I DID IT!

Yes I really did it. The whole marathon. And I didn't come last!



Oh where do I start? The week before the marathon was a strange mix of excitement, carb loading, sickness and more carbs! On Monday I could've run it right then, Tuesday I had a visit to the dentist with an abscess on my tooth (ouch!), Wednesday I woke in the middle of the night trying to reach the bathroom before I did a rainbow yawn, Thursday more carbs and a COMPLETE e-mail nightmare trying to organise our accomodation in Amsterdam. Friday morning we arrive in Amsterdam with no-one to meet us at our accomodation, eventually we get a phone-call about 3 minutes before we were going to check into the Ibis Hotel.

Finally we were settled in our apartment but the heating didn't work! Eeeeek! More stress. I remember pouting at one point and saying "...and I have to run a bloody marathon on Sunday!"

On Saturday night I layed out all my bits and pieces on the floor, making sure the important knee-supports, ibuprofen gels and fig rolls were in place!

I didn't feel much trepidation or excitement, it was just something I was going out to do. I slept ok the night before apart from our noisy neighbours banging around late on, but all in all, a good night. I think the reason I wasn't worried or excited was because of the knee. I can't plan to run the whole thing or a negative split, or run a mile and walk a mile when I don't know what Mr ITB is going to say about it! And I really couldn't know that until I'm out there on the course, running free, or limping along.

Before the start I bravely shed a layer so that I was running in my vest and long trousers. I remembered at the half last year I got pretty hot in a long-sleeved T-shirt and a short sleeved T-shirt over the top!

The first 5K went well, there were a couple who were walking it, but they were ahead of me all the flamin' way! I started off at the back, I'm not the speediest runner and because of knee considerations I decided to take it easy. By 10k I was still doing ok, but by this point I had to take little walk breaks because I felt the pain coming on.

It was around 18K where I gave up running because of the pain. I developed a stiff legged run but that was just too silly and I'd probably have ended up with some other injury after hobbling along like a loon for x number of miles! So from then on out I power-walked. It wasn't until I met up with the speedy half-marathon runners on the same course that I had to slow down because I was being pushed and shoved and couldn't swing my arms enough to get a brisk walk in.

After all the speedy people had legged it past, at around 35K I could walk fairly fast again, then I saw another marathoner. He was walking slowly, I was walking fast.... I overtook him to finish second to last!

I met Dom in the Vondelpark with about 4k to go and was talking to him at the end, he kept me going and I wasn't so bothered that I was frozen to the bone and my hands had swelled up so much that I couldn't make a fist!

At the last kilometer, a marshal grabbed my hand and ran with me until I got to the stadium! I managed to run around the track, and they read my name over the tannoy and the crowd (what little was left) went wild! I ran through a brass-band line-up and over the finish line into the medal-dude's arms! Eeek! Embarassing! Of course, the whole thing was projected onto the big screen and I think I could probably download my video finish too, if I wanted to go looking for it!



I still don't feel like I actually did a marathon, I didn't find it too physically taxing, but mentally it was tough. I was on my own for a lot of the race and Dom's voice kept telling me that "there's no shame dropping out because you're injured" was almost tempting me to jump in a broom-wagon should one pass, but at that point none did. Then I thought that finishing, however slowly, would be more gratifying that trying and dropping out. So that's just what I did. I kept on keeping on and the point just past the halfway mark was terrible, I think I looked at my watch about 15 times in 20 minutes! While I was running I was thinking, "There's no way I'm going to do this again." But even the day after I was thinking that I could do it again and do it better!

So fingers crossed that my ballot place comes through for London!

Great North Run 2007

First of all let me justify - I have ITBS at the moment and therefore I am running and walking events and getting there slowly without agravating my knee.

We started off the morning with an early train from Darlington after a hurried gigantic bowl of cereal and a pint of squash. We arrived into Newcastle with the early morning sun in our eyes and headed for McDonalds since it was the only place to sit down and sort through our running pack, pin our numbers on, pay numerous visits to the toilet, etc



Having loaded our pockets with Butterscotch and Fig Rolls we made our way up to the start area along with the other 49 998 runners to collect pace bands and load our baggage onto baggage buses. We made our way to the start and were raring to go!







After hanging around in our start pen for a while listening to the commentary and watching the big screen we warmed up with some dude. We watched the elite wheelchairs, women and men set off and we crossed the start line 20 minutes later. The start of the course was through underpasses and over bridges and the infamous "Oggy oggy oggy" was being yelled in the echoey bits! The Red Arrows followed us closely over the Tyne Bridge and shortly after that, the sun became too much for me and I had to strip!

There were bands playing all around the course, and lovely people cheering along every part of the way. People came out of their houses to watch and were handing out sweets, and oranges and biscuits and ice pops. How fabby!

The most gruelling bit that everyone hates seemed ok, we were well and truly walking by that point and Dom was tempted by my offer of a piggy back, but we were consoled with the fact that we were near the end. We descended down the final downhill stretch, turned the corner and were gutted to see there was another mile to go! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! By that point we were strolling along with our arms around each other, and my hopes of a sub-three hour walking half were out of the window! I think both of our brains had shut down and we were just making it to the finish! We waved to lots of cameras, so we will hopefully have some good publicity shots of me in the DEMAND running vest.

Finally we finished, and collected our goodie bags and celebrated with mince pies overlooking the sea!







After waiting for hours in the Metro queue without collapsing, we finally made it to Darlington on the train to see Mum, and she bought us life-saving Fish and Chips, which did not dissapoint!