Memories of a Marathon

Nottingham, 12 September 2010

Andrew:

My friend and fellow runner Tom Bartlett and I had breakfast together in Olney and drove up to Nottingham early so we had plenty of time to get ready and soak up the pre-race atmosphere. As we crossed the start line among thousands of others, I noticed that the vast majority were running the half marathon (13.1 miles) or the mini marathon (2.5 miles). Then we were off, jostling among a throng of runners each with their own goals and story to tell.
Before long we were climbing hills round Nottingham castle, which was a bit of a shock, but there were plenty of people cheering us on. Nottingham’s parks, waterways and historic buildings were a distraction from the pain emerging in my knees, and the shade of the trees provided some relief from the hot sun. At mile 8, Tom’s friends Wendy and Alex took our photo and encouraged us forward, and at the 13-mile race split we lost the half marathoners.
This was new territory for me as I’d never run more than a half marathon before. I still had energy in my legs and for the first time I knew I could do it. His pace-making done (and perhaps realising I was going to be all right), Tom surged forward at his naturally faster pace, and I kept plodding away, refueling on the move with water, sports gels, jelly babies and applying the occasional daub of Vaseline proffered by the St John Ambulance to delay the inevitable chafing.
At mile 18, I passed a woman lying on the ground moaning in agony as she was attended by paramedics and noticed the number of sirens around me increasing. The pain in my legs was just awful but I was determined enough to keep running through it - and overcome the indignity of being overtaken by a banana. Other competitors were stopping to walk but I feared that if I did the same my legs might seize up and I’d struggle to get going again. At mile 19, the ‘motivation station’ announcer saw ‘Andrew’ written on my T-shirt and urged me by name through the infamous ‘wall’.
Now every mile felt like two, and my mile times kept falling. My head was throbbing, my knees grating, my muscles spent and nausea was setting in; I felt as if I was going to throw up and I couldn’t even drink any more water. I was thinking constantly of why I’d decided to this, all the messages on my JustGiving page, the donations everyone had made and the people Advantage Africa helps, particularly the orphaned children in Obambo and Muzinda. In my mind, I started to break up the remaining miles into chunks that I’d done during my training and at 24 miles I knew all I had left to do was run round the block from my home in Olney.
As I neared 5 hours on my feet, the spectators became few and far between and those that cheered me by name became particularly important; I didn’t want to let them down either by breaking into a walk. The 26 mile marker eventually arrived but I was saving every ounce of remaining energy, and all my relief, for the finish 385 yards later.
I crossed the line, stopped running, took my medal and my body submitted to a wobble; a friendly woman in scout uniform grabbed my arm to stop me falling over and sat me down in a chair. Then the emotion came; the sense of relief and achievement as I realised I had actually done it - I had just run a marathon.

Tom:

