I once beat the marathon world record holder Dennis Kimetto in a race. Only because he dropped out, admittedly, while I plodded on to the finish, but my “win” illustrates one thing at least: even the very best runners have bad days.
On Sunday, I had a bad day.
Three weeks after a big PB in the London marathon, I rather casually sidled down to Cornwall for the Imerys trail half marathon. Run through a China clay quarry, it’s an epic, bizarre and hilly course. I was going great guns, racing hard and closing down on third place, when shortly after eight miles something somewhere in my body went pop. It was quite surreal. One second I was skipping through the mud and bursting up the hills, the next I felt light-headed, my arms and neck tensed up terribly, and my legs started to wobble. What happened next was not pretty.
Each mile got harder and harder until even walking was a struggle. I slipped from 4th place down to 42nd place. Those watching didn’t even encourage me to start running again. One glance at my face was enough to tell them it wasn’t going to happen.
I’m not sure what caused my sudden blow up. Was it too soon after London? Yet the running blog’s editor, Kate Carter, was out winning races just a week after London. Has anyone else similarly blown up in a race, and worked out why?
My big concern is that I’m running the Lewa marathon in just over a month. It’s also hilly and run on sandy trails. The difference with Lewa, however, is that it is in Kenya, where it’s much hotter, at an altitude of 5,500ft, and there are lions, cheetah and buffalo out on the course.
Those of you who read my book Running with the Kenyans will know I’ve run Lewa before. But that was after six months of training in Kenya’s Home of Champions, Iten, and even then it was a titanic struggle just to get around.
This time I’m returning to spend two weeks before the race in Iten. (And by the way, if you want to join me on the trip, we still have a few spaces.) I can only hope it’s enough to set me back on track.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom in Cornwall on Sunday. The race was a great one to bring the rest of the family along to, with endless sideshow activities for spectators and kids, from rugby training and table tennis, to sushi rolling lessons(!?). The post-race fruit table was pure heaven, as was the free massage. And while I was out blowing up on the white trails of the quarry, my youngest son, who is six, was winning his first ever medal in the fun run. He went to bed with a big grin on his face. “I got a medal,” he said, closing his satisfied eyes and dropping off to sleep in record time.
What did you get up to over the weekend? Did you streak to victory, or stumble to a stop? Or perhaps something in between? As ever, let us know in the comments below.
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