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.