Bremen Marathon - DNF!!!!

I'm sat typing on a German laptop at the minute and all the keys are in the wrong place so this is really hard work (for example, the y and the z are the wrong way around!) so please bear with me.

I have kept it pretty quiet but I have spent the entire summer training for the Bremen Marathon.

I've never really wanted to do a marathon before and it's not something which has ever appealed to me but I was feeling fed up of just plodding along every day and wanted a focus for my training so decided that entering a big race would ensure that I stuck to a tough training plan.  The goal I had for this race was to do it in under 4 hours.

My training has been going really well, to the point that when I ran my 18 milers I was doing so well that when I finished I had built up enough time in the bank that I could do the last nine miles in a ten minute mile pace and still finish under four hours so I was really hopeful of a good race.

All through my training I remained injury free and had regular appointments with Maria to keep me loose and in good condition.

Less that two weeks before race day though, I developed a pain in the outside of my left foot.  I have mentioned it in my previous blog posts (which I didn't post to Facebook because they mention the marathon and I didn't want to tell people about it) but to recap, it came on a couple of hours after a run along the canal with Kathryn for no apparent reason.  All I could come up with is that it was a delayed reaction to wearing some tight high heeled boots to a party a couple of days before.  A couple of days after my run with Kathryn I did an easy three miles and, whilst my foot still hurt during this, it didn't get any worse and wasn't painful enough for me to worry. Three days after that, I was due to do 8.5 miles at race pace so, even though my foot was still a little tender, I set off, thinking that it was just knotty muscles which would wear off.  I was wrong and I ended up walking home after 3.5 miles as the pain got really bad.

My marathon hopes were now dwindling as the race was only a week away.  I went to see Maria on the Monday night and she spent the whole 45 minute appointment working on my foot.  She found a few points which caused terrible pain and she worked to ease them off, saying it was my plantar fascia.  She taped it up and said that I should see how it goes re the marathon but didn't rule out doing it altogether.

For the past week all I have thought about is my foot.  It has gradually got better, but hasn't stopped hurting completely.

Duncan and I agreed that it would be better to at least start the race and pull out if necessary than to not start at all, seeing as I had trained so hard for it.

I managed to get to seven miles before I decided enough was enough.  Perhaps I could have carried on more and worked through the pain but I really didn't want to end up getting to a point where I was out of running altogether for weeks/months on end, just for the sake of one race.

All the way back to the race start/finish I was trying to hold back the tears.  I felt like such a faiulre.  Seeing all the other runners in the city centre made it even worse.  I feel like I've really let myself down. 

This is the only race I have ever trained really hard and consistently for and it is the first race I have pulled out of.

To say I'm gutted is an understatement, I feel a little empty inside which probably sounds a little over the top but that's just the way it is.

On the bright side, the aim for this race was more the training than the race itself.  I wanted a focus to make me stronger and faster and I definitely proved a lot to myself in my training.  I now know that, foot pain free, I am more than capable of achieving a sub-four hour marathon, which is something I had a lot of doubts about beforehand.

Whatever doesn't kill me will only make me stronger, right?

Total distance - 7 miles