Kelly Jones

Sometimes it’s a personal one, not about a good time but a good time & that’s fine.
Yes everyone will ask you “what time did you get” but you completed a marathon and that should be enough. 👀😌 it puts you in the top 1% of the world’s population.
The difference for me between my half and the full marathon was I was so much more conscious of fuelling correct in this race because I did think how will I ever run all that again but I did.

I started muchhhhh slower like people said, I had enough gels (I had one every 5k), I had electrolytes with me, I took water at every station even when I didn’t want it and yes I took the sweets from strangers too 🤣

I used the rally app which honestly kept me going as I had a loved one pop up every mile giving me the motivation I needed.

I messed up mahooosively with my playlist and I didn’t realise until about mile 20 until I went past the dj and it gave me a huge boost and I was listening to something way too slow.

I had open air earphones which I loved though as I could hear the crowd and wow the support you get from strangers wanting you to win really does restore your faith in humanity.

Get there early because wow the queue for the toilets was on some next never madness. Take an old jacket you’re willing to give to charity and stay warm until it’s time to race.

I was annoyed at myself for stopping and trying to stretch out because wow my calves felt like bricks but it’s honestly ok if that’s what you need to do but stopping for me was the worst thing ever as getting going again was double hard. At that point you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other as that’s all that’s getting you over that line.

I didn’t put enough miles in my legs before the race but if I had stuck to the plan I don’t think my calves would have been as bad so early on so expect that if you didn’t have enough time to get those long miles in.

Just to finish off, let’s not normalise doing a marathon. Social media seems to have a funny way of doing that. Train, fuel properly and give it all you have. I now feel a huge sense of achievement.

Trained through Runna App 😌
#firstmarathon