At 8.40am on Sunday morning, my brother and I got on the train from Sevenoaks to Hastings. It was a glorious day and I felt pretty good… I think I still had the mentality from last year that a half marathon wasn’t actually that far. Everything went smoothly and for the first time ever I got to the start of a race on time… that was the hard bit over, I told myself.

The race went well for the first 250 metres… and then we hit the first hill. My brother tore off up it and that was the last I saw of him! Perhaps I would have to let him win this one. I kept up a steady plod and resolved that no matter what, I would not walk. At about the 2-mile mark I started to get quite demoralised… it had been uphill all the way and I knew from last year that it would continue to be uphill until around the 7 mile mark. I felt drained of energy and the sun on my back was sapping my strength… how could March be this hot? The next three miles were a real slog and my pace gradually dropped.

Somehow I made it to the five mile mark and the interminable uphill slope became an interminable uphill slope with a few flat bits thrown in. My spirits started to rise as the half way point beckoned. I was able to lengthen my stride when it was flat and I would feel fine until the slightest incline reduced me to back down to near-walking pace. The problem was that there seemed to be no power or spring left in my legs at all… it was like running with a 20kg backpack on.

At last half way! My watch read 52 minutes. Not too bad I thought to myself… and the hard bit was over! I kept up a good pace as we headed back down towards sea level. Occasionally we would hit another uphill bit and each time it reduced me to a crawl… It soon became apparent that gravity was the only thing keeping me going.

The last three miles were along the sea front… it was beautiful, it was flat and there were loads of supporters cheering us on. But I was almost dead. Each mile seemed longer than the last and even the fact that I was approaching the end couldn’t raise my spirits or my pace. I had no energy left and people all around were overtaking me.

With about 250m I perked up a bit and made a last ditch effort to get to the finish line before collapsing. I spotted my brother cheering me on from the side… he looked very fresh.

I crossed the line and stopped my watch. My time was 1:42.14. I then lay on the ground for a very long time.

My brother sidled up to me with a smug expression on his face… he had got 1:27! Amazing considering that in cross country the most they run is 10km!

I was in quite a lot of pain for the rest of the day but it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to know that my brother was in more pain! He had blisters covering the arches of both feet and had managed to bruise the soles of his feet as well… that’ll teach him to run so fast.

It all started with an innocuous phone call in early September… “would you like to run the marathon for DSWF again?” What a brilliant idea I thought… it was the first week of my new job and this would give me some incentive to stay fit… I would also get another shot at trying to break the 3 hour mark. “Sure! Sign me up!” I said. That was before I found out about my new job’s infamous “Busy Season” between January and March.

So now it is early March and my training is yet to begin. I haven’t done any exercise since October and I can count the number of runs I have done since the last marathon on one hand! By this time last year I had already done two months intensive training. Things aren’t looking good. All thoughts of beating my last time are out the window… this is just going to be about survival!

Training starts Monday.

But it wasn’t long before I started asking myself what I could have done better… I knew there wasn’t much more I could have done on race day, but in training for my first marathon, what did I do right and what did I do wrong?

I was pretty happy with my time of 3:07, but I know I could have done better if I had trained slightly differently. For three quarters of the marathon, things were fine, but I crashed badly in the last quarter. In fact, that last quarter was easily the most painful thing I have ever done… I had no idea it would be anything like that!

Here’s a breakdown of my splits:
0-10km: 42mins
10-20km: 40mins
20-30km: 43mins
30-40km: 53mins
If only I had been able to maintain that pace in the last quarter!

My marathon training consisted of a lot of intense cardiovascular sessions… runs that were 1 hour or less and very fast. I think this would have been good half marathon training but I now realise I should have put a lot more emphasis on the long runs. I had traded run-length for intensity and found out that it didn’t work like that. Simply put, my legs weren’t conditioned to run the distance.

My training had been effective in some ways; at no point did my stamina limit me… even during the last 6 miles, as I was munching away on sweets, my heart rate and breathing weren’t laboured. But all of the stamina in the world won’t help if your legs stop working! So my lesson to everyone is… there is no substitute for long runs! (But I suppose you already knew that)

I am definitely going to run the Marathon again. And I am going to do plenty of 20 mile+ runs… I will have the fear of that pain to motivate me!

