We did it!!

On Sunday, I ran the London Marathon! We got up at some excruciatingly early time of the morning and set off for Greenwich Park. The atmosphere on the train was one of trepidation and excitement, and more than once I wanted to scream "Let me off, there's been some mistake, I can't do a marathon!" When we arrived in the park, we discovered that the charity meeting point was inside a Red Start runners only area, which meant I couldn't get in, being a Blue Start person. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending how you look at it), the Hearing Dogs staff and photographer couldn't get in either, so all the Red Start people had to come out again for photos.

After the pictures, James and I went our separate ways to the Red and Blue Starts, respectively, and I went through the usual race day rigmarole of queueing for the loo, dropping my bag onto the baggage truck and listening to the truly appalling PA announcements, which appeared to be being made by a chap who had lost his job at a local radio station (they couldn't possibly still be employing him - Mara Yamauchi (mah-rah ya-ma-oo-chee) was rechristened Maria Yamorshi and I don't think he realised that there had been so much hype about her ash-cloud hampered journey to the start line that she had become quite famous even outside running circles and so his mispronunciation was cringeworthy in the extreme).

It only took me about 10 minutes to get over the start line, even though I was starting pretty much from the back of the pack. The first thing to strike me on the run was the amazing crowd support. People had come out in their thousands to watch. You often see on the television that the areas around the main sights are thronged with spectators, but the really impressive crowds were rather those people who had come out of their houses to line the route along the mainly residential stretches. The first really loud cheers came from a large Sikh community in Woolwich, who had a few stereos blaring with Indian music and everyone from tiny babies to grannies screaming at people to keep running. All the way round, the crowds were really generous - there were so many people who had gone to the trouble of buying jelly babies and other sweeties, or making cakes and biscuits, for the runners to take; just having a cheering crowd is great, but that extra little bit of effort is actually quite moving. I also had a great time giving "high fives" to all the kids that were lining the route; the only problem was, I realised, that I was speeding up to run past them and going well ahead of my scheduled pace as a result, which I paid for later.

At this point, it is worth mentioning my "three things I'm extremely glad I did" - the first is wearing my sunglasses. I had ummed and ahhed about whether to wear them for quite a long time - the weather had been forecast to be hot and fairly sunny, but then it was really cloudy and raining on Sunday morning, so I thought perhaps I wouldn't need them. I was persuaded otherwise and was glad I listened! The second thing is having my name on my running vest. It had taken me and James some time to iron the letters on (the Hearing Dogs logo had stuck to the iron, my name was too long to fit in the space and my "H" didn't want to stick) but we got there in the end and to have people shouting out your name as you run past them is an incredible boost. The third thing I was glad of is that I wore my Hearing Dogs ears. They were just a couple of flaps of brown fur fabric attached to an alice band, but they gave people something to notice and cheer about ("Nice ears!") and, bizarrely, made a pretty good towel for wiping my brow and my shades.

To be honest, I can't remember all that much about the rest of the race. I remember bumping into another Hearing Dogs runner, Lorna, who informed me that she had passed James at mile 2; she and I ran round the Cutty Sark together and then she sped off into the distance. I remember running around Rotherhithe with Nadia Sawalha and her mate Julia (not her sister of the same name). Nadia is without a doubt one of the funniest women I have ever met - she had everyone in stitches and was asking the supporters for vodka and tonic at every pub we passed. I remember running across Tower Bridge. Apparently I was on the television at this point, if anyone was watching via the red button. One of the roving reporters was interviewing a lady who was probably a good twice my age, maybe two and a half times, and I grinned and waved in the background. I got around the docklands (the darkest moment of the marathon for me - not many supporters and a seemingly never-ending winding route - they fit about six or seven miles into a relatively small corner of London) with my two new Hearing Dogs buddies, Esther and Hayley, who I had bumped into along the way, and then went back down the Highway in Wapping to see my friends at the Fetchpoint. The Fetchpoint, to the uninitiated, is the cheering HQ of the "Fetch Everyone" website, which is the website that James and I use to log our training and talk with like-minded people about running related things. I had pre-ordered a carbohydrate gel and some jelly babies from my support team, but when I got there I found myself completely unable to talk. I hadn't realised until that moment that my brain had left the building, but I had lost it altogether. I managed a vague "Ugh" and the lady known on the website as "B-Lass" came to the rescue by realising who I was and handing my a bag with my name on it. The lady known as "Enthusiastic!", realising I had gone completely ga-ga, asked "do you think she needs a biscuit?" - oh yes, I needed a biscuit! A few minutes later, after I had consumed my spoils from the Fetchpoint, my mind began to clear and I noticed I wasn't all that far from the finish. I think it was at this point that I realised that I was actually going to finish the race. Another mile or so down the road, I passed the cheerpoint for Hearing Dogs, where my friends Farah, Hervé and Antoine were stationed - seeing them and getting a hug was all I needed for the final push to the Mall and to cross the finish line in floods of tears (another reason why the shades were a good idea!) My time was 6:42:56 - a bit longer than I had hoped for, but my intention was always just to get round (and I beat Jordan's time from last year, so that's OK). And yes, I beat James.

