Edinburgh Marathon 2009
Pete and I flew up to Edinburgh on the Friday morning first thing so had a couple of days in the city – acclimatising to the sunshine, the city steps, the bagpipes and the Scots! We made a point of getting our vests printed with our names so we could draw some support from the crowds. We met up with Owain and Grant on the Saturday lunch-time (it felt just like meeting up with old friends) and shared our concerns and strategies… after a cooling Costa drink we all headed to the expo near the start-line. There was a stream of runners hussling around the small expo room, looking at the previous year’s photos, getting last minute water belts and picking up race info. It was suddenly very real. I hadn’t realised the finish was in a racecourse stadium with raised seating for spectators (almost like the end of the pod race in Star Wars)… which seemed quite exciting as I imagined there would be a good roar of final encouragement!
We met up again in the evening with Rich, Owain (and respective others Em and Judith) and Grant for the pre-race Italian supper…. Ann (Annyhouse) also met up with us for a drink. I had been ‘grazing’ and sipping water all day – and with the heat and walking around the city, plus pre-race nerves – my appetite was curbed and I only managed half my veggy lasagne and bowl of scrummy olives. We all headed back to our hotels in taxis for an early night.
The morning started at 6am with 2 mobile phone alarms… everything was laid out the night before… and we liberally sprayed on sweatproof sun-spray, and sunblocked our faces. We had our (own) porridge (kindly made up by the staff at Premier Inn) with a number of other runners also having the early breakfast. A quick check – water-bottle, Garmin, bus ticket, clean socks for the finish bag… everything ready. Outside there was a cool breeze – I wishfully thought it might be cooler than had been forecast – but as soon as we were out of the shelter of the tall buildings – the sun was starting to get stronger. We met the others by Scot’s Monument – Chuckie, Jack Kane, Grant, Momorris, Annyhouse, Rich and Owain…after chuckling at a guy in a panda costume (how warm was he – but very cute!!) we made our way to the pens. Ann, her running mate, Pete and myself all ducked into a hotel on the way to use the very ‘powsh’ facilities (I still chuckle when I remember Ann saying, ‘Excuse me Sir….’!)…. Seeing the hoards of runners ahead and potential queuing nightmares – this was a very good call! It was an amazing sight that lay out in front – I have never in any race I had done seen so many runners ahead of me and the huge open-sided lorries piling on the runners sports bags in race number order!
After depositing our race bag, we got into our ‘Green Pen’ Pete and I started stretching and just enjoyed the entertaining announcer shouting out various messages to the runners ‘Go Fetchies’, ‘We have a Sikh running – hes 98!!’. He was very loud and excitable and wanted us to regularly cheer ourselves! He kept saying how wonderful the weather was for the day – and kept wishing the sun to stay – I really wished he wouldn’t wish for that! It was getting warmer and warmer and my Gore capris were soaked through from heat!
Pens closed… and the Elites set off – we watched as the runners streamed slowly forward in the adjacent pens and waited for our own pen to start moving. We were moving… walking then turned into a slow jog, and we crossed the start mat – Garmin Start – and off! Kept checking the watch as it was a steady downhill – and a lot of runners were moving off fast past us – but we stuck rigidly to the pace pulling back as they surged past. We went past a guy on prosthetic legs on crutches – the courage some people showed was amazing! It was a nice steady route through the early part of the city around Holyrood Park, and we made our way out past a lot of well-wishers (including a young school choir and bagpipers.) When out of the crowds it was eerily quiet – I think all the runners were saving every ounce of energy – but I didn’t even hear any loud breathing! There were Relay runners also running amongst the marathoners… I tried not to get too distracted by their freshness and pace as I knew they were only doing 8 miles or so each. I remember being at Stratford doing the half when I didn’t envy the Marathon runners – but now I was one of them!! We steadily made our way out towards the coast and I hoped for some breeze to hit me – but this never came (or when it did – it was very short-lived!) The sun-shine was cruel but my legs felt fresh and my stomach was behaving very well so there was no reason why I was going to let it beat me. I took gels every 8km as I had in training – and constantly sipped from my dohnut – topping this up at every water station and pouring the rest over my sun-burnt neck and down my back. It was now over half-way – I had done a half marathon – one to go!! I still felt fine with my pace – my head was very much in the zone so I wasn’t really taking in the ‘sights’ – but Pete was always just in sight either beside me, but normally just in front, and when we passed more crowds along the coast his curb-side position was perfect for people to shout his name. This got annoying after a while as no-one was shouting mine (I wondered if my lettering was big enough or if it was covered up somehow) – I realised its because he was only just ahead so they only had time to shout his name before registering mine (plus they were mainly females – so probably fancied him!) It wasn’t long after the half-way point that we saw the leaders coming the other way – two blonde guys (one of which was Andy Jones who won the Birmingham half we did last Autumn) who almost seemed to be running a completely different race! Then the most blissful moment – around 14 miles – a girl with a fire hose and the exquisite coldness of the water which took my breath away briefly… (thank you!)
