You can't play on broken strings, you can't feel anything...

That your heart don't want to feel, I can't tell you something that ain't real......

So I can't tell you I was looking forward to today.

I wasn't. I wanted it done, I wanted it over, I wanted to be able to do the things I wanted to do.

So why, why on earth did you enter????

Lets go back to quadzilla shall we. Feb 2012, 4 marathons in 4 days that nearly broke me. I hated a lot of it for lots of reasons. After it I cancelled all my long stuff.

After a think, I decided I did want to do another mara, but properly so I went to see Russ. Russ sorted me out a plan and initially I was targeting JW Ultra. But nothing was going right, 10 minute miles were killing me, stairs would give me palpitations and a 3 mile run needed recovery days.

Aha! I finally thought when anaemia was diagnosed, thank fuck for that. I haven't got really shit, there is something wrong. So I took the tablets and thought about my diet more and from July to October saw my times improve amazingly for short stuff. Meanwhile I opted for the relay at JW and had a blast, well sort of, THAT was blogged about.

So back on track here and I decided I would target a spring mara (though I do think the name should be changed to 'supposedtobespringbutactuallymorefuckingfreezingthanthewinter' mara. And entered Brighton. I don't think I trained well over winter, but I trained and got PBs at everything up to 20 miles. I was happy, but decided to pull out of Brighton. There were reasons for this, but I now can't help feeling that I just didn't want to do a mara? Even I don't know what it thinking most of the time.

But I entered Halstead instead. A month later. Maybe I will get to run in some warm weather in training? Erm, not so much really, but there you go.

I still don't think I'm training that well. I'm loving the short fast interval type stuff, hating everything else. But well I just carried on. Thinking if I can just maintain until the day I will be fine.

And here's the thing, over the last month or so I have actually started to enjoy the longer stuff again. I think I know why. It's because I am getting stronger so I can run longer with less effort, but it was too late, I can now regularly run 5k at sub 7s. No specific training just doing it, I believe this translates up but only slowly and I will run quicker at longer distances......with time.

So today, I will be honest, the start line tingles and nerves weren't there. I felt empty. I started well enough, first 5 between 7.15 and 7.40s. But, my foot hurt on the sole. I only decided to wear flats 2 weeks ago, as my Kinvaras were giving me arch issues. Maybe they were too flat? Anyway I was still ok, but must have started to run different because my calf started to hurt. 

I was still doing ok, but by about 10 was having a new pain in my groin. Nice! I will be honest that worried me more than the other things because it was shooting pain and I had no idea what it was.

I will assume it was connected to the other two things though. Mile 13 came in at 9.10. I knew I was slowing but it really really upset me. I stopped to walk out my calf and it was really here that my race ended. (Third fastest half ever :-d) I knew I couldn't carry on like this. Nonetheless I ran the next 2 miles before my head just said no. Stop now. You are going to hurt yourself and for what? 

So I walked to a Marshall who took me to Mr H.

Race over.

Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I disappointed that I took the decision to stop when I knew I wouldn't acheive my goal? No not really. Shit happens. I've run 63 marathons. I don't need to run anymore if I don't want to.

I have received some lovely texts and tweets so thank you. I have spoken to my best running buddy, who assures me I will be awesome in future.

He's not wrong ;-)

I am now going to concentrate on the ELVIS series and the club handicap and Grand Prix. I also feel very priveliged to have been asked by someone very special to me to help him work towards running a 5k all the way. (Prob cos he thinks I will manage that without DNFing).

My legs are trashed and my calf feels like someone kicked me in it.

I know I did the right thing.

And I'm going to keep seeing Russ who is going to help me get a PROPER 5k time :)))