Edie Lush

The harsh return to training in 2010

With the Barcelona Marathon looming less than two months away and my training schedule thrown into chaos by children off school, snow and icy weather and motivation running at near all time lows, I decide to stop procrastinating and get back to work.

So I head for Richmond Park – supposedly 3 miles there, 7 miles around and 3 miles back. Shorter than my schedule says I should be doing but hey, you gotta start somewhere. So I try the sneaky back route to get there but – never having done it before – get lost. Manage to find it after an extra 2 miles.

I enter the park which is completely covered in snow but full of runners and bikers making me feel like I really should have gotten with the program a bit sooner. (Bikers! With thin wheels! Am I a wimp or what?) I trudge around the park initially feeling good and somewhat inspired by beauty. Then I am lapped by a group of 20 year olds – all gorgeous and wearing half the amount of clothes I am. I can’t get my temperature right and am either too hot or running with too much around my waist and too cold. Meanwhile my water bottle which is also in a belt thing on my waist starts to drip and my legs develop a weird icy wet feeling. I realize what’s happening and in a 4th stop to adjust clothing (all the while fearing another lap by the kidz) transfer the offending bottle to my hands, check map and head on. My iplus is telling me I only have 45 min left of my run. Clearly this is far from the truth unless I side tackle the guy skiing past me, steal his skiis and ski home. This thought continues to plague me as my right hand starts to turn to ice. I now realize the bottle is still leaking and now attacking my hand. As I leave the park my knee starts to hurt, I am really cold with one freezing wet hand. I manage another mile and as Hammersmth Bridge looms in front of me throw my arms in the air say ‘oh screw it’ and ‘taxi!’ simultaneously and duck into a black cab for the last mile.

Upon returning home I proceed to undo any the previous good work and eat an enormous Dagwood-style tuna melt and two chocolate cookies.

In a final attempt to motivate myself for a ‘recovery run’ the next day I peruse the latest email from the good people of the Barcelona Marathon. Here’s the final line of their latest newsletter.

Finally, training provides us with advice to the kind of stress that can provoke running a marathon and the nutritional section makes reference to the body fat.

What??? Needless to say, that wasn’t enough to get me back in the shoes today. I hit the Pilates machine instead!