4/25/10

London Marathon!!!

I woke up at around 5.40am so I could get my breakfast 4 hours before the race. I had some porridge with honey, toast with jam, coffee and orange juice. I sat with Dan and then Richard Nerurkar joined us for a little while. I went back to the room and double checked all my running gear and then headed down to Starbucks to get a big coffee for the ride over to the start. They had set up some tents for the elite athletes and it was great to feel the warmth of the fans they had installed in there. There were a bunch of yoga mats set up on the floor for everyone to sit on and relax before the race. With about 45 mins to the start, I went for a short jog before going through all my stretches. I then put on my waterproof gear as it had started to rain and headed over to the adjacent field to jog for 10 mins. I was feeling good and ready for the race. I went back to the tent and dried off my feet and covered them in vaseline before putting some dry socks on. I then put vaseline on every other part of my body and then headed out to the start. I wanted to wear my new Oakley's but with it being a little darker outside now with the rain I decided against it. I stood on the start line knowing that I was ready to run well and confident with what I had to do over the next couple of hours.

I felt very easy at my desired pace as we ran through the first few miles. This really helped my head as I knew I would need to get through the first half of the race as easily as possible. The 3rd mile is very downhill so it was good to have some time in the bank if we slipped off pace at any time. The crowds were really loud and enthusiastic especially once we passed Cutty Sark. Our splits were fluctuating a little bit which was a little annoying as I prefer to run a steady pace but I don't know if my pace maker had ever done any pacing before. I wasn't confident that he was going to be able to get me through the contracted 20 miles so I decided to leave it for a few miles and then reassess the situation. We got to 10 miles about 10 secs off pace and then came a 5.07 mile so I decided to take off as I didn't want to lose any more time by waiting for the pacer to do his job. I went through the half way point in 65.25 (the pacer went through in 65.45) and was lifted by the support of the crowd crossing over Tower Bridge. I knew I was going to have to dig deep for the rest of the race as I was going to be alone and I was getting to the windy section of the course. There were a lot of corners and straights and it didn't matter what direction I was going in, I was always running into the wind! I really dropped some slow splits here (a few 5.20s and even a 5.30 later on) so I had to refocus and motivate myself and try to keep a good pace. It was pretty demoralising knowing that a fast time was out of reach now and Greg was was bang on the mark when he said that I would really have to start caring after the 20 mile mark. It would have been so easy to stop running and jog it in but my long training runs had set me up for this type of feeling and it was easy to block these thoughts out. The last few miles were a lot easier, mentally as the crowds are there the whole way. Although I wasn't running fast, I was able to dig a little deeper but again, I the headwind was getting stronger all the time. Approaching Big Ben was a great feeling as I knew I only had a few minutes of running left so it felt like the time flew by at this point. Running down Birdcage Walk was great but the crowds weren't being that enthusiastic (I don't think they knew I was British) so on a couple of occasions I put my hands up to my ears to get them going a bit as I would need the help getting to the finish. I felt like I was jogging at this point so it was good to reach the final straight and finally make it though the finish line. I finished in 8th place with a time of 2.13.40. I was really disappointed and I was quite emotional so it took a little while for me to relax and be ready to speak to the BBC. The good thing was that my legs felt fine so I knew there was still a lot left in the tank. This bodes well for my future marathons and I'm already looking forward to the next one. I got a short massage before heading to the bus back to the hotel. The bus actually took us to the river where we got a boat along the river to the front of the hotel. I had a shower (I had no chaffing so the shower was a good one) before heading down to grab some lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and then my friend Andy came and met me and we had a drink down in the bar. There was a banquet at 6pm so I got changed for that and we headed off on the buses to the venue.

The banquet was good and I was presented with the Jim Peter's Trophy for being first Brit. Unfortunately I was starting to get pretty sleepy, as were the others at my table, so we decided to head back around 10.30pm and get to sleep. I passes out right away!

Overall, the experience of the marathon was fantastic. I had so much fun running in front of the home crowd and finishing in the top ten of a major marathon.

I will be continuing the blog but maybe not everyday now as I will be taking a short break now and giving my legs a nice rest. I hope that all of you that were running the marathon had a fantastic day and ran well.

Here is the Glasgow Herald interview with a pretty cool photo: Click Here