All’s well that ends well

I’m not really a panicky kind of person, but in the days before the run I’d become resigned to not getting round at anywhere near my best. In retrospect I think my taper was a week too long. I was ready to go the weekend before Marathon weekend, so I really gave it the maximum effort at parkrun and my calf felt tight and twangy all week.

We had a good journey down on the train with Jaz and Tess. They went on to stay with a friend of Tess while we stayed in Southwark at the same hotel as Kay, Nicky, Vicky, Kara and John. I was quite sanguine and a little subdued the evening before the run and the lack of expectation probably helped me to relax. I considered running with Liz (much to her horror), but decided that if we ran together and my calf went then it would become her problem as well as mine and not something she should have to suffer on her first marathon. Also, I’ve not trained to be on my feet for five to six hours so wouldn’t feel confident with that.

I wasn’t chasing the carbs on the evening before, just had a relaxing, civilised meal, including a large glass of wine and an enormous flapjack followed by an early night.

Liz came with me on the train to Blackheath and we walked down to her Red start together. I went through the Blue start. After standing in the loo queue for ten minutes I heard the announcement that the baggage lorries would be going in eight minutes so had a quick dash to drop my stuff off. Bumped into David and Emma who were looking pretty relaxed and confident. When I went back to the loo queue I found that there wasn’t one as everyone had gone to the start. Heard the four minutes to go announcement as I left the loo and somehow got very close to the Blue start.

I seemed to be starting with a large group who were aiming for 3:15 to 3:30 so decided to just give it a go and see what happens. We got off to a decent start with no hold ups, and I settled into a fairly consistent pace to get round in 3:15. At this stage I was just crossing my fingers and hoping I’d get far enough round at a quick pace to be able to walk the rest if the calf did go. I was pretty much “in the zone” right from the start and could have been running anywhere. With a marathon, I’m trying to get round as quickly as possible and haven’t managed to incorporate sight-seeing and looking out for friendly faces. It would be nice to run it at a slower pace and take in the atmosphere and the sights, but I wasn’t ready to do that this time.

I went through half way in 1:38:41 which gave me an outside chance of getting round in 3:15. It started to get warm and I kept telling myself that this is England in April – it really isn’t that hot. I didn’t fully convince myself as I was pouring a fair amount of water over my head to try and keep cool and I’ve not done that before.

I lost it completely between 23 and 24 and walked for five minutes. I always walk up steep hills when I’m racing (and not so steep ones on the Calderdale Way Relay) but this was my first walk on the flat. It seemed to work though as I picked it up and kept running to the line to finish in 3:27:42. They put signs out every 200 metres to the finish starting at 800 metres and it’s the longest 800 metres in the world.

My post race wind down was much better this year than last time. I had my chip removed and eschewed the photo of me posing with the medal on the grounds that I wouldn’t buy it anyway. Picked up my bag and dogged off the bottle of water that was in the goody bag. Ate the Pink Lady (this is an apple, not a euphemism) after getting a passer by to scrape off the sticker ‘cos I was too tired to do it myself. I kept walking and linked up with another runner wearing the Age UK vest. We headed off to a nearby pub which Age UK had taken over for the day. Liz’s brother in law was already there, so I dumped my bags with him while I “enjoyed” a welcome massage. Both calves and both feet kept cramping up, but after a few minutes I was feeling more human. A large plate of chilli and rice with a side order of chips and a pint of Strongbow completed my recuperation.

Went out to mile 25 to enjoy the atmosphere at the Age UK cheering point. Cheered in some very tired runners before Liz came past looking in remarkably good nick.

So, that’s mission accomplished in terms of getting round in a decent time. The “Good For Age” is faster than I can manage, so I can’t see me going out of my way to enter other marathons. The exception would be Chicago, where Liz has some friends.

Splits were as follows:

5k 23:22; 10k 23:08; 15k 23:18; 20k 23:40; 25k 24:04; 30k 25:06; 35k 26:00; 40k 27:17; 42k 11:47.

The second half was ten minutes slower than the first half, so nowhere near a negative split, but not bad considering I had a poor last three miles.

Let the recovery begin.

The time is out of joint

Damned strange place London; some things seem wildly futuristic to my simple Northern eyes while other things seem to be outdated. The newer buildings, the fashions, the speed at which everything moves are most strange, yet I can’t remember the last time I saw the Hare Krishna mob out on the streets of a northern city, but there they were down that London like it was 1970 again.

That’s not the only contradiction either. It’s so urban, yet wildlife seems to thrive. We were sat having a coffee amidst a maelstrom of human activity yet above us a pair of Peregrine Falcons were going through their courtship rituals as if they were on the remotest of moorlands.

It’s so expansive, but I always seem to see familiar faces. If you know as few people as me, you wouldn’t expect to see anyone you know whilst casually wandering around Westminster surrounded by trillions of strangers, yet out of the blue there was Becky Hall.

The big build up is underway now that the registration thing has been done. Liz collected my number last year so this was my first experience of the Expo; it was OK, but nothing special. I used to be pretty good at acquiring freebies at exhibitions, but I came away with very little of any worth.

Travelling across London afterwards was bizarre. Usually everyone assiduously avoids eye contact, but there was a strange tribe out and about today. We identified each other by our red bags and although there wasn’t exactly bonhomie or conspirational nods, there was at least some acknowledgement of other human beings.

Traipsing round London was darned tiring and I’m feeling a wee bit trepidatious. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to collect the race number and chip and then put the marathon out of my mind with another day at work. I should be able to better keep the growing anxiety under control before returning to our wonderful capital city.

The abstract and brief chronicles of the time

A strange thing happened to me on Saturday morning. I was coming down the stairs without a care in the world when I suddenly realised that I was coming down the stairs without a care in the world. This was strange because for the last few months sometimes I’ve come down stairs favouring my left leg and sometimes I’ve come down stairs favouring my right leg. Sometimes I’ve said “ouch” on each and every step and sometimes I’ve said “ouch” only on every other step. Always I’ve come down slowly and made a conscious effort not to exacerbate a minor pull or niggle.

I’m not sure if the carefree descent has been happening for some time and I wasn’t aware of it until Saturday or whether Saturday was a breakthrough. I took it as an excellent sign that my legs had recovered from the overuse I’d given them and that tapering actually works. Armed with this carefree movement I then went out and ran a PB at parkrun in my 114th run taking eleven seconds off my previous PB.

I’m back to coming downstairs very slowly saying “ouch” on every other step and favouring my right leg, but hey, that’s marathon training.