End of the road

I hated running at school.  I've always thought running would be bad for your knees.  But I believe you can achieve what ever you want.  So 5 or 6 years ago I decided to see how good I could get at running.  I've always struggled with my weight and thought that maybe running could be a way to be healthy and slim.

I've dedicated a lot of thought effort and time to running.  I've run barefoot, I've bought gadgets, kit and sought out experts.  I've done long runs, intervals, tempo and fartlek.  I've read books, gone to talks, read blogs and listened to podcasts.

To me the greatest sport scientist is Tim Noakes.  He wrote the book "Lore of Running".  He stands by everything he says in that book apart from one thing.  The diet section.  He now believes firmly in a high fat, low carb diet.  When I first read this I was cynical.  The more I looked into it, the more it made sense.  As I switched my diet, cutting out bread and pasta I found that my weight was not related by the amount I executed and flogged my body.  I had unbelievable levels of energy and my fitness improved.  In terms of weight control and fitness, flogging yourself with exercise is not the way.  Good quality LCHF diet drives your fitness.

As a species we aren't mean to run continuously.  We have the ability to run, to escape predators and survive.  But to do this you have to stress yourself.  When I race, I hate it.   I want to stop and quit.  The way I keep going is by pushing and stressing myself.  Doing this continuously is unnatural.  You are literally flogging yourself to death.  As creatures, we work in bursts.

 Running is more about talent than hard work.  I believe in hard work.  Most things in life is the last man standing.   VO2 max, running efficiency is dominated by genetics.  It's like Heavy Weight Boxing.  However hard Ronnie Corbett trained he would never be Heavy Weight champion of the world.  I utterly believe that most things in life are NOT like that.  But running is.  I have never ever run sub-45 for a 10K.  I have heard of people in their first race going sub 45 without training.  Look at chess.  No one would ever beat a reasonable Chess player on their first attempt.  Even golf is like that.  In the end what limits people is their desire to commit further.  I could not have committed any further to my running yet the results were not getting any better.  (I am committed to the concept of the Growth Mindset as described by Carol Dweck, google for more info)

For my birthday I got my own copy of Tim Noake's Lore of Running.  In it he predicts race times based on set physical factors.  This cemented my opinion of running unnatural focus on talent above hard work.  This goes against my ethos and I believe that I am now banging up against my physical/generic constraints.

Do I regret my running?  No. I do not believe in mistakes.  I have learnt so much.  But now time to take the lessons in to something where I am not constrained by genetics i.e. everything else apart from Running and Heavy Weight boxing

Will I still run?  Possibly, but not racing.  I think we are built to move. And potentially long distance.  But we are not built to run 8 min/miles for 26.2 miles.  We walk, we jog, we sprint.  We stop and we burst.  I love being in the countryside and this is what I see myself doing.  Moving and exploring.

And so to my final marathon.  As you can see from the run up to this it's been a struggle.  The actual day was surprisingly enjoyable.  I was feeling rotten the night before.  Bit of a cough and niggly ankle.  Come the day I put together 5 or 6 years of running experience and executed to the best of my ability.

I ran as hard as I could without looking at the Garmin.  And I ran well and hard up until about 20 miles when it all became too much and faded.
 I picked it up again about mile 23 but was no where near the target of 3:30 despite being only 9 minutes short.

I can't conceive of a way that I could have made up those 9 minutes.  I am a 3:40 marathon runner.  No shame or glory in that.

I sprinted vigorously over the line.  Further evidence of my fast-twitch rather than slow twitch make up.  Thought I would be more relived I guess it will take a while to sink in,

The weather was absolutely cool and perfect, and yet I felt hot at points and I sweated badly.  Makes me realise that I am sensitive to the heat and how well I did in other marathons when it was hotter.

It's been a journey in many senses.

26.2 Miles 3:39:10