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!
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