I was supposed to run a marathon today. The forecast was grim, and only got grimmer, with heavy rain and high winds forecast. Saturday before looked better, with a chance of snow, so I decided to run one day early.
I decided to run the same route as my Virtual London Marathon. Training had gone fairly well in the short time available to me, and I got up to 23 k. I wanted to run the first loop in the dark, so that I could enjoy the Christmas lights. Things looked really idyllic, especially with a bit of snow on the ground. However, I had forgotten that running on fresh snow is pretty hard going. And it was still snowing. By the time I had run about 8 k, I discovered I had icicles on my eyebrows.
Still, I completed my first loop in a decent time. My family, my crew, met up with me, and we swapped my beanie for a cap, as the snow was starting to pick up. It got pretty heavy, so by the time I was finishing my second loop, I was feeling really upset, and tempted to give up. However, I realized that I wouldn’t forgive myself, so I pushed on. After a while, I actually felt a lot better. I realized I must have hit the wall, even though I had been taking gels and eating cheese. After all, I was unwittingly combining a marathon with strength training. I was starting to get pretty cold and wet, though, so my husband met me at about 29 k, and gave me a warmer jacket to wear. My socks and shoes were also soaked, and I was worried what that would do to me, so we agreed that he’d meet me again soon with fresh shoes.
By the time we changed my shoes, I was really cold and wet all over, and it was starting to rain, so I just gave in to the facts of life and asked for him to bring me fresh thermals – and I had to switch to thin hiking pants. I ended up walking this final loop. Conditions were getting even nastier, with the snow turning into slush which was getting more slippery by the minute. I wasn’t even able to maintain my normal walking pace. But I completed – again in the dark.
I’ve done some good running lately, so I know that the weather is what did me in. I realize now that this has to be my last winter marathon. There are just too many unknowns in terms of the weather. The best illustration of this was that so much snow fell during my run that by midday people were coming out of their houses pulling kids on sleds!
By the way, I was right not to run today. I don’t think I would have even made it through one loop, judging by the wind and rain outside my window.
Written by
C3PO
Marathon
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Wow, wow, wow 👏 What an absolutely amazing achievement!! You showed so much resilience and strength of character and must be feeling so so proud of yourself 🤩 Hope you are now dry, warm and chilling out 😀👍
Wow, what an amazing achievement, not only to complete a marathon, but to do so from dawn to dusk in those conditions! You are an inspiration- well done, and put your feet up for the rest of the festive season!
Oh wow C3P0!!! That's really hardcore in my book! I have no idea how you kept going in the snow, being cold and wet like that - I would've been SO miserable and whiny! Especially running on your own when it's so easy to lose perspective. I hope you feel massively proud of yourself. Top marks to your hubbie too for being support crew.
That is some achievement C3PO I absolutely stand in amazement and awe of your achievement. Such a hard won Marathon - great job, hope you’re now thawed out and warm again. Great support team too, that’s what you need to have as you reach your goal.
Wow!!! To contemplate a marathon in those conditions is crazy never mind to complete one!!!!! Huge kudos - that is amazing and an absolutely fantastic feat of endurance. I am in awe
Wow! Outstanding resilience C3PO - huge congratulations on a run you won’t forget! ❄️💪👏👏How you carried on in those conditions, I do not know! As Linda says - proper hardcore!!🙂
Amazing achievement C3PO. I think that lots of people would have chosen not to go in weather like that. My HM efforts last winter both foundered on chest colds which stopped me running. We invest too much in the build up to risk the hazards of winter; but what you have just done is an astounding feat of endurance. Kudos to the back up team too. 👏👏👏👏🙂🙂🙂
What a phenomenal effort you put In to complete your distance in such snowy conditions, I just had ice today, that was hard enough, I can't think how difficult running in snow must have been. Massive congratulations. Hoping your next run is warmer and happier 🤗
Thank you, you lovely people! I'm so grateful for the positive perspective I find in this group.My run turned out to be more of a saga than I realized. Not wanting to drone on for too long, I dropped the part about how I lost one of my earbuds on loop 3. I had put both of them in my pocket when my son joined me on my run, and then was so tired and out of it that I didn't pay attention when I opened that pocket again and one of them must have popped out and vanished. The reason this turned into a saga was that I decided to try to hunt down the earbud yesterday and hubby agreed to drive me. We discovered that all of the car windows were open and the inside of the car completely soaked - pools of water in the back row. We think that hubby must have accidentally pushed the buttons on the car key on Saturday night. So that wasn't great, but thank goodness we had plans to go out or it could have been even worse.
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