Hard Going

I am so slow. So very very slow. Last week I was disappointed because I had to start walking at fifteen miles; this week I started walking at nine miles. It took me four hours and nine minutes to cover eighteen miles.

The thing is, though, that I did cover eighteen miles. And I so nearly didn't. E (1) made sure I didn't get to bed until midnight; A (2) had me up from twenty past five. I was already tired after a five-day holiday at Center Parcs - whoever said that Center Parcs was a relaxing break needs to be locked in a dark cupboard with nothing but bread and water for a very long time.

So, after covering the marathon distance over three runs during the week, today was eighteen miles. James had promised to come and meet me with water and encouragement and I was looking out for him. Not to have the water and encouragement but to give up. It was cold, it was raining, it was too far. I'd covered the distance during the week. I'm running a half marathon practise race next weekend and the magazine says that you mustn't do your longest run in the week before. I was hungry. My mittens were soaked through, as were my trainers, which desperately need to be replaced. I could feel the trench foot setting in. I had no energy and had to walk, and I promised myself that the minute James drew up in the Renault Espace, I would leap into the passenger seat and thereby prove myself sensible and realistic and as far removed from martyrdom as it's possible to be.

The number of cars that are not Renault Espaces is staggering. And the number of Renault Espaces that are not driven by James in shining armour is more staggering still.

I limped to thirteen miles, convinced that James and the children were all eating fish and chips and enjoying the fourth Shrek film, which we got out of the library yesterday. I kept a monologue going along the lines of here I am wearing myself into a wet frazzle, about to die, and you can't even be bothered to bring me the sip of water that would save my life... A friend from O and T's school drew up to ask if I was all right ... see even people who barely KNOW me care enough to ask how I am while you just stay all comfortable and warm...and suddenly, at fourteen miles, there he was.

I leaned into the open passenger window and burst into tears. My hands were too cold to unscrew the lid on the water bottle. 'Come on, get in,' he said, 'it's raining really hard and you've done lots.'

If he'd been there at nine miles, I've have climbed straight in. But I had four miles to go. Just four. I was soaked through - I wasn't going to get any wetter. We rendezvous-ed two miles on, I had more water and he drove home to run a hot bath for me while I dragged myself the last miles home.

And I did it. Eighteen miles. I got back and cried, and A and T got into the bath with me, and we watched Shrek and then had a teddy bears' picnic (encompassing fairly major surgery for two of the bears who've been on the waiting list for months).

Eighteen miles is a long way. Twenty six point two is even longer. And somewhere between nine and fourteen miles is the line between imminent divorce and exactly the right kind of support.

Fail again, fail better

I ran again on Sunday. 17.1 miles. Except that when I got to almost sixteen miles, I simply could not run any more. I suddenly felt that I was floating away from the road, and that if I kept running, I would end up horizontal. I walk the first ten minutes of a long run, and at this point I was running more slowly than I'd walked at the start. So I gave up running, had two jelly babies and walked the last mile and a bit. Every time I tried to run, I got that light-headed, fainting feeling and had to walk again.

So it may have been 17.1 miles, but it was three hours and forty minutes.

And the pavement keeps running out. On Sunday, I ended up running along something which had been signposted as a bridle path, but which actually ran round the edge of an incredibly muddy field. I gave up when I realised I was carrying my own bodyweight in mud on my trainers. Then I found a footpath. Which was all very well until the path started being marked with signs saying, 'Beware - dangerous wild animals.' I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz saying, 'Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!' over and over again. Then I realised I was being watched intently by a flock of ostriches.

They're bigger than you think they are, ostriches.

Sir Colin Davies collapsed on Wednesday night, just as he was walking through the orchestra pit at the Royal Opera House to begin a performance of The Magic Flute. I know, I was there. I was in the front row. If I'd reached out my hand, I could have stroked the curly bit of a cello. One moment, I was drawing breath in anticipation of the overture, the next, I was exchanging terrified glances with a cellist. We take music for granted. It comes to us so easily - the purchase of a CD, the touch of a screen, even the sliding of a lift door, brings us music, music, music. Sir Colin was fine; he recovered quickly. But when he fell, the skill, training, effort, dedication, the years and years that go into creating a musician, condensed into one brief heartbeat that said, do not take this sublime human expression for granted.

It's easy to think that running is just running. That seventeen miles is nearly eighteen, nearly twenty, and that twenty's not so far from twenty six, and that a marathon's only 0.2 miles more than that. But every little gain in the product of work, of training, of determination. And each step is hard won.

I didn't manage 15 miles last week. I didn't manage 17 on Sunday. If I can just keep on not managing a little more each week, I might just make it.

And sometimes you just have to laugh...

I'm trying to make some fairy cakes for when T (4) gets home from nursery. She's tired, we need half term, she doesn't want to go to ballet this afternoon. And A (2) is helping me. He's emptied my secret store of jelly babies into the mixing bowl, eaten the black ones and is now trying to add an entire jar of instant coffee on the grounds that it 'smells nice.'

He's just found the Calpol.

Jelly babies, coffee and Calpol. Sounds like a power potion to me. Maybe I should just let him get on with it.

