marathonmummy

My friend Sarah is running the marathon this year – she has seven children and is clearly bonkers. You can follow her blog here. Please go and give her a bit of a cheer. 26.2 miles is a long way!

Visit Tales from the Village – my blog about writing, gardening and village life

My friend Sarah is running the marathon this year – she has seven children and is clearly bonkers. You can follow her blog here. Please go and give her a bit of a cheer. 26.2 miles is a long way!

Having a break from running, until my toenails grow back!

If you want to keep up with what I’ve been up to, you can find me at Tales from the Village, my other blog. Warning: contains chickens, children, wonky vegetables, my allotment, gardening, lots of photographs and very bad knitting. I’d love you to come and say hello.

So, we were here. I had a gin and tonic, Zoe arrived, we went out to a little Italian restaurant in Battersea. I ordered pizza, she had pasta. We were nervous and grumpy and preoccupied.

Back to the hotel. I faffed about downloading songs onto my iPhone and trying to get them from iTunes to my MP3 player. Zoe had a bath. I went to bed around 11.30.

Unfortunately I then got out of bed around 11.45. And 12.30. And 1.30. And 2.30, 3, and 3.30. For a couple of days before I’d had a bit of a headache and felt a bit wobbly, but I’d put it down to nerves and excitement. Suffice to say I spent the whole night on the loo, which wasn’t exactly the best way to prepare for 26.2 miles of running.

The hotel had put on a marathon breakfast, and along with about 10 others we stuffed down porridge, toast and a banana. I was retching whilst I ate it (sorry that may be too much information) but I knew I had to have something to eat.

rabbits in headlights – just about to leave the hotel

London was full of people carrying red marathon kitbags, and after all our worrying about how to get to the start we didn’t have to think at all. We just followed the rest of the kitbag holders like sheep in trainers.

On the train we got talking to some seasoned marathoners. They pointed out the 25 mile marker and Big Ben, and I said ooh, not long till we’re back there. They all looked at each other knowingly. I recognised that look – it’s the look you get when you tell a mother your birthplan before you have your first child. The look says ‘come back to me once you’ve done it and then we’ll talk’.

lambs to the slaughter

We left the train station and flocked to the start. There were marshalls everywhere, directing us and wishing us luck. Everyone was very jolly and excited, and being British there was much talk about the weather. We’d been promised the hottest marathon on record, and it looked like rain.

Sure enough as soon as we got to the start, it started to pour. We ran over and put our bags on the baggage bus, then queued for the loo. I was so excited and nervous that I hadn’t time to think about how I was feeling, and I was trying to find my lovely Twitter friend Donna who was borrowing an iPhone armband from me.

found her!

Then the klaxon sounded and the race had started.

The pen system seemed to have gone a bit wonky – we were meant to be pen 9, and Donna was pen 8, but they seemed to be letting people in through gaps in the barriers. We decided to tuck ourselves in somewhere around the back, and didn’t go through the start gate until 10.10am (mistake no.1).

- To read part 2, go here.

Rhinos at the start pen

As soon as we went through the start something horrible happened. My legs turned to jelly, I broke out in a cold sweat and I felt sick. I tried to run but I felt absolutely awful.

I called Zoe back, and fiddled with my iPhone headphones to try and buy some time, but I knew I really didn’t feel well at all. I realised I’d forgotten to press start on my Garmin, and that I’d forgotten to turn off the auto-pause function, so I had to try and work that out whilst trying to keep moving. I was feeling a bit tearful and sorry for myself.

We stopped at the first loos, then I told Zoe to run on a bit whilst I walked and tried to work out how I was feeling. There were quite a few people who had obviously decided they were going to walk the whole route, including a man dressed in a full suit of armour.

I passed the first couple of miles, with people in their gardens cheering me on and a priest throwing holy water and blessing us all.

A voice shouted ‘Rachael! Marathonmummy! I read your blog!’ and there was a camera in our face snapping madly.

Tracey’s husband works with mine, it transpires. There I was thinking I was famous for a moment.

So we trundled on. It felt hard, much harder than any of the training runs I’d done in the last few months. Every time I ran I thought I was going to throw up, and my walking pace wasn’t anywhere near the 13:40 mile that I can do when I’m marching along. My first mile took 17 minutes – that says it all.

By the time we were at mile 3 I’d started to speed up, mainly because we were in a race with the clearing up process. The councils in London allow the roads to be closed on the premise that they’ll be reopened as soon as possible, so they start working pretty much straight away. There were two tractors which came along to move all the water bottles to the side of the road, and Zoe and I spent the next few miles leapfrogging the tractors and trying to beat them.

I met up with Jyo from the Runner’s World forum and we had a quick chat, then I trotted off to try and catch Zoe. On the way I met Lucy, aka Spinkletoes, also from Runner’s World, who was having a bad run too.

Mum called to say that they were waiting for us at Greenwich. By this time we’d found a pattern – Zoe was about 10-20m in front, running, and I’d jog a bit then walk as fast as I could. I still felt dreadful but I was trying to ignore it. I high-fived every little hand that was put out for me, and smiled and thanked every single person who stood in their garden cheering us on.

We met up with Mum, Chris and my Uncle Stewart at mile 6. By this point I was feeling confused and frazzled. I didn’t really know where we were, I didn’t know what speed we were doing, I just knew I had to keep on going.

The next few miles seemed to pass quite quickly. I was jog walking; Zoe was in front, running steadily. I chatted to a lovely American girl about not being designed for running but being great at walking. I had realised that if I couldn’t run, at least I could pick off people one by one, so I would walk as fast as I could, then jog past someone, then walk a bit more, jog past another one – knowing that every time I did I improved my placing kept me going.

By this point I’d lost sight of Zoe and I’d found Lucy again. We marched along together until mile 12, where Zoe was waiting for me with our little cheering gang again, by this time joined by Lorraine and my niece, Mae.

Here we are – Zoe’s already arrived, I’m trundling along – and Lorraine is screaming like a loon. I had a little cuddle and a cry with my mum, then we headed off for Tower Bridge and the second half of the marathon.

To read part 3 go here.