N.B. No feeble attempt of mine to put down in words will come close to what an amazing weekend we had and what a brilliant event the Virgin London Marathon is.
My better half Julie had a few surprises up her sleeve and had organised the weekend activities, all I had to worry about was making sure I had packed my trainers and registration number. Our first day in London, the Friday, involved making our way out to the Excel Centre at Canary Wharf where the Marathon Expo took place. Wow, what an exhibition, everything from fashion shows, pasta parties, trainers and every gadget imaginable. It is hard to describe the expo but if you imagine 3 King's Halls full of runners, their families and everything connected to this great sport then you are getting close.
Later that evening, my first birthday treat was to spend the evening dining at Heston Blumenthal's London restaurant. Words really can't describe what an experience this was. I love my food, watching cookery shows, but more importantly I love eating it. The atmosphere was amazing and the menu was very different to say the least. Every single mouthful was a taste explosion and the portion sizes meant there was no need for a gravy chip on the way back to our hotel. Saturday involved a bit of sight seeing as it had been some time since Julie and myself had both been in London together. Standing near the marathon finish line at Buckingham Palace we bumped into Ray, Stephen and Rodney, all fellow team mates from Ballymena Runners. The 3 guys chatted with us for a while and were fairly relaxed considering they were racing the course instead of enjoying the craic as I planned to do. My home club also had two others running, Iain Taggart and Tom Mills, who would both break the 3 hour barrier with Iain running an amazing 2hrs 48mins in only his third marathon!! Later on Saturday, it was time for more carb loading, this time by having afternoon tea at The Ritz. Again, an amazing experience and boy what a feed. Everything was done to perfection and the attention to detail was amazing. The staff even had made a miniature birthday cake for me, although I couldn't manage it as I would have exploded. There wasn't even room left for 'one waaafer thin mint'.
Saturday evening we chilled out in Soho and the West end before having a nice Italian meal. Back at the hotel, the pre-marathon nerves kicked in. My concerns were about the logistics of getting out to Blackheath for the start on time and also whether my 'relaxed' attitude to running and training this year would catch me out over the big distance.
The Sunday morning greeted me with clear blue skies and as I made my way to the start area the craic was great. Most people were very curious about the two huge helium balloons I had with me in the shape of a '4' and '0'. Once the usual 'toilet' stuff was out of the way I lined up in my start pen and was amazed that I was less than 100 metres behind the elite runners.. Immediately, my phone started to bleep with text messages from friends who could see the balloons on telly. The gun went and we were off, I knew that the balloons would have to go early on and cut the ties after a mile. The rest is a bit of a blur.
As I had the birthday cake hat on and messages on my vest, the crowds started to wish me a happy birthday. This in turn had a Mexican wave effect with people further up the course picking up on it. The effect of this was unbelievable and at a couple of points I had to run in the middle of the road as my hand was raw from high fiving. This coupled with thanking people for their birthday wishes was actually more tiring than the running itself!! The miles ticked by and I had settled into a relaxed pace, determined to enjoy every last second of my first ever 'London'. The atmosphere was electric, mile upon mile of crowds roaring support, offering food/drink etc to help with the battle against hitting the wall. The run was made more special when at mile 18, I was interviewed by the BBC's Phil Jones. I had to do it twice due to a technical fault and in the end I'm pretty certain it didn't go to air. It didn't matter because it really lifted my spirits and the last 8.2 miles have to be the most special I have ever run. People of all walks of life coming together to run, many of them for very personal reasons. Including the guy who I ran behind for a while whose t-shirt had a photo of his 9 year old son on it. A son that he had lost to a brain tumour less than a year earlier. Even as I recall this, the emotions don't take long to come to the surface.
I had told Julie not to worry about trying to watch me along the route due to the crowds. You can imagine my surprise at hearing my name being shouted on the final bend. I had heard it being shouted along the whole route, this was different though. As I turned onto the final stretch, there was Julie, cheering me along. I'm pretty sure I waved over and then the emotions I had been keeping a check on so well were released as I made my way over the line in tears of joy.
The London experience is one I would recommend to every runner. It is very powerful and for me was made even more special by meeting/seeing so many friends from the NI running community at the start and on the course. These included Paul the Builder 'Gaskell', Ryan and Justin Maxwell, Nat Glenn, Donald 'DS' Smith and Michael 'MJ' Jenkins. Pretty amazing considering the field of 37,000 runners. The whole weekend was fantastic from start to finish and was a truly memorable '40th' My time was 4 hrs 37 mins and 18 seconds. My slowest ever road marathon but by a large margin my 'personal best' marathon.
Thank you London and most of all thank you Julie xo
PS Both Julie and myself have entered the ballot for London 2013 Marathon. Fingers crossed.
No comments:
Post a Comment