London Marathon Ballot: Ooh the disappointment

I didn’t get a place in the London Marathon 2020. I am so disappointed…in public. I even have a disappointment face for this. Secretly I am relieved and am inwardly doing a dance entitled ‘thank you god of running…that was a close one’.

If I was going to ever do a marathon it would be the London Marathon. I watch it every year and am always motivated to run (shuffle…waddle…jog) after. I even wrote a blog post on it back in April (here). Full of good intentions at the time. Intentions smentions…I think I did about one more run before forgetting the motivation for running.

What I did do, however, after a few (maybe more than a few) glasses of wine in April was to put my name in for the London Marathon Ballot. I also texted my, occasional 10K, friend and made her put her name in too. “It will be great” I said…”we should totally do this”.

This is from a person who doesn’t like to run. I can manage a 5 and 10k and have done these. Marathon’s seem a bit far-fetched for me. However I get that bucket list type feeling whenever I watch the London Marathon. There are loads of people who do it who have never ran before. So surely (my thoughts after wine) I could be someone who trains and then achieves it. On a serious note though I do find it inspiring and would love to be in it one day. If that reality ever strikes though I will be very scared!

I told my friends and family I had entered. There were eyebrows raised and comments such as “fingers crossed for the ballot”. They know me too well though and were hopeful that I wouldn’t get in. Hey…at least my name was in the game.

So you can only imagine my mixed feelings of disappointment and glee when this arrived through the door:

At least they called me a ‘runner’. That in itself is a life time achievement 🙂

I phoned my mum to give her the bad (cough) news. She shared in my disappointment with a wry laugh. I texted my running friend the photo above with the tagline “gutted”.

Move forward one day and this was the text reply from my friend:

Her tag line “FS”…I think she was swearing 🙂

Oops! We all knew that was coming. I actually feel a little jealous and hope she does it. She definitely will. So as a last gasp (god knows why but again I blame the wine last night) I have applied to a couple of charities. They have places you can get if you raise money for them. I doubt any will take me on. But who knows!

Next April if I am not at the sidelines watching then I am going to ban wine on the day of the London Marathon. I will probably apply anyway. It still is one of those bucket list things. If I ever get in I will (probably) give it my best shot.

Header Photo by Gesina Kunkel on Unsplash

Magazine photos: my own and my friend’s.

Two Weeks Without Exercise: Back on it!

I woke up at 8.30am today and in a hazy sort of way I grabbed my phone to check what yoga classes were on. I could hear the rain outside and was thinking that my meanderings into the Edinburgh Fringe may have to wait till tomorrow. There was a class at 9.30am (my sleep head was saying this was unlikely) and one at 12.30pm (maybe more likely). This lackadaisical approach stopped suddenly when realisation hit that I haven’t done any yoga or proper exercise for two weeks. The hint really should have come yesterday; when I pulled on a work dress to accompany a friend to a formal appointment. My dress (and it was my ‘I can gain weight and still wear this dress’) was hugging my thighs a little more than normal. So much for my intentions a couple of weeks ago. Those type of intentions where you plan on doing a lot of fitness and eating healthily for the two weeks you have off work. Just over one week in and I have done absolutely nothing.

Excuses

Excuses that run around your head are great. All a load of bollocks, but during that conversation (with yourself…not in a mad way) they all sound sensible. My excuses: I had a busy run up to my leave with work so was getting home late, I deserved a glass of wine after a busy day at work, I am now on holiday (woohoo) and I deserve a lie in, its far too hot (see previous post on the heatwave we had) to exercise and the list goes on. I also pointed out to myself that I had been away with friends to relax and so this clearly should not involve exercising any more than a few countryside/beach walks.

Intentions

Setting aside all those excuses, which I can only now do three hours later, I know my intentions for the last two weeks made much more sense. I planned on working hard up to my leave so that I could focus on eating the right things and doing the right amount of exercise. Whilst I mainly do yoga, I had planned to incorporate some HIIT or even the longer type of Insanity maximum interval training into my routine. My view was that I would have a burst of cardio with the strength building in yoga. Then, when I got back to work, I would get back to fitting in some weight training again. I used to mainly do weights and know the benefits of all round training. My thighs clearly know the benefits of this too.

So the counter to my excuses: work was busy but I could always fit in an hour, my glass of wine could have waited as Shavasana feels just as good, I am now on holiday and so have plenty of time to do everything, I could get out of the heat and hopefully into a cool studio. The counter list goes on.

Getting re-motivated

After realisation hit this morning (like a thunderous slap to my increasingly thunderous thighs) I managed to pull myself together. It was teetering on the edge of decision making and I think I could have gone either way. Weirdly I re-read my own post ‘When you don’t feel like yoga: do yoga‘ which felt a little egotistical but it reminded me of how I feel when I get over the lethargic nature of indecisiveness. I also had a quick look at my post on the ‘Wheel’ and realised that I couldn’t use that one class as an excuse as a quick review of my past bookings at the studio showed a few attendances after the wheel class.

Back on it

I got up. I showered and pulled on my yoga pants and top. I pulled out my yoga mat and bag and shoved on my trainers to walk to class as it was still raining. Decision made – I clicked on the ‘book class’ button. Yep the 9.30am one. A Hatha class not generally for the fainthearted as Clara does slow and strong so I knew my core was going to be worked. On a side note if you are in Edinburgh Clara (her instagram link) is a wonderful yoga teacher who allows you to really focus on the moves, breathing and poses whilst working hard (and relaxed) to get there.

9.30am and I was working on my shoulders. Lots of opening up poses including quite a few times in Dolphin leading to forearm stands. I can’t get fully into the inversion yet but I did do a few hops up. I will practice on my inversion stool this week. 10.45am and I feel like I am back on it. I floated down the road. I do feel better for going and, better yet, I still have 6 more days of leave to reset my intentions. I am going to start logging my food again (this is the only thing that works for me when trying to lose some weight) and possibly do a walk or insanity dvd or even just a bit more yoga by the end of the day. Today I will be keeping my trainers on until this happens and I am not putting that bloody dress back on until I return to work. If I keep to my intentions I know my thighs won’t be protesting too much the next time I wear it.

Picture – trainers and yoga mat bag my own