How (not) to Run the London Marathon (Part Three)

Previously on How (not) to Run the London Marathon: Miles 4-16. Waving at the TV cameras, lapping up other people's crowd support, and weeing in a park.

And don't forget to go back to Part One, either, for miles 1-4 and especially if you want to understand how I started out like an oven-basting turkey...

I Didn't See it Coming

Mile 16 (The Isle of Dogs): So, having made it to the same point as my longest training run without bursting into tears yet, everything from here on out is a bonus. Looking around, there are now significant numbers of people walking, and every one of them I overtake whilst still keeping on running is a small personal victory. “HA!”, I think. “You started out too fast, lady! You, over there, you didn't do enough training! I've got much bigger calf muscles than you, red top dude. You're even more bald than me, man in expensive gear!”

This keeps me entertained for a bit, until, coming down Westferry Road, I start to hear Bon Jovi’s “Livin' on a Prayer” coming from somewhere. This is extremely motivating (even though it is Bon Jovi), because I've not had my music on at all until now, and as one with the other runners around me, I start yelling along with it – and then suddenly we turn round a small bend and realise that it's not a recording, it's a full gospel choir singing from a balcony up above the street. Another lifetime memory moment, I start running sideways to enjoy as much of it as I can (or as much as I can without knackering any parts of my body that don't need any further excuse to stop working, anyway…)

As the heavenly sounds fade away into the distance, my spirits start to sink again and I try anything I can to distract my mind from the various bits of me which are now becoming increasingly uncomfortable – but it's then that I spot someone in a green Macmillan shirt who looks sort of familiar from a Twitter photo - yep it's @mr_egregious, a best mate of a best mate, who I've been chatting with online about the training. He's having a bit of a hard time right now, so I slow right down, call out to him and we have a good old laugh about just how insane this whole thing is, which goes some way toward taking both our minds off things for just a tiny fraction of this ordeal.He's feeling done in and wants to walk, though, and I feel just about human and want to carry on, so off I go, and he becomes just the latest in a long line of people that I feel superior for overtaking. (Don't worry - he catches me up pretty well later on and I promise I don't think anything mean about him as I go. Honest.)

I'm quite impressed I managed to recognise him from this, actually...

This probably helped.

I'm at 16 and a half miles now, close to where Karin has texted me to say she is waiting, and never have I needed to see anyone as badly as I need to see her right now. Every step seems to take 20 seconds, as I clump heavily onwards, feet pounding the pavement like I hate it for doing this to me – my running gait now looking more like a reverse moonwalk – it's no accident that most of the official photos from the second half of the race make it look like I'm not lifting my feet off the ground at all...

But then, there she is by the side of the road, and I'm overcome with emotion and exhilaration and just run over to give her a big kiss and a cuddle, which I'm sure is extremely hygienically pleasant for her. "I love you so much", I say, prompting a chorus of  "awwww"s from the people all around. I don't explain to anyone at this stage that I feel I should say this just in case we never see each other again.

It's another wonderful moment, and it propels me to somehow keep going for another mile or so, despite the fact that my legs are now basically numb and quite possibly about to fall off - and then, there I am coming up Limeharbour, at 17 and a half miles, 3 hours and 21 minutes after I started, and I suddenly realise that I'm in trouble. I'm hit by the realisation of the fact that I've really always known, that I can't pull another 9 miles out of the running bag based on adrenalin and willpower alone. There is no sense in pushing it so far that I have to be picked up by the “fail bus” that comes around to collect stragglers every so often – and everything about me really could do with a break.

I stop and walk.

It'd be easy to consider this a massive failure, and to beat myself up about it, but I've already done more than I thought I might be able to do a couple of weeks ago, WAY more than I ever thought I'd do when I was at my fattest and laziest a few years back, and 9 times as far as to my school friend Rob's house for cake. It means there will be unfinished business to take care of at some point in the future (I'm not going 6 feet under without being able to say I ran a full marathon), but for now, this is all about damage limitation. There are still 9 miles to go, and it's not an option to give up on doing this on foot.

Besides which, I've forgotten my Oyster Card.

It's alright, Joanne and Derek are walking, too.

Walking in My Shoes

Walking feels very odd - my legs are stuck in a weird pointy-outy position and don't want to go inwards at all, making me feel a bit like a dog with its parts on display. The soles of my feet feel like I've been standing on them for days after attacking them with a cheese grater, my toenails appear to have been steam rollered into the tops of my toes, and the only consolation is that I don't seem to need any of the Vaseline that's being liberally offered by St John's Ambulance guys at the side of the road.

I decide to stop completely on Marsh Wall and have a stretch of my hamstrings, calves, basically anything which feels good. It's lovely, but it's not getting me any closer to that finishing line, so I have to push off again. We’re 3 hours and 30 minutes into this, and if I go at my “worst-case” walking pace of 16-minutes-a-mile, there'll be another 2 and a half hours to go. This thought somehow propels me to get running again.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHWWWWW” – There it is, that familiar stabbing pain just below my right knee which signals that my Illotibial band is incredibly displeased with me. Previous occurrences of this have either come at the end of a long run and left me limping to a bus or train, or have stopped me dead in my tracks mid-run. Neither of these are an option today, so I push on through it. The first 20 seconds or so are absolute agony and I worry that the ITB might snap, but it's a resilient old piece of connective tissue, and it gradually gets used to the idea that I'm a complete masochist and shuts up complaining long enough for me to build up some momentum and forget about it. If only I'd thought before now of running through the pain until it went numb.

Now we're coming up to Canary Wharf and the 19 mile mark, and I do some alternate run/walking, whatever feels comfortable – I even stop to pick up some Lucozade Sport, which as the magazine promised, does indeed taste very different during the race. It tastes warm and syrupy and utterly disgusting. Thanks, Lucozade.

Notice how the spectators are just standing there, staring. That's because we're all walking and don't deserve their support. Fair enough.

I need whatever I can get in the way of inspiration at this stage, so it's finally time for the music to go on. Banging tracks from Muse, Saint Etienne, New Order, Porcupine Tree and, er, Phil Collins match the thundering pace of my heart beat, which by now doesn't drop below 140 even when I'm walking. But somehow what really does it for me on this occasion, as I go round in little "C"s between the skyscrapers, is “Hellstate”, an old 80's instrumental demo track from a long defunct band called Freefall which contained some of my mates. The slow intro and gradual build-up of the track act like a spring coiling up as I plod slowly along, and as a massive drum fill announces the fast, loud, keyboard-y section, I literally spring off again, exhilaration in my heart which lasts all of 13 minutes, but still, it gets me to the next mile marker. 20 miles. This seems like a massive milestone, and therefore a good time to take another breather. (Actually, to be honest, all the time seems like a good time to take a massive breather right now.)

I've been going for getting on for 4 hours now and I can feel that I'm done – in fact I'm way beyond done; if I was a halibut on Hell's Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay would have slammed his fist into me and thrown me in the bin by now. But there are still 6 and a bit miles to go, and I have to get there somehow, anyhow, so I start clutching at mental straws – something, anything to distract me from the pain in my legs, the burning in my lungs, and the pounding in my head. I start by looking out for landmarks and trying to come up with personal connections to them – oh, there's that Whisky bar where I got hammered with a client a couple of years ago. There's the wine bar where me and my flatmate John used to dress up in suits like pretentious wankers and go and sit drinking overpriced beer after lectures at uni. (GET IN THE SEA.) Actually, a lot of these memories seem to revolve around alcohol for some reason, which isn't very helpful really, since my stomach is just awash with water, energy gel, Lucozade Sport, Jelly Babies and Mini Mars Bars, and the thought of more sugar and liquid makes me want to vomit even more than I already do.

Noooo! No more!!!

