Well well well! It’s been one hell of a year hasn’t it?! To think I was weeks away from running London back in March of 2020 to having the world shut down and bang no running, no races, just lockdown. For me personally, having the London Marathon postponed for another year, was a blessing in disguise. Let me explain why.
At the end of 2019, I became very ill around Christmas time and really struggled to recover from illness. I had developed a very bad chest infection in which I had three rounds of antibiotics and I still was not running at 100% by the middle of February of 2020. By the time I started to feel better, that is when the rumours of Covid-19 began and a few weeks later, Boris announced the first ever national lockdown. Never in my life had I experienced something in which my mental health would take a hit. I feared I would not be able to see my family or friends in person for quite some time. To top it all off, I managed to get covid the first time around (the time in which loss of taste and sense of smell were not covid symptoms). Two weeks in isolation with housemates leaving food and water at your door to ensure that no one else got sick was hard on me mentally. Yes there was a lot of crying and facetime with my parents to help me get through the struggles of isolation and global lockdown. At the end of my isolation there was only one thing to do whilst stuck at home: Eat, Drink, Bake and start a Garden. Not once did I try to run in April and May. Okay just for the virtual Green Belt Relay I did run. Instead, I did a lot of baking, gardening, working at school for key workers and vulnerable children, working from home to plan lessons for the new academic school year and hope children who were at home were accessing the learning posted for them on a weekly basis. Running at this moment in time was at the very back of my mind.
As we entered the summer months, I decided I would try to get back into running. Every run I completed throughout the summer months was a struggle. Physically my body was not at the level of fitness it was in pre-covid times, mentally my head was never in the right headspace. The people who I saw at the beginning or end of my runs would say it's only natural to feel crappy on your runs because we’ve been in our homes for such a long time; take your runs easy and slow. This does make sense to me now, but at those moments in time, in my mind it didn’t, no matter how many times someone said it to me, I just thought I would just bounce right back. That's when I decided that I would plan all my runs and workouts on a calendar and tick off the days I did complete a run, cycle, or workout and literally take it day by day. At the end of each month, I would evaluate how many workouts or runs I had completed and take it as a win. That small step I took, helped me to overcome the mental block in my head.
As autumn arrived and the new school year began, I decided to take another small step and focus on small runs for the time being. I focused on building my stamina, muscle memory by running 5 to 10km at most. This is where I began to feel my body come back into form for running and I did not have the need to stop every 3 kms on my run. The virtual 5k time trials also helped me have a goal to aim for at the beginning of each month to try and shed off a few seconds from my 5k time. My Season best for 2020 was a time of 32:11. I was doing quite well for the final months of 2020, my runs were feeling good, celebrating my 30th birthday with a small group of friends (rather than celebrating large as planned), sitting outdoors to drink a pint in the pub during the middle of December in cold weather and many many zoom calls with my family and telling them hopefully the worst is over….Boy I was wrong!
As we approached December, I knew something was brewing quietly in the shadows. My housemates both tested positive for Covid and I spent both Christmas and New Years Eve in isolation. To think that was it, the third national lockdown was announced. Great, I was back to online teaching and running was affected by the back to back isolations throughout the Christmas holidays. I thought to myself, I am not going to let this third lockdown get to me and I will take it day by day and go for my scheduled runs as I had planned on my calendar. My body, on the other hand, had other plans. The first week of January my appendix ruptured and I caught Covid while in hospital. The transfer to another hospital to get emergency surgery, and being on oxygen post surgery was hard for me to process what was going on. The doctor then explained to me that I would need to stay in hospital to be observed as I had caught Covid post surgery. She explained this may be due to the fact I was exposed to it by my housemates and being put in the wrong ward by the previous hospital. 10 days in absolute isolation in hospital during the height of the pandemic and no one allowed to visit me hit me hard. I kept crying so much and most nights at the hospital I cried myself to sleep hoping this nightmare would just end. The NHS staff were doing their best to keep me in good spirits and did their best to comfort me at a time which was not allowed. I also cannot thank them enough for saving my life and helping me recover as quickly. As I was discharged from the hospital, the doctor's orders on my discharge papers stated that I was not allowed to run (or lift heavy objects) for 12 weeks. Another hurdle on my journey to run the London Marathon. I thought to myself that this was it, my running career is over. There is no way I can make a comeback and run London in October.
I took a deep breath and reflected on my time being a runner since 2016. I reminded myself that I will be able to bounce back as I’ve done many amazing accomplishments in my life such as joining a running club, completing my first ever 10k run, ran my first half marathon, complete cross country races, and going to various locations in the UK to actually run. After reflecting on what I have accomplished so far, I knew that I could not just give up now.
I began to take small steps to my recovery such as going for daily walks and distracting myself within my work. 12 weeks later, I decided to go for my first run post surgery and covid. I did not care for the pace or how many times I would stop to walk. As long as I was outside, I was happy to be doing some sort of running and smell the flowers bloom all around me. Finally, I was on the road to recovery and healing. Throughout the springtime, my runs were somewhat consistent and I focused on a lot of strength cross training. I felt good for the first time since the pandemic first hit.
So it began, the first few weeks of Marathon training. Throughout the June and July period my runs felt comfortable and relaxed (a little too relaxed, I would say). I was quite inconsistent with the number of runs I needed to complete to stay on top of my marathon training plan (provided by the lovely Sonja). Instead, I did more cross training than running in the first few weeks of my marathon plan. In my mind, I felt that I needed these classes to help me form the base due to being off sick for the first 12 weeks of the 2021 year. As many people say, everyone is different when it comes to marathon training but you need to be consistent. Well the month of July was very inconsistent in my training, to the point where I missed two long runs. When you’re a teacher, the very last few weeks of school are always the most crazy and hectic time of the year, which hindered my training in the last few weeks of July. Regardless I know that it is no excuse for not completing the training, which would come back to me as I trained and completed long runs in Canada. 4 weeks of training in Canada…
MY GOODNESS IT WAS SCORCHING HOT! I cannot believe throughout the whole month of August I trained in scorching and humid weather, with no break from the heat. But that is another story for next week's blog.