I have 26 weeks to train.  I will be starting from a very low base of mileage as I have had an unfortunate run of ill health.  I am currently taking antibiotics to shift a chest infection, so definitely no running at the moment.  As I write this it is October 14th 2011, my total mileage so far in October is zero, September was 26 miles and August was 10 miles.

I have based my own training plan around the following:

• Hal Higdon’s intermediate 2 programme for the long runs
• 4 runs per week
• 1 long run, 1 intermediate length run at race pace, 1 intermediate length slow run and 1 interval session.
•  2 weeks of building mileage followed by 1 week of shorter runs

Race Day Morning

The morning dawned clear and bright.  In the early morning it was cool enough to have an old long-sleeved top over my running kit to keep me warm.  This was a top that I intended to dispose of just before the race.  I took the train up to London with my wife and parents who I think shared my feelings of excitement and a little trepidation.

We reached Clapham Junction in plenty of time, however the platforms were packed with other runners and their supporters.  I see now why the organisers ask supporters not to travel to the start points as the train systems just can’t handle that volume of people.  After a few trains had gone we were able to squeeze on a train, however it was such a squeeze as we were packed in like sardines and it was damn hot in there.  I was so glad to get off of that train.

The walk from the train station the runners start area was great.  The atmosphere had really started to grow with thousands of runners all walking in the same direction to get ready to run a race that would be a first for many as it was for me.

Once at the park the weather had got a lot warmer so I was able to take my long sleeve top off and put in my race bag.  I put barrier gel on the bits that chafe, made sure I had my gel belt on and had a small water bottle to keep up my hydration.  I was wearing a sleeveless charity running top and a pair of long compression socks and compression tights. 

I left my family at the entrance of the runners enclose and left  my bag with them.  In hindsight I should have taken my bag with me as the bag collection and pick up at the end is excellent.  It’s easy and quick to give the bag in and collect it at the other end and would have saved my family from lugging it around London for a few hours.

My first thought was to head for the toilets.  OH MY GOD – The queues were HUGE!!!!  If I had stayed in the queue I definitely would have missed the start of the race.  I found a place where other men were going and I did the same, only to find that it I’d just headed for the start pens then there were plenty of toilets there with tiny queues.

So with that off my mind I made my way into my start pen.  With just minutes to go everyone was just buzzing.  All those months of training were about to pay off.  We could see from the big screens when the race started, but for a couple of minutes we all just stood there as we couldn’t move.  Then we all started shuffling forward at a walking pace.  This become a very light jog until we came round the corner and could see the start line about 200m ahead.  It was at this point that I realised that my bladder was giving me strong signals that I needed to pee again!  I couldn’t believe that I was going to have to stop so soon in the race, however as luck would have it about 150m before the start line there was an area where about 50 men were having their last pee against a solid barricade.  I decided to go there too and can’t tell you how relieved I felt afterwards.

The Race

So definitely all fit and ready this time I joined the throng of runners and crossed the start line – I was running the London Marathon!  This was something I had watched as a kid and thought I would attempt sometime.  At 35 years of age I had made it to the start line of the London Marathon.  I just had to see if I could make it to the finish line too.

The first thing that strikes you is that the numbers of runners around you is huge.  They are everywhere.  After my impromptu stop before the start line I was running with people who had planned to run this event a little slower than myself.  I wanted to run slightly faster than I was, but there was little I could do about this as there were people everywhere you wanted to step.  Passing people required weaving, using up valuable energy that I would rely upon later in the race.  Still on the other hand it kept my pace limited so there was no possibility that I would start too fast.

After a few miles I had begun to realise that there were people lining the streets everywhere.  At no point in the entire 26.2 miles would you running without support.  This was just incredible.  I had thought that there would be parts were there was no support, but I was wrong.  The crowds were fantastic and their ability to keep the spirits lifted amazing.  After a couple of miles I passed Katy Price and Peter Andrea.  This caused a bizarre road block as people slowed to see the celebrities.

A few miles in and the cloud cover was thinning and the temperature soon rose to 18C.  After training through Winter with temperatures mostly between 0C and 10C, this was a bit too warm for me.  What there were of clouds at the start soon burned off leaving a totally cloudless day.  This really added to the feeling of warmth, so I was glad to find a few run through showers dotted around the course.

My fueling plan had been to take carb gels at about half hour intervals.  I had trained using carb gels so didn’t expect any problems, but at around half way I couldn’t stomach any more.  On the day they just weren’t agreeing with me and I had to run the rest of the race without any more fueling. 