My kingdom for a bacon sandwich… my imaginary kingdom, that is… I don't have a kingdom…What would my kingdom be like? I bet I'd be a rubbish King, I'd never make any decisions... I suppose you don't have to, if you're King, you can get someone else to do it for you while you sit eating roast swan... I probably don't even like roast swan… Swans are odd, aren't they? Very long necks. I wonder why they have such long necks… Probably to get to the bottom of ponds. Ugh, I bet it's manky at the bottom of the Serpentine. 

See, another 1/10th of a mile gone, right there.


I Don't Feel Amazing Now

I spot some Parkinson's UK supporters and try them out for a bit of sympathy - “I know I'm not one of yours but can I get a cheer anyway?” They give me a little cheer (C'mon, we're all on the same side, this is not the general election!) - and this helps a bit. Even better, there's a lady further on handing out bananas, and I immediately fall in love with her despite the fact that she appears to be in her 70's. We're in Poplar now and here's the 21 miles marker – 5 and a bit to go – that's less than a 10k race, right? I can eat those for breakfast!

The route is now dull as heck, though, and any running I do is getting extremely difficult, if you can call it running at all, and not old-lady-power-walking which is what it looks like. We go through a residential estate and there's quite a nice vibe, with people outside their houses having barbecues and playing music and all that jazz. “Keep going! You’re such an inspiration!”, shouts a lady sitting in a deck chair puffing on a cigarette with a can of Stella in the other hand.

I'm just trying to get going again when I spot a man lying at the side of the road looking extremely pale, apparently unconscious, on a drip and being tended to by the St John's ambulance – luckily he's the only one I see in such a bad state, but it later turns out that someone does sadly die after crossing the finish line, and I'm reminded again just what an endurance feat this is, how you absolutely need to train properly and how it isn't just about the running. The other exercises, the cross training, the practice races, the drink and energy gel practice, the food – everything they've been telling you to do and I've been mocking for page upon page, is to help you get through this. I'm scraping through it, but I'm not as well prepared as I want to be, and I just thank goodness that I have the good sense to know my limits, and know when I'm beaten.

From here on in, everything starts to become a gigantic blur. I can only think about the fact that there's still 5 and a bit miles to somehow cover and there's mostly just one long straight road all the way to Westminster now. Hazy thoughts of that lonely run in the French forest start cropping up to panic the shit out of me, the crowd is starting to thin out a little (although they make up for it in enthusiasm) and I really don't know where my family is.

In dire straits now, it's time to break open the emergency box and resort to the worst advice I've been given, the most shameful advice that I can possibly admit to having considered. Yes, in the week before the race, a colleague at work is chatting to me about the run, and he tells me he's heard this great tip from an elderly man who's still running marathons in his 80's:

“He said: I find someone in front of me with a really cracking arse, and focus on that!”, says my colleague, with a cheeky glint in his eye.

Except that he put it a little less pervily, and he was joking... and my colleague definitely wasn't...

Weighing up my responsibilities as someone's life partner, someone's uncle, various people's boss and a feminist and honorary Scandinavian, against my desire to get to the end of this without jacking it all in, I decide there's nothing for it but to give this a try. It feels wrong, it feels dirty, but I'm ashamed to say it kind of works. At least I try staring at some men's arses as well to make it feel less wrong – never let it be said that I am not an equal opportunities perv.

Luckily, I'm awoken pretty quickly from my arse-reverie by someone nearby:

"Can anyone help me open my gel please?"

I look round and there's the same lady again from mile 8 - we have a good chuckle about this but nobody's really in the mood for talking  - we're getting into the City and along with most of the people around me, I'm walking more than I'm running now. A few steps run when I feel able, and then a torturous, painful walk that I would definitely curtail with a sit down and a pint, were this a nice country stroll. I take every cheer I can get from the crowd and try to use it to run a few more steps - some people on a balcony shout “Come On Jamesy!” and I wave at them with my hat but it's all I can manage. If only I could run on my arms, they seem pretty strong now.


Don't Stop Me Now (cause I'm having SUCH a good time...)

I'm really in deep despair now and text my sister Rachel to ask where they all are, with the answer coming back “Mile 23!”, which now becomes my main goal, I have to make it there and pronto. I contemplate starting a to and fro conversation to pass the time, in fact to be honest I could basically walk along playing Angry Birds at this stage but I figure I'd get a bit less crowd sympathy and encouragement as well as falling into the Thames, so the phone stays in my pocket, where due to some absent-minded fiddling, I manage to take this lovely series of snaps of the lining of my shorts.

Like this...

And this... well you get the idea.

It's a good job I decide to focus on the way ahead because there, all of a sudden, like a blue and white beacon by the side of the dark, dark road, are the Cure Parkinson's Trust cheer squad. I was sure I'd missed them, and I greet them like long lost friends, greedily chugging down their jelly babies and attempting to stop for a chat, but they're having none of it… “Go on, keep going!” says Anna, which isn't really what I want to hear, but it does prompt me to give running another go, to cheers from my temporary fanclub. At least they manage to take this, the only non-official (read: non-expensive) photo I know of, of me running this blooming thing.

Then there's mile 23 and there are all my family, getting sweaty hugs and high fives - “THIS IS VERY HARD…” I start bellowing, and again I try to stop and chat as much as possible, but they don't want to be responsible for a bad time (HA!) and shoo me off on my way, where I run off for about 13 steps until I get lost in the crowd and then start walking again - to be honest, the running metres are now slower than the walking metres, so the only reason to even pretend to run is to stop people thinking I'm just being lazy and shouting at me ..

"Come on mate! Nearly there! Come on, RUN!"

"F**K THE F**K OFF", I don't shout.

“Come on Jamesy, you can do it!”, shouts a lady from a bridge up above the road near Cannon Street. Now this is more like it. Adrenalin suddenly surges through my veins and I forget for just one second that everything south of my navel is in agony. “YES, YES I CAN!”, I yell, and push off again to cheers from her and her friends – another highlight of the whole day. For them, I mean, obviously.

I look like I'm having a whale of a time.

We're close now, but not close enough; we'll never be close enough until I've got that medal round my neck, and even with just 2 and a bit miles to go, my brain is tying itself up in knots between self-preservation and determination to finish this. Going under the Blackfriars underpass, there's blaring music from the day's hit parade  (e.g. “Don't Stop Me Now”) and motivational messages adorn the walls (“Pain is temporary, Pride is forever”). In my emotional state, I don't even make a pretend “vomit” sign - in fact it moves me nearly to the point of tears, as I well up, thinking about everything I've put in to get to this point, how much everything hurts, and why I'm doing this, what can be achieved for Parkinson's sufferers with the nearly £1500 I've managed to collect.

But I can't fully let myself go yet, I'm not there. Somehow I make it to the mile 25 marker and I'm able to tell myself that even at my slowest run/walk pace, this only means 15 minutes to go – what's 15 minutes when you've been going for over 5 hours? This somehow prompts me to “run” again (what passes for running at this stage, anyway), and I stop/start down the Embankment, around the corner by the Houses of Parliament and up onto Birdcage Walk. (Skilfully, I manage to buy only the photos from the “start” phases.)

YES! Look at me, still running so close to the end when all around me are walking!
(There's one from about 5 seconds after this where I am clearly just out for a stroll...)

Eventually I see a sign that tells me there's only 800m to go, but this suddenly seems like the hardest thing in the world. 800 metres - that's literally miles! I can't do that... I don't have anything left in the tank at all. "I'd rather not know!" I say to someone next to me, who completely agrees. But now it's even more important than ever to run. Giving up, with this pathetic little distance left? What kind of failure would that make me? In fact, no, I'm going to do this as fast as I can, I want to get over that line, to find my family, to collapse in a heap and burst into tears.

