I needed to try and fit runs around an increasingly long working day. In the end my chapter at 118118 finished in July and I went on a great summer vacation to celebrate my 40th birthday.
My gorgeous girls! Summer 2010
I played guitar to my close circle of friends and family that night and I had run a marathon.
I play! Oh yes I now play.
Two boxes ticked!
With a period without work on my hands I was running far more than before (4 times per week) and quickly ramping up the miles.
My average pace was coming down to around the 8 minute mark and I got my 10 mile run in before end August. I only ran a 16 miler this time before the big day (which in retrospect was foolhardy) but spent most of my time bettering my 4-6 mile times.
Again I have learned from my mistakes.
2nd October came and Josh and I boarded the Easyjet flight from Luton to Inverness some 4 hours late. During that time I spoke to other runners coming up to do the event, each with their own touching story.
One such story sticks in my mind as he told me all about his wife and her ovarian cancer that ultimately took her life. He was running for her. It gave him a purpose and helped heal the pain. It’s stories such as these that makes running very special. Everyone was a story, a reason for doing it. When you do endurance running it’s not just about getting fit.
Nessie and Josh
We arrived and collected our number chilling out in our hotel eating pizza and Chinese food and watching Hot Tub Time Machine. The good news is I slept. The bad news was that we needed to get the coach from the rugby ground (near our hotel) at 7am! We were going to be late. We ran across the grass and just made it to the coach.
The trip lasted an hour and transported us along the shores of Loch Ness to the start point near Fort Augustus.
When we disembarked, a barren hostile wilderness greeted us. It was cold, windy and it had started to rain…hard!
Freezing cold and bleak! At The Start.
Loch Ness though is special (as is any Scottish Marathon) as the noise of the pipers stirs the soul. The pipers played and marched across the start line. We were off!
The first few miles of the Loch Ness Marathon is downhill which is great as I was fast. Faster than I was at London by 2 and a half minutes per mile. I went through the 13-mile half way point in 1 hour 40 minutes (a good time even now). I was on fire. The pro photos taken at this point make me look as though I’m out for a nice short Sunday jog. Things started to bite hard after that though.
Whilst Loch Ness is beautiful there are hardly any spectators and therefore you find yourself running on your own quite a bit. My pace was dropping by 30 seconds until mile 18 where (as I had been warned) there was a big hill. I tried to run up it but had no choice but to walk a bit, tipping my pace over the 9-minute mile marker. I had no idea what time I was on for but was seriously hoping for a sub 4-hour time.
24 miles came round and we were approaching Inverness again. I could hear the commotion in the distance with the PA system and the thud-thud-thud of dance music and it spurred me on. You have to run into town, over the bridge and then back on yourself. The sun had come out and all the runners were steaming, as the first half had been pretty much torrential rain.
I crossed the bridge and dragged myself towards the finish line and then I saw the time and suddenly the world was a better place. The time on the clock read 3:38. I hadn't just got under 4 hours. I smashed it!
Feeling good at 9 miles
I felt a little out of sorts for a short while but as the weather had been colder I was not dehydrated as in London. A few minutes later I installed myself on a bank to watch the other runners coming in and wait for Josh. Josh had a bad race and came in at 4 hours thirty and was not happy about it at all. I was completely exhausted whilst Josh on the other hand had energy…how?? We had both run the same distance.
Satisfaction!
We went back to the hotel and mercifully they allowed us to wallow in the hot tub. It was there that we discussed the next Marathon…where would it be, how long (we talked Ultras) and when. It’s a weird counter-intuitive thing after you’ve completed a race. You miss the adrenalin rush, the constant nagging in the back of your mind “I MUST run…must keep putting in the miles”.
What comes next? Well a stagger to the train station where we felt it would be an awesome idea to get the overnight Pullman from Inverness to London… “How exciting!” or so I thought.
We had our box ‘o wine and my iPad and we watched Get Him To The Greek and laughed our socks off as our tired and aching muscles ached, twitched and contracted. Then came time to sleep…
Let’s get one thing straight. The Pullman does not take a direct route from Inverness to London…I was checking progress on the GPS and we appeared to zigzag left and right across the country. Was it the plastic mattress, the coupling/de-coupling noises, constant screeching of brakes, loud clackety-clack going through tunnels or all of it? Whatever the reason I had zero sleep. Zero sleep before a marathon I can handle (as I would discover prior to the San Sebastian Marathon…more on that later). I tumbled out of the train at 7am at Kings Cross and the two of us, like battle worn soldiers braved the morning rush hour. It was hellish and when my lovely wife, Nicole picked us up from Hatch End,
I nearly passed out.
Moral of the story: Ensure you have comfort at the start AND end of your marathon journey. It is vital for body and mind.
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