The Wall

During the first 20 miles I felt really good (except for the minor stomach cramps possibly caused by the gels).  I had been reasonably happy with my average pace.    My first 30k had been at a very consistent, comfortable pace.  I had run the first 10k in 58 minutes,  10k to 20k in 57 minutes and 20k to 30k in 58 minutes.  I had reached halfway in 2 hours 1 minute.  It was only after about 20 miles that I began to suffer.  It became hard work at that point and I started to slow slightly. 30k to 35k took 30 minutes, with 35k to 40k taking 33 minutes.

I continued at this slower pace for the last couple of miles.  In those last few miles, I wasn’t in any doubt whether I would finish, I just felt really nauseous and had to slow my pace to stop myself from vomiting which would not have been an experience that I wanted for my first marathon.  The croud support at this stage was just phenominal with everyone willing you to the finish.  It really seemed as though I was crawling along in those last few miles, but in reality I was running just over a minute per mile slower than I had averaged for the rest of the race.

The Finish

During the final mile I no longer felt sick, but was completely exhausted and just ran on auto pilot.  I ran past Buckingham Palace and saw the sign for the last 365 yards.  There was nothing left in the tank so there was no spurt of speed that I had enjoyed on every other race to date.  I just kept slogging on with mu neck just about keeping my head up.  I crossed the line of my first marathon in a time of 4 hours, 11 minutes and 23 seconds.

I was so pleased to have finished.  I left spent every last drop of energy that I had on the course and couldn’t have done any better on the day.  I did feel a little emotional immediately after the race, I’m not exactly sure why.  Maybe it was because this was a life long dream that until very recently hadn’t look likely to be achieved.  Now I had done it!

  What a great day!

Would I do it again?      Yes! 

And yes, you have to be quite mad to say that!

The main things to concern myself with were resting, carbo loading and hydrating.  I reduced my protein intake and mostly ate carbohydrates and drank lots of water everyday.

Early to bed on Saturday!

Even more worrying was that the same thing happened on Wednesday and Thursday as well.  I had expected it to be a niggle that would go away, but I was wrong.  On the Thursday I tried to run a little slow and run through the pain to see if it would subside, but that didn’t work.  This injury felt like it had the potential to stop my marathon attempt in its tracks.

On Friday I called my Physio and made an immediate appointment.  She identified that I had damaged my ankle ligaments, but neither of us could think of how it had happened.  She massaged the damaged area and manipulated the bones and connected muscles and advised that I rest for the day and try a run on Saturday. 

On Saturday I was walking in the park and tried a light jog.  I felt a slight pain so decided to take an extra day rest.  On Sunday, it finally felt like I was through it.  I ran/walked with my wife Sarah for 1.7 miles which acted as a good warm up.  I then continued the run myself at an average of a 9:30 min/mile pace and completed a total of 8 miles.

It was a good end to a worrying week.  Just 1 week to go now.

I ran 4.2 miles at a 8:56 pace, 7.8 miles at a 9:05 pace and 12 miles at a 9:19 pace.  As the mileage is reducing I will have to stop myself from increasing the pace as it’s a sure way to injury.  This weeks training runs were perhaps a little too fast.

My thoughts are now turning to race day itself.  The hard training has been completed and most runs now will be pretty short – 3 to 5 miles with an 8 mile long run.  My main thoughts are that I’m wondering what the weather will be like?  I am planning to run in a  charity running vest, but what if it’s really cold or wet?  I haven’t got a particular plan for these weather conditions so I need to give it some thought.

I now need to think about what time I want to get to the start area, how I will get to the start, what I will eat in the days running up to the marathon (carbo loading), what I’ll eat on race morning, the various locations where my race supporters will be standing on race day, etc.  There’s a lot to think about.

All four training runs were run at between 9:27 and 9:33 pace.  The standout run of course was the 20 miler at about half a minute a mile faster than the 20 miler two weeks before.  I got the hydration right this time by taking some money with me so I could buy some water from a newsagent part way round.  I also consumed five isotonic gel packets to keep my energy reserves up.  I’ll definitely be using these on marathon day. 

The course was pretty interesting too, I ran from Coulsdon to Banstead, then Banstead Heath, Cheam, round Cheam Park, round Non Such Park in Ewell (great location for a nice run), Cheam, Sutton, Carshalton, Purley Way, Croydon, Purley and finally back to Coulsdon.  Trust me, it feels as far as it sounds!   I felt strong through 16 miles and only started tiring from 18 miles onwards, but this was through a 1-2% uphill gradient.  I finished the run in 3 hours 11 minutes.  I was very pleased with the weeks training.

