Marathon #9: The Salisbury 5-4-3-2-1 - the tough one

I am afraid to say that this post is likely to turn out to be one long indulgent passage of feeling sorry for myself. In short, I had a bad, maybe even my worst, marathon! So if you would like to be spared the gory details, that's all you need to know, basically. 

Gosh, how dramatic. Yes indeed. And so unexpected! I was looking forward to it, and I seemed to feel on form beforehand....

We drove to the New Forest on Saturday, and the campsite seemed to be nice, it even had separate areas for 'couples' and 'families' so well, I thought it might be quite quiet and relaxing. Only the tents were all very close together so the couples area was separated from the family area and the nosiest family in the world by only 20 feet of clear noise-conducting air. Also, my alarm clock on my phone is birds singing (an attempt to wake up in a relaxed mood each day), which turns out to be actually a very accurate reproduction of a real bird singing, and even more, of an actual bird living in the hedge by the campsite. And so, I woke with a start at 4am, confused as to why I could hear my alarm, but it wasn’t going off. Sigh.

Even if not very well rested, I none the less got up with the excited feeling of anticipation I always get before a race. Which is good on the one hand, because a bit of nerves/excitement helps with your running, but on the other doesn't help so much with managing to eat very much at your last carb loading opportunity. 

The race started at Salisbury Fire Station and is held to raise money for the Fire Fighters Charity. After picking up our running numbers, we saw the ultra race start (50km!) and then we had a bit of time to get ready and head to the start....

It all started off very well. The first hill wasn't long in coming, Old Sarum where the old castle used to stand, and as we ran up it some parachutists were floating in the sky above.

I remember I enjoyed the first 11 miles. It was fun counting the 5-4-3-2-1, especially the hills, to start with, until we counted 4 within the first few miles, then I was hopeful for a while that we might have done them all already. But then as we kept going up more and more I gave up on the counting. Better not to know these things. Realised at this point that have started far too quickly for a course like this, but too late to do anything about it now. The 5 rivers part was lovely, so pretty, still waters with green fronds of weeds beneath the surface looking like the silky hair of a green river monster. 3 country estates were very nice!  One especially had a huge archway of tall trees framing a lane through the estate. Just like in a picture! 2 castles were very exciting. 1 cathedral was right at the end and a bit of a let-down, but more on that later.

After around 11 miles, we climbed over a barbed wire fence (not sure what happened to the path there) and into a field of cows. Horror!! You may or may not know I have had some close run-ins running past cows in the past. Well, everyone else is running past them so I can’t very well turn back. Deep breath. Ugh, cow poo air. Phew. They are so uninterested. Having made it through the cow field, we came out into a huge, and I believe ‘rolling’ is the term used, field. I glanced at my watch (it’s a bad sign to start glancing at your watch at 11 miles) and the ensuing ‘rolling’ lasted a whole mile. This I noted was the definitive point at which I started to lose it. I think, this field reminded me very much of a field that used to be in a race that I did every year when I ran with Southampton Running Club. The clubs were quite competitive in that series of races, and everyone was encouraged to run their best every time, and this particular race I had never liked and always used to get worked up over it. And as my feet hit the ploughed soil over and over, upwards and upwards, the sun beating down, all my old demons and doubts reappeared. As well as a blister on the ball of each foot. Nice.

At the top of the hill and the next checkpoint at about 13 miles, there was flapjack! Joy! This buoyed my spirits for a whole 3 miles, before I sank into an almost depression like state again at around 16 miles which lasted for the rest of the race.

I really found it the toughest yet. I was just all over the place, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t remember why I was doing it, and I has no desire to finish which is a feeling which I have honestly never had before. Every time my feet hit the ground it felt like my feet were on fire, all I wanted was to take off my shoes and sit down...

...Then came the thirst. I hadn’t taken any water with me, as there were plenty of checkpoints along the way. But, as in most smallish races, water is provided in cups not bottles, so you can really only drink as much as you can once at the checkpoint, can’t carry it with you. I knew this, and should have taken some with me as well, but of course I’m an idiot and didn’t. After all of my work on getting my hydration right in the last race and feeling so much better, I am very annoyed with myself!

The last 4 miles went on and on and on.....literally. Coming back into Salisbury there was only 1 mile on my watch left to go. And I felt so bad that I couldn’t even comprehend how I could run a mile, I literally felt that I wouldn’t be able to do it. The run through Salisbury wasn’t too enjoyable, the signposts were pretty poor, and there was no one else in front of me or behind, and running past the cathedral it sounds a bit silly but I almost had a panic attack because there were crowds and crowds of tourists and I couldn’t see where to go, and I was having trouble concentrating on what was going on. One way or another I made it through the crowds and back onto the river path, and Andrew came up behind me (as we had got separated a few miles back, but he had recently had some Powerade to power a sprint finish), so then a relaxed a bit. So we kept going on and on, and finally we finished.....

26.7 miles! 4:20:14, 4^thlady and 37/187 overall.

Big thanks to Norma’s friends who came to cheer us on at the end, really nice surprise!

Lay down in the campervan and felt sorry for myself for a while. Then headed off to have a shower, which was like some miracle cure and I felt like normal again afterwards. Andrew threw-up L Lay down and felt sorry for self for a bit longer. Then found bacon butties which cheered me up no end! And Andrew too J

Better enough after 3 hours to head back to the New Forest for tea in the nicest pub in the world, scampi and chips and New Forest ice cream, and everyone was asking about our medals J

I felt OK until Monday night, but then I guess by being stupid and running too quickly in the heat, up hills and getting dehydrated and not eating anything, I am going to have to pay for it by feeling rubbish for a few days. Sigh. My blisters are getting better and I’m not tired anymore, but I have some weird new symptom of a burning pain in my chest/stomach. After some Google research which freaked me out, it seems the most likely and least scary explanation is heartburn/stomach acid, but I don’t know how that managed to happen! I’m slightly concerned that all the usual things that I was expecting to go wrong this year by running a lot haven’t, no joint problems or pulled muscles, but I am accumulating a collection of other unusual ailments, I’ve trapped a nerve in my shoulder, burst a blood vessel in my eye, and now I’ve done something to my stomach. I’m just going to sit down for a few days I think.