Tomorrow morning I will get up at 6:30, maybe 6:45 at a push. I’ll eat my porridge, drink my coffee and tea, have a banana and then get ready to go and run a marathon. I have the routine pretty much down now, so much so that it’s almost clockwork, because I’ve done exactly the same thing for the last 6 days. 26.2 miles per day around the very pretty lakes of Milton Keynes, as part of Enigma Running’s Week at the Knees 7 marathons in 7 days.
This is my first attempt at 7 marathons back to back. The most I’ve done before was 4 marathons, which was at Enigma’s Quadzilla last month. During my first four marathons this week I beat my Quadzilla time by around 55 minutes. I think I also got another marathon quad PB today too but I’m not quite sure by how much because I wasn’t paying attention when Foxy our race director told me my time. I was aiming under 6 hours a marathon and so far I’m averaging around 5 hours. It seems I’m also going to be the first woman finisher of the series if I finish tomorrow too regardless of time.
It hasn’t been easy, as you’d expect. Mostly due to the weather. The wind has been behind us (in our face, pushing us off the path, trying to force us into a lake) every step of the way. It’s been pretty relentless and it’s had me cursing quite a bit, I’m not going to lie. It’s been so bad that I offered up my shoe collection to anyone that could turn it off. Some days it’s been joined by rain, hail, a bit more rain and then a massive shed load of rain. One day 2 it took hours just for the feeling to come back in my fingers and then days for the trainers to dry.
The weather has made it a lot tougher mentally but there is obviously the physical pain too. It’s certainly not an easy challenge. We started with 18 challenge runners (others have joined us for different periods of time) and we’re now down to 14 for various reasons. I personally have not faired too badly. Today was the first day where I was running through a lot of pain. The legs are really starting to feel it and I’m pretty exhausted both mentally and physically. Both the legs and the brain are telling me that they can’t take one more step but I know that tomorrow they will go around that lake seven and a bit more times because I’m not giving them any other option.
I’ve done quite a bit of thinking over the past seven days, a thought of the race if you will. I missed a couple of days just because I had to get my head down and run but you can find all the videos on my youtube channel.
The decision to race 7 marathons in 7 days is not random. I’m aiming to race 52 marathons in 52 weeks this year in order to try and raise money for Warrington Disability Partnership whilst also raising awareness of people like me with hidden disabilities.
For the final day of Quadzilla we were sent donuts. It was enough to get me out of bed and to the start line. There are no donuts tomorrow so I need all the help I can get. If you follow me or you’ve randomly came across me and I’ve inspired you at all then please feel free to give me support on my social media or donate to my Just Giving page if you have any spare cash at all.
You will never know your limits until you push yourself to them.
Thank you for reading x
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