Suddenly I spot a guy with red hair, wearing a yellow Salvation Army t-shirt. I used to know a guy with red hair who was in the Salvation Army, but it's obviously not him… oh, it is him. “Stan?” “Bloody hell, James?” We've not seen each other since school, and now here we are running the last 400m of the London Marathon together. We manage to pass the 200m mark together, chatting as much as is physically possible whilst our lungs are in danger of collapse - "First marathon?”, I ask. “Yeah and last!". But he's beaten. “Seriously, go on without me.”

So I do. There are 200 metres left. Is this the hardest part? No, it can't be really, but it's up there. There's no longer any option to stop and walk – I cannot, I WILL not – that familiar sound of a moose trapped in heavy machinery is coming out of my lungs again but I'm not going to be beaten.

“WOOOOAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH….. MUST…. HHUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRR…. DO….YEEEEEEEUUUUUUGH… THIS!”

Finally, I can see the photographers by the finish line and I raise my arms in a majestic victory pose, which comes out quite nicely apart from the weird angel thing on top of Buckingham Palace giving me a Statue of Liberty-esque crown. And there I am, I cross the line running faster than I've run all day, with the sound of polite applause from about 5 people ringing in my ears, I come to a stop, my medal gets put round my neck, and I stagger away towards the luggage truck, waiting for the emotions to hit me, the tears to come flooding out as I reach the culmination of the last 10 months…

“Ooh, an apple! Thanks…”

Well, at least I've got a nice one of Dan and Clare.

Afterlife

I've just got my goody bag and there's an apple in there, which tastes like the food of the gods - there's some water, there's more Lucozade Sport (ok NOW I will have that, thanks), and some London Pride, too (really? WARM BEER?). But that apple, seriously.

Nope, the expected tears and emotional release never come, they're overtaken by overwhelming pride and smugness which is probably intolerable for the rest of the week, but I don't care, I've earned this.

(Actually, I feel less smug and less like I earned this, having read various blogs/tweets/comments in the last week where people opine that if you didn't run all the way you didn't really do it, you're not really a runner, and you should have left the place for someone who could run all the way. Well, to that I say, you may have a tiny fraction of a point, but seriously, up yours. I used my own ballot place to raise £1,500 for the CPT, thereby making sure someone else could have a golden ballot place and raise even more money. And if you're bitter because you didn't get into the ballot and really wanted to run, then get off your sodding arse, find a charity and raise some money - there are always charities looking for people right up to the month before. If you really want to run this, you can. Just might need to think about someone other than yourself, that's all.)

I look surprisingly alright, here... It didn't last long.

I later find out that I've come 29769th out of 36000, with an official time of 5:27:11, and an actual distance run (according to Endomondo) of 27.3 miles (although some of those were just into a bush). Considering I thought I'd have to pull out a couple of weeks ago, I'll take it.

Well, I started quite nicely. Gradually slowed down, and then just started having fits, or something...

My family come to find me, led by Karin, who's the first to run up and give me a big hug after I come out of the champions' pen where I've picked up my bags and had as much of a stretch as I can without making noises that cause me to get arrested. Everyone says I look absolutely fine and chirpy, something that's not really backed up by any photos, in which I’m so pale, I appear to have departed my body and run the end of the race as a spirit, floating free on the breeze...

My niece looks very chirpy though, for someone wearing that medal...

The chirpiness lasts as long as it takes me and all my supporters to find somewhere to eat, which isn't that easy on a Sunday in Central London at the best of times, but we eventually end up in Pizza Express by Waterloo, where I somehow manage to arrive by combination of walking and tube (how???)

There's quite a wait for a table because for some reason the place is full of marathon people. Everyone I spot wearing a medal gets a little knowing glance and a raised eyebrow by way of a “Well done” - usually resulting in a conversation that involves our times somewhere along the way. I don't instigate this because I'm not exactly overjoyed with mine - but the conversations go one way or the other, depending on whether I beat them or not.

1) "Yeah, I just missed the three hour mark, I was SO gutted. What did you do?" Oh, a bit better than I feared - I just don't think times are that important really, are they?

2) "I'm really happy, I did it in 5:40! How about you?" Yeah, I did it in 5:27, you know, it was a bit worse than I wanted to but, it's the charity that counts... where are you going...?

We eventually sit down at the table and it's at this point that I realise just how godawful I feel. I'm thirsty as hell, and oh god, actually I feel really sick. The smell of food is making me want to retch, so I just look at the floor and try to stop the room spinning, occasionally getting up every so often to hobble to the toilet in my bare socks and wee out a thimble full of brown sludge the colour of the Bakerloo line. After a while I do feel like I can eat, so I order far too much food and wolf it down - after which I immediately fall asleep with my head on the table. "Can we please get a taxi back to Surbiton?", I keep saying. It's before anyone in my party has heard of Uber, so no, we can't, there's more public transport and thousands of steps to contend with- still, at least there's an opportunity to get some more "Well done, mate!"s as we make our way back out of London with lots of other wounded soldiers being propped up by their partners and parents.

And then we're home - and I finally manage to charge my phone back up and get bragging on social media, which I will bet you a million pounds happens before I get in the shower or take any Ibuprofen. And then bed, oh sweet lovely bed.

Annoyingly enough, like last night, it takes a long time to get to sleep, The pain is indeed secondary, but it's secondary to the thousand things going round and round in my head. It's been one heck of a day, one heck of a year, actually - and I'll have to do it all again properly at some point, but for a first attempt, I suppose I did okay?

The end result of the last 10 months of training.
Yes, this story was from the 2014 London Marathon - I didn't mention that before because I didn't really think it was that important, it's basically the same every year, innit? It took me a year before I could really bear to start thinking about it again...

A massive "Thank You" to everyone who stuck with me through this epic battle of words, all the way to the end - without your nice comments, likes, retweets and all that jazz, it probably would have been just as hard as all the running, but without any of the fun.

Big thanks to Karin, Helen, Rachel and my parents too, for putting up with me immortalising them in probably-not-100%-accurate quotes, and also for me typing away for hours on end and ignoring them when they were trying to talk to me.

Big shout out also to the @ukrunchat posse, who gave me all kinds of advice along the way but now don't remember who I am because I abandoned them all when I got injured and then changed my Twitter name a couple of months ago (that was a good plan, wasn't it?)

Massive gratitude also to everyone who came and cheered me on the day - all my extended family and the lovely people from the Cure Parkinson's Trust (what do you mean they weren't there just for me?)

And lastly, MASSIVE thanks to everyone that sponsored me for the Marathon. Donations are closed now, but if you've been affected by any of the issues raised along the way (stripping in public, weeing in bushes, crying in forests, eating too many cakes), then please consider sponsoring my friend Lana who did this year's London Marathon two weeks after this year's Brighton Marathon, and is now doing the London to Brighton 100k run like a complete fruitcake, all in aid of the CPT. Good luck, Lana!

And last, but not least - this is SO true...

Picture: @runningstories on Twitter

How (not) to Run the London Marathon (Part Two)

Previously on “How (not) to run the London Marathon": Rotten sushi, energy gel dilemmas, extreme isolation at the start line, stripping down to my pants by the South Circular and finally heading round Woolwich roundabout to a rapturous reception…

(Also, a whole load of stuff about how overweight, unfit old me got to the start line which, frankly, you’d be a ruddy fool to miss.)

The elite men's race reaches Deptford. I'm not actually in this one.

Aerodynamic

Miles 4, 5, and 6 now fly by, with 6 being my fastest lap of the entire race at 10:30, and I start to realise why we do so much training - these early miles just happen on autopilot now. Plus, Westcombe Park and New Charlton still aren't terribly exciting, so there's plenty of time to focus on the nuts and bolts of just going for a flipping long run without all the fun distractions that are coming up on the long road ahead. Most important are the basic mechanics of running, like managing my pace so I don't peak too early, checking that my heartrate doesn't mean my aorta is about to explode, squeezing my butt cheeks together with every step (as prescribed by my physio), and trying not to bump into other runners as I weave in and out. This last one is pretty tricky – it’s not easy to maintain your own speed without either being swept up in a sea of over-ambitious fast-starters bringing up the rear, or ploughing through those in front of you, knocking everyone flying like a Brontosaurus on the Tube.

"Alright? Had a bloody nightmare getting in this morning, the Circle line was down again..."

Something else to practice is the famous “water grab” – you've seen the elite athletes do it without stopping, like not-terribly graceful swallows plucking flies from the air; us mere mortals aren't quite so slick, largely because there are rather a lot of us all in the same place at the same time. At least we don't have our own personalised bottles of Buxton that we need to collect, which is a plus, but we also don't get to practice this very much unless we have a whole support team available for every long run we do (could get expensive.)

Hence there's always an awkward moment at each water station as we all aim for the first volunteer standing there holding out their glistening treasure, then miss, and lunge sideways at every subsequent helper - arms flailing out as we fail time and time again, before eventually pretty much coming to a stop to gratefully grab a bottle from someone halfway down the line, and setting off again past 10-15 more volunteers  all standing there trying to get rid of their bottles and having about as much luck as a Daily Mail vendor outside the Green Party conference. One day we'll all get this right... maybe.

I'd also like at this point to mention that the Marathon magazine tells you not to take a water bottle at every station because you run the risk of drinking too much and pretty much internally drowning yourself – scary stuff. The answer to this, clearly, is to take a bottle when you need it, sip on it as you go (they're only small, for goodness' sake), and then when it's finished, to cast it carefully to one side where it'll be swept up later. The approach most people seem to go for, though, is “Grab bottle of water, take a big swig, throw the rest in the middle of the road where it joins a mass of heavy rolling artillery, destined to provide new ankle-breaking possibilities at every turn.”

Photo blatantly copied from the Cork Evening Echo paper, for some reason I didn't manage to get a good shot of the bottles while I was running...

I notice that the elite runners do this too, and I assume this is because holding their larger bottles for any longer than necessary might lose them some valuable time – and this I'll allow. However, Pete the fun-runner, dressed in your “Save the HB Pencils” charity shirt: I hate to break it to you mate, but carrying that small bottle isn't really going to be the difference between winning and losing. I manage to run the entire thing with a small bottle in my hand all the way, and thank goodness I do – I can sip on water whenever I feel I need to, I can chuck it over my sweaty face whenever I get a bit warm, and it gives me something to point at people by way of salute whenever someone calls my name, in a kind of “Yes, that's right, you just witnessed the Jamesy, your day is all downhill from here” kind of a way.


Family Snapshot

After the 6 mile marker, things start to “interesting up” a bit, both for me and you, as we're now heading towards the first part of the course that's recognisably “London” – down into Greenwich and past the Royal Naval College on the left, before taking a sharp right for a fabulously pointless but iconic detour around the Cutty Sark. Symbol of ancient trade routes, tea, and tourism, and survivor of wars, fires and being plonked on top of a giant glass pillow; as it rises up above me on the left, the ridiculous fact of today suddenly strikes me again:  “I'm running the London Marathon. This is the London Marathon.”

It's entirely surreal - something I can remember watching on a tiny black and white TV at my parents' first house in Herne Bay, a major world sporting event that everyone's heard of and plenty go to watch, and I'm in it. Me. Mr “Took cross-country running at school so that we could jog to my mate's house and eat cakes.” It's a wonderful feeling, which to a degree I'm only truly appreciating right now as I write, because just as it starts to occur to me on the day, I turn round the ship's bow or stern (never was that good at this stuff), and there's a giant TV camera swooping right down over us. I manoeuvre over to one side so that I'm right next to a guy dressed as a giant lighthouse, and I run as impressively as I can with my arms held up in the air, going “Woooooo!” like a 13-year-old girl. I'm definitely going to be on TV now, fo' sho'.

Photo: BBC / Funda Cizgenakad

(I don't make the edit.)

Now we're in areas I know like the back of my hand, as we go through Greenwich town centre where the crowds are still out in force, and on towards Deptford - Deptford High Street, where my sister Helen lives and I know that I am about to find my supporters for the first time. It's only a mile or so, and I get there quickly, with adrenalin pumping in my veins, desperate to see everyone, to make them proud, to get their approval. Coming up to the spot, I check every single face in the crowd – where can they be? Panic sets in - what if I miss them? Mustn't miss them… THERE THEY ARE! There's my partner Karin, beaming, “Woo!”ing and looking happy to see me, my parents clapping and cheering, my sister Rachel waving her Cure Parkinsons’ Trust inflatable stick thing (no, I don't know what it’s called…)

And best of all (no offence to anyone else), I suddenly spot my 7-year old niece, jumping up and down, shouting “Come on Uncle James!”, glowing with pride and with the biggest, widest smile I've seen since Tony Blair was last in government. It’s moments like this that make it all worthwhile.

Here they are, waiting for me.. Can you see me coming along? No, neither can I. It appears nobody actually managed to get any pictures of me running. Probably for the best.

I don't have time to stop or say much so I hope that they're not disappointed, but I do a big cheesy thumbs-up, and for me even this tiny glimpse is a massive pick-me-up, so I end up full of beans and going off again really quickly. But hang on a minute, where was Helen? She was supposed to be here and it wouldn't make sense for her to have gone somewhere else. Suddenly, I remember in amongst the “we are here” texts, there was a photo of a random telephone box which I assumed at the time was probably a suggestion of where next to change next time I have a clothing crisis – but then I spot it, and look across the road and there's Helen, also looking suitably relieved to have spied me after several hours of standing about. There are more “woo!”s from both of us, then I speed off into the distance, and all my supporters go back to Helen's flat round the corner where they almost immediately watch the elite men cross the finish line. They started 17 minutes before me, and I'm only about a quarter of the way round. It's a good thing I don't know this at the time, or there probably wouldn't be much more of this to read.

Across the River

With family time now done for the moment, it's time to focus on getting to the halfway mark, which is a significant milestone in any long run, but especially so today. I'm coming up to the 8 mile mark and really giving it all I've got at the moment, feeling blooming masterful as I power along the streets of Surrey Quays in 30,000th –ish place.  Mentally I'm in the zone, and physically my muscles have started to enter that place where they go beyond getting slightly tired and start to tingle with lactic acid, which is rather like having popping candy in your bloodstream and makes me feel like a proper athlete.  A quick check of my heart rate, though, and it's up to 180 - so with 18 miles still to go (longer than the length of my longest training run), I decide that this is probably not worth dying over, and relax my pace down to just over 11 minutes a mile to give myself a breather.

It's at this point that I realise I really, really, REALLY need a wee. This is very annoying, because I've never needed a wee at any point on any of my long training runs, and I went just before I set off, just like my mum always taught me to, and I know for a fact that in a couple of hours’ time, I'm going to be more dehydrated than a bag of silica gel in the middle of the Sahara - but still, none of these things seem to change the situation, so I start pondering what to do.

There's always the Nike approach (“Just Do It?”), which I could probably get away with, considering the amount of water I've already chucked over myself, but I would never be able to look myself in the eye again afterwards, and I decide it would probably start smelling kind of rank by Mudchute, so all in all not the best suggestion. (Although I do know a poor guy who took this approach involuntarily during the Royal Parks Half Marathon and didn't realise until the end…)

Other options seem fairly limited though, so I start looking out for toilets along the way and meanwhile I distract myself by checking out some of the people I'm passing – a man dressed as a bicycle, a giant furry bear-person, and the “Wolverhampton Bobsled Team”, running as a four in a kind of makeshift sled thing. It's quite nice running near people like this because you soak up all their cheers and applause and can pretend it's for you, but without you having to wear a hot and heavy costume (other than that of “overweight desk-worker”, that is.)

