supported, I'm planning on taking it very slowly and practising the run/walk method that I'll need to use over 50 miles, and I'm expecting to finish in about 4hrs 30mins. It's a really hilly route too so I'll take my time and just enjoy a morning of running. It's lovely to feel so relaxed about it, and I'm looking forward to it!
Of course, this might back-fire terribly. The awful nerves before Brighton led to a fantastic race performance, and there's a little part of me that is thinking I'm far too laid-back about what I'm going to have to do - I'm probably underestimating the effort that tomorrow is going to be, and half way round my legs will suddenly start screaming at me that they aren't ready for another marathon so soon. But we will see...
So, for the rest of the evening, I'm going to carry on tracking http://www.relaygb.org/ as I have been obsessively since they set off from London 8 days ago (they're in Scotland now!), have a decent pasta dinner, drinks lots of water, and against my better judgement, will also watch Britain's Got Talent before getting an early night. Oh the exciting life of a marathon runner ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment