Tim’s Marathon Report

Here is Tim’s race report from a week or two back.

Simon and I both completed the London Marathon last Sunday.
 
Simon ran it in an extremely impressive 3hr33mins. He’s gone on a well-deserved holiday for a week, so I’ll leave it to him to tell you more about his own account of the day on his return, if he so wishes!
 
As for me, well I took a little longer: 4hrs48mins. I had hoped – when I first decided to do this ridiculous thing – to run it in under 4 hours. But when it came to race day I was more than happy just to finish – I couldn’t have cared less about the time. And now in true war story fashion, I’d like to tell you a bit about why. Please forgive any embellishments – but I want to eek out every drop of heroism I can! (This is partly for self-gratification, and partly also to prompt anyone who hasn’t sponsored us to do so now!!!)
 
So, as I mentioned in my last email, I’d had a virus the week before. It was touch and go whether I would run at all. On the Friday before the race I felt fairly well-recovered, then on the Saturday I had a rather large wobble and felt pretty poorly. In retrospect, this was as much nerves as the remnants of the bug. But somehow I was clinging on to some sort of unshakable faith that I would still somehow manage to do it. Waking up on Sunday morning – after the second night in a row of little sleep – I felt tired (and wired) but knew I was going to do it.
 
The first third of the race was fantastic – I felt strong and fit and was able to enjoy the extraordinary occasion that is the London Marathon. The atmosphere was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. There was so much goodwill and excitement flowing around. I particularly remember spectators towards the end offering us runners sweets to help keep us going. I’m indebted to one nameless woman from whom I took a banana!
 
The fact that Simon and I were wearing our balloon Buddha hats (see attached pics) also meant that literally hundreds of people were calling out our names (or ‘balloon man’) and cheering us on.. I can’t tell you how inspiring this was.
 
Then, at about mile 10 my right knee started to hurt. This was an injury that I’ve had repeatedly (and is pretty common for runners), but that I’d thought had cleared up after loads of physio. When it first came on in the race, I thought to myself: “Oh (rude word), here’s this (rude word) knee problem again – am I going to be able to make it to the (rude word) end?”
 
And to cut a potentially very long story slightly short, I ran the remaining 16 miles of the race in increasing pain. From about mile 13 onwards, my face went into a permanent grimace. You can see this in one of the attached pictures. I nearly cried. I still felt I had the determination to finish, but was worried my right leg would simply stop working.
 
The pain also slowed me down, inevitably. The most amusing part of this was the discovery at mile 22.5 that I could actually walk faster than I could run! I’d been reluctant to walk – not so much out of bravado – but because I thought I might grind to a halt altogether. But I discovered that walking obviously uses some different muscles than running, and so I could walk pain free…and fast! I adopted an absurd power walk technique, rather like walking athletes at the Olympics. I must have looked like a total plonker, but I didn’t care. I was able to keep pace with some runners. The absence of pain meant I could enjoy the occasion again. I ran the last half mile - I wanted to cross the finishing line running.
 
20 minutes later, after stuffing my face with some grub, I had the best ever cigarette of my life!
 
So, I did it. Impressed? Amazed at my grit and determination? Of course you are!!! So if you haven’t sponsored Simon and me yet, and this account of such heroism (ha!) inspires you to do so now, then it’s not too late – you can do this at www.justgiving.com/simonandtim until the end of May (but better sooner than later!). Just to remind you that we’re raising money for Mind and the London Buddhist Centre’s Breathing Space health and wellbeing programme.
 
We’ve raised around £5,000 so far, which is tremendous. So if you did sponsor us, many thanks indeed – and I hope that this account of my race makes you feel you got your money’s worth, so to speak. We’ll be holding the prize draw for all our sponsors soon – for a great selection of prizes…so fingers crossed, you might win something.
 
So, will I do another Marathon one day?
 
Err, possibly.
 
All the best
Tim