I do hope none of them need a wee!

“Can anyone help me open my gel please?”, shouts a lady nearby. “Errrm, I can,", I say "but only with my teeth? Seems to be the only way!…”

She thinks about it for a worryingly tiny length of time and accepts, and thus it is that I come to be awkwardly chewing on a strange lady's pouch whilst running down Salter Road in Rotherhithe- something I try to do as un-slobbery-ly as possible and hand it back to the lady in question, who is eternally grateful, as we have a little chat about how things are going – consensus: alright but with a side order of “AAAAAAAHHHHH WHAT ARE WE DOING?!”

Our conversation is cut short by my sudden spotting of some toilets coming up – so I work my way over to the side, but there's an enormous queue of people in similar discomfort to me, so it's quite clearly going to take nearly 5-10 minutes to stop properly and do this. I thus take the only option available to me, which is to do what all the other sensible people are doing: running into the park just beyond the 10-mile marker and taking a wizz in a bush. (It's okay, because everyone else is doing it.) This results in a 12:25 mile, and probably doesn't end up too well for the poor bush either, but some things are worth sacrificing a minute of race pace and some plant life for, and un-soiled shorts is definitely one of those.

Spot the bush detour from my Endomondo map...

Bladder vacated, I can get back to the running, and as I cover the couple of miles through Bermondsey and start for the first time to feel a little bit tired, all kinds of things go through my head. Shall I stop for a walk? No, I still feel ok and I might not get started again. How many miles to go? 15. That's shorter than my longest run, and I know I can do 15 miles in 2 and a half hours. Only 2 and a half hours to go! I'm being very optimistic, aren't I? Shut up, James. Ooh, squirrel! No really, it's a man dressed as a squirrel.

Finally, the second iconic landmark of the course rises up off Tooley Street, and I suddenly find myself on Tower Bridge running through the 3-deep cheering crowds on either side. It's stunning: such a life-defining moment that I have to take some photos (believe it or not, Selfies aren't really on my radar at this point or you would so be getting one right now).

My actual photo. No, that's not CJ from Eggheads, he's quite significantly better than me, the smug git.

Coming off this high, though, there’s a very depressing moment, where we all turn right to go on a ridiculous 10-mile loop around Docklands, whilst on the other side of the road for the next 2 and a half miles we have to watch the pretty good club runners doing their miles 21-22, looking reasonably fresh, heading for home. (Obviously Wilson, Edna and the rest are all at home with a cup of Horlicks watching Countryfile by now…)

Can't we please just turn left instead? Well, we could, but we'd end up on the front page of tomorrow’s papers for being MASSIVE CHEATS, so probably best continue on into the desperation zone.

WHY? Just why?

Halfway There

Everyone's least favourite section is up next, then, as we head down through Wapping, but just as I start to despair for my sanity, there's a “JAMES!”, and there's my cousin Adrian, who's not content with stalking me at Rush gigs but has actually brought his whole family here today to cheer me on as well, which is a wonderful unexpected surprise, and he's got all my other supporters with him too, so it's another lovely moment that brings my spirits right back up to where they need to be.

I think this adequately captures what most of my poor supporters' day is like...

The half-way mark at 13.1 miles comes and goes without me losing the plot, and I start to think I might be able to do this – it's nice weather, nothing hurts too badly, my buttock-squeezing is going pretty well, and my pace is relaxed but comfortable at 11:30 a mile - if ever the actual speed didn't matter, it's today. Plus, somewhere along The Highway, there's a nice spray station to run through, dunk my head into, drink from. I'm ridiculously tempted to take off all my clothes and dance through it like some kind of woodland nymph – but you'll be pleased to hear that I don't.

Coming up to Limehouse's Narrow Street, which lives up to its name, the sun is streaming down between the buildings, and the crowd, such as they are here, are unrestrained, which means they can easily lean out into the road for high-fives and to give us sweets (YES, YES, NOW IT’S TIME!). It's another place where you really get the sense of how special this event is, and it feels wonderful to be alive on this planet, doing something constructive for a change instead of just arguing with people on Twitter. Plus there are funny signs that people have painted, saying stuff like “I bet this seemed like a good idea 12 months ago”, and “If this was meant to be easy, it would be called your mum”, and “If you don't keep running, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.” (I might have imagined this last one.)

But then we turn right, and down onto the Isle of Dogs, which is where nobody doing the London Marathon really wants to be – and it starts to get very tricky indeed (although still nowhere near as hard as my French 16-mile training run, ooh la la la la.). Getting to Westferry Circus, we go under an underpass and there are lots of people down there doing stretches up against the wall, like hobbits doing yoga. It makes me think that it would be nice to stop and do a gentle spot of pilates, but I'm still worried that I won't get going again if I so much as slow down to kick a pigeon, so I decide not to yet - there are still more than 11 miles to go. I know in my body that I can't run this whole thing, but something in my head is still telling me there might be an outside chance I can do this properly if I just keep on going.

And "on going" I do keep, down the outside of the Isle - again it's not the prettiest place in the world (apart from the wonderful Asda at Crossharbour, obviously), but there are still plenty of people out to cheer us on, even if they are just our friends and family who've popped down on the DLR to make sure we're not just running straight on down the jetty at the bottom by Island Gardens and into the river to end it all.  The 16 mile marker finally comes into sight and I'm ecstatic to have made it here – it's been 6 weeks since I did my previous 16 mile run, and I've done very little since then, so it's a triumph of mind power and physio advice that, much like Elton John, I'm still standing.

We're into uncharted territory now, though; this is more than I've ever done in my life, I suspect I've already used up several miles worth of adrenalin and crowd support - and what happens from here on out is anyone's guess.

To be continued...

Next time: The conclusion of the actual London Marathon. It all seems quite easy for me so far, doesn't it? Won't do for long...

How (not) to Run the London Marathon (Part One)

Hello. This probably isn't going to be short, but then neither is a marathon. Just pace yourself, read at your own speed, drink plenty of water (but not too much), stop for rests if you need to, and just enjoy the sense of achievement when you finally make it to the end...

A quick recap, in case you missed how an overweight 30-something middle manager came to think he could take on one of the world's greatest challenges. In July, I decided I was going to run the London Marathon, so I set about starting from absolute zero, building up to 10k fitness by the end of the year, and then setting off on a journey of elation and despair for the first 3 months of the next one.

Along the way, I learned what gear I needed so as not to injure various parts of my anatomy, I got to grips with the pretty demanding training plan, I raised as much money as I could for my chosen charity whilst battling injuries which sound like Finnish Metal bands, I learned what I should and shouldn't put in my gob before, during and after a long run (and then ignored it), I found what it was like to start doing runs of 10-14 miles (and enjoyed it), I did my first competitive Half-Marathon and then found what it was like to fall deep into the depths of despair during a 16-mile run in a remote forest in the rain, (and didn't enjoy it quite so much). I finally went for physio and got told not to do any more running, and my taper phase turned into a complete stop.

So I find myself the day before the race having barely run at all for a month, having only made it as far as 16 miles in training, and with my gear having only just arrived back from Copenhagen courtesy of British Airways.

What more could go wrong?


Wake Me Up

I wake up at some ungodly hour with a mixture of supreme elation and bowel-emptying nerves, the most simultaneously exciting and terrifying day since my wedding (hope this ends up a bit better than that), or that day I finally got to see Genesis with Phil Collins (hmm... ditto, actually.)