Pushing on – a stream of elites were steadily trickling the other direction now – and I wondered how far it would be until the turning point… it was motivating in itself. I suddenly caught glimpse of a familiar green running top and luminous trainers – it was RICH – and he looked strong (at least in top 100) so shouted out ‘Go Rich’ – then not long after – our other club-mate Connor… both spurred me on to bite hard and keep going. After a deceptive loop back along a shadier road – the outbound race continued to Gosford House and as we turned right up a small steep gravel track up to the grounds – I noticed A LOT of runners pacing it out, stopping and stretching – and the rather awesome sight of two monolithic beacons at the top of the track (portaloos!) I didn’t quite get it – but then Pete called over to me something – I thought he said I’ll need to stop (I thought he meant to pee or something) but I was in a pace and I couldn’t stop – so I thought he might catch me up. The path carried on through the grounds through some shady trees – and I could feel my pace slowing but my legs were almost on auto-pilot and mentally I was still determined to keep going. I kept turning to see if Pete was in sight – but he wasn’t and I suddenly was concerned that he might have an injury – but we set out to do a pace and we said if the other struggled that the remaining one should push on – so I did – I really battled. The water stations now became life-saving as I saw more and more runners flaking at the sides with marshals, space blankets and heard some horrific sounds of people ‘being ill’. One guy will stick in my memory – he had ‘For Grandad’ hand-written on his top – I just felt for him as he had done so well and my thoughts suddenly turned to my dad and my family. My determination can be quite scary sometimes (my sister often tells me) – if I put my mind to something I really go for it… even more so since my dad died 10 years ago. He ran – and I wished I could have run with him – so I was imagining him running with me now – getting me through the last miles. It was just 6 or so miles to go – and my watch said 3 hours – so I had pretty much a 1 hour 10km race to do…. which is like my first races….. I could do this – I wasn’t even trained back then – I could do this. So many hours of commitment – I wanted to prove the plan worked and I also wanted to do it for Pete as well, getting me off my backside and out on wet, windy evenings… pushing me through hard races – cross-country races in the freezing cold. All of those were part of the journey – and I had to prove I could do it.
Each mile over the 20 mile point was a race in itself it felt – and my pace was slipping – but I had stayed around the 6 minute km mark at the slowest. At one point I was so hot and I had just missed grabbing water as it was becoming a ‘survival of the fittest’ at the water stops – I scanned the ground for bottles with some water left in and saw one grabbed it and just poured it over me. More people now were calling my name as I think they could see my pain… they were all fantastic and every single one I tried to call back thank you and smiled. The girl with the hose was still there on the opposite side and like the other runners I swung over to that side to get another dose of spray!!
It was a couple of miles to go – more and more encouragement along the sides – it was fantastic – I kept going along the road to the racecourse – it felt like forever to come despite the calls of ‘its just round this corner!!’ Then – the turn into the race-course and some very haphazard scalextric style surface (which had dangerous gaps!) I SAW THE FINISH – the roar of the crowd and my watch said – 3:59….. RIGHT!!! I dug so deep I cannot explain and went for it – as I stopped my watch over the finish mat – 3:59:31!!!! You beauty!!!!!! I felt a bit disoriented – and waddled through – almost expecting to collapse at any point… but a banana and some lucozade sport were shoved in my hand… I was on the verge of tears – but I couldn’t cry – I needed to see someone I knew to let it out…. Where was Pete!!!! I waited and stretched eating my banana – scanning the finish lanes for him – 10 or so minutes past and I saw his cap and green top – I waved and went over and just collapsed in his arms and the floodgates opened – ‘I did it – 3:59’ he was dead proud and also proud of his own time considering how he really struggled. Not one he would readily do again – but I felt I could do it again and in better conditions I could get a better time. My ladies captain has told me the top marathon times for our club ladies – so I have some goals in my sights there.
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