Well it’s now nearly 4 days after the first Virgin London Marathon (the 30th overall but first with the new sponsors) and my first for 10 years. After such a long gap between marathons I did feel like a virgin marathoner again, so the title sponsor is an apt one! I had a target of between 3.30 and 3.45, I only got the place in mid January through Virgin Money and their chosen charity for their Edinburgh office, Fertility Scotland. When I was offered the place I was only running 5k events and was probably totalling around 10 miles a week so it was a steep progression to get to 26.2 miles in 3 months! However, after watching Eddie Izzard doing 43 marathons in 51 days with just 5 weeks preparation beforehand I had taken the view that anything was possible.
Sadly I had a bit of a tough second half - I was fine for 13 miles, going well and on for about 3.26 but then my quads started to tighten up and went into cramps and then spasms at 15 miles, from then on it was survival to the finish line with walking, jogging, stopping, stretching and a bit of massage thrown in just to get me to the end! It was only in the last mile and a half I was able to start running properly again and when I finished I was actually feeling fine! I even managed to help a struggler down the finishing straight, he was wobbling a bit and looking like he might not make it so I gave him some encouragement to get him going again and ran with him until I knew he was going to get to the line safely. Believe it or not some people make it all the way round the 26 miles and then the last 0.2 miles beats them! My split times of 1:42 for the first half and 2:35 for the second make for painful reading but really, apart from my legs going into spasms, the last half was actually fine – at one point I took my heart rate and it was 140, indicating that I was in the right zone for getting round! I won’t say ‘there’s always next time’ as I don’t know if there will be another marathon for me, but I am not saying 100% no ... for now though it’s 10ks and half marathons – maybe even a spot of track running to get the legs going a bit faster.
So anyway, that was that! My first marathon in 8 and a half years, my first London for 10 years and my first ever Virgin London Marathon! I finished, which I am proud of, and I also beat my fundraising target for Fertility Scotland, again something I am really pleased about.
There’s still time to sponsor me, if you haven’t had a chance before, go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/jogster and click on the ‘donate now’ button. A huge thank you to everyone who has sponsored me already.
Keep on running!
The jogster
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