After the race, we went to the reception held by Hearing Dogs for all their runners. This picture is of a very broken me and James with our medals and a Hearing Dog called Fern.



Five days later, I'm still recovering. I've done something to my foot, but I don't think it's life-threatening, and I have bruises from Wednesday's sports massage (apparently I have a very high pain threshold, but unfortunately I bruise really easily). Now, being able to reflect upon what I have achieved, not just on Sunday but also over the last six months (I've just done a quick calculation and I ran 350 miles, including the race!), I think it is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'm not sure that I'm planning to do another marathon in the near future, but I'll never say never....

Now it's time to say a few thank yous. The first and biggest has to be to everyone who has sponsored us - your pledges and donations were the reason for my hauling myself around the course. Every time I thought I couldn't do it, in training or in the race, I would think of the amount of money we were raising for Hearing Dogs and the amount of good it would do. I'd like to thank everyone who sent us good luck wishes, asked us about our training and generally supported us along the way - we had messages from Cape Town and California and from Ohio and Swansea and pretty much everywhere in between. Thanks also to those people who cheered us on at the race, whether in person or by watching it on the telly - it really made a difference to feel that people were behind us all the way.

If you haven't quite got around to sponsoring us (or you wanted to wait to see if we'd finish!), it's not too late to make a donation. Our fundraising page at http://www.justgiving.com/bbjamarathon will be open to take your cash for a while yet. If you made a pledge to give us money on completing the race (i.e. via a paper sponsor form or by e-mailing me), then I will be in touch shortly to arrange how I can extract the cash from you!!

Once again, a massive thank you to everyone for your support - we couldn't have done it without you!

The Night Before the Morning After

So folks, this is it. I've eaten my pasta, ironed my name onto my running vest and put my timing chip onto my shoes. The next time I write, I will be a marathon-runner. Don't worry if you haven't managed to sponsor us yet - there's still plenty of time and our fundraising page will be open for a while after the event.

We'd like to thank everyone who has sponsored us and also everyone who has sent us their good wishes and asked how the training has been going throughout the past 6 months.

Watch this space, and we'll update you on how we got on as soon as we can walk as far as the computer!!

With a Spring in my Step

It seems that spring has finally sprung - no, this doesn't mean the grass is riz or any such nonsense, it simply means I'm wearing three-quarter length running tights rather than full length ones. See, look at the picture, it's spring.

It's now less than two weeks to go until race day and I've been tapering like a good'un. I ran 12 miles yesterday, all on my own (his lordship's knee is still playing up, although better than it was), across the bottom edge of Hampstead Heath, down Rosslyn Hill into Camden, along the Regent's Canal to Angel, through Angel (where the Islington Tunnel is on the canal, meaning you have to come off the towpath or swim in the dark), back onto the canal and along it for another couple of miles and then back to Angel and home through Barnsbury. The good weather meant there were far more people about than usual, and most of them were in my way.

On the canal towpath, between Camden and Angel, there was a group of people sitting having a drink and a chat - they looked like the type who are usually found in rock clubs and are members of CAMRA - and as I came up to them, one of them held out his can of beer for me as though I was coming to a water station. I didn't take him up on the offer, but it did make me laugh.

Our fundraising total has increased slightly since my last post - we're up to £2,200.33 now (if someone could sponsor us something ending in 67p, we'd be very grateful!) With only 13 sleeps until race day, we're up for a final fundraising push now, so please visit our justgiving page and give us all your money. Yes, all of it. Every single last penny (or 67p as previously discussed). If you don't, I will think you are a toad, like this one:


Thanks!!

It's all downhill from here...

So, we are now officially into the taper period, that bit just before the race where you don't do too much training so that you're nice and fresh for race day. There's slightly less than three weeks to go and we're on course for our big challenge.

James actually went to see the knee medic about his knee. The conclusion was that he has an injured knee. He's tried running on it a few times and it's still hurting quite a lot, so he's going to take it easy up to race day and hope it will hold up for the marathon distance - he's sure it will, just don't expect him to be able to walk for some time afterwards!

