It’s three weeks ago today that I completed my first marathon. I’m still suffering a mild state of the blues, even though the race and all the training I put in feels like a world away from here.
These three weeks have been quite odd; recovering, winding down and then winding back up again has happened much faster than I feared it might, and now I’m eager to sign up for another race and get back training again as soon as I can! The recovering and the winding down were hard: I went for my first run on the Thursday after the race, which consisted of a very slow 2 mile jog/walk. From there I took up the distance a little at a time, and today I hit the 9 mile mark – the furthest I’ve run in three weeks! The distance is easy peasy lemon squeezy – I have no tiredness or energy issues relating to how far I run. It’s just how I run that’s had to change, and I think it might be a while before I find any real desire to push myself. Everything just feels harder. I can’t describe it any better than that! As if I’m constantly pulling a slab of concrete along behind me, as if my thighs are made of lead, as if I’m getting over injuries in both knees. I still click every time I walk up the staires! I’m aching more afterwards, too: last week I woke up with odd pains right down my right leg after a cross country run the morning before. It’s making me nervous!
On a much more positive note, the one really exciting thing that I’ve noticed is that, despite all of the above, my natural steady pace has become much quicker. What feels instinctively pretty slow to me registers at half marathon pace on my watch when I get home; it looks like, if I keep it up, I might be able to smash a few targets in the near future. Without having to push or even to think about how fast I’m going, I’m easily clocking a good 20-30 seconds/mile faster than I ever have. That is not something I expected!
So, three weeks on all is well on the running front. I know that I’m probably only just starting to really recover, and that I need to continue to pay my body some respect for all it’s done, and for all it continues to do! I’m aware that I’m probably doing a bit too much a bit too often, but I’m loving it, more than I ever have, and I can’t wait to find out what’s around the corner!
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