Running, not so much

There is a sentence in my post-marathon write-up which kept coming back to me around the time of the Bristol 10km. “After those 10 miles it would be the last 10km and I could run that distance even feeling unwell”. Nearly a month after I wrote that, I am not so sure at how much it holds true. It was true on the day I wrote it and it felt true while I was running in London, but today it doesn’t feel so believable.

I have run twice since the marathon. I ran the 10k on May 9th and I ran 3km around the harbour last weekend. I didn’t manage to run the whole way around. I ran to Cumberland Rd and started to walk when I passed Phidias Neo Classical marble merchants. They must be Greek I say to myself whenever I pass by. I have yet to go and find out. Nevertheless and distractions aside, the running wasn’t physically tough but I just couldn’t do it.

I managed to run the 10k at a speed of 1:00:17. For me, that is an official personal best so I was quite happy with it. I say official because I’ve run 10k in under an hour outside of a race. I had been hoping to do that again but I’m not complaining. About 3.5km into the run my right foot started hurting and while it didn’t slow me down, it also wasn’t of much use in my attempts to speed up.

The ankle injury was a remnant of the marathon aches and pains so I didn’t mind too much. For about 10 days it had hurt but less and less. On the morning of the race it felt fine. All better now luckily but I still don’t have the heart to go out and run.

Someone wrote on Twitter that ‘post-marathon life was fun’ and they mentioned some wine they would be enjoying. I was surprised. It doesn’t feel fun for me. I felt quite aimless for a bit and now that’s become a slight curiousity about what happens next.

I entered the ballot for the 2011 London Marathon but there’s a lot of competition for places. I wondered about whether to try to do the New York Marathon this year but that idea didn’t catch on. I’d like to do it one day so maybe next year I will enter the ballot. The Loch Ness marathon sounded nice when I first researched it last winter. I’ll wait to see what happens though and if I get a bit more excited about it I think I’d enjoy training for it.

I think that this may be the come down from the training and the worry and the travel and the running. I hope that wasn’t the only highlight of my year because there are still over six months left. However my enthusiasm needs a little bit of work. Just waiting and seeing for now.