London calling

As The Clash wrote, in the iconic song "London Calling", "come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls" (note to youth: The Clash were one of the pioneers of the punk rock era, an essentially anarchistic, anti-establishment social movement populated by disenchanted and disillusioned unemeployment-generation kids, which was bred out of the unemployment and perceived lack of opportunity resulting from the bleak landscape of post-industrial 1970s Britain and which found its voice through music). It's show time (that's not The Clash, that's me), and I'm feeling nervous but OK. I did a 7 mile easy run yesterday, bang on marathon pace for most of it, and was holding back. My natural pace was once again around 7:45 minute miles, and I was deliberately scaling back to try for a consistent 8 minute pace. It feels very strange, going slower than you think you can, and is a very different mindset to the approach for an Olympic distance triathlon. In that, you would be always pretty well flat out, taking a risk or two and, essentially, prepared to blow up. You can't do that with a marathon. At least, I don't think so, After all, what do I know, I've never yet done one! In an Olympic distance you can go hard, knowing that a couple of minutes will give you enough recovery to keep going, but in a marathon you cannot go into the red, you won't come back. So 8 minute miling is what I'm after, as consistent as possible, and as efficient as possible. No surges, no extra periods of effort, just steady, even pacing. That will give me the 3:30 I want, and then we will see what the challenge for the future might be. At this stage I don't know if I'll run any more marathons after this. I love a run, and I like a challenge so while marathon might offer those things it also demands long periods knocking out functional long distance efforts. Life's too short for that. There's too many interesting trails to be explored, too many fabulous small- time races held from village halls where ladies do tea and cake afterwards, too many ad hoc runs with your mates to be done, too many gentle trots with the dogs round the Lake District, the Peak District, Macclesfield forest... 

So, I don't know that I'll be a habitual marathon runner, but in the meantime I'm just dealing with my nerves and determined to complete this one. In 3:30. Yesterday's run was OK. It did the job. Functional. That's OK. My friend Carolyn asked how I was feeling, and I could only reply "OK". It doesn't sound too fantastic does it? It's the difference between last years version of me and this year's version. Last year I was a wannabe World Triathlon Championship contender, fiercely competitive,  committed and determined to qualify for those coveted World Championships. But that was then, and this is now. I didn't qualify for the worlds, and I came to the realisation that my best ( I did a good PB in the qualification event at Liverpool British Championships) wasn't good enough. I decided to take a more relaxed attitude to my sport, and enjoy it. So, one the one hand "OK" doesn't sound great as a summary of where I'm at, but on the other, it is a fair reflection of my approach. OK?