York marathon didn’t go to plan last year and I was convinced I could do better. So I signed up for Loch Ness marathon on 2 October, and also signed up with a coach, Jenny Bushell, aware that I needed to do something different if I was going to hit my sub-4 target.
I loved the training programme that Jenny put together for me. It started the week after Ride London, and I stuck to it religiously even while on holiday in Islay. It was a challenging and achievable training plan, I had lots of support from her on the phone and messages, and it got me to the start line well prepared and feeling confident.
My sister Mandy had signed up for the race as well and we had a fabulous weekend away together in Inverness: from finding wolves by the town house door, to joining the streams of runners heading for the coaches to take us to the start; from huddling in the cold in our bin liners to fabulous scenery all the way along the route.
I was hoping I had one more sub-four marathon in me and I discovered in Loch Ness that I emphatically don’t. I got to around 13 miles feeling ok, and then just wanted to stop. But I gave it my best shot and finished in 4:16:35 after lots of walking. That’s my last marathon (please hold me to that) but there’s plenty of joyous running still to be done. Mandy did an incredible race after very little training due to injury. Hats off to her!
Run for your life 
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Ah…. so hard to get the balance right between continuing to push or, knowing when to ‘call it a day’. I have had a lot of the choice taken away having developed arthritis in one knee over the last 12 months. I thought I was managing it well but alas, overconfidence has been my undoing so not sure what sort of running future I now have. I don’t have too many regrets but there are certainly plenty of events that I thought ‘Oh, I will do that one again sometime’ and now I won’t!