new pb

There it is, on the right and down a bit, in ordinary, unpreposessing little white numbers: a new marathon pb. Three little numbers that are the results of 18 weeks solid training and 12 months build-up work.

Is it worth it?

I’m not sure I can say yet. I haven’t really fully taken it all in. I expect over the next days and weeks I’ll reasess where I am with running, and what I want to achieve from now on.

The old body
At around 48 hours post-race the old bod is feeling pretty good. Each individual body-part south of the hips seems to have taken its turn to remind me how aggrieved they are at me for putting them through such an ordeal.

The hips complained immediately, the feet as soon as the shoes came off. My ankles have been a bit iffy this morning and the thighs have been content with a sort of low-level ache that I would characterise as a moan.

As of right now, lunch-time Tuesday, I honestly feel there’s no reason I shouldn’t go running tonight.

No reason except for experience that is. Last time I was in this position (2005) I went out and ran a 10k fairly hard a week after a marathon and injured my hip, knocking myself out of training for 4 weeks.

I’ll probably hold off until next week, much as it galls me.

Race reflections
While I’m happy with my performance and with the day as a whole, and while I’m a big fan of Sri Chinmoys; the chances are I won’t be doing the marathon at Williamstown again.

It’s very flat, so should be fast, but if it’s windy it’s very difficult.

The loops at the end, while I didn’t mind them too much, do tend to take away something from the sense of an event.

The finish line makes this impression even stronger. By the time you get back to the finish there’s next to no-one there. I approached this years event purely as a chance for a PB, but even then it’s nice to feel like it’s a bit special.

Technology
I have some video of me crossing the finishing line. I’m just in the process of figuring out how to put it in this blog. We’ll see shortly.

Goals
I want to keep running. That’s the first thing. I just need to feel like I have something to aim for.
Another marathon is probably not on the cards at the moment, as I don’t think I can justify the time involved to train. I do have other things happening in my life, strange as that may seem.

My initial approach was to look at my pbs and see whether any needs work. So, to throw it open to you readers, what do you think?

5k - unknown
10k - 39.04
half - 85.55
marathon - 3.12