Moving bleary-eyed over towards where my kit is all laid out, I spy a little note attached to something - has Karin left me an inspirational note of well wishing? "Use me!", it says, which since it's attached to a bottle of suntan lotion, I have to assume is less of an invitation to early morning rumpy-pumpy and more of a suggestion not to contract skin cancer to go with all the other things which will inevitably be wrong with me by the end of today. It's actually a good call, you never know how the weather is going to turn out on these days - and it also reminds me to pick up a hat just in case the sun decides to show its cheeky little face later and give me a nice toasting on the top of my increasingly bald pate.

Weetabix downed, I put on the rest of my kit as nicely modelled yesterday, but now including my Cure Parkinson's Trust wristband and my @ukrunchat temporary tattoo, which probably isn't meant to go on one's hand, but never mind, the desired effect is achieved when I blatantly tag both in my pre-race tweet on the train, and I get the retweets and peptalks I'm after.

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here

The train up to Waterloo from Surbiton is absolutely full of people with red plastic bags wearing old hoodies, but that's nothing compared to the lycra-clad sea of humanity heading up the stairs to Waterloo East and the waiting trains to take us to Blackheath; which, since I'm absolutely useless at running, is where my start point - the blue start - is located. I look around at various people on the train and everyone's in their own zone: either they're with friends and supporters and chatting nervously to them, or they're on their own and exuding "leave me the hell alone" so I keep myself to myself, as much as you can when someone's armpit is rammed right in your face, anyway. At least this is pre-race, I suppose.

Arriving at Blackheath station, I follow the mass of people up the hill towards the start line, through the massive gate beyond which running-muggles may not enter, and sit down in the middle of the giant grass cattle pen we've all been herded into, to decide what I'm taking with me and what's staying in the official bag to be carted to the finish in case I make it there to collect it. This isn't as easy as you might think - how many energy gels do I need? I have no idea, so I just ram as many as will fit in my shorts pockets and still leave room for my thighs. Shall I take my own bottle of water with me? Yes, definitely - I don't like being completely out of control of my hydration. Ibuprofen? Uh-huh. Vaseline? Oh god, yes. How about this 3-day old sushi? Nahh - I give that a sniff and decide it belongs in the bin.

Dropping off my bag, I'm now basically alone with my thoughts- well, as alone as you can be whilst hanging out on Blackheath with several thousand other mediocre marathon runners ahead of you in the toilet queue. Entertainment at this point comes courtesy of a very loud PA blasting out inanities from a guy with a microphone interviewing random people he finds in the crowd.

"Oh, you've come all the way from New Zealand? Marvellous."

"It's a bit David Coleman isn't it?", says the guy behind me in the queue. More like Alan Partridge, I think.

"You're not even listening, are you? You people..."

Ready to Start

Eventually, I decide to just head down to the start line to get into my pen, where it's deathly silent, just thousands of people all standing around quietly bricking it. I think about my strategy again - when people have asked me during the week what time I'm going for, I've self-deprecatingly told everyone “I just want to finish before the street sweepers catch me up”, and there's a certain amount of truth to this, although I have written 5:45 on the expo wall of fame, and I know I will be bitterly disappointed if it takes me more than 6 hours. Logically, due to my training woes, I know I probably can't run more than 18 miles in total, so shall I do 3 lots of 6 miles with strategic walks in between? That involves me walking at 6 miles, though, when I'm still fresh, and looking like an absolute n00b for my adoring public around Greenwich and Cutty Sark, and besides, I don't want a repeat of the Hampton Court Half where I couldn't get going again after my banana break.

I decide to just play it by ear. That's a great plan, right?

So now, here I am, at the start of the London Marathon. Or, to be more accurate, in Zone 9, right at the very back of the queue to get to the least prestigious of the 3 start lines of the London Marathon. But, still. Everyone is nervously standing around, and I'm not sure whether they (or indeed I) want to talk - but eventually, out of sheer boredom and coldness, I decide to break the ice with the lady next to me, who is absolutely terrified, so I try to convince her that we're all going to be ok, even though I have no idea how I will get though this, let alone her. I'm not sure if it works, but at least she doesn't run away from me in terror, which I'll take as a result (probably not wearing the charity singlet helps with this...)

Now I don't like to spoil your TV dreams for you, but in much the same way that that's not Lord Sugar Daddy's real boardroom; not everyone who runs the marathon gets to start by running through the iconic gates of Greenwich Park, and what's more, that wonderful, inspirational music which you're humming to yourself even now, just reading this, is nowhere to be heard at all. NOWHERE! Can you believe it? Next, you'll be telling me that “Won't Get Fooled Again" doesn't play everywhere you go in Miami.

Obviously, I don't really expect my own personal theme song, but I do at least imagine, though, that we'll be able to hear announcements of what's happening down at the real start line, or more pearls of wisdom from Alan on the mike. But no - there are no speakers anywhere near us, so all there is is a deathly silence, with the dull thud of expensive trainers clomping across grass, as we all now start shuffling forlornly forwards towards what at the time (and now, again, writing this), feels like our impending doom.

And then, finally, at 10:17, I make my way over the start line to the sound of 'Around the World' by Daft Punk, which isn't quite the BBC Marathon theme, but it'll do. Here I am, running the first few steps of the London Marathon.


Wanna Be Startin' Something

Let's be honest, unless you're one of the elite runners, the first few miles of the London Marathon are really pretty boring - and that's ok, because you're supposed to be concentrating on settling into your pace anyway, which I do reasonably well, with the first 5 miles all skirting around 11 minutes, give or take. From the blue start, you head down through the residential area of Charlton towards Woolwich, which, without wishing to cause any offence to the good people of London SE7, isn't exactly picturesque. Still, we're not here to stare at the scenery, (not yet, anyway), and as we run down various nondescript streets, including the aptly named "Ha-Ha Road", at least there are a few people here and there outside their houses offering golf-clapping, sweets (not time yet, people), and the odd "C'MON JAMESY!" - which is nice of them, since this race has been going on for hours now and they probably lost their enthusiasm for encouraging people like me a good few thousand runners ago.

This is borne out by the fact that the kids who have stuck around to keep high-fiving passers-by are a bit half-hearted with their efforts now, but that's not going to deter me; having found the restorative powers of a some good hand-on-hand action during my previous races, I'm not about to stop it now (not until I nearly take a poor toddler's arm off with my over-exuberance, anyway.) More fun are the "HUMP!" people, who are guarding the many speed bumps in the road and warning us not to trip over them - something which proves quite handy when I'm running along texting my family to find out where they're going to be. "Around Mile 7!", comes the answer, which is perfect - I'm definitely going to be at the peak of my athletic prowess by then, so I'll look really cool in front of Karin, but also I'll be secretly flagging just the tiniest bit and need the pick-me-up.

Here they are, around Mile 7. Little do they know JUST how long they still have to wait for me to turn up.

But, wait, I'm only just over 2.5 miles in, so maybe it's as well to think about what I'm doing - and the primary thing my body is telling me, which is that I am TOO FLIPPING HOT. Ah yes, that base layer, which seemed like a good idea yesterday but is now acting like tinfoil on a turkey, reflecting heat back towards me from inside my charity T-shirt and basting me in my own juices. What on earth was I thinking? Well, the reasoning was sound - cotton gets damp very quickly when you run in it, and damp cotton plus bare skin equals more chafing than anyone really wants to hear about - but the temperature today is way above what I'd expected and I am in severe danger of overheating like an old Renault. It's for this reason that I end up pulling off to one side of the South Circular near the army barracks, turning my back on the crowd, stripping off right down to my shorts thereby letting my flabby stomach blow free in the breeze, wringing the sweat out onto the road and putting the CPT T-shirt right back on to my bare, clammy torso.

"C'MON JAMESY!", someone shouts, probably sarcastically, as the 4:58 pacemakers run past me wrestling with my garments. Now I've got a problem - what am I going to do with the base layer? Throw it away? Too expensive. Donate it to someone? Too wet and smelly. Carry it with me? I've already got a water bottle in one hand and don't fancy waving the base layer like a flag of sweat from the other for the whole race. I tuck it into the back of my shorts, where it flaps for the rest of the race like an oversized golfer's glove. This is definitely not annoying at all.