On Saturday I kept putting it off as it was raining all day.  I finally decided to head out when the sky really darkened and hail started to fall.  I came back in to the amusement of my wife.  I headed up to the top of the house to get a good view out to the horizon to see if I could see the end of the cloud front.  All I was able to see was the flashes of lightning which told me that now was not the best time to be outside.  I headed for the treadmill and managed to stay on for 6.8 miles before my motivation wained.

On Sunday the weather had cleared up and I ran my scheduled 12 mile run at a 9:15 pace.  It was very encouraging to be able to run this pace in training for this duration without tiring.

Next week the second 20 miler.

On Sunday I headed out for my 20 miler.  I felt quite sluggish after the cross country run the day before.  Most miles were run at a 9:40 minute per mile pace until mile 14.  At this point I was beginning to tire.  The day was hot so I had been drinking more to keep hydrated.  My water was beginning to run low so I had been eaking out the remaining water.  It was a valuable lesson on the effects of dehydration as my times dropped off to between 10:10 and 10:40 miles with the 19th mile at 11:04 and the last half mile (as I only did 19.5) took 6:30.  At the time my drop off in pace really concerned me as I knew that on the day I would still have 6.7 miles to run at this stage.  On reflection I think that the slow down had more to do with dehydration, a slight incline over the last 6 miles and the cross country run the previous day.  I knew that in a couple of weeks I would have another attempt at 20 miles and hoped for better.  The 19.5 miles took me 3:16:35.

On the day of the race the weather was clear, bright and warm at 15C.  A little too warm as it turned out.  I got to the venue in plenty of time and joined the longest toilet queues you’ve ever seen.  As I approached the front of the queue they had been making last calls for the race for the past 5-10 minutes, however there was no way I could run with a full bladder!!!  Feeling relieved a took a slow warm up jog to the start.  I got there with about 3 minutes to spare.

With 2000 runners, I started a fair way back and didn’t hear any starting gun or horn.  The slow shuffle to the started line began and before long I crossed the starting line.  That was a bit bizzare as the only sign that I had crossed the start line was that I crossed some mats in the road which are used for chip-to-chip timing.  Chip-to-chip timing is where each runner wears a chip around their ankle which is read as the runner passes the start and finish line.  This means that it doesn’t matter if it takes a few minutes to pass the start line.

Early in my marathon training my target finish time for a half was sub 1 hour 50 minutes.  This was going to be quite an ask for this race as my best to date was 5 minutes slower than that.  I thought I’d give it a try anyway.  I was able to get up to speed straight away with the first two miles run at a 8:24 and 8:25 pace.  I was able to pick it up slightly with the next miles at 8:17, 8:17, 8:16, 8:11 and 8:13.  By half way I was on target for a sub 1:50 and feeling strong.  Some others started to slow at this point, but I felt strong and continued at a good pace with 8:18, 8:09 and 8:22.  At 10 miles I was starting to tire and had to dig in to force myself to maintain the pace.  The last few miles were completed in 8:24, 8:20, 8:23 and the final 0.1 miles (which turned out to be 0.22 miles), in 1:35.  I had finished in 1 hour 49 minutes and 40 seconds.  20 seconds within my target *big grin*

The course was great and I’d definitely run it again.  It was run on roads with a good mix of town and rural with very good marshalling throughout.

8 wks to go: Running the Brighton Half Marathon with a calf injury wasn’t perhaps the best plan, but as I had already missed two halves through injury or illness this year I was determined to run it.  I think it would have been fine had I not had so much energy left towards the end that I ran the last two miles at 10K pace.  I suspect this aggravated my calf and led to further complications.

In the week following the race I not only had to contend with a calf strain, but also my hip flexors became a problem.  I must have compensated for the calf by using the hip flexors more and ended up straining them too!  This meant that I didn’t run until the Friday, five days after the race.  On the Friday I ran 5.4 miles, but continued to have problems with the calf and hip flexors.

On the Sunday I ran my long run of 17 miles.  After 10 miles I was running on empty and the last 7 miles were difficult.  The run took me 3 hours which was a pace of only 10:35 min per mile.  It was slow, unenjoyable and painful.  It’s at times like these that you start to get concerned that your injury will effect your ability to finish the marathon.

Total weekly mileage 22.4.

7 wks to go: I still had the same injuries as last week.  I waited until Thursday to run again.  I completed 5.5 miles, but really felt on the verge of injury.  I waited until Sunday to run again and this time felt an improvement.  I ran the first 10 miles at a 9:09 min/mile pace, the next 4 at 9:30 and the last 4 at 10:30.  My hip flexors had tired out after 14 miles, but the first 10 miles were promising as I was due to race the Fleet Half Marathon the following week.

Total weekly mileage 23.5.