Last Sunday was the Llanelli half marathon.
It was the 4th Llanelli half marathon I’ve (stupidly) done in 6 years!
I must say weather was good (for running, it was wet and miserable) and it was a crackingly well organised event
Nearly 1300 runners finished which is awesome, all with different motivations for taking part
Charity, competitiveness, enjoyment (?), challenge etc.
My training in the build up has admittedly not been the greatest
I’ve been training often but a lot of the time my sessions have been a bit rushed and I’ve been a bit of a wimp and gone for the treadmill is the weather has been a bit crap
Add an achilles injury, a cold, slight knee problem and a weekend in Spain eating and having a few Estrellas the week before then I was up against it!
It all started well, reached the half way point in around 30-35th place and on course for a Personal Best
After around the 8 mile mark I started to think oh shit!
A bit of a stitch started to creep in, legs started to burn and the mental battle began
‘You haven’t trained enough Jamie’
Ā
‘You’ve got a long way to go’
Ā
‘You can’t keep up the pace’
I managed to block that out up until the last mile and the last hill, IĀ had absolutely nothing left in the tank, it was probably the worst I’ve ever felt in a race and I did the unthinkable (for me), I walked. Only for about a minute then managed to finish the race after it, but for me that was a mini defeat.
I still finished with my second fastest time and a respectable finishing position but for me my lack of training and poor preparation found me out.
I could have dealt with it two ways:
A. Use it to motivate and inspire me to do better and train harder
B. Fall back on the excuses and give up
Of course I’m using it as a motivator as I’m a bit of a running weirdo
Why am I telling you this?
You see as far as I’m concerned (apart from a few lucky SOBs) you get out of life what you put in.
You work hard, you get a good job and a good steady life
You show love and empathy and you will get the same backĀ
You eat healthy, you have a healthy body
You train hard and smartly, you get fit
You show anger and resentment to people and you get the same back
You don’t move much, you get fat
You eat 3 snickers a day, you get diabetes!
We’ve all got excuses as to why we don’t do something or ‘can’t’ do something, you can fall back on these as much as you like but at the end of the day it will find you out.
Yes these excuses may be valid and it may well be difficult but if it’s something as important as:
‘I don’t have time to do a little exercise or cook a decent meal and drink a point of water’ then you need to make time or it WILL come back to haunt you.
If you need a little help in finding out how to fit a bit of healthy eating and exercise into your life the easy way go here:
Have a good week,
Jamie Stedman
PS Also lack of proper training for a marathon makes you ache like a bitch!
