The Psychology of the long distance runner

I'm a bit down today.

I'm still very tired after the London Marathon, and that really made me wonder about what it'll take to get me from a full 3 week recovery from a marathon, to be able to do 30 miles a day for 7 days straight.

I have been following the runners doing the Brathay 10 marathons in 10 days challenge. They are all experienced marathon runners, and the 2 I have been following through their blogs have been doing double marathons at the weekends for some time. I have neither the time nor the money to travel the country to do marathons on Saturday and Sunday. However, I do intend to build up my back to back mileage so I cover 50+ miles in 2-3 days. But it's a slow process getting to that point. I have the Gower Gallop 30 miles in 4 weeks, which I intend to use as a training run so my long run will then be 20-25 miles. Once I've done the Gower Gallop I will be concentrating on consecutive days of big mileage, to get used to running long on tired legs.

Last week I covered 30 miles + 10 miles power walking. This week it will be 40 miles + 12 miles power walking, and I guess I should be happy considering its only a little more than 2 weeks after London. But, I want to be better at this already. I have no patience. I did 2 x 3 miles with a client then a friend, and my legs were full of niggles. Nothing serious, but just enough to worry about. Of course now I've stopped running, and had a break my legs are absolutely fine. I think sometimes I magnify the aches and pains the more I think about them. The number of times I have been full on panic about some knee pain or hip pain or something, only to go out for a run and find it completely disappears. Mind you, that worryful side of me keeps me scanning my body and paying attention to any little niggle, and it must help because I haven't been injured or had to stop running for anything other than blisters for over 4 years.

I suppose I should recognise my condition ......... I am a runner and I am neurotic about my body.

On days like today when I wake up tired, I do think about what the tiredness will feel like when I'm covering hundreds of miles in a week. That doesn't stop me wanting to do it, in a way I want to do it even more.

I have very high expectations of myself and my body, and if I'm honest I'm dying to really test it, it'd just be great not to have to go to work the next day!