I know I had a 10k race entry just a week after completing the Loch Ness marathon, but I had no idea if I was going to “race” that, or no idea if I was going to even turn up. I’d kind of roughly planned on up to a month of potential recovery time, and then getting back into the swing of things with a 10k at Scarborough.
So, three weeks into that rest month, what if anything did I actually do, running wise?
The Monday after the marathon was spent more or less sitting in a car driving from Inverness back to West York’s. Six and a half hours driving, plus maybe an hour in amongst drinking coffee, meant I got home around 6pm. It was a surprisingly relaxing drive.
That gave me four full days of rest and recovery to the end of the week, where I spent the evenings eating lots and drinking even more! In amongst this, I somehow found myself entering Loch Ness marathon 2019 (yay!), and being offered entry to an Ultra marathon from an old friend via Facebook which I half thought about for a day, but then after only slight egging on by someone (who is mentioned later in this post), quickly discovered myself signing up for a 42 mile race in March too!!
Friday evening I had a session I’d pre-booked with RB Massage Therapy, as I’d been expecting the worst post marathon! As it turns out, whilst the wonderful RB did uncover and work on a few knots and twists, I actually recovered from my marathon exertions surprisingly well. Don’t get me wrong, I had a few aches – but nothing really out of the ordinary or particularly painful, I was feeling very pleased with my situation!
So, Saturday morning, five and a bit days after completing my first marathon, I decided to do a tentative run at the flattest and easiest of the local parkruns, Brighouse. Opening up nice and steady, I gradually wound up the pace across the run, every passing kilometre quicker than the previous just by a small amount. I finished, and I felt good, which meant I’d turn up to Littleborough the next day and give it a half decent go instead of just jogging round.
Littleborough 10k, a week post marathon, was fantastic. It’s a fixture on the “race challenge”, so lots of club mates were in attendance, all congratulating me on an awesome marathon, to which I gave sheepish acknowledgement, given that pretty much without fail they’ve all completed multiple marathons quicker than I have!
I suppose one thing I’ve recognised over the years is runners do understand that away from the very top level of competition, you really are mostly just competing against yourself…it becomes easy to recognise when a 3hrs30mins marathon, or someone breaking the 55minute barrier for a 10k, or a first sub 20minute 5k, or a first half marathon under two hours or whatever, is “a good day” for someone, whether the times seem incredible or achievable in comparison to your own standard. I like that about this sport. The elites can recognise and acknowledge good and bad relative performance in the plodders, and vice versa…we each know what the other has had to work through.
Littleborough starts with an uphill opening kilometre. This was good as it kept my pace down a little where a flat race might have seen me scamper off and blow up early…as whilst ok, I did still have some low level of marathon weariness hiding away just under the surface.
Then it’s two laps of the reservoir before blasting back down the hill. My first lap went well. Quicker than expected and then just as I was starting to fade, the cheer ran out from the side of the road where a few of the ladies from running club had cycled out for the day instead of running the race, this gave me a little boost as I’m sure it did to many others, and powered me back onto my second lap.
The second lap was a bit odd….I’d been very slowly gaining on a club mate, who unceremoniously tripped and hit the deck before springing back up, leaving a trail of blood. I checked she was ok, and encouraged her on for a short while before she dropped off the pace a little and I figured she wanted to carry on without me fussing over her so I pushed on. Again about halfway round this lap I was starting to fade again when a runner from I think a Middleton racing club pulled alongside and asked how the fallen runner was. And we just kept on chatting!!
I’ve no idea who this lady was, but she was wonderful as we shared stories on what we’d done recently! I did hit another fade after a few minutes and tried to get her to push on ahead as it felt like she was running well within herself, but she was having none of it, imploring me to keep close as she slowly wound the pace back up again, towing me round the lap and back down the hill to the finish.
After the finish she turned and offered a handshake, but I embraced her instead and said thanks! No idea what came over me…I’m quite socially awkward and don’t generally go around embracing women who I don’t know the name of (or ones I do know the name of come to think of it!!)…maybe this was my “marathon finishing line” moment?!
Anyway…I finished Littleborough 10k in my second quickest 10k time in nearly two years, and was very happy, given I’d expected to only be able to jog it!
Whilst I’d intended taking a couple of weeks off of hilly club runs, the parkrun and 10k had me itching to get out, so the next day it was off to Scammonden Dam to run a steady couple of laps with a good friend Sam (who had provided great support to me on a lot of my long runs and who herself was now just three weeks out from running the York marathon, and not really feeling it*).
I ached a bit after this (probably due to three consecutive days running rather than any delayed onset muscle fatigue from marathon), but it was a run that made me so happy. It was great to chat about running marathons now having actually done one, with someone who had already ran a few, along with the ridiculous distraction of a 42 mile race we’d signed up for! We probably laughed quite a bit on that short steady 11k.
A few days later then, on Thursday it was back out with Sam to run a flat 10miles on the canal…it absolutely flew by, as my mind shot back to the 10 mile runs I’d covered earlier in the year, that had completely drained me and usually taken two or three days to recover from!
Then it was the fastest Huddersfield parkrun I’ve ran in ages, before a Sunday that was a taper for Sam, roughly 12 miles at St Aidens Bird Sanctuary, where we’d planned but aborted (can’t remember why) a long run previously, and it was fantastic…I’d planned a route that would zig zag us through the park pretty much covering it all in a roughly 7 mile lap, then we just ran a random route for a second lap, following the opening couple of miles again before heading back by whatever route seemed convenient. This was tailed by sitting on a bench drinking coffee and eating flapjack and watching the world go by. It was a shame to leave!!
Third week back then, and with Sam in a “rest week” ahead of the Yorkshire marathon I made a return to club running, via a very wearying turnout at Monday gym circuits, before taking in a regular Tuesday and Thursday session and remembering what hills feel like!! It felt like I’d not ran at club in ages having had the two weeks off prior to, and after the marathon.
Then Friday, it was back out with Sam again! She’d helped me massively in the final few weeks of marathon prep, so it felt right that I do my bit to help her where I could too, I’d offered to join her on any distance any day this week, and a last minute planned very very steady single lap of Scammonden dam, in the wind of Storm Callum (although it wasn’t TOO bad where we are, it was still very blustery) acted as a pre marathon weekend loosener for her, with me conveniently in kit after running into Town to collect car from a bit of safety recall work (I was in high demand this day, as in amongst also received a plea of, “can you play five a side in twenty minutes?” that I had to turn down, there wasn’t enough time to get home and dig kit out and get back).
The next morning was a slightly muddy Oakwell Hall parkrun, probably my favourite of the local courses…which also brought with it the surprise of looking at my Strava dashboard and discovering I’d ran 1000miles in the year for the first time ever, and with a few months still to go!!
That was a hectic three weeks of post marathon “rest and recovery” (🤪) completed (105km of rest as it happens!)…and with marathon now firmly out of my system, the next three weeks involves a trip to the seaside to race 10k at Scarborough, a Halloween themed half marathon in Worksop, and then the Abbey Dash 10k in Leeds, which I always consider my last “proper race” of the year before things kick off again usually at Dewsbury in February.
Although, ultra marathon training programme starts in December! 😮
(*Sam went on to bag an impressive marathon PB in the rain at York)
NIGEL RUNS LOCH NESS 