I felt pretty good about my marathon training heading into this week. Then, I noticed something was wrong. Am I at the beginning stages of a second stress reaction? I’m not so sure. I take Saturday off.
———
After a 12 mile run this past Sunday, I felt really good. It was easy. I felt confident. I hit the track club for a second time in as many weeks on Tuesday. The run itself wasn’t laborious - if anything it was a bore, I could go so much faster, and I felt it held me back.
But on Thursday, something feels amiss. I’m not quite sure what. But it feels deeper than muscle. So I monitor it.
I take Saturday off.
———
On Sunday I run again. I want to run 14 miles.
Every mile feels difficult. I don’t feel fresh whatsoever. A few times I feel that nagging feeling that has me worried about another prolonged break.\
———
My mind races back to my MRI scan from 2017. I’m at some grey-coloured building near Waterloo Station in London. The doctor looks at my MRI scan. Not good, he says, abolishing my dreams of running a marathon that year.
I spend the majority of the spring at the orthopedic in Earl’s Court, at a subterannean gym in West Hampstead, and fitting peope for running shoes in Spitafield Market.
———
I take solace in running 14 miles. I know feels bragadocious to type it here. But it isn’t. When you’re gunning for a personal best at the marathon, you gotta do better than I did. You have to feel better.
And that has me worried about my next run. And the one after that. What will I be like after 16 miles? Eighteen? Twenty-two?
I can’t do much right now, and that’s hard. I can only rest, stretch and recover. Then Tuesday comes. What then? Another night at the track club? Or a recovery run? But how can I get faster if I don’t run fast? But how can I run if I cannot run at all?
Twenty-six-point-two miles feels so far from now. How will I do it?
My confidence is proper shaken.
I so badly want to hit a new personal best this time. Not by a little - by a lot. My current window is 3:10 - 3:20. But I am discouraged after Sunday’s run.
So what do I do? Take satisfaction in knowing I can bang out a 1:44 14-mile run when I feel like crap, or tailor my goals to the fact that I ran a 1:44 14-mile run while feeling like crap?
I don’t know. When I run, I just run.
———
These are the thoughts that run through my mind today as I go through my run.
I know what it’s like to be beset by injuries. I know what it’s like to be burnt out.
So what is the point of today? I’m not so sure.
I know I can run 14 miles. I’ve done it so many times. I know deep down that, feeling good, I can run so much better.
But what if I don’t?
What if I don’t feel better? What if I carry these pains with me again on Tuesday? Thursday? What if I get an MRI next week and the doctor tells me I cannot run again for another eight weeks?
But that’s a future fitzie thing.
———
Your insecurities, doubts and anxieties don’t disappear just because you ran a certain distance or accomplished a goal. They’re still there. That’s the point.
I wrote about this before, remember?
——-
I don’t know what the rest of my training schedule holds. I know I’m behind because the flu prevented me from doing the serious mileage I had hoped to accompish for a few weeks.
But I’m still here. I’m still fighting. I want to do the best I can. I want to do better than what I think is the best I can do.
I want so much more than what I had gone through Sunday morning. I want, on 4 May 2025, to run the best marathon of my life. To cross that finish line strong, tired but strong, through the whole thing.
It scares the hell out of me. Honestly, it does. It’s scary to run knowing I could not live up to my goals, to my expectations. But I did it anyways. And I won’t stop, unless some white-coated proctologist instructs me I have some tear in my left femur. (Please, no.)
So, yes, my confidence is proper shaken today. I felt horrible on Mile -1, Mile 3, Mile 7, Mile 12 and Mile 14. I ended Sunday’s run knowing I have at least 12.2 miles to go.
What’ll I do?
What can I do but move forward?
That’s the quickest way home, after all.
Fitzie’s track of the day: Uncle John’s Band, by the Grateful Dead
And now for your links:
The Athletic ($$): “Aston Villa 2 Tottenham 1 – Rashford debut, passive Spurs, Villa injury worries”