I received an email during the week from FinisherPix reminding me that I hadn’t bought any of my finisher photos from the Dublin Marathon 2018. This then reminded me that I never updated my personal Facebook page profile photo with what I update it with after every marathon. A photo of me taken by a kind passer-by in the finisher area with my finisher medal. I don’t really use my personal Facebook page. I only set it up because I had to in order to set up my Coast Road Runners Facebook page. But I always update my personal profile photo within hours of finishing the marathon. But I didn’t this time. Initially I am sorry to say was on purpose. Then I just forgot to.

The reason I didn’t at the time was because I didn’t feel particularly happy after doing the marathon. It was my sixth Dublin Marathon. It was the first time that I didn’t get a new personal best. After a five year run of getting personal bests it really impacted how I felt after it. I didn’t get the amazing runners high that I associate with crossing the marathon finish line. I didn’t carry that high around with me for days, sometimes weeks. And I was really annoyed with myself. Not because I didn’t get a personal best but because of how much not getting one really bothered me. I’ve run plenty of half marathons over the years and have varied in my finishing times but the feeling of not getting a new personal best never lingered like it did this time.

My finishing time was 3 hours 16 minutes, 2 minutes off my previous year’s personal best. As often happens in the aftermath of the marathon, people ask you how you got on. Every time someone asked me I didn’t speak with my usual post marathon high enthusiasm, but spoke negatively about it…I wasn’t feeling 100% that day…I didn’t sleep well the night before…it was a pity because the conditions couldn’t have been better…and I kept adding “but I didn’t get a new personal best”. It was like turrets. As much as it wrecked my head saying it, I couldn’t help myself. Again not because I didn’t get a new personal best but because I couldn’t stop myself saying it. To any normal running mortal there is absolutely nothing disappointing about my result. Even on the stats I am within the top 100 Dublin Marathon 2018 female finishers. So it made me realise that a personal best really is a “personal” best. I just didn’t realise that I could take it so personally!

In the days/weeks that followed I started thinking. Right. I am going to change my training regime for next year’s Dublin Marathon, build some speed/interval training in to it. Something I’ve never done before. That will sort things out and I will be back getting personal bests. I even thought of writing a blog about chasing personal bests.

Thankfully a couple of months on I have come to my senses. I am turning 43 years of age this month. I have been running since 2004 and training for marathons since 2005. I have never been injured or pulled/strained/torn/broken any part of my body through running. I have never had to take a break from running. I don’t ever want to. I would rather never get a new marathon personal best ever again than not be able to run a marathon in any given year. Something that I could jeopardise if I start to radically change my running regime.

So I will stick with my non-race training regime of three 1 hour runs per week and race training regime of three runs per week (two 1 hour runs, one long run). And I will continue to run without a running watch (except to listen to music). And continue to live by the saying “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

I have just updated my personal Facebook page profile photo. Not just with a finisher photo taken by a passer-by in the finisher area, but with an official marathon photo that I just bought on FinisherPix. Because I am a proud finisher, and will continue to be one every time I cross the marathon finish line, regardless of my finishing time. Because every time I cross the line I know that I will have done my personal best that day.

I have also just updated the Races page on my website with the up and coming race fixtures in the Dublin area in 2019. So next time you are running a race instead of getting fixated on getting a new personal best, think of Brennan’s Bread’s motto “Today’s bread today”, and remember your race as today’s personal best today.