Charlie Webster Blog
The London Marathon 2011 - mental battle through injury
May 03, 2011
Filed Under Marathon
Running for me; joy, adrenaline, challenging, release, belief, energy and my passion; from 400m’s as a teenager to my most recent distance, marathons. I’ve ran since the age of 11 and running has always been such a focal part of my life whether it’s training for a competition pushing my distance and time or just a mental release from a frustrating day.
So as I was coming up to my 6th marathon and 3rd London and looking forward to the challenge especially as I was feeling stronger than I had for a long time with all the boxing training I have been doing. I hadn’t done too much long distance as in the past I’ve had a habit of over doing things. However I had cross trained well and through boxing was blasting my lungs and my body.
Now when I started to feel pains and a ‘pulling like stuck’ sensation in my right hip and groin you can imagine what I did. Well actually maybe not, I ignored it with a headstrong slightly stupid attitude of ‘I’ll be alright.’
It got more painful, persistent and hurt no matter what I did. A specialist consequently ordered an MRI which I’m still waiting to have (Friday 6th May). The week leading up to the marathon I ran once for about 25 minutes, it was like a little warm up jog for me but my hip and the surrounding area started to tighten despite 2 hours of serious physiotherapy the day before to get me through the marathon. I stopped very disappointed and unbelievably frustrated. I then started to worry about the marathon on Sunday, this was Friday.
The morning of the big event and after a restless sleep, it’s impossible to have a decent night’s sleep before a marathon, especially if you’ve done a marathon before because you know how much it’s going to hurt. They say to do a second marathon you have to get the first one out of your head. True that.
So I had two options and not doing the marathon wasn’t one of them. Either I could run the marathon negatively worrying about injury and the lack of long runs I’d done. Or believe in myself, my physical strength and most importantly my mental strength. Decision made, head sorted and on the start line.
I’d done my usual preparations, toilet about 50 times, Vaseline application like it’s going out of fashion, jumped about a bit for no particular reason other than that’s what I used to do when I competed. Laughed and chatted to some of the other celebs on the start, like my mate Iwan Thomas, former Olympian and Jamie Baulch who was running his first 26.2 miles and a lady who was crazier than me who’d done Brighton the weekend before. Inside though the last thing I wanted to do was to speak to anyone or laugh. The gun blasted, my watch beeped, first step taken and a mass sprint over the first 100m apart from me. I’ve learnt that lesson, smile and wave at the photographers and try and get into some sort of stride despite the mad dash which everybody immediately regrets. How long is it you’re running again? 26.2 miles. Exactly!
A couple of miles in and I’m pacing my mile at about 8.30-8.45, nice and steady, in previous marathons I’ve gone off at 7.20, being injured I just wanted to get through it. Discipline and determination was the only way. Iwan Thomas who I mentioned earlier was running with me, something we’ve done for the past 3 years of London.
The first 3 miles were great, a comfortable pace, loads of people talking asking questions and an amazing crowd shouting encouragement. Then 2 things happened the sun came out as strong as and the clouds pretended they didn’t exist. The second thing, my groin started to pinch and I could feel it begin to spasm into my adductor (inner thigh). Fortunately I’m a master at convincing my brain that those signals are to be ignored. This is possibly one of my strongest points but also one of my weakest; pushing myself to the limits, the positive, damaging myself as I do it, the negative.
I stuck to my pace and smiled, smiling always helps. I refused to let any negative thoughts into my head. I knew the difference between finishing strong and struggling would be in my mind not in my body. I have to say the first half went really quickly as I was feeling absolutely fine apart from my right hip and the surrounding area. I’d accepted that it would hurt and that was that. Iwan and I then parted, he wasn’t feeling great so dropped off the pace and insisted I go ahead. I thought to myself I should be tailing off now struggling with what was going on in my hip but I seemed to be ok everywhere else. My breathing was perfectly steady, I was hot but not where I felt like it was effecting me too much. I felt like I was almost watching myself from outside my body. I nearly laughed out loud. I whispered inside ‘come on you can do this, you are going to do this and do it well.’ I was convinced and that’s all that mattered. I almost saw my hip as an external force trying to stop me. I’m a fighter; there was no way I was going to let anything get in my way even though it was pain in my own body.
At 20 miles, I had to start continually talking to myself. My right leg was shooting pains up and down, my groin had completely cramped, and my foot was painfully numb all coming from whatever was going on in my hip. I did a quick rest of my body assessment, I was actually all good. After that conclusion I ordered the rest of my body to dig from somewhere I didn’t care where and told it to carry my ‘hurting bits’. My mental trick now was to go ‘look you’ve done 20, only 6 and a bit to go, just get to 22.’ So that was my aim, get to 22. I also thought about the charity I was running for, Women’s Aid and why I was running to raise money and awareness to end domestic violence against women and children, something that has shaped my own life. That alone spurred me to 22 miles. I then told myself I had to get to 24, by this point I was ignoring my watch and the course clocks and just running the best pace I could.
I saw the 24 mile mark and a sign that said 2.2 miles to go. I grunted ‘come on, get in,’ all you have to do is keep on going for a distance that I could run with my eyes shut. Well it’s not exactly as simple as that. My foot was throbbing, my calf on my injured leg was going ape, my adductor had stuck in cramp, my groin felt like it was going to explode and my hip felt like it had dislocated. I’m not exaggerating and I was tiring both physically and mentally. So I gave myself another talking to whilst running my worst bit of the marathon along embankment. I love the embankment but totally hate that bit of the run; it goes on and on it seems forever before you reach Parliament and turn the corner. Despite all this I was still running strong; I was still powering and taking over the majority of people around me. I growled quite a few times from then, self motivating and giving myself a serious talking to through gritted teeth. I also thought about my Grandad who passed at the end of last year, he meant the world to me and played a huge part in my life. He also did a lot for charity and was so physically fit, walking all sorts of challenges. That was that, I could have been on my knees and I’d have still crossed the line, now that these thoughts were in my head.
This is the point where despite the fact you know you shouldn’t search for signs to give you any indication of how much more torture you have left to endure, you can’t help and do. 600m. yes, come on! Just run, drive your arms. By the way at this point there is nothing pretty much left in any of part of your body that has the energy to drive anywhere not even sat in a car. That’s not the point though you just give it everything you’ve got. Where’s the finish line? Honestly that last 600m goes on forever; it seemed so far to the finish line. Plus you can’t see where it is, so are running blind and seriously about to keel over. Then you turn the corner and there it is 200m’s left. The feeling of elation started to creep over me. I was ever so nearly there and the clock wasn’t quite at 4 hours yet. I couldn’t believe it, I’ve ran faster previously but I was injured this time and pretty badly. I can’t possibly describe how chuffed I was. Only those that have crossed that line or done a similar feat will know the feeling. It’s an incredible rush of satisfaction, pain of course but overwhelming achievement, I’d conquered the battle physically but most importantly mentally it was my mind that got me through and the strength I’ve built over the years in my body to carry an injury and still perform at a decent level. All I could think about was how constantly amazed I am at the power of mental strength and that I should learn from this not to doubt myself which I do way too often. If hopefully after reading this I haven’t put you off the challenge of a marathon or anything that is a challenge for you as an individual, a 5k, 10k, half, full or even just the challenge of getting yourself fit. Believe me it’s one of the most powerful tools to have in life, a healthy, strong body, a healthy, strong and happy mind.
Oh and then like you do I went to Emirates and presented live pitch side still in my running kit as I hadn’t had time to get changed. Yes I know I’m starting to wonder whether I have got a screw lose as well!
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