Flora London Marathon - RunMarathon

So much for my plan!! I thought that the old bloke I was trying to beat wouldn't be as strong as me at the finish!! Shows what I know. Anyway, I'm rather pleased with my time, I didn't realise marathons were so hard, I thought that as long as I took it easy it would be OK. After about ten miles of taking it easy I realised that 26.2 miles is a very long way and taking it easy is relative to how long you are going to be working for. In an ideal world I would have liked to have gone under 3:10 but I was close enough and I know that I honestly worked hard for my result. I think I may have been able to knock a little time off but not much. I finished quite strongly. It's hard to remember every emotion that I felt through the race and to be honest it would be dull to try. The bits I will try and remember are the atmosphere created by the crowd, they really are good, the views even on a pretty miserable day are amazing. Driving around London is a total pain and should be avoided at all costs, running through closed roads being cheered by thousands of people is something else and it will be a long time before I forget how that feels.

I would go for a long run closer to race day, perhaps a fortnight before, I'd work harder at my paced runs throughout my training. Stay off the booze the week before a big event, probably consider a sports massage to work some of the lactic acid out. Oh and most importantly I'd run faster!!

Collected kit bag, fell on floor to nibble and slurp my way through goodie bag. When I got home my wonderful girlfriend massaged my aching limbs.


Inexperience.


Today was my first marathon, it's about 13 months since I started training and about 10 months since I joined South London Harriers. When I first started I was running 10k in 52 minutes. Today I've raced an event that a year ago I'd only thought possible to finish. Today I had a good day!