Five months, five months is enough to be ready right? Five months ago I agreed to a challenge, a challenge that would change my health, my resilience and path in life. A challenge that was going to cause numerous up’s and down’s and that would ultimately lead me to the empty finish line of an ultra-marathon on the banks of the River Thames.

The Thames Path Challenge is an ultra event, allowing you to walk, jog or run varying distances up to 100km. Previously I walked the 100km two years ago, the longest distance you could walk. So with the event coming up again, this time supporting two great charities including Mind, what else could I do? What about running… my subconscious mind starting asking me this with alarming frequency, enough to make me really look at if it was possible. How hard can it be to run for hours on end over a distance that can quite literally ruin your feet.

Some quick calculations later and a bit of a “let’s do this” and I was signed up to do a 50km run. You did what?! It’s not so bad right… A 50km run is classed as ultra marathon, as the name suggests, longer than a marathon at 31 miles. Oh. Right. I best practice then.

Discipline

If I was going to take this slightly overweight, high heart rated and can-barely-run 5km struggling body to over 50km, I realised I needed some discipline.

I created a plan, sourced from all over the Internet and sense checked with others, once past the “you are crazy” line. they soon gave some useful advice. In effect I had to train my body to get used to the distance I was aiming for over a gradual period. Mixed into this, regularly running to get my body used to this new state of being. I had to train on the days I said regardless of weather or “feeling”. If I did miss a day, then cover it the next day. There could be no breaks from this, it had to be done.

Discipline started to spill over into other parts of my life, no more daily can of coke or snacking at work. I had to make incremental improvements and be disciplined about it. Over time it started to work, as my body got used to not having these cravings, as I recorded and looked back, I saw these changes.

Analytical

I became obsessed with tracking what I was doing, when I was doing it and how. I employed the popular Strava app to log every single run I did, becoming obsessed by splits and routes. I would analyse my heart-rate to see how hard my heart was working, understanding the different zones and where I needed to be for the 50km run.

This obsession with tracking continued, I used Fitbit to help determine how active I was throughout the week, doing extra long walks on the off-running days to bump my steps up, all the while keeping the fitness going.

With focus on tracking my health, I started to look at what I ate and how much I weighed. As the maths show, if you run a distance with an extra 5kg, you will work harder and go slower. This focussed me on losing weight, assessing what I was putting in my body and switching to more of a healthier plant based diet. Not fully by any means, but just a small step to introduce more.

Patience

They say patience is a virtue, and was needed for the journey I was undertaking. My fitness and weight loss was not going to happen straight away. Demonstrating patience and understanding, this indeed was a marathon and not a sprint.

I suffered setbacks throughout training, pains in various parts of my feet or legs. Some I would run through, others I could not and would need to take an enforced break. It was hard taking breaks when I was on such a tight training plan. I cannot take breaks! If I do I would fail!? I had to step back and look at the bigger picture, the goal I was focussed on. Yes it was painful to rest up for a week or two but I had to think of the bigger picture. It would be more painful to be out of action for several months than a few days or weeks.

In between enforced downtime, I treated this as an opportunity. I would routinely scour books, blogs and youtube videos looking at techniques and training methods. I started attending gym classes based around high intensity training, full body weight lifting and even towards the end, a running coach.

Grit

I was running along the canal path at over 39km, everything south of my pelvis was hurting or fatigued. To run on those battered feet was painful, the clothes were drenched with sweat and I was struggling to eat much. Right there, the only thing that would see me through was me, me and true grit.

That Grit is that inner voice that screams at you to keep going, just one more step, make it to the next marker, YOU CAN DO IT! We all have this Grit inside us, that magical ingredient of courage, resolve and determination.

I had trained and prepared:

• Discipline – Saw me through those wet evening runs, the hard long runs when I had no energy and the temptation of eating that bit of cake
• Analytical- I knew the splits, I knew the heart rate zones and what my plan was, I had recorded and knew what it looked like
• Patience- I knew stuff would happen and I would adjust, I read all there was and was as prepared as I could be

When you are in the thick of it though, when part of you is saying it’s tough, slow down or even better sit down and rest. It’s hard to keep going when your body is saying no and even others may say take it easy. This though is where you separate yourself from others, you dig deep and you keep going, you go to a place you didn’t know was there.

Finishing Line

I ran towards the Finish line, I could see it just through the tree’s, I ran as hard as I could, knowing that I was going to finish this and that I wanted to do it in a time under 6 hours.

My right calf seized suddenly as all those miles suddenly caught up with me. I willed the leg back into order and just went for the finish line. I crossed the line in 30th position, in the somewhat unbelievable time of 5 Hours, 59 Minutes and 59 Seconds! Within my target! I laughed when I found out how close I was. A somewhat lonely and manic laugh without many people present. But then this was a private and personal victory. To hold that medal and know all that hard work and grit paid off. It is quite a wonderful feeling.

In summary, I believe if you treat that project, career or life as a marathon rather than a sprint then you can make it. Exercising discipline, analytical thinking and the patience to accept what will happen mixed in with a bit of grit. That will make all the difference.