So what happened?? - Part 2 of 2

Training between Fleet and London
No maps, they've been lost to the ages

So, when last we met I was talking about the disappointment of Fleet.  I now had 4 weeks to get ready for London.  The plus point was that I seemed to be on the right track in terms of pacing, and the fitness was fine.  All I had to do now was maintain this level and keep going with the training.

The problem here was that the fiancée was now pregnant and our first trimester wasn't going according to plan.  Without going into detail, there were illnesses, fevers, scans for ectopic pregnancy and then hospital stays.  All of this required the 2 boys to be cared for and I would have been failing in my duty if I didn't take time out of the schedule to help with the house and the boys.

The next few weeks, therefore, were a case of snatching runs here and there and maintaining fitness, rather than increasing it.  With that in mind, it made sense to reduce expectations and so I went into the day itself thinking that I'd take a time under, say, 4hrs 15.

And so to...

The London Marathon
No map - Garmin wasn't working so well in the tall buildings

The kids were with their dad for the weekend and so we drove up to Basingstoke train station on our own.  We managed to find a free parking space right outside the station, which was lucky, and strolled across the road in a fine warm sunny morning.  I was a little apprehensive at how warm it was, since it was about half 6 in the morning, but wrote that off as mere nerves and nothing to be concerned with, although they weren't helped by the train being delayed by about 15-20 mins.

You could tell how big this day was going to be when we pulled into Waterloo - hundreds of people got off our train in trainers and had bags over their shoulders.  Hundreds more were coming off the other trains, and we all went down into the tube station heading for Black Heath.

One of the lesser known benefits of running the marathon is that on the day itself you get free transport on the tube.  This helped, since I was high on energy drinks and didn't think myself capable of pushing a ticket through a slot even if there'd been a cash prize for doing so.

The tube journey was uneventful and we emerged at the other end to find the sun had done what the sun does best and warmed the place up nicely for us.  I wasn't pleased with this - I'd spent 4 months slogging through the snows and rains of winter and suddenly the temperature was 10 degrees centigrade hotter than I was used to running in.  What was needed here was a running top designed specifically for running in hot weather; I had the standard-issue cotton t-shirt from my charity - not even the sleeveless one.

We walked up the hill from the station to Greenwich Park.  This took slightly longer than anticipated as the (now pregnant) fiancée required a toilet break and I needed to change.

My sister and her friend met us at the corner of Greenwich Park, and from there we all walked up to the big entrance section in the park itself.

I bid goodbye to everyone and headed through the entrance area while they went to camp the start line.  I wandered around in a half mile circle to get to the toilets and then down to the appropriate part of the start line (itself about half a mile long).  I walked a good few hundred yards back down the order and then parked up near where I was meant to be starting.  Then heard yelling and looked up to see my fiancée, my sister and her friend.  My starting point was about 100 yards from where I'd waved a cheery buh-bye to them.

Due to what I can only assume was a form-filling cock up on my part, I was put at the back of the grid.  So far back, in fact, that the comedy runners were directly behind me; people dressed as animals, teams of runners tied together, that sort of thing.  I was actually sat at the point of the queue where people were expected to just get round at some point, rather than go for any sort of time.

With the sun shining and the masses milling, then the gun gunned. (sorry, couldn't think of anything alliterative there.)  Or, at least, I assume it did, since half a mile up the road, people started to cheer.  Finally, with the classic mid-pack runner's start of a shuffle, then a walk, then a jog, then a run, with a few jumps and wiggles of the legs for good measure, off I went.

The first 2 miles were spent running into, around - and in the case of a gentleman that fell over in front of me, over - the other runners.  This was necessary in order to get up to speed, since people around me were running at over 12mins per mile, which is 3mins per mile slower than I wanted to run.

The problem with this approach is that it does start to tire you, as you never hit a rhythm.  You're constantly hopping, dodging and generally elbowing people out of the way in a bid to get in front.  Then, when you're in front of them, 3 others will block your path.  With no weapons to speak of, I had no choice but to continue dodging.

One of the things I never knew about the marathon, until a few weeks beforehand, is that the groups actually set off in 3 waves, from 2 locations.  One of the waves takes account of the special groups (elites, wheelchairs, etc) and the other 2 waves are used to release the general masses from 2 locations, which is logistically the only way they'd be able to get everyone going without resorting to a 3 mile start line.

One of the more amusing parts of the marathon was the point at which the 2 routes converged, about a mile or 2 down the road.  At the pinch point, the 2 routes run down the same road, but they do so along a dual carriageway, separated by a verge.  Convergence at this part of the course was the cue for both routes to loudly boo each other as we ran alongside.  After a few hundred yards, we were truly joined into one group and the marathon began in earnest.

Things calmed down a little while after the convergence once room had been made, and so I settled down into approx. 9min miles.  It had taken about 4 miles for this to happen, though, and I'd started to feel a minor twinge in my calf from all the bouncing and avoiding.  I wasn't running anywhere near maximum, though, so I carried on and sure enough, the pain started to fade.

Between 5 miles and 13 miles, I was really starting to enjoy the run.  The sun was out, but the shade from the taller buildings ensured that I never boiled over (although God knows I would have traded my cotton t-shirt for anything else.)

The route went through some narrow parts of South London, and as you can imagine, the locals were out in force, on the roofs, on pub terraces, on the corners playing music and my personal favourite, a preacher outside his church, praying to the lord to give us strength as we ran past.  I have no violent objection to people believing in God, but I'll be damned (literally, I guess, if I'm wrong) if I'll have some mystical being claiming the glory for my effort in finishing.

At length (13 miles to be precise) we crossed Tower Bridge.  I'd agreed with the group that I'd see them here, and they knew to be on the bridge for about 2 hours after the start if they wanted to see me.  I turned the corner to enter the approach to the bridge and started looking around.  As luck would have it, just before I got onto the bridge proper, I saw Amy and the girls on the left hand side.  We waved, and I flashed them a smile to show that I was in fine form and enjoying it (which at that point I was) and then, after a few seconds, I was off on the bridge and away.

After the bridge, we turned right.  There is a point here in which you pass by the runners coming the other way.  At the point that I'd done 13 miles, there were people coming past on the other side of the road that had done 20, which was inspiring stuff.  Or at least, it would have been if one of them wasn't walking up the hill looking like he was about to expire.

It is at almost exactly that point that my left knee began to hurt.  Every step caused pain to rattle through it akin to someone jamming a nail underneath the knee cap.  A mile or so more (somewhere around 15miles in, I believe) I had to pull over for a second and try to stretch out the knee - folding the leg back until the trainers are touching the bum, that sort of thing.  It took a couple of minutes to massage some of the pain out, but a few tentative jumps suggested that it was holding up and so I headed back into the swarm of people.

My head was still thinking about the 4hr 15 at this point and the next half a mile or so was spent trying to make up the time I'd missed by some more dodging around people in a bid to find some space to run in.  Unfortunately, all this darting around was starting to kill my calf and Achilles, both of which had decided to join my knee in registering their discontent.  Same leg, too.

A short period of time later (probably no more than a couple of hundred yards, I'd imagine) I had to stop again, this time with a more serious issue:  my Achilles was now knackered.  I had essentially busted my flush and was at the point where even putting mild pressure on my left foot caused pain spikes to shoot up the leg.

A member of the St John's Ambulance group saw me hanging around on the side of the road clutching my ankle and came over to check up on me.  She was worried, too, about dehydration,since even before the halfway point there had been quite a few people passed out at the side of the road whilst several fluorescent jackets hovered close by, supplying electrolytes.

I took a swig of water, then explained that my Achilles was shot and she asked me if I had anyone I'd like to inform so they could come and get me.  It was only as she was saying it that I realised she was trying to pull me out.  At that point, I knew any hope of a half-decent time was gone, but I was here now, and wanted to at least cross the bloody line.  So I figuratively shrugged my shoulders and thought the one thought that has simultaneously supplied both my greatest and worst moments in life: "Sod it."

I said that I'd carry on to see how it went and she gave me a bottle of water and told me to take it easy.  She needn't have worried - I only had one good leg and my hopes of a 4hr 15 had gone, so all that remained was to finish.

I set off again at what can be best described as a half limp, half hop, half skip (yes, I am aware of the mathematical impossibility, but I'm comfortable with it) that surprised me by still being quicker than quite a few of the runners!  Not faster than a man in a huge rubber rhino outfit, though.  He came past me and carried on into the distance.  Now, although I had one good leg and had no right to be offended by this, I was.  After all, my chance at a decent time had gone and I'd reconciled myself to that, but I'd just been overtaken by a man in a fucking rhino suit!

I sped up and tried to stay with him, but a couple of miles later I had to back off a little bit as my other leg was starting to get sore.  Since it was the only one of the two working with any degree of acceptability, this was A Bad Thing and so I bade a sad farewell to Mr Rhino and slowed down again.

To be honest, from 15 to 24 miles is a painful blur of canary wharf and the limehouse link.  Then we went down on to the embankment and passed the 24 mile mark and everything got a little better:  Several thousand people were spread out on both sides as we looked ahead for almost a clear mile, the major London sights were there to be seen as we ran past, and a breeze came off the Thames to help cool us down.  The leg was numb by this point, and I started to enjoy the run again, albeit at a much reduced pace.

The second point at which I'd be able to see the girls was at around the 25 mile mark, where I Can had their stand.  I saw the orange I Can sign in the distance on the left hand side and, with a quick mirror-signal-manoeuvre, I was over on the side of the road.

As I approached, I saw the girls in amongst the general melee of the stand, applauding the runners.  So enamoured were they with this task that they didn't see me approach until I was upon them like a bright orange great white shark out hunting seals.  (Shut up - The metaphor fits, if the shark has a damaged fin.)

I kissed Amy, waved hello to the others and was told that I was 3rd of the I Can runners.  This was an unexpected bonus - I was on the podium of their charity runners!  And how bad must the others have been?  Annoyingly, as I was about to set off, a lady from the charity with a camera asked me to back up a bit and run past again so they could get some action shots.

Eventually, after assuming some Chariots of Fire-style poses, I was on my way for the final chukka.

Ordinarily, I find it difficult to do the final mile of a longish race.  It's as if my brain, knowing that there's a mile to go, subconsciously sends a message to my legs to say "stand down, chaps, we're almost done" and it becomes almost impossible to drag any extra effort out of them.

This time, however, after 25 miles of running (11 of which were in painful circumstances) the usual subconscious winding-down order was never sent (or at least waylaid by a rogue bodypart acting as a double-agent) and in fact the inverse was true:  I sped up.

This was probably because my nemesis, Mr Rhino, was just ahead of me.  (It was probably another rhino, in actuality, but what what the hell, I needed a nemesis at that point in my life and how often do you get 2 rhinos running down a London street?)  I caught up with him on the red tarmac almost exactly as we got to the "386 yards to go" sign, before hopping/limping around the final bend and accelerating up to the finish.

My final time was 4hr 49 and something seconds.  A piece of me was happy that, even though my time was way off what I'd wanted (originally a 3hr 45!) I was at least finally under a time by a few seconds.  I think if I'd have finished in 4hr 50 and 6 seconds, I'd have killed someone.

It was a strange feeling, crossing the line.  I was expecting elation, pride, the usual suspects.  Instead, it was more a case of relief and numbness.  After all the effort and training, it was done, and that was all.  The prevailing thought in my mind, if asked to summon one up, was: “Thank God that’s over.”

Now, the next part was painful.  I'd run myself to a stop by storming the last mile and couldn't walk at anything more than crawling pace.  In fact, it took 2 goes to get up the 2 steps to where some guy cuts your chip off your foot.  I'd finished, but what they don't tell you is it's not just the 26 miles.  Once you're done running, you've got about another kilometre of walking, during which you pick up your bag from the bag collection point and then wander off, dazed and confused, into an area with letters in the air for you to die under while your loved ones come to scrape you off the tarmac.

I texted Amy to tell her I was sitting next to a cannon under the 'G'.  It was relatively quiet where I was, compared to some letters.  Most people called ‘Smith’, for example, were under the letter ‘X’, all of them having the same plan of choosing one of the infrequently-used first letters in names in a bid to avoid the other Smiths.

Finally, the girls arrived and there were hugs and kisses and a walk to the train station.  It was busy and hot, but it didn't actually take as long as I thought it would.  Less than an hour after finishing, we'd said our goodbyes and me and Amy were on the train at Waterloo, awaiting departure to Basingstoke.

Once back home, I promised myself I'd never run a marathon again and went to bed with my seized legs.  A week or so later, I signed up for the Basingstoke half marathon (2nd October 2010) and the Brighton marathon (15th April 2012).

So I now have 6 weeks to get ready for Basingstoke, having done nothing of any merit in the intervening 4 months aside from a few runs around work.

I'll start posting my training runs up here just in case anyone is interested in doing half/full marathons and wants to know what to avoid doing, for I am nothing if not an example of how not to do it!

So what happened?? - Part 1 of 2

Blimey has it been 5 months??

Right, well, that was quite a hiatus, but I'm back now and training for something else (I'll go into that in a later post).

