Firstly, I'm going to apologise to everyone who saw this title or opened the blog and immediately thought, oh God, she's talking about running again. This blog was never created for me to talk about running. It was kind of a writing, mental health and me thing, so whilst running fits in the latter two, the former it has absolutely no relevance to, and for that I do apologise. However, it's important to me, so here we go.
When COVID struck mass participation events dropped like flies and we moved to virtual races which were incredible in some ways - doing the virtual London marathon I had the opportunity to pee and visit my water station in the porch roughly every point eight miles which was really helpful. I didn't go on every loop, but it was helpful to know that if I needed to, it was there - but in other ways it sucked because no running buddies, not crowd, no kids with high five for power up signs and no desire to touch them even if there were because that just sounds like a pit of germs and nastiness to me right now. As we moved into 2021 it was almost like there was a promise that it was coming back: the feeling, the events, the crowds, the cheering, the charity work and everything else that comes with mass participation sporting events. But in the same way, the pages of the calendar turned over and we were, and are, still wearing masks, still taking tests, still getting briefings about scary numbers of people infected with a virus that has decimated populations of vulnerable people and also killed innumerable people deemed to be fit and healthy and at a lower risk.
Runners like me have struggled to get back into training because the belief wasn't there that it was coming back. We can't even go to parkrun yet, with most venues being under a thousand participants, so how on Earth are we going to get to London to share a start line with thousands of other runners - around fourteen thousand for London Landmarks Half Marathon and fifty thousand for London Marathon - in just weeks. There's been a part of me that has been screaming IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!! Well, boo to that, because in two weeks time, London Landmarks is happening, and in less than eighty days, less time than it took to Phileas Fogg to circumnavigate the entire globe (I brought writing nerdery into it somehow!!) London Marathon is happening, and I am not the only one who is not ready.
On the Facebook groups for all of the races I'm involved in this year, there's a lot of people coming to the realisation that training has been horrendous, people have had COVID, been pinged to self-isolate and whilst a man in, I think it was France, managed to run a marathon on his six meter balcony, not everyone has a six meter balcony, or a six meter garden, or six clear minutes where their kids, whose bubble have been sent home from school due to a positive COVID test which may or may not be due to a TikTok "hack" to be able to just run around the garden or spend thirty minutes running up and down the stairs like a loon in place of training. Gyms are open, but a lot of people go to the gym where they work and are currently working from home. This year has still been complicated in terms of training - somewhat more and somewhat less than last year. There will be people who have had extra time to be able to run and are fitted than they predicted they would be and I wish them so well on the road to their PBs, but there will also be those of us who wanted to be in a better position than we are right now and are bricking it about how we're going to survive to the end of something SO LONG.
I've spent the last few days saying hello to a lot of the folks who are worried that they won't finish, because they have never joined the back of the pack. The back of the pack is potentially going to be a lot bigger this year and it's something I am so here for. If more 'casual athletes' learn that being at the back of the pack doesn't suck as long as we're together, hopefully it can stop some of the utter crap like saying that London marathon isn't a walking race, and we shouldn't be allowed seven and a half hour pacers. Let me tell you, a long marathon time is not easier to achieve than a short one. Yes, Kipchoge is an utter legend for running under two hours - and that's something I'm not getting into a debate over, it was a feat to stay at that pace for so long - but it's two hours and then you can go and get a sports massage or get your massage gun out, you can get in your hot tub or whatever your recovery protocol is, you can get on that. For those who are on for a seven, eight hour or longer time, that's three and a half to four times as long on your feet. That's longer that your back has to keep you upright and moving forward. It's a lot longer to keep your head in the game and not let that self doubt tell you that you can't do this. I'm not trying to devalue speedy athletes and fast runners - I really admire them - but my hope is that if there are more of us at the back of the pack this year, I hope the experience changes things. London Marathon 2019 changed things for the back of the pack and I'm glad it did, but we are still not at the point where there is the respect for "slower runners" that they deserve from the feat of endurance that they go through, often for charities, but also to prove to themselves that they can. For myself, I have to battle all of my own demons, so to have someone else telling me I'm fat and slow is just unkind.
My sincere hope is that this year sets the scene for a return to mass participation events, but not a reset to how things were before. I hope we come back kinder, and come back stronger and with more unity. I would love to see anything which encourages those bringing up the rear to keep going - from the party bus that was proposed for last year to keep the music going to the option for faster finishers to rejoin the back and keep everyone moving. If it's not about the winning, it's about the taking part, it's about all of us taking part, not just those who finish in an average time or those reaching for a PB, especially not this year. Let's just be happy to be out, in a crowd and back to doing something we love. (Even if we don't love it so much on the day because it's hard and it hurts.)
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