2 years ago I came up with the random idea to run a
marathon and raise some money for charity. Initially I thought this was
something I could achieve in a relatively short space of time but after
training for my first half marathon I realised this was going to be a slightly
longer term goal. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t really see myself going
through with it: as is the case with a lot of my ideas, I thought I would run
out of momentum with this one.
Fast forward 2 years and I’m sitting here
reflecting on the fact that just 5 days ago I ran my first marathon, and I can
hardly believe it.
The training was tough – I’m not going to lie.
Those first 10 weeks of my 20 week plan seemed to go on forever. Perhaps it was
because the weather was pretty rubbish for most of it: cold, wet, icy and often
snowing. Then I developed a foot problem and had to adapt my training plan to
manage this, which meant incorporating strength-training into my weekly regime
and spending time at the gym using the treadmill. The weeks became so busy with
training that I felt myself tripping along just trying to keep up to speed with
the training and all the other aspects of my life.
I spent a large number of weeks focusing on
managing my foot issue and obsessing over footwear to help with this. Every run
involved trying to vary my gait at the slightest twinge from my foot, paranoid
that it would worsen. By around 5 weeks to go I was getting a bit fed up and
was looking forward to the training being over. There was so much else I wanted
to be getting on with: work in the garden, getting back to tennis, spending a
bit more time with my family and just not feeling so tired all the time.
With 3 weeks to go the paranoia reached epic scales.
During my longest run of 20 miles my legs felt so fatigued, my knees ached and
I wondered how on earth I was going to manage the final 6.2 miles. Every time I
ran after this a new ache would appear somewhere else in my knees, my toes or
my calves. I was worried that I hadn’t done enough weekly mileage and that my
body wouldn’t manage the full distance.
A week and half before the big day I got the confidence
boost that I needed: my best run in months. 5 miles in the sunshine, with
strong legs and without the usual fatigue. The taper was clearly working. I
just needed to make it to race day without catching a cold.
Somehow, I made it without any further aches and no
signs of a cold. I had done all I could to prepare for the marathon and it was
time to just get it done. I was elated to be at that start line with thousands
of other people. How many times I had thought about that moment.
The run itself was better than I could have hoped.
It was a foggy day, chilly in fact. Whilst waiting around at the start I was
too cold to be nervous. I just wanted to get started and warm up. Being so far
back in the pens the start was quite uneventful. We all just began walking
forward and this continued for about 10 minutes until we saw the start line and
just started, well, to run.
About 50 minutes into the run I realised I had
forgotten to switch on my heart rate monitor. Dammit. I wasn’t stopping now. I switched it on and hoped to
goodness it would pick up my heart rate. It did, thankfully, but wouldn’t connect
to my Garmin. I cursed myself for forgetting to do this.
When I got to the halfway mark I felt a strong
sense of being pulled towards the finish line, although, I knew this was still
a very long way away. I got an idea of just how far somewhere past Longniddry,
where the coast curved round to the left, into the fog, and I saw thousands of
runners bobbing up and down for miles ahead of me.
This is a long way, I
thought.
At 18 miles I felt strong and had managed to maintain an average pace that would see me finishing the race in under 4 hours. I wondered if I could maintain this. I thought about my dad and whispered…look at me doing a marathon, dad. I imagined him ahead of me, holding my hand, pulling me along. At 20 miles I realised my knees were not aching and wondered how long it would last. I was fed up with eating gels at this point and instead focused on drinking my water and watching the kilometres go past. Just 10k to go. The mile signs seemed to take forever at this point to appear and I was glad to have my watch set to kilometres.
People were stopping at the side of the road to
stretch their sore, tired legs. 9k to go. I thought about our friend’s little
girl, going through something so much harder than this, with her leukemia
treatment. 8k to go. In less than an hour it would all be over and I could
rest. 7k to go. I would see Ross and Mikey soon and get to wave to them. 6k to
go. My legs were getting very tired and my quads were aching.
This is hard, I
thought.
I saw someone at the side of the road with an oxygen
mask on their face and hoped they were ok. My legs were slowing. I looked at my
pace and saw my target of under 4 hours start to slip away. I didn’t care. I
looked at my heart rate monitor and saw it was flashing red: suggesting my heart
was working very hard. I dropped my pace and it went to green, to a more
moderate level of activity. I thought to myself: I would rather finish this
healthy than fall over on the side of the road trying to push myself to under 4
hours.
5 k to go. Just a Park Run. The crowds were now out
in force, urging everyone on. I believed every single one of them when they shouted
‘it’s not far to go now’. 4k to go: less than 3 miles. I started to feel a bit
sick from all the energy gels and electrolytes. 3k to go: less than 2 miles.
Ross and Mikey would be there soon. 2k to go. The sickness feeling passed. A
man at the side of the street stood there, pumping his fist, bellowing ‘you can
do this’. I thanked him and he called out my name. People that had stopped to
walk starting to run again. There was the 25 mile sign! I wanted to hug it. 1k
to go: just 1000m. How many times I had run that on a treadmill. I scanned the
crowds for Ross and Mikey. The 26 mile sign: I was nearly there. Then I saw
them: Ross and Mikey, grinning and shouting for me. My little boy holding out
his hand for a high-five. I let out a kind of squawk, high-fived them both and continued
to the finish line. A lump came to my throat, for after the next bend
I would see the finish line. I had to fight back the tears as I could barely
breathe. I turned the corner and there it was: the finish line, bright in the
sunshine that had just appeared. I was going to make it. I got my breathing
under control and made my way to the finish line in 4 hours, 3 minutes and 29
seconds.
I did it.
5 days on and I can now get up and down stairs without clutching the banister for dear life. And with this comes a little sadness. For at least when the legs were sore it reminded me of this incredible thing I had achieved. Now it just feels like a dream and I wonder if I actually did it. Perhaps it’s a little too surreal to completely fathom, for 26.2 miles is far to run, yet on Sunday it didn’t feel as hard as I expected it to.
And then there’s the feeling of…what now? I imagine
most people that complete a marathon go through a period of transition: from marathon day euphoria, to feeling a little lost without the training and the goal
always being in the distance, to returning to life as it was before marathon
training.
Who knows if I’ll do another marathon. In the
meantime I’ve signed up for the Aviemore half and have filled up my diary with
another training plan. It feels empty without one. That’ll keep me occupied for
the rest of this year.
I may have also had a little peek at the Loch Ness
Marathon website for next year. Just looking...
