Monday 14 April 2014

Race Report

If you just want the headlines - I did it!!! I completed the London Marathon in a long and tiring 6:42:13, but I crossed the line running and smiling.  Here's the longer version:

I got up around 6.40 and shortly after 7 was downstairs in the hotel having breakfast - an instant porridge pot, which I had brought with me, tea, toast and apple juice.  David and I left the hotel about 7.45 and travelled by underground and DLR to Greenwich, with him getting off the stop before to go direct to the Cutty Sark.  I ate the banana I had brought with me at about 9.30, in good time for the race start at 10.00

In deference to my predicted time, I was starting towards the back. It took 28 minutes of slow walking forward till I even reached the start line, but the timing chip attached to my shoe meant that "my" race only started when I crossed the line.  I started running just before the line, and I was away.  For the first several miles, my strategy was to make sure I didn't run too fast, which meant anything faster than 14 minutes per mile. So I counted 80 running steps (which I know from experience is about 30 seconds of running), then walked until my average pace came back up to 14 minutes per mile.

There were crowds lining the route pretty much from the start, and lots of clapping and cheering to encourage us along. In some places they were several deep, and in others they were more spread out, but there was hardly every a part of the route with nobody watching. I was very glad that I had ironed my name onto my shirt, as it was very encouraging to have people shouting "Go on, Barbara, you're doing so well!"


It was sunny pretty much all day, and I am very glad that I had thought to slather on the factor 30 suncream before setting off - and even so, I got some mild sunburn.  I'm also very pleased that I had brought some toilet paper with me, as there was none left when I needed a pit stop!

At 6 and a bit miles I realised that this thing looming up on my left was the Cutty Sark. Heading towards the river, people shouting "Go on, Barbara" and then I heard David's voice shouting "Go on, Barbara", and he was right in from of me, so I ran over and managed to lean across the double crowd barrier and give him a kiss, and then I was off again.

Mile 7 comes and there's a Cancer Research UK cheering point and they make a tremendous noise, and in fact many of the charity supporters are cheering all the charity runners, not just their own people. I got a bit choked up at that point. My Garmin beeps for 7 miles, while the 7 mile marker is not yet in sight, and it's at this point I realise that it's not an inaccuracy in either the course measurement or my Garmin, but  I am doing extra distance by weaving around on the road. Not deliberately, of course - when I can, I run on the blue line which indicates the proper measured marathon distance. But I am run-walk-running, so sometimes I am overtaking people who are running slower than me, and other times stepping aside to let them through on the shortest line when I am walking. I resign myself to the fact that when my Garmin says 26.2, I will still have a way to go.  I ended up covering 27.34 miles, according to my Garmin.

There is water available every mile from mile 3 onwards.  I take some about every other mile, and every 5 miles or so there is a sports drink instead. There are also a couple of carbohydrate gels offered as well as 2 I've brought with me, and the crowd offering sweets at regular intervals.   8 miles, 9, 10, and there are lots of people outside having barbecues and music blaring out from pubs and we run past a church where there's a priest in robes aspersing runners with Holy Water.  In Deptford there are people on the pavement outside the Methodist Church - a mainly black crowd, playing music and singing, and I shout at them that I'm a Methodist, but I don't think they heard me.

Mile 10 comes (on my Garmin) and my average pace so far is 14:20 and I'm quite happy with that. Mile 11, mile 12, and I'm feeling good and Tower Bridge comes into view. And I'm running across and there's Denise Lewis with a camera crew and there's no-one else around but she shows no interest in interviewing me, so I keep going. Off Tower Bridge and onto The Highway, where the route doubles back on itself.  The stream of runners coming in the opposite direction is much denser than on my side (they've done 22 miles, and I haven't done 13 yet) - so there are advantages to being slow, as I have much more room to manouevre.   I toddle along, passing and being passed by the same people, and this is the point when my quads start to feel a bit tired and crampy. Nothing serious, just they notice they've been working for a while.

I reach 13.1 miles - half way - on my Garmin in about 3:05, but it's 3:10 by the time I reach the official half way line.  We turn right off The Highway and into some narrow streets, and there's a guy handing out cakes and I have part of an apple Danish, yum. 14 miles, 15 miles, and I think to myself I've only got 11 to go, and I realise that I am pretty tired and my feet are sore and my legs are starting to feel a bit done in. And I don't know whether it's the heat, or the fact that this is all Tarmac whereas I've always done a fair bit of my running off road, but it feels as though this is tiring me more than the equivalent distance on my training runs. I have a bit of a wobble emotionally, because another 11 miles seems like a really long way given how I'm feeling, but then I tell myself that time doesn't matter, it's just a question of keeping going, and I can do it.

