Post Marathon & Getting Back To It

Doing a marathon took a lot out of me. Not just the race itself, but the training, fuelling and constant thinking about it. In the weeks and months prior to the London Marathon, I found every decision I made was dependant on how it could affect the marathon. I was mentally and physically exhausted in the week after it.

I decided to take some time out afterwards but was itching to run again within 4 days. I waited for a couple more days and then did a slow jog on the Saturday after the marathon. I then tried to get back into the swing of things and get back into normal routine, but for me, I just felt it was too soon. My legs were aching with every step I was doing and I felt I couldn’t get my breathing under control like in normal runs.

I was struggling to get myself motivated to run and I just hated every step when I did manage to get out of the front door. None of this was helped by the fact that I was still so mentally exhausted from preparing for our wedding 2 weeks after the marathon and then moving house another 4 weeks after that.

I’ve just been ticking over in between this and not really pushing it too much in sessions as I just feel exhausted all of the time. We finally got to go on our honeymoon on 24th November to the Maldives and it really is the first holiday that I felt I’ve properly switched off and truly relaxed.

So now I’m back and refreshed, my focus is going to be to get back into running, strength training and improving my diet to help me maximise my training. I’m going to slowly build the miles and effort in my running training, so I don’t burn out or start to hate running due to every run feeling hard (which I think is what happened after the marathon).

And in terms of strength training, I’m also going to slowly build this up to avoid injuries. I want to use the winter to build a good, strong base so I can really have a go at some road races next year. Although I’ll still be training on the track next year, I don’t really want to be focusing on track races.

Improving my diet will involve eating enough food to fuel my training and ensuring I get enough vitamins and minerals into my body to help with my training. Although I understand what I need to eat and drink to maximise my training, I still struggling with holding myself accountable as I have the worse willpower (especially when I comes to chocolate!!).

I’m going to sit down soon and write down some goals for next year which will help me to shape my training more specifically. Though I’d like to get some personal bests in 5km, 10km and half marathon (it’s been a while), the ultimate goal will be the London Marathon after I gained a good for age place last week!!