Week 15 Marathon Training Thoughts

Happy to increase my volume!

Finally, a positive running week! I have managed to run three times, and my volume has increased each run I’ve done! It has been so nice to get some decent runs in, both for confidence and headspace reasons. It’s four weeks until the marathon, and although I still believe that it will be a miracle if I complete it, at least now I feel like I might be able to get a fair chunk done, hopefully. So, here are my thoughts for this week:

What is your why?

A long time ago, when I was competing in swimming, someone said to me, “remember your why” in order to have a tool to help when training or a race becomes difficult. I touched on this last week, but thought I’d go into more detail this week. Your why is the reason you do things. The reason you entered an event in the first place. The reason you push yourself when things get difficult. You might have a number of different “whys” for different occasions and challenges. Knowing your why can help with motivation when you need it, and to help make sense of what you need to do at certain time points. For example, sometimes it can help to push you through, and sometimes it can help to remind you that it is not the end of the world if things don’t go to plan.

I have had different “whys” over the years. When I first got back into swimming after 10 years out of the water, it was to prove the people who doubted me wrong. Once I had done that, my why changed to “because you never thought you’d get this second chance”. Other times my why has been because someone important to me was going through something difficult, and so I would push myself through hard things because what I was going through wasn’t as hard as what they were going through. More recently my “whys” have been a little gentler, for example, my why for showing up to training was for movement purposes and maintaining fitness whilst having a bad back, as well as a mental health boost whilst studying. I know other peoples “whys” include setting a good example for how exercise can be fun to their children.

Only last night, someone asked my friend why she enters things like ironman triathlons and marathons. And her response was “because I can. Whilst I am still able to, and my body lets me, I want to do these things because I can”. I loved that response.

So, when you have a goal in mind, and you’re working towards it, have a think what your why is. Maybe write it down somewhere to remind you when you need it. If the process of getting to your goal becomes difficult, remind yourself of your why, your reason for doing it. It might just give you that extra push to get you through. Alternatively, if like me, your journey towards your goal hasn’t quite gone to plan, such as through injury, or life getting in the way, reminding yourself of your why might help to realise it’s not the end of the world if you don’t achieve that goal right now. I entered this marathon to give myself something to train for, for an adventure, for a challenge. The fact that I probably won’t be able to do it isn’t the end of the world, nothing depends on me doing that marathon, I’m not going to lose income, or my career, It’s not going to affect loved ones, it doesn’t change who I am, it’s just an event. Yes it’s frustrating, but there will be another time. This point leads me nicely onto my next thought…

 You, as a human, are worthwhile, regardless of what you do or do not do.

I was on a course this week for my sport psychology practice. It was called Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy in High-Performance Environments, led by Dr Martin Turner and Dr Andrew Wood. It was absolutely brilliant. But there was something they said that really stood out to me. It was that every human is as worthwhile as each other, simply for being human. What you do does not increase or decrease your worth, and similarly, what you do not do does not increase or decrease your worth. You are worthwhile simply as you are, because you exist.

If we take this into our goal chasing, it can help to take the pressure off a little bit. We do things because we want to. Not to elevate or increase our worth. If a person runs a marathon in three hours and someone else runs a marathon in five hours, the person who ran it in three is not worth more than the person who ran it in five. They are both as worthwhile as each other. If a person runs a marathon, and another person doesn’t. They are as worthwhile as each other. If a person earns 100,000 per year and another person earns 20,000 per year, the one who earns more isn’t worth more. So don’t chase attainment in the hope it will increase your worth. Chase a goal because you want to. Chase it because you enjoy the process. Chase it because you can. Not because you have to, not because you need to.

Enjoying the process - injury or no injury

Stick to your plan – you made it for a reason!

Sometimes when you’re out on a run, something or someone can tempt you to deviate away from your plan. For example, you might come across someone else out for a run, who is running at a similar speed to you. It might be tempting to get competitive and overtake them. Sometimes, this is a simple way of pushing yourself and having some healthy competition. Other times, it might not be what your body needs. Another example, is if you are going out with a friend, and they run faster than you or want to run further than you had planned, it can be tempting to not let them down, or try to keep up but this might mean running in a higher heart rate zone than your session was supposed to be or increasing your volume too much. I felt this temptation today. I had planned to go out and run 1km intervals with 100m walk in between – in order to give my achilles a rest at scheduled time points. My brother and his fiancé were also going out for a run. It was nice to have others there with me, and I told them before we went out that I’d be doing intervals so not to wait for me when I was walking. But then they kept stopping to wait for me, and turning around to check I was ok. It was lovely, but it made me tempted to keep running and miss out the walks so that I could stay with them. However, I chose not to. I chose to stick to my plan because at the minute, navigating my injury, four weeks away from the marathon is my priority and I would have hated to change my plan and regret it if it caused an increase in pain. Your friend or whoever you’re worried about letting down won’t hold it against you, and if you explain it to them they’ll totally understand. Sometimes it’s about leaving your ego to one side and doing what is necessary.

With my brother and his fiancé! :)

Hopefully my ramblings have helped in some way! If not, at least reading this blog gave you a mini break from whatever else you had been doing temporarily! ;)

Hope you have all had a good week, and here’s hoping another one is coming!