| Flora London Marathon April 13th 2003 | ||||||||
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| I have read in many places that compared to the training the actual marathon is easy .. I will let you know after the 13th! I can vouch for the fact that the training has been hard and here are a couple of photos from the Reading Half Marathon, a highlight of the training schedule. Just for the record I came 6,270th in a time of 2 hours and 22 minutes ... I did not write to Guinness! | ||||||||
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The day before the Main Event, the "Flora London Marathon" on Saturday was an awful day as the cold I had been suffering from was getting me down. I had a multitude of conflicting advice run / don't run but after 6 months of training it would have been soul destroying to pull out. Fear not I was sensible, made sure my temperature was normal and read everything I could on the 'net. The consensus was "run" ... so I did. I woke up on the 13th April and sat bolt up right, I have not been that nervous in years! The start was a pain as I was in pen 9 (slow runners and furry animals) and it took 20 minutes to cross the start line ... it is bit disheartening to cross the start and already be 20 minutes behind! The fist 3 miles were a real squash, shoulder to shoulder jostling and not able to get into any sort of pace, but I was quite chilled about it and resided my self to an enforced warm up. The next 13 miles were a lot better settled down to my pedestrian jog (10 minute miles) but the rot set in at mile 15. It was dam hot, hotter than any training run I had been on and I was taking on a lot of fluid and at the 15 mile Lucozade drink station I bumped into someone and stumbled into a walk ... 200 yards later I picked it up again until the 20 mile point and from there to mile 25 I walked a couple of times, just a couple of hundred yards at a time to work out the lactic acid and then the final two and a bit miles were ran. What I was using for fuel at this point is anyone's guess, probably crowd power! Down the Victoria Embankment past Big Ben, Up St James Park, past Buckingham Palace and then the finish line.... after which point I could hardly walk! Anyway I ran it in 5 hours 32 slow, but I made it! What a buzz at the end getting my medal .... The results are published and I came 21,725th ... Paula Radcliffe need not have been so worried. The question everyone is asking will I do it again? Probably, but not this week! |
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| Click on Thumb Nails for larger picture. To save space and time, compressed versions of the photos are shown. Full versions available on request from - markyd@markyd.co.uk | Home | |||||||