Still, I set off again without losing any appreciable amount of time, and before long I'm overtaking the Huddersfield Marathon Band - a marching band who have done the London Marathon every year since 2011, raising stacks of money for Sense and breaking Guiness World Records in the process.

Yes, I was able to take a photo as I went past. That's how fast I was evidently going.

They're inspiring for many reasons - chiefly for doing this at all, secondly because they start playing the Indiana Jones theme as I run past, which I assume is done just to inspire me, and thirdly because they're flipping slow and therefore very easy to overtake, and frankly every person I overtake without too much effort along this route is a MASSIVE WIN.

Pretty soon we make it down into Woolwich and round the massive roundabout in the town, where I get my first taste of the proper London Marathon crowds - it's rammed here, the people still seem fresh and excited, there's live music going on, and massive cheers as we come down the hill and head left towards actuLondon.

But there's still a very long way to go...

Next time: Miles 4-16. The crowds, the cameras, the unfortunate bladder issues...

How (not) to Prepare for a Marathon: The Day Before

Previously: Seven Parts of How (not) to Train for a Marathon, ending with my running gear stuck in British Airways' luggage system with 24 hours to go. Dig in, and enjoy yourselves...

I don't really know why I've put this here, I just liked it and hadn't found anywhere else for it. Feel free to ignore, although it does kind of sum up what happened to my training at the end...

Saturday April 12th

It's Marathon Expo day! Yes, before they let you loose on the course, you actually have to turn up in person to prove you're really who you say you are - I suppose otherwise you could send Wilson Kipsang along to run for you and then claim bragging rights on his time, or something. Anyway, there's a whole running expo at London's ExCeL centre with clothes to buy and other races to sign up to, and minor running celebrities to meet, and that's where I'm off to today.

Karin kindly offers to stay at home and wait for my missing luggage to turn up, so my sister Helen decides to come along and share the excitement with me, which we double by getting there on the awesome-but-ultimately-fairly-pointless Emirates Airline, the cable car that straddles the Thames by the O2 in the world's most rubbish ski resort.

Getting inside, there's a number to be collected, and a photo-document of extreme terror to be taken - looks like this is really happening now.

I look strangely at peace with my fate, actually.

There's one other essential thing to be done, and that's getting my name printed on my T-shirt for tomorrow. I've read that having people call out your name as you go is one of the most inspiring things about the London Marathon, and frankly, I need all the inspiration I can get. A top tip I also picked up, though, suggests that there are going to be a heck of a lot of people with your name, so you might want to think about using a nickname or something else unique. It is thus, that I come to be the only "Jamesy" on the course on the day - that I spot, at least. This proves to be A Good Decision.

The main reasons for coming now complete, we figure we may as well check out the rest of this massive show, so I go and look at overpriced London Marathon merchandise, obviously buying a commemorative T-Shirt (in case I don't make it to the end and ever get my hands on the real one, perhaps), and there are nice "inspirational" things to do which have nothing to do with advertising any of the LM sponsors, obviously...

Write your predicted time on the Virgin Money wall of fame/shame!

Write your touching message of inspiration under the giant Adidas logo!

Oh, ok, that is quite nice actually. Thanks, Helen!

Watch someone who used to be in Emmerdale singing a song about marathons! (No, I don't know why, either.)

To be honest, being here with all these people kind of stresses me out, and stressing myself out is the last thing I'm meant to be doing today, so we don't stay long - but there is just time to catch up quickly with some people from the @Ukrunchat Twitter community that has helped me so much during my training. Unfortunately I upset Jeff by picking a 'Team Blue' shirt, but that can't be helped - red just isn't my colour...

We manage to leave without signing up to any more races or buying any new shoes (tempting though both are) - apparently some people buy new shoes at this event and then try to run the marathon in them the next day. You don't need to be a runner to know that's a terrible idea - remember how much your Clarks rubbed you on the first day of school each year?

So, it's time to leave now, via Decathlon at Surrey Quays, where I buy some precautionary replacement clothes for tomorrow in case my suitcase doesn't arrive (luckily I have a second pair of broken-in running shoes for just such an occasion), and back to the flat, where the suitcase duly arrives shortly after I get in. I'd normally be annoyed, but the running clothes in this bag have lived with me through the high times and the low, were my only company and solace out on the lonely road when things got rough, and, frankly, smell a bit like me, so I'd worry if anyone else found them and thought about approaching them without a ten foot pole.

There's time for a modicum of rest and chilling, before my parents arrive (no, I don't mean that they bring an end to the chilling...) and we all head out for a celebratory dinner at Zizzi, which, serving bread and pasta, the night before the city's main running event, is rather busy.

Part of the final carb load... followed by another BOBOP.

Cheers! Hope you don't die! Etc...

We eat, drink, and are merry - no vino for me, though, I can't imagine anything less conducive to a good run other than perhaps running over your foot with a lawnmower.

And before I know it, it's 10pm, I try on my gear for one last time to make sure I'm happy, and then lay it all out nicely ready for the morning. Charity T-shirt, base layer (more about that next time), shorts, non-rubbing pants, Bodyglide, number attached with Marathon Clips, headphones (quite possibly the most essential part) and heart rate watch, which doesn't seem that important at the time but as it turns out probably stops me having a cardiac arrest on the day, so is a fairly good call in retrospect.

How happy I look, how full of dreams and ambitions.. if only I knew...

I go to bed, and try to sleep. I fail for a very long time. Apparently this is normal. I don't care, it's still annoying.

Next time: The Race. The actual Marathon. No, really.

How (not) to Train for a Marathon (Part Seven)

Previously on How (not) to Train for a Marathon: We went to some very, very dark places on the longest training run I have ever done, enjoyed some French Cul-De-Sacs, and got high-fived by Henry VIII.


Things Fall Apart

It's the end of the first week of March, and there are just 5 weeks to go until the big day. It's at this point that things start to go off track - I've largely done what I needed to up to this point, but then everything starts coming at once - injury, illness, travel, like I'm delving into life's bag of Revels and pulling out all the coffee ones. It's a catalogue of disasters seemingly designed from stopping me getting to that finish line, and it's during these dark weeks that I decide that if I do make it through, I'm going to share my stories so that anyone else in the same situation can be reassured at just how miserable things can get without it stopping you making it through the big day. (Oops, spoiler!)

This is amazing - a guy at the hilarious Epicurean's Answer blog actually did research on the breakdown of the Revels across several bags, and it turns out coffee is the least frequent, we just perceive that there's more of them if we don't like them.
How very like life.

9th March (The Surrey Half Marathon)

What I am supposed to do:  18 miles
What I actually do: 1.83 miles jog, 13.44 miles run and a whole load of walking about
How Does it go?

I really shouldn't be here. I've already done one Half Marathon race, and today is supposed to be 18 mile training day. But I've paid for this, and I'm looking forward to it, so I'm going to make it work, dammit.

The race starts in Guildford, so I get off the train there and decide to be the smug one who jogs past everyone on the way to the start line just to get some more miles in. After last week's despair, it feels goood, but it doesn't quite make up for the fact that the race I'm doing today isn't really what I'm supposed to be doing.

Still, it's a lovely run on a sunny spring day, the roads are shut between Guildford and Woking so we can run there and back again through the countryside and not get run over, and there's a dodgy Oasis covers band playing outside in Woking when we get there, which is reward enough for anyone. There are a couple of fairly challenging hills that I manage to power through after my experience in France last week, and as I finish back in Guildford with a half-lap of the running track at the Athletics Stadium, I start to feel much more confident again. It's the last time for a very long time.

Finish line selfies are always popular, right?