So, what of the marathon I was training for, I hear you cry.  At least, those of you that can remember me having one to train for; It was quite some time ago.

Well, there are 2 parts to this.

Part one reads thus:

The Fleet Half Marathon
Show me the map!

This was my first race and a real waypoint with which to judge my speed and my fitness up to now.  So far, I had been following the schedule to the letter, where possible, working hard and feeling the benefits, with the exception of my week off for achilles damage.

Did it pay off?

In short, yes.

And no.

The Fleet Half proved to be my greatest success and, simultaneously, my greatest failure as a runner.  Now, to explain that requires a little background:

Before Fleet, my fastest half marathon had been a 1:50:07 in the Reading Half Marathon in, I believe, 2008.  I had been desperate to break the 1:50 barrier, but was 7 seconds over due to an injury I picked up in the last mile.  I remember being a little downhearted at the time at missing out on my target by just 7 seconds, but figured: what the hell.  Injuries can't be accounted for, it was only 7 seconds and it's not like it'd happen again, right?

Now, fast forward to my current training effort to complete the London Marathon, where, in order to get the marathon time I wanted, I would be expected to come in at under 1:45 for the Fleet Half Marathon a month beforehand.  (Well, actually, dead on 1:45, if we're being picky, but under would be better.)  That's a whole 5 mins (or approx. 24 seconds per mile) faster than I'd ever gone before over the distance and, as anyone who's done it will tell you, knocking the better part of 30 seconds per mile off your pace takes a sodding huge amount of effort.

Still - I'd been training harder than ever before.  Never again would I fail to achieve a target by mere seconds.

On the day of Fleet, me and the prettier half had got there in what we thought was plenty of time, but we hadn't accounted for Fleet's double yellow lines EVERYWHERE.  So, 25mins later, having finally found a place to park, we rounded the corner at the high street to find everyone already lined up and ready to go.  A quick kiss goodbye and off I ran, down the hill to the start line.  10 seconds later (literally 10 seconds later; I'd made it by the skin of my teeth) the gun went off and everyone started to move.  I spent the first mile dancing around people and moving up the order until, eventually, I was in a position to settle back and use my Garmin 405 to monitor my pace.

To complete the race in my target time of 1:45, I had performed a quick calculation.  105 minutes over 13 miles = pretty much dead-on 8mins per mile.  That's what I'd drummed into my head for the last month of training and so that's what I ran.  When I felt bad, I stuck it out at 8mins.  When I felt good, I hung back and carried on at 8mins. 8mins, 8mins, 8mins.  Always.

So 13 miles later, feeling better than I had a right to, I came down the final hill and saw a sign saying 200yds to go.  I looked down at the watch and then it dawned on me:  I was going to go over!  How could I have cocked my time up so badly?!  And so, after 13 miles of relatively quick (for me, at least) running, I put my head down and sprinted the last hundred yards or so in a desperate attempt to get under 1:45.  It wasn't enough:  I came in at 1:45:05.  5 seconds over.  After 13 miles, I was 5 seconds over my target time.  Half a second per mile quicker, and I'd have done it.  (The watch said I'd done it in 1:45:06, but I must have clicked the start before crossing the start line as my official chip time was 1:45:05.)

So I'd completed my fastest ever half marathon and yet I'd failed.  The reason for this failure is simple:  All of my training and pacing was done to reach 13 miles at almost dead-on 1:45.  And I'd done it.  I crossed 13 miles at slightly under 1:45.

The thing I'd forgotten, however, the fly in the ointment that I really should have known, is that a true half marathon is NOT 13 miles.  A true half marathon is 13 miles AND 193 FUCKING YARDS.

In less than 2 hours, I'd gone from optimistic and genuinely excited to furious.  With myself; with the plan; with the people who wouldn't get out of the way on the way back to the car and were going to get a Phil & Ted's buggy up their arse if they didn't move.

Still, after a little while (a matter of hours - I'm not generally despondent for long) I picked myself up with the knowledge that it was still faster than I'd ever gone before and by quite a pace differential as well.  And 5 seconds?  I could easily have made that up.  it wouldn't affect the marathon - I'd adjust and move on.  No mental scars here.

5 seconds, though... Even now, 4 and a half months later, I really can't put into words just how much that still burns.  I'd been the fittest I'd ever been and yet again I'd missed out on a target by 5 seconds.

Part 2 of the catchup will come later, and includes the marathon itself!  For now, leave me with my Fleet-ing tears.  (That last pun was for Nicholas J. Coumbe.)