Doing something eight times does not ensure success on the ninth, and as I laced up my New Balances on the grassy Victoria Embankment next to the River Trent in Nottingham, I mused that this was certainly true of a marathon. Each run brings its unique challenges, even threats, and no amount of training or experience can fully negate these.
However, the sun was shining, the air was cool, the course map showed, mercifully, few major hills, and for the first time since my last run in Boston many years previously, I would be running with a friend.
Andrew and I had not agreed a specific strategy; I think we both understood that we would each have to run at a pace which would enable both of us to cross the final line on the run, and in reasonable shape. Running too fast, or too slow, at someone else’s pace, would jeopardize that. Still, this being Andrew’s first marathon, with his distance experience being limited to a very difficult 16-miler two weeks earlier, I felt a sense of responsibility to at least check how we was doing at different stages of the race.
The course was a “figure eight”, two 13-mile loops, each starting and finishing on the Embankment. A new configuration for me (Boston and London both point-to-points; Belfast, Paris and Dublin all big loops), but one which in an aesthetic sense would provide glimpses of all of the major attractions of Robin Hood’s city. However, there was a challenge in the layout as well, which I would learn about, halfway through.
The first loop passed uneventfully and pleasantly enough, with little uphill jogs by the Castle and on the University campus; keeping a comfortable pace in amongst the throngs of half-marathoners and fun-runners. For the most part I kept ahead of Andrew, occasionally waiting for him at water stations, and at Mile 8, where friends Alex and Wendy were spectating and snapping pics.
We again joined up as we eased along the Embankment, watching somewhat wistfully as thousands veered left into the ‘race village’ and the finish line of the Half, their race now over. Those of us on the long run kept straight along the riverfront, past strollers and sun worshippers soaking in the Sunday afternoon atmosphere, some turning to applaud as we ran past.
At that point, Andrew uttered a few words of encouragement – I glanced across at him and he looked strong, seemingly free of the aches which had plagued our long training run, so I felt comfortable about pushing on ahead, feeling this would help him as much as my running side-by-side with him. I wouldn’t see him again for six miles.
The course then crossed the river and proceeded through a rather dull retail and suburban area, before heading east onto a country lane towards a park and watersports centre. I was feeling comfortable throughout this stage, with familiar complaints in my right ankle and left hip staying relatively quiet .However, I had by that time taken in quite a bit of Lucozade, water, and sports gel, and had the unsettling sensation at times of wanting to eject it all into a nearby hedge, but pushing on nevertheless. I did stop to ‘water’ the hedge twice.
Heading along the country lane into some pleasantly leafy parkland, I noticed increasing numbers of contestants starting to walk. Medical staff on motorcycles would occasionally cruise slowly past, peering at walkers, and others who had stopped completely, talking with a few. A couple of ambulances rolled by ominously, and I passed a female runner lying face down on the grassy verge, surrounded by race marshalls, screaming, ‘I can’t stand the pain anymore!! (Evidently, this was the victim Andrew saw as well)
I decided to block the negatives out by listening to music, so extracted my earphones from where they had nestled deep in my running shorts .(Andrew had worn a money belt for his supplies; I’d never before carried anything in a marathon, and this time had simply stuffed both my mobile and music player into a undersized pouch sewn into my shorts. Big mistake.) Unfortunately ‘deep’ means deep: they had slipped down under my scrotum, where I had earlier swabbed a liberal blob of Vaseline to prevent chafing… so it took me a few hundred yards of distracted earphone wiping on my jersey before the ‘phones were dry enough to plug into my ears without slipping out.
The Doors and the Dan soon took me to another place. I was now about four hours into the run – a time when I had finished my previous marathons – and I was only just entering the final seven miles.
The course followed the embankment of a rowing lake, then doubled back on itself, before rounding the far end and proceeding right back to the opposite terminus of the lake; one of those annoying stretches in a marathon when you can actually see the 2-3 miles of running you have ahead of you.
Snapping out of my rock reverie, I heard the unexpected voice of Andrew: “Hey, Tom!” I looked up. He was running past me in the opposite direction; down the lake as I was running up, so no more than half a mile behind me. Well done, lad. Then the questions: do I stop and wait for him? Press on, in the hope that he will keep going, knowing I’m just ahead?
I fell into pace with a pair of Black ladies, both dressed in dark figure-hugging lycra bodysuits with ‘G-Force’ emblazoned in white on their backs and across their ample chests. Their straightened hair swung loosely around their shoulders and upper backs, and they were focusing intently and silently ahead through designer sunglasses. In an hallucinatory way, I felt like I’d stumbled onto the set of ‘Charlie’s Angels in Cameroon.’
Feelings came and went, as they often do in the latter stages of a marathon. Elation. Delirium. Calm. Despair. My ‘running’ had disintegrated to a shuffle, and there were even stretches where I walked; trying to keep to the ‘walk a minute, run to the next mile marker’ strategy. Ahead of me, a pale, sad-eyed runner was being stretchered into an ambulance.
The course eased back along the river, and I was beginning to hear distant snatches of the announcer’s voice at the finish line, tantalizingly close, across the river. By this point, and for the first time in a marathon, I had abandoned any care or interest I had had in a finishing time of any respectability, and hobbled across the bridge over the Trent with no more thought or plan than to cross the line and sit down.
The line itself was rather low-key, unlike all the other big city finish lines I’d crossed. The final hundred yards on grass, for one thing, and with just a small crowd of politely-clapping spectators. An unobtrusive digital clock perched to one side of the line; I looked away.
After stumbling out of the Kit Tent with my retrieved backpack, I spotted Andrew sprawled on the grass several hundred feet in front of me. A woman in a Scout uniform was trying to help him to his feet. I approached, looked purposefully down at my wristwatch, then back up at them. We all smiled.