The Isle of Dogs was not my favourite part of the run; the atmosphere was a bit subdued (maybe because of the rain), it was grey and long. The state of my legs was gradually deteriorating, but I seemed to be maintaining my pace. 20km – 30km took 43 minutes. Only one hour left…

At around 21miles, the wall loomed; my legs weren’t just aching anymore, they were hurting. Gradually over the next few miles, one muscle after the other would start to hurt. The pain felt like they had permanent cramp. My pace started to drop dramatically. I turned my watch over and decided not to look at it again. At the same time, a curious thing happened… I got the munchies! I couldn’t pass someone who was holding out food without grabbing something… gummy bears, oranges, mars bars… they were all that was keeping me going!

I got a slight lift as I was running past Tower Bridge as I could see all of the slower runners going the other way… thank god I wasn’t back there again! As I continued along the embankment, the pain continued to get worse, but the mile markers continued to count down. The two offset each other and somehow I kept going. I knew that if I stopped for an instant, my legs would lock up so I just kept going… I felt like I was in a trance.

30km-40km took 53 minutes… slow! But now there was only 2km left now. I turned the corner at Westminster. 1 mile to go. The crowd was fantastic but I seemed removed from it all. I couldn’t feel the pain anymore… all I had was the anticipation of finishing. The countdown markers came rapidly now. 800m left, 400m left… less than 1 minute to go. I turned the corner at Buckingham Palace and mustered a feeble sprint finish for the line. I crossed it and forgot to smile for the camera.

My watch read 3:07:44.

The moment I stopped running my legs almost collapsed from under me. As I staggered forward I felt like my legs weren’t even a part of my body. I could hardly walk. How had I been able to run on these? I looked around me, no one seemed as bad as me!

I inched forward, all I wanted was to lie down. I got given a goodie bag but I didn’t have the strength to look inside. A kind lady offered to unwrap my silver blanket for me… I have never been so grateful! The walk to pickup my bag was interminable… there were so many trucks! This bit was as bad as the final 3 miles! Somehow I made it. At the end I was met by my parents and they took care of me… helping me get my tracksuit on, take off my squelching trainers and feeding me energy food.

After I had sat against the base of a tree for a bit, we moved over to Birdcage Walk to wait for my sister.

Despite my best efforts I was late to the start as usual. This time it was the toilet queue. I thought queuing up for the toilet almost an hour in advance of the start would be safe timing… an hour later I was jogging to the start line, 2 minutes after the race had started. I jumped in as near to the front as I could and crossed the line about five minutes into the race. It was not the most composed start ever but I am getting used to bad starts.

The first few miles went incredibly quickly… I can hardly remember them! There was obviously a fair bit of dodging and weaving but at least the roads were nice and wide. I cruised along, enjoying the atmosphere, the music blaring out from the pubs, the crowds shouting my name… I even indulged in a few high fives with kids who where sticking their hands out into the stream of runners.

After a few miles I was able to go my own pace without people getting in my way. I reached the 10km mark in 42 minutes… perfect! I was on target for a good time, I still felt fresh and the crowd I was with were running at a good pace.

Time marched on and then, at one of the refuelling stations, I got hit by a half full Lucazade carton that somebody was trying to lob off to the side. Luckily I was already wet from the rain. In fact, I was already soaked… I had stood in a few puddles and my feet were squelching. This angered me a lot and I cursed the bad weather… in hind site though, the fact that it was cool probably helped more than my squelching feet hindered.

10km – 20km took 40 minutes. Excellent! Or was I running too fast? I hit the half marathon point at 1:27… my new half marathon PB! At 15miles my legs started to ache. Things went down hill from there…

To be continued…

In the meantime, here is a photograph of me taken just after the end of the race. It is titled “what a mess“!

…not bad for my first attempt but I am going to have to come back next year and break the 3-hour mark.

Amazingly, my official result is already on the London Marathon website… here’s a link to the results:

It was an amazing experience and thanks to all those people who turned up and lent their support… despite the rain, the atmosphere was great!

I decided to kit myself out for the London Marathon day itself. I started by getting the official London Marathon / Adidas singlet and a nice pair of (slightly skimpy) Adidas running shorts. I then paid £7.00 to have ‘MarathonBlog.co.uk’ printed on the back of my new singlet! Now you will be able to spot me on the big day! I also bought a dryfit t-shirt and got ‘MarathonBlog.co.uk’ printed on that too… I shall wear it on all my Hyde Park training runs. Finally I got an official London Marathon Fleece.

Other than that I have just been sitting around and eating pasta! All I can do now is wait…