Michelle’s Marathon Madness : Wobbles, Vomiting, Machine Guns And Lots Of Snow
Posted: 11th Jan 2010 Author: Michelle Penny Topics: Michelle's Marathon Madness
I may come across a confident young thing, okay that’s pushing it, a confident thing. Fine fine, a thing then… but I have a confession to make. I’ve now entered a period of having regular wobbles about the marathon (take wobbles to mean continual gulping, rapid tapping of my fingers against surfaces and me suddenly going very pale). These can hit me at any time and will then act to render me useless in whatever I should be doing whether it be doing some work, having a chat with a friend or performing open heart surgery (no wait that’s not me…)
Now for most people I’m sure they’d be nervous about whether they’d finish, if their legs are going to fall off or whether they will become so dehydrated that they will turn into a raisin. Not so much for me. I will finish (maybe not the same day..), my legs won’t fall off (they’ll just turn into lead weights) and well maybe I will turn into a raisin, but I’m more concerned about two things.
The first is looking like I’ve died. Now I know I shouldn’t care but I do. I really do not want any photos of me looking like I’ve just come out of the grave. And here lies the problem. At the moment after just 20 miles I don’t just look like that, I look like I’ve come out of the grave after a couple of years and I’ve started to rot.
So what to do? Well I was thinking of getting my Mum to write a letter to the man in charge of the marathon and say that I’m ill or something but I’m not sure that’s going to work. So it’s going to have to be Plan B. I will have to spend the next few weeks attempting to kill myself via the weapon of exercise. This will either lead to me a) killing myself or b) being far better to cope. If I’m really honest I’m hoping the end result is a) as this will solve all problems.
But that’s only one thing. I said there were two. And the other thing is that I’m going to do what a lot of first marathon runners do, and that is throw up at the end.
Yes I know I’m sorry you probably don’t want to read that (if you don’t want to read that you also probably won’t want to know that I’ve now got blood blisters under all my toe nails except three, and that I’ve been bursting them one by one causing small blood fountains…) but as they say it’s important to share.
So why am I convinced I’m going to puke / vomit / generally embarrass myself? Well because I’ve been doing a bit of sprint finish (take that to mean not very much of a sprint finish) practice at the end of some of my runs and well let’s just say it was a close thing when I came to stop. And that’s in bitterly cold UK weather. Add in some LA warm weather and me getting a bit hot and I think we’ve got the perfect “I think I might…” scenario.
But maybe it won’t happen. Maybe I’ll be fine. But maybe if you’re there you should stand back a little as I cross the line… just to be safe.
Oh, and when I said it was bitterly cold weather to train in. Well that was a lie. It’s more like I’m training in the North Pole. Remember I said in a earlier column there had been snow. Well I’ve realised now that wasn’t proper snow. Now it’s proper snow. Now it’s running through snow filled open spaces that nearly comes up to my knees. Now it’s running through these open spaces being very aware there was a stream somewhere but now you can’t see anything but white and you’re pretty sure you’re going to fall head first into it. Now it’s like running against a brick wall that you try and sprint through but end up going nowhere and are really tempted to just flop forward into and make a snow angel.
Snow, snow, everywhere..
Always important to have a back up in case you can't get home
The rather dangerous bottle stealing variety of snow
But now in a warped kind of way it’s still fun. Fun in a darn hard kind of way where every mile takes you twice as long. Fun in a way that causes you to fall out of your running shoes and then immediately collapse on the living room floor in dramatic style when you get home. Fun in a then standing up and realising absolutely everything from your toes to your bum is excruiatingly painful and you’re now certain having a hotel right by the finish line is the only way to go.
And this marks the perfect time to offer a little advice to anyone who is a spectator at LA Marathon and sees me at around mile 20 (I’ll be the dead looking one). This is not going to be a good point to tell that I’m nearly there. Believe me I have done a few 20 miles now and the idea of 6.2 more miles feels less like nearly there and more like “Oh look there’s my death around the corner”. Don’t also think of saying it at 21 miles, 22 miles, 23 miles, 24 miles, 25 miles or 26 miles. You can say it at 26.15 miles. No earlier. If you do I will, and I make no apology for this, burn through your head with my laser evil glare… and whilst you’re applying ice to that remember how lucky you are that they were handing out machine guns at the water station before I got to you because the result could have been a whole lot worse.
And just be glad it weren’t be snowing there, because I’ve been making some mean snowballs..