We've just started house-hunting, so today I ran 11 miles up and down the Harringay Ladder which, to the uninitiated, is an area of London where the streets look like a ladder on the map, climbing up out of Finsbury Park. I hadn't quite reckoned on how hilly it was going to be - the two side pieces of the ladder (do they have a name? I'm sure they ought to, but I don't know what it is) are at completely different elevations, meaning that all the "rungs" (now, I do know that word!) go uphill or downhill, depending which direction you are going in, obviously. The method in my madness was to take a look from the outside at a couple of houses we had seen for sale on the internet and see what else was out there. I'm sure the local residents were wondering what I was doing - it must have looked a bit odd. I was also competing for pavement space with a few door-to-door charity collectors, some of whom I passed several times (yes, I was going considerably faster than them, but I ran the ladder twice!)

We would still love to raise tome more money - you can do that by going to this site.

Beware the Knee of Doom

First, the good news (and exceedingly good news it is!) - we have hit the £2k mark and our fundraising total currently stands at £2,055.33. For this I must say a big thank you to my parents for organising an army of sponsors and helping them to put their sponsorship onto our fundraising page. Ta Ma & Pa. Of course, thanks also to everyone else who has sponsored us!

The bad news is that James has hurt his knee. It isn't even Man Knee (or whatever the patellar equivalent of Man Flu is). In fact, it is so bad that he is going to see the physio on Friday. We are hoping, of course, that the physio will say "stop being a wuss and get on with it", but the worst case scenario is that I will beat James in the marathon because he will have to jog/walk/crawl. If, on the other hand, the physio says he will be fine to run the marathon so long as he doesn't run for the next two weeks, I will then face the prospect of doing "the 20-miler" on my own. This is quite a daunting prospect, even though I ran all the way to Ikea on my own at the weekend. I bought a nice bath mat in a lovely sage green colour. Running to somewhere in particular is actually quite a good way to get around. I didn't beat the bus to Ikea or anything, but it wasn't that much slower really. I'm not sure where I will go for my 20 mile run. I'm quite tempted to get public transport to somewhere 20 miles away and just run home so I can then immediately sit on my lovely new sofa (if I can get the cat off it - he seems to think we bought it especially for him!)

I think that's all for now - updates on "Kneegate" will be forthcoming toward the end of the week - and, in the meantime, if you would like to sponsor James' knee to get better, please visit our fundraising page!

One Month and Counting

I really can't believe it - there is now just one month to go until the marathon. In fact, as I'm writing this at 7 pm, I'm hoping that one month from now I will be sitting down somewhere warm and dry with a pint of Hoegaarden in front of me, having completed the challenge I set myself a year ago (effectively, since that's when the ballot entries opened). I will be basking in the glory of my achievement and flashing my medal at all whom I meet. In truth, I shall probably be in agony and slightly delirious. I will have started hallucinating around the 20-mile mark and, hopefully, will have not given in to the huge temptation to stop and sit down when I hit "The Wall" - the point when your muscles realise they have no glycogen left to burn and you are forced to survive the last few miles fuelled by fat stores and adrenalin. In my last post, I mentioned wanting to get on with it - now I really do want to just get on with it. I probably need these last few weeks of training if I'm to do my best, but equally I have surpassed the minimum training distance that all the books and plans say you must have achieved in order to get round a marathon, so bring it on!

By the way, the picture's of our cat, Ozzy, telling us exactly what he thinks of this running malarkey!

One of my friends, on reading about our Kilomathon exploits, complained to me that it was us two who prevented him from leaving his house that Sunday. I responded that it clearly was just James and me who had caused this inconvenience as we had run past his house, put on an invisibility cloak and run back again and then repeated this process several thousand times with the sole purpose of annoying him. I'm not sure where exactly he lives, but I think it's more at the Derby end than the Nottingham end of the run and the likelihood of me being able to perform such a feat having run 15-odd miles is pretty small. And my invisibility cloak hasn't arrived from Amazon yet.

Another friend asked me the other day why I'd chosen to run one of the longest marathons. After a 15 minute discussion on the history of the marathon distance (more on that later) it was clear that she still did not quite get it that in order for it to be called a marathon, it had to be a distance of 26 miles 385 yards. Anything less than this was *not* a marathon and anything more than this was also *not* a marathon, but could be classed as an *ultra* marathon. The thought did cross my mind that, in terms of time, at least, London is one of the longest marathons - because they still allow people to record a time up to 9 hours after the start (and in special circumstances, several weeks later!), whereas other marathons have a cut-off after 5 or 6 hours, it is possible to make the London marathon last longer and still count as a finisher. Talk about getting value for money...!