Final stats: 13.44 miles in 2:18:44


15th March


What I am Supposed to do: 20 miles
What I actually do: 12 miles

How does it go?

I can't be bothered to make up a completely new route this time, so I amalgamate some others by deciding to get the train all the way from Surbiton in London's Zone 6 to Vauxhall in Zone 1, and run all the way home along the river. It's 20 miles - I tell people on Facebook that I'm going to do it, and I don't think they believe me, but that's probably because I don't believe it either. I've felt the pain of 16, and since then I've not gone any further than that, so what makes me think I can do this?

More Thames-porn.

I turn out to be right - as it happens, everything starts ok apart from nearly getting lost through Battersea Park, but the pace is ridiculously slow (12-13 minutes per mile), and I can feel that my body is completely spent and nowhere near recovered enough for this.

A brief diversion occurs in Mortlake, where I find the Thames Path completely flooded and have to double back on myself through the streets, but it's not enough to take my mind off the undeniable muscle pain, and from Mile 11 onwards every step becomes a struggle. When my knee starts twinging again at the 12 mile marker, I decide there's just no sense in pushing this, and stop by Kew Gardens, go and find a bus home, and eat a recovery breakfast once again cooked by the lovely Karin.

Sometimes, you just have to listen to your body.

22nd March

What I am supposed to do: 22 miles
What I actually do: Nothing

How does it go?

It really doesn't... the day after the aborted 20 miler, I'm off to Athens for a week's meeting with my new job. I drink too much ouzo and Mythos, and hang out with a couple of people with heavy colds.

On Wednesday the 18th, I wake up with a sore throat and a serious cough, and it looks like running might be off for the entire week. Sunday is supposed to be my longest run, and I completely miss it, which doesn't improve my mood. Things are starting to look a bit dodgy for the big day, as from here on out the training plan is all about "tapering" (easing up and starting to conserve energy stores for the main event). I'm meant to be slowing up, but not stopping completely. And I'm not even meant to be slowing up until I've done a proper, PROPER long run. (16 miles is clearly nothing...)

I eventually go to the doctor on March 25th and he tells me to rest a bit more, as for some reason he doesn't think me running 20 miles will actually improve my cough. I ask for a second opinion on Twitter and the consensus is that my doctor isn't an idiot, so I continue to rest, twiddling my thumbs and ruminating over and over again as to whether I will actually manage to do this, or have to pull out.

I obsessively Google "running injuries", "run marathon after 16 miles training", and "am I totally screwed?", reading everything I can find to see whether I'm going to be able to do this, or end up face down in a dock somewhere near Canary Wharf.

Still, at least Athens was pretty, eh?

On Saturday the 29th of March, I say bollocks to sitting worrying on the sofa, and decide to do something about this. If I lose all my running fitness, what's going to happen? I'll have to walk the whole distance, won't I? So I put on my walking shoes, and off I go on my normal 10k route, trying to walk it as fast as I comfortably can, just to see what my pace would be like. I average 16 minutes a mile, calculate that it would take nearly 7 hours to do the Marathon at this speed, decide I'd accept that, and move on with my life.


30th March

What I am Supposed to do: 13 miles
What I actually do: 11 miles (of which, 9 are running)

How Does it go?

Spurred on by being able to walk, I decide to give running a go -it's my first for over 2 weeks and it turns out to be the last one I do before the Marathon.

I manage 6 miles before having to stop and walk for a bit, then I do intervals of 2 miles run / 1 mile walk to see how that goes as a possible strategy for the main event. The running miles feel ok, until the very last one - when a familiar twinge in my knee signals that today's training is over.

With two weeks to go, I decide that it might be time to seek professional advice but before that, I turn to my trusty Twitter buddies who tell me to buy a foam roller and roll out those Illotibial bands. I go to Sports Direct and get one, bring it home on the bus to some odd looks, and start using it on the floor in the living room - into which Karin appears fairly shortly to ask me why I am torturing warthogs. Yes, it's a painful old thing which results in me groaning and grunting in a most unbecoming way, but it really does help, so I carry on with it anyway.

At least I: a) Keep my shirt on and b) don't look like Simon Cowell.

Physio Killed the Radio Star

On April the 2nd, I finally go and see the Physio at my gym, to explain my dodgy knee symptoms.

"Ok, so when did you first feel this, was it when you were running at the weekend?", she says.

"Um, no, it was about 6 weeks ago.", I admit, sheepishly.

"Wow, ok, so have you been resting since then?" 

"Noooot exactly, no...."

She gives me a deep tissue massage, which is probably the most uncomfortable thing I've ever experienced, as part of it involves pinching the offending tendons between her thumb and forefinger, running down the length of them to try and work out the knots (or something - I don't know what she's doing really, she could be trying to see how much it takes me to start crying, for all I know...)

"Everything is very tight - you should really have come in weeks ago!" - Yeah, no kidding. "Oh well, we'll get you to start doing these exercises and then you should be ok to carry on running again in a few weeks' time."

When I explain that I'm doing the London Marathon in 11 days' time, she first looks confused, then amused, and then realises that I'm serious about this, and puts on a brave face and starts trying to help me. I get exercises to do, she tells me my glutes are pathetic so I need to squeeze my butt cheeks together with every step as I run, and she tells me to keep on with the foam roller, but not to do any more running until the actual race.

That's right, none at all. Her logic is that at this point, I can't gain any more fitness, as that time is past, and all we can do now is damage limitation. It's incredibly unlikely that I'll be able to run the entire way, we both agree, so I tell her about my plan to run a certain number of miles, walk a certain number of miles and she agrees that it's probably the best result we can hope for. She also suggests that I take pain killers with me and take them every few hours in the hope of keeping the inflammation down.

"Good luck!", she says, sounding like I might be the client of hers that's needed it the most.


5th April

What I am Supposed to do: 8 miles
What I actually do: Help my sister move house

How is it?

It's quite a good day, actually - thanks for asking. I don't do any running, but I do drive across London to Deptford / Greenwich, and find cones out all over the place, signs up warning people of delays, and pubs advertising "Marathon Breakfast".

Shit just got real.

Mmmmm....

Eeeeek!

Ewwwww....

The Final Countdown...

In the last week, you're supposed to do as little as possible, rest as much as possible, and eat as many carbs as possible. I manage the last one, but 1 and 2 are a bit buggered by virtue of having to travel to Roskilde in Denmark with a very excitable colleague, who insists that we try and do something every evening, is obsessed with walking everywhere instead of getting cabs, and is somehow charming enough with her annoying persuasion that I go along with it. Even when she insists on calling me "Henry" for reasons too complicated to go into.

Hence, there's not much rest, but it's ok, the short walks we take get the muscles going again, and I've brought all my gear with me - the running shoes and clothes, the foam roller and my exercise mat, and I spend any free time I do have doing my exercises from the physio and trying not to panic about what's now less than a week away.

There's even genuinely healthy food to help me stock up my body, and I'm able to use the excuse of running a marathon at the weekend to avoid putting my feet in one of those fish-nibbly tanks that my colleague is desperate for me to try.

"Oh Henry, you're so boooooring!"  - ah, but you know, Marathon comes first! "Huh, alright then...". Win.

Unfortunately, I neglect to tell British Airways that Marathon comes first, and after bumping us off our return flight from Copenhagen in exchange for a 200 Euro gift voucher which actually doesn't materialise, we then end up two flights later in the evening, and without our suitcases.

Suitcases. Which contain literally everything I need for the marathon - shoes, clothes, foam roller, headphones, the lot. It's 11pm on Friday night, in the morning I need to go to the Marathon Expo to register, and in less than 24 hours' time I need to be tucked up in bed with all my gear laid out ready for me to grab and go.

See, even the last Revel in the bag usually turns out to be coffee.


Next time: It's the day before the big day (the small day?)