would be my first half marathon and arguably the worst in terms of race day experience. I ripped through my shoes like the Incredible Hulk, felt pain unlike I had ever before and ran out of energy/the will to live at about mile 6. I felt like a broken man coming across the line but I had done it; I had run my first half marathon.
The thing I both love and fear about ultramarathons is the complete unknown of it all. You have no clue at the start of a race what you are about to put your body and mind through. You battle the physical and tangible things such as the distance, the weather, the terrain and the time on your feet but the things that are sometime more likely to put a full-stop to a story that should carry on writing are the endless mind fields of mental road blocks you face.
Well it is safe to say the title to this blog post is something I never ever thought I would be writing. Having been such a huge fan of The Running Channel for many years and secretly always dreaming of filming with them, actually working with them started in the most unremarkable way possible.
m, 62 miles, 100,000 metres, 130,000 steps, 328,000 feet, from Oxford Street in London to the streets of Oxford. Which ever way you measure it 100km is a bloody long way. distances just seem completely insurmountable and incomprehensible in equal measure. They felt like finish lines I doubted I would ever cross.
The route of the Dead Sea Marathon was worryingly simple on paper, which before arriving gave me massive concerns. I was worried that I might get bored and in those moments of monotony my mind would craft stumbling blocks full of self-doubt and self-hatred. I had done similar simplistic route before and been completely undone mentally by it...
It’s 2am in Jerusalem, an ungodly time in a holy city, and I’m waking up to run a marathon. In a place where the call to prayer hangs in the air like a religious fog, my alarm clock’s shrill song sounded like musical sacrilege and I hurried to turn it off in a bleary-eyed panic that I might offend.
To keep up to date with my latest ramblings on this blog please subscribe below