I said above that I would provide more on the history of the marathon distance. I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs of it (primarily because I can't be bothered, but also because there isn't really any concrete information on the distance of the original marathon) but when the marathon was introduced to the modern era Olympic Games in 1896 it was run over a course of about 40km or 25 miles. When the Games were staged in London in 1908, a series of problems (protests that in the last few miles the runners would have to negotiate tram lines and cobblestones) and royal requests meant that the distance was lengthened to 26 miles 586 yards, which comprised 26 miles from the King's private terrace at Windsor Castle to the new White City Stadium, plus a 586 yard lap of the stadium track to finish under the Royal Box in view of Queen Alexandra. In the end, it was discovered that the planned use of the royal entrance to the stadium wouldn't work as there was in fact no access to the track (!) so it was decided to use a different entrance and have the runners go the "wrong" (clockwise) way round the track to finish under the royal box. This reduced the planned distance to 26 miles 385 yards, a completely arbitrary measurement which was eventually adopted by the International Amateur Athletic Federation in 1921 as the official marathon distance. Two of the most important course-lengthening elements were included at the whim of Queen Alexandra - the start on the King's private terrace (so the royal children could look on) and the finish under the Royal Box (so that the Queen herself could see) - and it is for this reason that I, along with thousands of others, will be shouting "God save the Queen" as I go through the 25-mile mark; this has become traditional, as without the meddling of Queen Alexandra, we would all be finishing at that point!

A final thought for this post (before I tell you to sponsor us again) - yet another friend has said that she has enjoyed reading this blog while we've been training for the marathon, so I have to take on another challenge when I've done it so that I can keep blogging. I've thought about swimming the Channel (though I imagine (hope) I'm allergic to goosefat or wetsuits or something) and I've thought about doing an Ironman triathlon (but I can't ride a bike, at least not very well, so that could be tricky)- if you have any ideas of what I could do next, let me know - answers on a postcard...

Oh, er, and PLEASE SPONSOR US!! We're up to £1909.33 now - not far to go to that magical £2,000 mark!

Kilomathon!

We're back! We've had a couple of weeks away from ye olde blog due to quite a few other things going on (mostly me going to Chicago and then both of us going to Manchester immediately thereafter). While I was in Chicago, I did manage to get a run in around the Millennium Park, taking in Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" sculpture (the Bean) and the Crown Fountain. It was a bit nippy, but at least the snow had been pushed off the paths.

Since we last wrote, we've had a few upheavals in our training regime caused by illness and injury and by James having a new job in Swindon, meaning it is no longer possible for him to get up an hour earlier to run in the morning (he would then technically be getting up before he went to bed). So, I've started running to work and he is now running in the evenings. We're still doing (or attempting to do) our long runs together at the weekends.

This last weekend, we went up to Derby to see my folks because it was my Mum's birthday and Mother's Day (and the dog's birthday!) and to take part in the world's first Kilomathon. What, I hear you cry, is a Kilomathon? It is, apparently, the "perfect race distance" - 26.2km, the same number of kilometres as there are miles in a marathon, which equates to about 16.3 miles. I beg to differ about the perfect race distance thing because I fail to see how anything longer than about a mile could be considered perfect. Well, anyway, perfect or not, the course was 26.2km long and went from Nottingham University to Alvaston Park in Derby. That's right, from Nottingham to Derby. From one city to another city. I ran that far. If you're in any way interested, you can see the route by following this link - if you do take a sneaky-peeky, you will notice that the net elevation of the race was uphill, making it even harder, obviously.

The weather was pretty good and the support from the local people on the course was fantastic - I would like to extend particular thanks to (a) the good people of Sawley, who made sure I didn't go the wrong way at a bit that wasn't signposted or marshalled and (b) the good people of Borrowash, who had come out in force to cheer on the runners and really made a difference to my mood. Although I was pretty near the back of the pack for most of the race, I was well in front of the feared sweeper bus, the purpose of which was to pick up anyone too knackered or injured to keep to a pace faster than 15 minutes per mile. I was also able to pick off many of the said knackered and injured people in the closing stages and finish with a veritable horde behind me in 3:48:48.


James was, as usual, a lot quicker than me, but the difference was diminished by his knee injury from the previous day when Emma the greyhound tripped him over while they were racing each other round the 5-a-side pitch (interesting training technique, racing a greyhound). His finishing time was 3:06:10 (or 3:06:09 if you believe his Garmin rather than the official time). We both really enjoyed the race and would certainly consider doing it again - in spite of the net uphill elevation, the course was actually remarkably flat for most of the way and took in a fair amount of pretty countryside and quaint villages. The organisation was generally pretty good, too, and there were armies of helpers from the Air Cadets and Rainbows hospice charity who worked together really well.


Our next racing challenge is now the London Marathon itself. Part of me just wants to get on with it now. There are less than 6 weeks to go and I'm already looking forward to the post-race sports massage at the Directors' Institute on Pall Mall!

Our fundraising has come on a bit in the last week or so. We are now at £1829.33 - our next big target is the £2k mark; could you be the one to get us there? You can sponsor us by clicking here. Thank you for all your support and good wishes!!