Marathon Envy and Doing your own Thing

It's London Marathon day and there's no escaping the social media posts and beaming photographs of triumphant people.  They are awesome, every single one of them.  I still can't imagine ever getting to the point where I start a marathon, let alone finish one.  Each year I feel a bit of envy alongside sheer bloody relief that I'm not the one waiting nervously in a pen for an hour, desperate for the off and not the one who has to walk back to the tube station afterwards on wrecked legs.  The trouble with the London Marathon is that, even though I don't particularly want to run it (or any marathon come to that) it makes me compare myself to those who have done it and question whether I'm less of a runner than they are.  I know that's stupid.  We all know that a runner is someone who runs, regardless of distance.

One thing that watching the London Marathon does do is emphasize that unless you're a world record holder, there's always gong to be someone faster than you, so it really is silly to compare yourself to others.  When you see elite runners finish in a little bit over 2 hours and hear that they aren't considered fast enough for the Olympics, you realize that being 'fast' or being 'slow' is very much a relative term.  

The old saying - 'comparison is the thief of joy' - is never more true than when it comes to running, but it's all too easy to feel inadequate alongside a person who has done more marathons than you, or runs faster, or takes part in more iconic events.  We need to remind ourselves that we don't all start from the same place.  We aren't all the same age, the same sex, the same weight.  We don't all have the same state of health, mental or physical, the same level of experience or the same support network.  We don't all have the same levels of self-esteem or the same opportunities to train.  The only person who really knows what you have had to overcome to get where you are now is you.  So, it is really important that we celebrate what we have achieved.  That doesn't mean we have to shout about it or post it all over Facebook (although why not, if that's your thing?) but we can quietly celebrate our achievements, give ourselves a pat on the back.  Quiet achievements are still achievements.  You don't need a load of people to say 'well done.'  All you need is to be able to say it to yourself and believe it.

It's been a good weekend for quiet achievements here.  I finally managed to get back under 26 minutes (just) at parkrun, the first time I have done that since November when I caught a particularly awful flu bug.  I was beginning to despair of ever getting back to where I was pace-wise.  I didn't run for 10 days when I was ill, which is probably the longest I have gone without a run (even when I had Covid and was self-isolating, I was able to run each day on the treadmill, but I was just too poorly this time to run at all.)  Then this morning, my longest run since my half marathon last month.  I ran 15K because there was a Garmin badge up for grabs and I was very pleased to do it in under 90 minutes.  So, my pace is coming back and I'm starting to feel stronger.  It's never going to be headline news or even interesting news to anyone else but me, but for me it feels significant and I know that I can keep building on this progress.

In other news, my daughter ran her fastest parkrun yesterday, taking over a minute off her previous best to finish in 28.41.  It's wonderful to see her reaching these milestones and, more importantly, to realise how much pride she is taking in her running. 

It's great to be able to do something well enough to take pride in it and 'well enough' means different things to everybody.  I can remember a time when just being able to take part in events was the only real goal I had, and it's really not a bad goal at all.  To keep doing the things you love, to tick off the little goals you set yourself and recognize the positives, however small they might seem, is the way to go.  To be out there, to be moving without pain and without injury, is a gift in itself and I hope I never forget that.  As long as I'm doing that, I'm winning.

(Just back from a lovely weekend on the Northumbrian coast.  What a beautiful place to run!)