Up until this point I had been watching my pace for the current mile, to make sure I wasn't going too fast. But since 10 miles, I have been over 14 mins/mile. I decide to stop watching my pace as there is no chance of accidentally going too fast, but if I watch my pace I may be tempted to make myself go faster. So I switch over to the timer/distance screen, and also turn on the walk/run alert. That external signal is going to save me needing to count my running steps, and also make sure I take walking breaks which are neither too long or too short.

15, 16, 17, and here's another CRUK cheering point and there's David with them. He asks me how I am and I say my legs are a bit tired and someone else says it's all mental and I can do it, which of course I can. So, another kiss and I'm off again. 18, 19, and I've run further than I have before, but I am starting to get a little bit confused - the mental impact of physical tiredness, I think. I am losing track of whether I was following the distance on my Garmin or the course markers, and I forget exactly how many miles I've done.  But the important thing is just to keep moving. It's getting harder to break into a run when the Garmin tells me to - it is starting to hurt - but I keep on doing it.

21,22... There's supposed to be a CRUK cheer point here, but I can't see them. And then I see Fetchpoint - a cheering point manned by other members of the running website fetcheveryone. They supply me with face wipes, snacks, hugs and encouragement to keep going.  It takes a special sort of person to hug a sweaty incoherent runner!!  Just a little further on I pass 40K, and there's David again at a CRUK point which has been abandoned by everyone else, and he says "See you at the finish!"

The shouts from the crowd have mostly been supportive and encouraging, but every so often there is some smart Alec (who has probably never run a mile in his life) saying something "witty".  Most of the way round I just ignored them, but as I get more tired, that gets harder.  A few people cross the road without much consideration for those of us who have run a very long way!!!  23, 24 along the embankment.  
  Most of the people around me are walking now, most of the time - and whenever I break into a run there is an extra cheer from the crowd.  I'm not sure whether they think I have done it in response to their shouts, when in fact I have done it because my Garmin beeped.  25 miles, and I know I'm going to finish and I get a bit emotional and sob a couple of times, but then I keep going. And Big Ben comes into view and it's a bit further away than I'd like, but then it isn't and as I turn into Parliament Square I turn off my run/walk timer and I'm just doing this now.

Into Birdcage Walk and I've thought about running all the rest of the way but that seems too hard but I am running more of the time now. There's a sign that says 600m to go... 400m to go.... and I think I will run the last 200m but I turn the corner and it says 385 yards to go, and I think that's a bit much to run. So I take one last walk break and then start running just before I reach the monument in front of Buckingham Palace and someone shouts my name, and it's Sandra from Thinking Slimmer, and I wave and turn into the Mall and a marshall says "You've done it" and there's the finish, and I'm almost there and I'm there and I press my Garmin and I've run the London Marathon!!!!

I collect my medal, have my timing chip removed, collect my goody bag and kit bag, and make my way to the meeting point.  I want to do nothing so much as sit down, but I simultaneously want to keep moving to avoid stiffening up. I have had plenty to drink, including sports drinks and carbohydrate gels, but not much food.  We make our way back to the hotel, I have a shower, and put on my Finisher's T-Shirt.  I feel well enough to walk (gingerly!) the few minutes over to St Pancras Station, where we have our first proper meal in twelve hours.  David, bless him, has been on his feet ever since leaving me on the DLR, and has also not had anything to eat more than a few sweets.


So, that was the London Marathon.  I knew it would get hard towards the end, as it meant running 8 miles further than I ever had before. It became hard rather earlier than I had anticipated, and that presented a challenge in itself, because it made me doubt my ability to finish.  But in the course of the training I have learned so much about self-belief and motivation. When it got hard, I reminded myself of all the reasons I wanted to do this, and told myself I could, and I kept going until the job was done.  The reasons I wanted to do this were partly about personal achievement, and partly about raising money to defeat cancer.  And so far, I - or rather, you and people like you - have raised over £4,300 for Cancer Research.

The day afterwards I am naturally somewhat stiff and will be for a few days.  But it is not as bad as I had feared - some people find stairs almost impossible for a few days after a marathon.  I saw lots of runners being treated for blisters by the St John Ambulance, but my feet are fine.

Thank you so much for helping me on this journey.  It has been a roller coaster!!  When I signed up for the marathon, I estimated my finish time at around five and a half hours, based on the pace I had been running in training. Because of the injuries and the training I lost, I ended up taking nearly six and three quarter hours.  But I have completed a marathon - something only 1% of people ever do.  That is something no-one can ever take away from me.  Thank you for all you have done to make it possible.

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