London Marathon 2011

I feel like I have some excuses to make.

3 hours was the dream time to complete my first marathon. With hindsight, this was ambitious.

Failing that, 3 hours 15 minutes was the next target, and one I hoped to meet. If I missed that, I thought keeping it inside 3 hours 30 would be realistic and towards the latter stages of my training, I thought of it as more of a formality (pah!).

In the end I staggered through the finish in 3 hours 28 minutes. Along Embankment my pace had slowed to a shuffle, and there were plenty of runners zipping past me. I finished in 3,787th position, and along that last stretch to Buckingham Palace and back round on the Mall, there were points when it felt like all 3,786 people were zipping past me at once. On the upside, the crowd picked me out as the runner most in need of attention and supported me so much along that last stretch.

Things hadn't really started as well as they could have. I was late. I arrived with 20 minutes to use the loo, throw my kit bag on the kit bag lorry and find my start zone. There were runners milling about everywhere, kicking back and chatting in the park and I figured I had more time than I actually did. I had just enough time to jog to the very front (I'd put myself in the 2'30" - 3'00" finish time bracket..), stretch my calves out a bit and watch Jonathan Edwards walk past to get things started before we all raced off.

The first 10 miles felt like a dream. I didn't need water, certainly not carb gels. I was high-fiving the crowd as I went. Smiling for cameras, taking it all in- the ticket tape blowing along beneath us, the pubs, the bands, the sun peeking out from under the clouds and a runner with a bright red 2'59" stick marker just ahead of me.

At about 1'15", I felt my quads starting to hurt. This hadn't really happened previously, ever. Usually they are the very last muscle to tire, since I do a fair amount of cycling to and from work and they've built up. At that point, I knew it was going to be a longer race than I'd reckoned on. The 2'59" marker started to get further ahead of me.

At somewhere around 2 hours, my legs tanked. I saw the house-mates at 18 and yelled out, 'It hurts! It hurts!', trying to indicate my legs and not really sure why. I'm not sure how I got through the rest of it. I saw people stopping to walk and thought to myself I didn't want to do that. I saw people throwing up and I thought I definitely didn't want to do that. I forgot about hitting times, or trying to calculate them. I focused on the next water station, the next opportunity to run in the shade, the next bend and mile marker.

Anyway I did it. There wasn't really a euphoric feeling- all that had come before. I cannot express how good the crowd was- the support was by far the best thing about running the marathon. There was a long, long walk to my kit bag lorry, right at the end of the line. There was a phenomenal reception by all the Oxfam staff, a long walk up some steps to the British Academy building where the charity's after-party was held, a tunnel of pom-pom girls I danced down very gingerly, a sports massage and a jazz band in one of those private gardens they usually lock, and then a bus and a cab to the pub to mull over a slightly disappointing day.