The trouble with the back-up plan

This morning I should be getting up to eat my porridge, putting on my favourite kit, applying Vaseline to my feet and heading off to a local town to run my second Autumn half-marathon. Instead I'm going to be eating a non-porridge breakfast, putting my jeans on and heading off to the local town to watch my husband run his second Autumn half-marathon. Why aren't I running? I'm not injured (bar a niggly knee that I need to keep an eye on) or unwell, I just made the decision a few weeks ago to record my first planned DNS.

This race was my back up plan, my B race - it was my second chance for sub-2 if the Royal Parks hadn't gone to plan. As it happens, it went very much to plan and I'm still chuffed with the PB I set there. That left me a bit confused about what to aim for in this race - did I attempt another PB (lots more hard training) or just enjoy the race (do you ever really enjoy 13.1 miles especially if there's no prospect of a PB?!). I decided that with the start of a 16 -18 week marathon plan looming at the beginning of December, the lots more hard training option wasn't actually a good idea especially as I wasn't feeling that motivated. Doubts started to creep in about whether I wanted to race. The final straw came a few weeks ago when I was ill on the weekend that I would have had to have run a long run to have had any chance of a decent race. The decision was made - I was dropping out. 

Since then I've felt much more relaxed -apart from the knee issue I feel ready to take on marathon training soon and I've given my body a rest. With hindsight I'd never have entered this race, but having it as a back up took the pressure off the Royal Parks, so in some small way it helped me get my PB!

Good luck to all those running today - I'll be cheering on everyone at St Neots,

Katie