Its all over! I’m very tired and sore and I’m not sure if my knees will ever be the same, but I completed the marathon in a time of 4h16m! The time was a little slower than I would have liked – I was trying for sub 4h, but for a first attempt on the hottest marathon ever recorded, I’ll take just getting round in one piece!
The day started early with the alarm going 6am. I had all my running clothes laid out and my kit bag packed, so I had a quick breakfast of porridge, checked and double checked that I had everything, and then Gemma drove us up to London. Another of the many and varied benefits of working for Shell is that they have an underground carpark a couple of hundred metres away from the London Eye, which is free for employees. From here it was ust a couple of stops on the Northern Line to Greenwich and the start of the marathon. There are three starts and I was going from the red start for charity runners.
From the train its actually a fairly tiring walk to the top of the Greenwich park, so I felt really bad later in the day when I heard that a lot of runners got to the start line late due to some trains breaking down.
Gemma left to go and meet up with my parents and Emma-Lucia, so I entered the runners enclosure. Its a huge field filled with urinals, portaloo, drinking stations with either free bottled water or lucozade pouches, and the trucks to carry the kit bags to the finish line. I thought I’d have been quite nervous before the run, but it was all a bit unreal so I wasn’t too stressed out. The queues for the the portaloos were very long, but from training I knew there is nothing more painful than running when you should have gone before the race, so I queued up. By time I’d reached the front people were nervous that the race would start before they got back, so I jogged over to my starting bay: number 6. The walk to the starting line had already begun.
The slow walk to the start line took about 10 minutes, and they were piping a load of classical music through the speakers and encouraging us to wave at the BBC cameras on the crane up ahead. Everyone was really chatty and there were several people wearing costumes. Already all the runners in the different bays – which are organised by expected completion time – had mixed together. I probably should have realised what this would mean later in the race.
My first mistake came the second I crossed the start line – I was using my iPod to measure my time and pace, but I selected the “marathon” distance option from the menu which measures pace in miles rather than the kilometres that I’m used too. At least we were under way.
I’ve mentioned this already and its been all over the news today but its worth saying again: it was HOT. At least on the walk to the start we were shaded my trees, but as soon as we turned in the start we were in the direct sunshine. Tina had helped me pick out some running sunglasses the day before, which were expensive but my the end of the run they’d proved their worth several times over – I was surprised so few runners were using them. So at least I didn’t have to deal with the glare, but the heat made breathing difficult and I was sweating hard before I’d even completed the first mile.
Even so the early running was easy and the miles were passing quickly. The crowd were amazing – shouting encouragement to anyone who had printed their name on their running shirt, as well as decorating their houses and putting on music. The noise was incredible. Unfortunately with the different pens mixed together the pace was incredibly slow – I had the 3h45m pace band which showed that I needed to run a 8m35s mile, but I couldn’t maintain it because there were just too many slower runners in my way. If I got clear I was running a 7m30s mile with ease, but when I was stuck it was dropping below a 10m mile. It was really frustrating, plus it meant that I had to run across the road a lot to dodge round people. By the two mile mark I had already dropped a minute behind the pace. I figured after a few miles I’d clear most of the slower runners and I could pick up the pace and make up the time.
However, the slow runners just never ended. I had crossed the start line 13 minutes after the first wave, and even when I got to the 8 mile mark I was still struggling to find gaps to overtake people. I reckon I must have passed literally 1000’s of other runners by this point and I didn’t see anyone overtake me. I had always assumed I’d be able to pick my pace and run steadily but it just wasn’t happening. Most of the time I was held back, the rest I was sprinting to try and keep in touch with the 3h45m pace. By mile ten I’d managed to drag it back to within a minute but the start-stop running was taking its toll, and it was stressfull to try and constantly recalculate how far off I was. I know these are excuses for missing my time, but if I do this again I’m going to definitely going to start further to the front.
The heat was also throwing off my drinking plans. Instead of trying to take on a few mouthfuls ever two miles, it turned into drink as much as I could get every mile. On my practice runs if I drank too much i’d have to make a toilet stop – in this race I drank everything I could get my hands on and I still didn’t need to go until we got back to the car park a couple of hours after the race! God knows where it went but I probably put back about 13 bottles of water and 5 pouches of Lucozade.
Despite the problems I was finding the running easy and all the overtaking was good for my confidence. Around the 11 mile mark however I could feel my legs start to tire. By this point, although I knew there were several people watching for me from the crowds, I’d given up looking for them. It was too much to process running around people at the same time as scanning faces on the side of the course – plus I really can’t express enough how overwhelming it is with hundreds of people lining every street, normally three-deep, shouting and cheering for you. At least by this point i’d finally got away from the slower runners and I was able to open up a bit more.
Right, more tomorrow. I want to get this all down before I forget anything, but its been a long day and its time for sleep!