Just keep swimming

On Saturday, I had to do my next long run. I was aiming for fifteen miles this time. One good thing that's coming out of this training is a vast improvement in my mental arithmetic. My running watch does distance in miles, the treadmill only in kilometres. The running watch gives pace in miles per minute, the treadmill does kilometres per hour. And I'm not that good at maths, so working out how long it's going to take me to get where I'm going is good for several minutes of distraction on a run. I worked out that, having managed 13.1 miles in two and a half hours, I should be able to do fifteen miles in three hours.

I didn't feel like it. I didn't want to go. But I set off. And, to cut a very long story short, not only did I take almost three and a half hours, I only managed 14.8 miles. I had to walk some of the way (granted, my walking pace is actually faster than my slow running pace sometimes, but still, I had managed to keep a running motion going for the whole half marathon distance and was really disappointed). And when I got near home and was only 0.2 miles short, I simply could not keep going and fell short of the distance. This in spite of four jelly babies, including a black one.

And this is the trouble with doing something ambitious. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't. The hard thing is not to let the failures overshadow the successes. Attempting this marathon was never going to be easy.

So what went wrong? I have been very tired. James has not been well and A (2) and E (1) have been taking it in turns to keep me up in the night - just as one settles, the other starts. The pavement ran out at 6.5 miles; I kept going anyway and found myself running the middle two miles on a thin, sloped, muddy verge next to a very busy road, culminating in a bridge over the A41 leading down towards the M25. And my trainers aren't waterproof.

But that's not it. I just never got to a place in that long run where I was running. It was effort, effort, effort all the way. When we're learning a new song in chorus, there's a time when you hold the music and look at it. Then you put the music down and concentrate really hard on remembering it, glancing at it now and then to make sure you're getting it right. Then you put the music away and give every ounce of energy to singing your line right, relying only on the learning you've done. And then, one day, when you've accepted that you just have to give it that level of energy all the time, it all falls into place. The song becomes yours, and even if you don't sing it for months, even years, the harmonies just come back whenever you need them.

In running terms, I'm still gripping that music. And sometimes it goes right, and sometimes it doesn't.

If this was horseriding, I'd have to get back on the horse. Instead, as the running isn't going brilliantly, I'll fall back on the mantra of the dizzy blue fish in Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming.

Except I'll be running, obviously.

Bad week, good things

After the achievement of my first half marathon, I was both nervous and quite excited about the next long run. Did the fact that I was still alive after thirteen miles mean that I might manage fourteen? But I needn't have worried. The Bride came on a flying dress selection visit, Mum had a singing event and James was flying off to Mauritius (deep envy mixed with deep concern - he wasn't well - on the one hand he shouldn't have been travelling, on the other, four nights in a nice hotel in 27 degrees has to be good for one's health surely?). I had a lovely day with the children but it didn't involve much running. So I got on the treadmill later, when Mum came home, and I got off again after four kilometres. Four, when I'd been planning on attempting twenty-something!

I ran today, and as I was about to turn towards home at nearly six miles, so that I'd be in good time for mum to leave for her Pilates class, a friend from chorus waved and cheered me on from her car. I realised that I still had a little bit of time, did another two miles and still got home in time for Mum.

Apparently there'll be quite a few people cheering on the day. Perhaps if I pretend every single one of them is Annette cheering from her car on the A404, I might just make it.

Running in the dark

After two bad days on the treadmill, I knew that I had to get out yesterday. James has fallen victim to a virus which makes it harder to get out - or easier to find a reason not to, I'm not sure which. It was one of those days when you don't draw breath until the children are in bed. I got changed and went to the treadmill just before eight o'clock, took one look at it and knew that if I started I would stop within about five minutes.

But I knew I had to run, because if I stop, I won't start again.

I grabbed my high visibility jacket (so fetching, dah-ling) and dashed off into the night. It was cold. It was dark. It was windy. But it wasn't boring. In fact, once I'd got out of the village, where the street lighting comes to an end, it was quite an adventure. I couldn't see the path in front of my feet. Branches leapt out and hit me. Cars passed with their headlights on full beam, leaving dancing trails of afterimages. Every now and then, a whole line of cars would pass me, lighting up the path for long enough for me to run the next few yards reasonably confidently.

When I got back to our road, I found James setting out to look for me. He beckoned me into the car - but it's 0.2 of a mile from the end of our road to our house, and I needed that 0.2 to bring me to eight miles. 'Madness,' he said sadly, shaking his head.

Of course it was madness. I could have turned my ankle in a pothole, lost the footpath and strayed onto the road in the dark, caught hypothermia, you name it. But I did run eight miles.

That was then...

There are many, many different marathon training programmes you can follow but they all agree on one thing. You have to have a rest day after a long run. I did a long run on Sunday so yesterday I was absolutely, totally and completely obliged not to run. I am really, really good at not running. I tackled not running like a true professional. I took my not running extremely seriously. I spent the whole day not running.

And then I woke up.

Every training programme agrees on the rest day, but not one single one of them says that the rest day should carry on for more than twenty four hours. I know, I've checked.

And so today was back to the treadmill. And it was so hard. Thirteen miles on Sunday was so much easier than four miles was today. I was so tired. It's been such a busy day. On what planet does a woman with four children aged five and under decide it would be a good idea to train for a marathon?