Last week’s 28km run went well. I broke it up with a trip to IKEA to get strawberry cream cake. It felt strong and was a faster pace than the 22km the week before, despite the extra distance and just as many hills.
But, I definitely feel like an imposter. I have no right to be running the Sydney Marathon. It’s now a Major. It’s near impossible to get into. I’m really slow and have never run that far before.
What led to this?
Last night I attended this year’s Beyond Blackburn running seminar. It was a great event learning about running physiology, shoe types and features, and training plans. It had some great reminders and gave professional confirmation for things I had learnt elsewhere.
To customise the info, we were in groups by the race length we’re training for. They called for marathon or longer first. I hesitated but joined the group. It didn’t feel right but it’s the one that fit my current training.
Then tonight, after our group run, I was chatting with one of the fast men. We were talking about marathon training and gels and long runs. From his questions I suspect our experience level is similar. But I know his easy pace is about my 5km pace. Possibly faster. Most of the group is faster. Inclusive to all runners but faster.
I started hesitating with my comments. Others in the group have run higher profile events. One even won the Sydney Marathon 2 years ago. I felt amateur and unqualified to answer the questions that he was asking about my experience. Yeah, I know–that’s illogical.
The solution?
It’s all in my head, so I have to change my mindset. Running is for anyone who runs. The Sydney Marathon is even designed for that. I’ll probably take 5 and a half hours to run the 42.195km. The race has a cut off of 7 hours. That makes me 90 whole minutes faster than the organisers allow for.
So I need to remind myself I deserve to be at that start line as much as the faster, more experienced runners.
See you in Sydney.
The Running Marketer 
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