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.)
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.
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.”
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'.
(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.
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.)
“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.
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).
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.
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.
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...
(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 |
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).
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| 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...
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