To marathon or not to marathon......
October – the month people find out whether they will be having a little (26.2 mile) run round London in April the following year….. Will I be running with them?
I returned from working at the Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Ashgabat (more about that in a blog to come) on Thursday 28th September 2017 and the next few days passed in a bit of a blur while I caught up on work and life (and some much needed sleep) back in the UK. I knew that the London Marathon ballot results would be out in early October…… they always are - it had been the case the 14 years I entered over the last 20 years and I have come to realise that although I always have an air of nervous anticipation around this time, my expectation is that I will receive a ‘commiserations’ magazine and a training top* and in 12 years this has been the case.
As I started my first full week back in the UK on Monday 2nd October 2017, I was merrily getting my stuff ready for clinic when the post declared its arrival with a loud thud. Intrigued, I picked up the surprising large pile of post and started flitting through browsing without actually opening anything (I’m not sure why I do this… browse the entire post before opening anything). I saw the London Marathon logo on the top corner of a plastic A4 envelope and couldn’t help thinking that they were letting people know early this year. As I flicked past this I realised that it wasn’t as bulky as normal, that there was no training top in the envelope, my first very brief thought was ‘maybe they don’t do them any more’, followed quickly by, ‘I don’t think I actually need to open the envelope, I know I’ve got a space in 2018. Oh sugar**, I hadn’t factored in marathon training this winter’.
This is the first time I have received an official ballot place in the London Marathon ….. It took 14 entries! I have however run (I use this term in its loosest form) it before, in 2012. On that occasion I received a ‘Bequested’ space – when I open that envelope I had no idea what that meant – ultimately it meant that I would be doing a lot of running in the winter of 2011-12. And so it seems I will be doing the same this winter.
I may not have factored in training for a marathon when I opened the envelope and confirmed my suspicions, but a few weeks on and it’s factored in and I have written my training plan (learning from the last time I trained) and dare I say I’m already a bit excited – I ran the marathon on 22nd April 2012 and I’ll be running it again on 22nd April 2018!
I should add here that although I have run the London Marathon before I am by no means a ‘marathon runner’, I just like to go for a run every now and then – my preferred race distance at the moment is 10k – mainly because I know I can do this in under an hour and I ‘sometimes’ make it to the training sessions with my running club despite being the Membership Secretary! This it seems is all about to change ….. so join me for the highs, trials and tribulations of my marathon training this winter.
For all those that entered but weren’t as lucky as me – there are still charity spaces available so the opportunity is still there – why not see if you can get a space that way.
* given to all those that donate their entry fee if they do not get a place
**Ok it wasn’t quite that word but you get the drift
