This was my Dictaphone recording that was then transcribed by AI - not bad!
Okay, so these are my thoughts on the Manchester Marathon, a couple of days later. So I'm quite split, to be honest, between wanting to feel proud about having completed it, but also disappointment and embarrassment that it took me seven hours.
And I just, in my mind, feel that I failed quite miserably, to be honest. That failure is 100% my own fault for not having the discipline and the mental capacity, I suppose, to do the training plan that everybody else did. I was too flippant, too casual, too lazy, even. That showed, because whilst everybody else managed to do it in 4 or 5 hours, I was one of the last people on the course. And it's just, it's not good. Clearly, I didn't learn from the 100 mile bike ride, as it was the same thing, I just didn't put in the hours,
I didn't appreciate the task at hand. So that's two things that I don't think I can be particularly proud of. People will say otherwise and say, oh, well, at least you finished. But, I dunno, I don't feel proud and I don't feel happy about it. If I could, I'd probably sign up and do it again in six weeks time, just to prove that I could do it in less than six hours. But it has made me think.
So that's my own personal feelings about my performance. But my pride and happiness is in the fact that Natasha, Lewis, Charlotte, Jack, and obviously other friends, Pauline, et cetera, did so very, very well and got the reward that they deserved for all of their months and months of hard work and training. And to think of us as a family of five, that do clearly have a competitive nature, but can say that we all just got on with it and just have done and completed a marathon together, is really pleasing. And that's where my pride is
So what now? I So the reason for this reflection, I guess, is to try to recapture this feeling of disappointment, frustration anger, for when I have a new challenge, I take it seriously and put the hours and the dedication in that is required. I did it for Kilimanjaro. So I have proven that I can do it but I guess my heart wasn't really in this. I don't like running and I guess that showed and I've been rewarded so to speak accordingly i.e. not really rewarded at all. my temptation is to sign up for a half marathon and put the time in for that so that I can complete that in a reasonable time whether that's Oxford or somewhere else but a half marathon quite obviously is less challenging than a full marathon and more achievable which would be a lot of fun.
Hopefully I will get out and still continue to run the miles and keep the level of fitness that I have built up to. It has been a success in that respect that my fitness level has improved. Now I don't know if my body shape has changed much but I do feel better about myself from a health and fitness perspective.
That's the intention but that might just be my anger speaking. I mean I have found it hard enough to go out and do runs with the marathon looming so with no particular target in mind what is going to motivate me to get out the door and run. So I'll do updates. I'll do reminders. I'll do whatever and just see what happens but I do have to change my mindset so that I'm better disciplined probably in general in my life not just when we have a challenge ahead of us.
Well that's my whining over for now. So as I say I need to have this reflection. I need to reflect, address the elephant in the room, so to speak.
And I need to stop making negative comments when people say well done. Stop, putting down the achievement, because I did it, albeit, not to my satisfaction. And just one last thing it was very, very hot. It was very hard. It was brutal running out there and so many people on Twitter and social media just said they flagged and died.
It was so hard and to be fair the cramp that I experienced at mile eight onwards and just having to keep stopping, it was hard. I can remember it now, it's just so so desperately hard.
Not sure I'd do a marathon again
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