By Jamie Hill
Ocelot editor Jamie Hill is planning to run the Birmingham Marathon on October 15 in aid of ICP Support. Every week he’s chronicling his journey.
It’s not many weeks now. Ten to be exact. And last week I managed to run my first ever half marathon. (That’s 13.1miles in layman terms). It nearly killed me. Physically. And mentally.
My body wouldn’t move afterwards. I did it on a Thursday evening and on Friday I was walking around as if my legs had been tied to two planks of wood. I didn’t feel any better until it got to Sunday when I decided to run one of my shorties of only three miles - an infant compared to the teenager I had run a few days before. That did the trick as my body felt like it could move properly again as I loosened my muscles again. But this half marathon crushed me mentally. A lot of running is to do with psychology of just keeping on going when every rational thought within your being is telling you to stop. Basically, I got a bit bored. It was just never ending. When it’s shorter distances, I can divide it into chunks which is fine when you’re doing under ten miles as a quarter of your run is only 2.5miles. Easy. But when you get over a certain amount even those chunks seem like never ending fractions. I was running for more than 2 and a half hours. That’s more than a long film. Another half an hour and it’s a Lord of the Rings (not the extended versions obviously.) And it’s all I can do to keep going. As my legs endlessly move like a hamster on a bleeding wheel never seeming to get anywhere with ever mile seeming like an age in itself. It doesn’t stop there. It’s my 43rd birthday today. I’m sitting here at work and all I can think about is my next big run. I should be thinking about jelly and ice cream and cake and all things birthdayish. But no I’m bloody thinking about running. I’ve set myself a task this week and it’s going to kill me. It’s basically to do two long runs in one week so that I’ve got more space at the end of my training between my longest training run of 22 miles and the marathon itself. So tomorrow night, I’ll be running 14 miles and on Sunday I’m going to be running 15 miles. And that’s what I now find myself thinking about. Bloody running. Just one step after another that’s all I can do. I’ve now entered the fundraising part of this saga and every penny counts. If you would like to sponsor me you can chuck money at: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/james-hill36