And so, after all those months of training race day was finally upon me. I always knew that after picking up an injury so late on in my training build up that I'd lost a significant amount of fitness but I had no idea how far behind I was until I got half way through the this years London marathon. For me the race became a different run altogether, a test of endurance, mental as much as physical far greater than I originally anticipated.
The day began with clouded skies and a heavy downpour, something that came as a welcome surprise to all of us gathering on Blackheath Common after all the predictions of record high temperatures and burning hot sunshine. If the forecasters had been right the weather would have been a marathon runners worst nightmare. But the weather spirits were kind to us, giving us just enough rain to keep it cool without being too damp for the start of the race.
I joined my start group in pen 3 and immediately felt out of place. Looking at the the runners around me I could see they were more toned and more focused than myself. I knew I was way too far forward in the start and I was going to get in the way of the other runners.
I had decided to not try and run an 8 minute mile pace, that would have been stupid, so my plan was to set off and settle as quickly as possible into a comfortable pace closer to 8:20/mile and as the race started I very quickly found a relatively decent pace to go along with. I passed the first mile mark at 8 minutes 24, way over my original 3:30 target pace but close enough to a 3:35 finish to make it up over the second half of the race if I felt capable of doing so. That was my plan, to stay within reach of beating my personal best without setting off too quickly and doing myself in.
I continued, enjoying the support and the occasion, even through those early stages the crowds lining the street are quite vocal and larger that I remembered from my previous race. I kind of forgot about my running for a bit, just drifting along quite happily and I crossed the three mile mark just 40 seconds off the pace, I felt quite comfortable.
As I ran through Charlton I was careful to not get too confident, I passed the 5 mile marker more quickly than I ought to have done reducing my time deficit to only 14 seconds so I decided to ease off over the next mile or so completing the first 10km in an unspectacular but reasonable 52 minutes. I passed the famous Cutty Sark, still boarded up and no more than a pile of scaffolding at the moment, turning into Deptford and heading towards Surrey Quays my pace still a good 40 second off but well within reach. 40 seconds down is not too bad, I had just passed the eight mile marker and I still felt comfortable.
The first sign of trouble came around mile 10. I became aware of a tightness in my right calf muscle, something that originally appeared during my training and my physio suggested was a sign that I was in some way over-compensating for the injury I'd incurred on my left side. I immediately slowed down, even considering stopping to stretch it but deciding against it I carried on, trying to stay relaxed, trying to keep my rhythm going. The tightness in my calf stayed about the same but I was aware that had really slowed down, I was now a good minute and a half off my pace but I knew that it was better to slow down at that stage in the race rather than suffer later on.
The crowds along Jamaica road were amazing much larger that I remembered from my previous London Marathon. All the way from Rotherhithe and Bemondsey to Tower Bridge, every inch of space lining the route was taken. The noise was incredible.
Over Tower bridge I ran, crossing that halfway point at a stately 1 hour 55 minutes. I comforted myself that this was a similar time I crossed the halfway point as I did the last time I ran the London marathon but the ache on my calf muscle grew worse and I knew as I approached the 14th mile that something was very wrong and it wasn't going to get better. Again, I slowed down.
It was like a chain reaction, what started as a dull ache became a sharp pressure in my Achilles. Then I started to develop a pain in my piriformis muscle, everything was starting to feel like it was closing up. It was becoming hard to concentrate on anything other than the growing pain, I was stiffening up, losing my form.
It was about at that point that I passed the water station manned by the children from the school I work in. Just seeing them gave me such a lift, I completely forgot about the pain for a minute or two. There's nothing like seeing people you know by the side of the course, friends, colleagues, family, close ones to give you support. Years after a race like the marathon, when you close your eyes, you can still see the look on their faces the moment when they see you pass by, a look of sheer joy and elation.
Just after I left Narrow Street and tuned right into the underground roundabout as I entered The Isle of Dogs. There were a few runners by the side of the road stretching their calf muscles, I decided to try and do the same. The stretch seemed to do some good but not for long, soon the pain came back, soon I stopped again, another stretch. I manages to make it to Mudchute where I stopped by a medic and had an emergency sports massage. Again this pit stop served to alleviate the pain slightly but as I passed Cross harbour my Piriformis decided to join the shut down party, producing a pain not unlike being injected with an inappropriately large, rusty, six inch nail inserted very slowly and under great pressure into my lower back. Just at that point I looked at my watch and three hours passed by. My race was over.
I was in a strange state of mind; on the one hand all was lost, there was no way I was going to finish the race in less that four hours and mentally I was shot. I had to think really hard and really fast, I had to very quickly set myself a new target. On the other hand there's something to be said for the sporting cliché, "dig deep". I started shouting at myself, motivating myself, 9 miles to go, I can run 9 miles, easy, that's less than the run home from work I was doing during my training all winter. Take each mile one at a time, beak each mile down into sections. I just had to finish, that would be my target, I wanted that finishers medal more than anything in the world, I visualised the medal hanging around my neck, holding the medal, crossing the finish line, that was my motivation
By the time I rounded Canery Warf I could only run for about two minutes before my leg stopped working, I don't mind admitting it but I wanted to do nothing more than stop. Just as I turned to head towards Billingsgate there was a Saint John's medical centre, There were a couple of runners who had already decided enough was enough, sitting there in the warm sunshine receiving a massage, a cold drink in hand. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me but I'm sure they were listening to some relaxing music. It looked like heaven.
And that is pretty much how the rest of my race went on, the pain grew increasingly debilitating, making it only possible to run for shorter and shorter periods. I counted from one to a hundred, running for a hundred seconds, walking for a hundred seconds. I counted down the miles, shouting the number out loud, I just had to keep going, I tried walking faster, continuing to push myself as hard as I possibly could. I was constantly being passed by other runners, but there were others suffering like myself. i managed to strike up a few conversations as I went along.
If there was any advantage to be found in the pain I was forcing myself to go through, it was that I really got to appreciate the enormity of the crowd, the support was absolutely huge. Every now and again people would see me walking, "COME ON RICHARD", "KEEP GOING! NOT FAR TO GO NOW, YOU'RE DOING GREAT!" The spectators really did help me through it.
I passed under the 25 mile maker, along The Embankment, the Houses of Parliament in view, people screaming my name, verbally pushing me along. I was determined to run across the finish line. I hobbled onto bird cage walk, I saw a man collapsed by the side of the road, what a place to collapse I thought, virtually in sight of the finish.
I rounded onto The Mall and there it was, the end. I really was in a state of complete agony, I could barely walk let alone run but I forced one more jog out of me, I made it over the line and nearly fell over. I'd done it, ironically I very nearly walked straight past the woman handing out the medals.
I decided as soon as I crossed the finish line that I wouldn't even think about how the race had gone, I was just so pleased to have finished. As a spectator over the years I had seen runners in my position and now I know exactly what they were going through.
I was hours off my race target time finally crossing the line with a time of 5:02. This time though, I was more proud of my performance than when I got my personal best. It was, in a way, what marathon running is all about. It takes a lot of guts to run a marathon, anyone that runs this race will at some point want to stop. Part of running a marathon is dealing with the voices inside that want you to give up, I had to convince myself that giving up wasn't an option.
At the end of the race, just like the last time I ran the marathon, just like the last time I ran a half marathon or just like the last time I ran any other race, as soon as I crossed the finish line there was only one thought going through my mind...
"I can do better than that".
See you next year London.
No comments:
Post a Comment