This is one of those days that will live in the memory all of my life. It was an amazing experience and something I will never forget.
It’s my first marathon so I deliberately did not put a target time on myself. My plan was to complete the marathon, enjoy the day and get a positive experience out of the whole thing (the training as well as the race itself).
The day started early after a fitful sleep. I felt a strange mix of excitement and nervousness. My mind and body trying to co-ordinate and recognise where I'm at both physically and mentally. I wasn't really that sure. I was venturing into the unknown. Today I'm going to run further than I have ever run before, in front of thousands of people! Are the muscles at their prime? Or are they past their best? I feared the latter rather than the former but I also felt like I had enough focus and determination to get through it.
I’m interested in all of the mental work that is required to complete a marathon, as much, if not more than the actual physical stuff. I do a lot of coaching (both Life and Business coaching). As part of this I’m interested in the limits we put on ourselves and for me personally, running a marathon is an excellent ways of breaking through some of my own limits.
So I set out on marathon morning in the knowledge that my training had gone extremely well, to a point. I blazed through the early months and into March. Easter came early this year and as a result I was running 20 miles with Gade Valley a week earlier than most years. That day I ran my best run. The last 4 miles I was running between 8 and 8:30 minute miles. I was feeling strong and powerful. After that run I started to feel a little sluggish and although I knew I could complete my runs, I didn’t have quite the same pace that I had before. And then to cap it off, on my last Sunday run before the London marathon day, I got a little twinge in my left hamstring. This got into my head for most of the week as I was worried that as I got deep into the race I might get a more serious pull of my hamstring and have to pull out altogether. I knew that there’s every chance that this wouldn’t happen but I also feared that it could. So I talked to some people I know (including some experienced runners on social media) to get their views and experience and by Saturday I was okay about it.
So as I set off on the race things were ok. I was enjoying the whole experience. It is such an amazing experience! My legs were heavy (still not like a month ago) but I’d come to the conclusion that maybe I had over-trained and that my body was a little over-ripe. And as I was running the early miles, I was conscious that I could be running quicker (that’s if I could work out how to navigate around people and over bottles and pavement kerbs etc). My lungs had the capacity to move quicker but I wasn’t sure that my legs did. I could feel my hamstrings. It’s almost as if they were over-active and therefore too tight. But I ploughed on as it wasn’t too much of a big deal and I put the concerned thoughts on how they would be deep into the race to the back of my mind. Then as I got closer to 9, 10, 11 miles I could feel my thighs. They just got so tight and heavy. A Sports therapist friend of mine suggested that this was the Lactic acid kicking in and maybe it was. But surely that’s a little early in the race? I just kept going, thinking, I’m going to do this and hoping it didn’t get so tight that they wouldn’t move. Gradually the miles started to accumulate and I remember at mile 16, thinking 10 miles to go. That felt like a lot so I worked on breaking it up in my mind so that it felt more manageable.
The crowd was amazing. Their cheering really helped to keep me going. At times I felt myself putting my hands in the air to get the crowds going and that would give me a surge of energy and push me on. Again, my lungs could’ve moved me quicker but my legs couldn’t keep to that pace so I had to reign myself in to ensure I could get to the end. I felt like if I stopped, I wasn’t sure I could start again. I saw so many people who stopped to stretch and I just thought if I tried that it would make things worse not better. So I just kept moving. My average pace overall was 9:08 min mile. From mile 20 to 23 I dropped down to about 9:30 but then I picked it up a little as I got a sniff of the finish line.
As I crossed the line I was really happy to finish and proud of myself. As I say, I hadn’t put a time on myself but I had also suspected I could do it between 4 and 4:30 hours, and probably inside 4:15. I thought if I break 4 hours that would be the icing on the cake but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter to me.
Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you enjoyed it.
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http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JonSleeper
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