I did it! I have finally fulfilled one of my all-time ambitions. I have run the London Marathon. Not any old 26.2 miles – the LONDON Marathon.
This race has held an odd place in my heart since I first saw it on the telly when I was a kid. I say an ‘odd’ place because, as those who know me will vouch, I am not a runner. More comfort than speed if you know what I mean. Yet for some inexplicable reason I have never been able to get the idea out of my head. I have always wanted to run the London Marathon.
Then a little serendipity last year when, within a week or two of each other, I photographed this auspicious race (on behalf of the Hearing Dogs) and Chris ‘Sensei’ Fensom – a Karate and Fitness Trainer. And before I knew it I had lined up a charity runner place along with a first-class trainer. And blimey did I need it.
So roll the clock forward 12 months and here we are sitting on the other side of one of my life’s ambitions.
The ‘race’ (this is surely a loose term for the carnival that paraded/jogged/limped/danced/skipped its way through London’s historic sights) was nothing like I had expected. Nothing.
You can train to run a distance, as I have proved, but you cannot predict stepping from an empty tube platform onto a train crammed full of athletic-looking runners all with their bright red kit bags and well-toned bodies. I had my heart monitor on by then and I noted with a degree of alarm that my heart rate had already shot off to 110bpm – and I was doing nothing but holding onto a hand rail! I couldn’t believe how fit everyone looked and how un-ready I began to feel!
Still, I am nothing if not head-strong so I figured I would manage it somehow.
Then you arrive at Blackheath and the party really starts. Though if you’re looking to go to the loo I would allow a lot of time for queuing!
And queuing was the theme for much of the day! Even the start line – it took 25 minutes to get to the line itself after the race had begun – was a long queue paraded past crowds of enthusiastic supporters on the other side of a high fence. It did feel, just a little, like poor suckers being roared into an arena for the joy of the crowd. All it needed was Julius Caesar to preside over things for it to be complete!
Still, once we were running the party began. And boy was it a party! Not that you got to talk to anyone of course, it was all I could do to focus on the road ahead, but with the bands, cheerleaders, barbecues, an enthusiastic Catholic priest with his Holy Water, fancy dress runners and London’s glorious backdrop and people it was a festival to end all festivals!
And it’s just as well that it’s like that as I had no idea how long 26.2 miles really is. I had run 20 as part of my training (yes, that hurt too) but it turns out that each individual mile after that felt more like 5 or 6. My favourite sign in the crowd? The one at 21 miles that simply said ‘Cold Beer 5.2 miles’. I held that picture in my head for the next 50 minutes. Genius.
We probably had more support there than anyone I know with friends and family (thank you!!!) coming from all over and watching it on the TV. Did I see them? No. Did they seem me? Nope. Bugger. But with a crowd of 40,000 people running past a crowd of probably millions, maybe I should have worn something a little more stylish. Like a PacMan outfit or the Eiffel Tower maybe. Still just knowing they were in the crowd was support enough. Every time I felt rubbish, I simply pictured one of them there and figured I couldn’t stop. Stopping would be a failure and, besides, too many people had sponsored me, encouraged me, put up with me, trained me, massaged me, laughed at me, worried about me to not make it.
Oh, and just to make things more interesting of course, I carried one of my cameras and a couple of lenses with me. In my fantasy I imagined I’d stop and take award-winning press-style images full of grit and theater but the reality was that once I started running I was not going to a) stop or b) change the lens. Luckily the wide-angle I was using suited the job pretty well and was also pretty tough: I dropped the camera unceremoniously at about mile 7 sending my trusty Nikon slamming across the London street. I’ll get it checked but there doesn’t seem to be any major damage – though I did make sure I wiped the sweat of my hands every time I went to take it out of the bag after that!
And so how did I do? Well, a very respectable (at least to me) 4 hours 40 minutes! Far far faster than I could ever have hoped for!
So would I do it again? Yes I think I would. But only London. I don’t think any other race on the planet would live up to it. What a day!
If you would like to sponsor my fund-raising for the Hearing Dogs, please visit my JustGiving page. Thank you!
