Posts Tagged ‘Post marathon depression’

To fight my way through the post-marathon depression in 2009 I’d booked myself into the BUPA London 10,000 to keep busy. The race was a month after the end of the marathon so I’d managed to retain a bit of the fitness I’d had. Wanting to get a good time, 5 minutes before the start I opened up a carbo gel and started the horrible process of forcing the goopy syrup down my lughole.

The wave of nausea that hit me was quite unexpected. It immediately brought back the latter stages of the marathon and it took me 4 gulps get the stuff down.

I’ve never enjoyed taking carbo gels. Firstly, the taste and sensation takes some getting used to. I’ve tried out quite a few different types of gel while training for the marathon, each with varying levels of viscosity. I simply can’t get used to the process of squeezing a sachet of runny, bitter-sweet goop down my throat without feeling the urge to regurgitate.

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I am now fully immersed in marathon excitement/frustration/anxiety. There are 4 more days to go until this is all over and every part of me is wishing Sunday would hurry up and get here. The lack of exercise is driving me slightly loopy. I’m constantly fidgeting, doodling and finding every excuse to move around. Today I ran up the stairs at work as fast as I could like a little school boy, taking three steps at a time. I even jumped ahead with my checklist and bought my 7 DVDs to watch on Saturday today. One of which was Run Fat Boy Run.

Although I’m ready and raring to go, a side of me is wishing I had longer. I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself after the marathon is over and done with and apparently I’m not alone with this feeling. There is actually a condition called post marathon depression, where a person, instead of feeling relief and a sense of achievement, feels empty and falls into a lull. I’m sure I’ll be feeling the former, plus I have a 10k race booked in after (in which I’m hoping to break the 50-minute mark).

Over the past few days all I’ve done is research the London Marathon in a bid to get a feel for what the experience is going to be like. I don’t want any surprises coming my way on Sunday. In doing so I stumbled across the London Marathon media pack, which contains a multitude of brilliant facts about the marathon – like the following:

• The most money raised for charity by a single marathon runner was £1,841,138
• This year over 150,000 people applied to run the marathon, around 50,000 normally get accepted and around 36,000 actually start
• The most common profession amongst this year’s runners is teaching/education
• 159 of the runners will be celebrating their birthday on race day
• 300 litres of blue paint will be used to paint the line on the course that represents the shortest distance
• 750,000 bottles of water will be distributed throughout the course
• The fastest time run in a Santa outfit is 3:12:27!

However, this is the most worrying fact…

• Number of urinal bays at the start = 400

Lets say that out of the 36,000 people that normally start, 20,000 odd are men (this year the number of men out-weigh the women at around 3-1). Lets also assume that every man will need the loo at least once during the build up to the start. That equates to 50 men per urinal! This is probably why the London Marathon magazine in the starters pack contains this picture…

I’ve always been one for toilet humour.