Mental illness in Manchester
This post is adapted from an article I wrote for my running club magazine.
The short version: I trained hard, overcame demons, didn’t achieve my primary target, but still ran a pb. For the long version, read on.
Manchester was not my first choice 2015 marathon, but once I had recovered from the disappointment of not getting a London place, it became a natural choice as a big city spring marathon. Easier to get to than Paris. Flatter than Edinburgh, which I ran last year. Easier to enter than Brighton.
2014 was not a good year for me. I lost my mother after a lengthy illness, and one of my oldest friends. This following the loss of another school friend and my sister in law at the end of 2013. Running was one of my solaces. I entered many races, and ran nearly 1500 miles. By the end of the year I could barely hold a coherent thought for more than five minutes at a time, but I had achieved my running aims of PBs at 1 mile, 5k, 5 miles, 10k, 10 miles, Half Marathon and Marathon.
I set my 2015 running goals as a new Marathon PB and completing a first ultra. All my winter training was geared towards a PB at Manchester.
Hopes of 2015 being a better year than 2014 hit the buffers in mid-January, when I was signed off work by my GP, due to depression and anxiety. The events of the previous 18 months or so finally took their toll. If this came as a surprise to fellow runners who saw only runny Sonny, well it was even more of a surprise to me. Until this year, mental illness, therapy and anti-depressants have been things that ‘other’ people have, things that don’t impinge on the working and personal lives of resilient people like me. How wrong I was. I have since discovered that mental illness is much more prevalent than one might imagine, and after the initial shock that this was a label I could attach to myself, I was able to embrace the idea. I’ve shared my diagnosis with friends, family and even students in my classes at college. I think there is much merit in de-stigmatising mental illness. According to estimates, one in four of us will suffer from it at some point, so pretending it doesn’t happen to ‘people like us’ is delusional and counter-productive.
Of course, running is an excellent antidote to depression and anxiety. Ordered not to work by my GP, for the first time in my adult life I had day after day without a work schedule. What better way to spend those days than running? And so I was able to stick to a pretty rigorous marathon training plan, running up to six days a week, and building up to 45+ miles a week. The guilt at the thought that I was doing this when I ‘should’ have been at work was counterbalanced by the knowledge that running was helping me get better.
By the time Manchester came around, I had been off work for three months, but was due to return part-time the following day. In a way I wasn’t really able to articulate, marathon success was tied up with a return to mental and economic health.
But what would constitute success? My PB from Edinburgh last year was 3.51.38. Crucially, this was two seconds slower than the PB of one of my old friends, the Chair of my theatre group, The Hillplayers. My training had been geared around righting that particular ‘wrong’. By the time April arrived, I was targeting a 3.38 finish. I ran Hillingdon HM at exactly that pace, as a warm-up the week before.
I drove up to Manchester with my father on the Saturday. I was staying in a hotel which was popular with runners, though that didn’t stop them having a disco on Saturday night which threatened to derail my pre-race beauty sleep. Eventually, after the obligatory Facebook kit photo, I dropped off. A breakfast of toast and porridge on Sunday morning was consumed in the company of many nervous, lycra-clad runners.
I’d reconnoitred the race HQ and parking the evening before, so was able to arrive in good time. The fact that, as a Leeds United fan, I’d had to pay £10 to Manchester United for race day parking was a pill I had to swallow.
The weather was favourable to fast times. Dry, but cloudy and not warm. The start was well organised. I set off at a steady 8.25 mile pace, seeing my father cheering me on at 1 mile and 4 miles.
I felt fine for the first half of the race, going through 13.1 miles on target at around 1.49. In previous long runs, like the Finchley 20, I’d hit trouble between 15 and 17 miles. Here, I was still maintaining my pace quite happily. Until 18 miles, when the wheels began to come off. My legs felt heavy, and I began to feel dizzy and light-headed. In my shorts pocket I had a piece of paper with a list I’d written the night before of the reasons why I was able to run my target time. I recited those reasons to myself – 1400 training miles run, the ease of my Gade Valley 20 mile training run, etc. etc. – in a bid to keep myself moving forward. To no avail. I slowed to a walk, seeing my 3.38 target receding with every step. I adopted a run-walk strategy, and found myself at the water station at 19 miles. I took a bottle, and downed in a few gulps. I immediately felt better, started running, and found myself back at 8.25 pace as though I was just starting out. I had been fooled by the overcast conditions into not hydrating enough in the first half of the race. Doh! The strategy that had enabled my successful Gade Valley run had completely gone out of the window.
After my walking breaks, 3.38 was no longer a realistic target, but plans B (break 3.50) and C (3.51.35) were still on. Of course the last few miles of any marathon are a mental battle as much as a physical one. In this case, I wasn’t helped by the lack of a 25 mile marker. I’m assuming some anti-running sadist removed it. But I was able to persevere well enough to arrive in the finishing straight, in the shadow of Old Trafford, knowing I could break 3.50 if I could raise a final sprint. I did so, and was able to raise my arms in a victory salute, as I finished in a chip time of 3.49.43.
My post-race massage, from two ladies from Salford University, was worth about fifty times more than the recommended £5 charity donation. Refreshed by protein shakes and bratwurst hotdogs, I was able to cruise control back down the M6 and M1 to Metroland, with a saucer-sized medal and a shiny new PB in hand. Job done.
