My London Marathon Experience & My Life Since Then

It's now been over two weeks since I completed the London Marathon. I'm sorry it has taken me a while to write this. I do have a good excuse, but I will get into that later. First I want to give you a run down of my preparation for the big day and tell you about my personal experience of running one of the world's most famous marathons.

In the last couple of weeks running up to the race I tapered my training (which basically means I cut down the miles to give my body time to recover for the full distance). I read that tapering correctly can improve your performance by up to 20% on the day so despite reservations I decided to take everyone's advice and taper properly.

I also had to go to the ExCel centre to pick-up my running number and tag. This was also an opportunity to meet the team from Shelter UK (my charity) and get some last minute advice from some experts.

I was up at 7am on the big day. My clothes laid out and bag packed the night before. I forced down half a packet of porridge (I could barely eat for nerves) and a big glass of squash. After double-double checking all of my belongings I set off for Old Street tube station at 7:30am. A quick flash of my running number and I was through the barriers and enjoying my free journey. The carriages were filled with runners, some as nervous as me, others season runners on their fifth or sixth marathon. A quick change at London Bridge and I arrived at Greenwich station in what felt like no time at all. I followed the crowds not knowing the direction to the park and tried to stay calm.

Once through the security checks, I had about an hours wait at the Red Start (the masses and charity start) before the race began at 10am. We were able to watch some of the other races set off on the big screen; you could palpably feel the tension building. After a final toilet stop I delivered my numbered bag to the transportation lorries and made my way to my starting pen (7 of 9), knowing it would be a long time until I got to see it again.

I chatted to a nice school teacher in the pen and, after they'd let the plastic tape down, shuffled my way forward in the starting blocks. I crossed the start line around 12 minutes after the official start. Despite my expectations, I ran over the start line and had plenty of space to get going. Admittedly I was overtaking a lot of people at this point but so were a lot of others. It was a this point I saw some really unusual costumes such as a man running for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) dressed as Jesus Christ dragging a huge crucifix. I can't remember if he had trainers on but I don't think he did.

The first 10 miles went past in a bit of a blur. I'd run 10 miles or more so many times in my training it felt natural and having never run any sort of race before I was really enjoying the atmosphere and camaraderie of it all. It felt like being part of an exclusive club. It was amazing. It was about mile 10 that I remembered my brother and his girlfriend were planning to spectate in Bermondsey. I suddenly couldn't remember if we had already been through Bermondsey or not. I had my headphones in and I panicked that maybe I had run right past them without noticing. I asked a guy near me whether we'd been through there already and he said it was coming up in a couple of miles so I relaxed a bit and started looking up more. After an initial second panic of not seeing them at the charity cheer point, I was elated at spotting them half a mile down the road on the same side as me!

After this I really knuckled down. I knew I still had a long way to go and I'd read a lot about people running too fast between 13 miles and 20 miles. I was hoping to see my mum and Leonie (a close friend) at mile 15 but it turned out they got lost and couldn't find the cheer point. I was lucky enough to see some friends from hockey twice during the next hour. It was exciting to see people I knew and brought me back to reality. I was so 'in the zone' the time flew past without too much stress. I saw another group of close friends on my way out of the Isle of Dogs (around mile 23 I think). This was great because I knew after this I only had one more group to look out for - my brother, his girlfriend, my mum and Leonie who were all planning to be at the final charity cheer point at mile 25.

The last 6 miles were definitely the hardest. Not just physically, but mentally as well. I realised at about mile 20 I wasn't going to make my target of being under 4 hours and I did have a moment of asking myself what it was all for if I didn't reach that. But I soon remembered why I had signed up in the first place. I wanted to raise as much money as possible for the homeless population of the UK. People all around me were dropping out and beginning to walk. Although I may not have been moving very fast at this point I knew there was no possibility of me stopping.

At mile 25 I saw all my family and Leonie together, smiled and waved and trudged on to the finish. My muscles were really tightening up at this point and I'm pretty sure that last mile took me a lot longer than it ever had in training. It took a long time to see the actual finish line but once you get round the bend at Buckingham Palace it's an amazing sight to see. Having been determined throughout my training that I wanted to do a sprint finish, I didn't give up on the idea on the day. I ran as fast as I possibly could to through those red arches.

The immediate feeling once I crossed the line was relief. I had made it to the end, no accidents and no upsets. I wasn't even that disappointed about not making the target because I'd accepted my fate over the last 60 minutes. Soon after having my medal placed around my neck, the pain and stiffness set in. My legs felt awful and I could only hobble down to the place where I collected my bag from. The only thing I was interested in from my goodie bag was water.

The rest of the day was spent in a mixture of pain and celebration. I met my family and friends at the amazing reception put on by Shelter. We went for an early dinner but I couldn't really face eating that much (which is crazy for anyone who knows me well). By 6pm I had waved off my mum and returned to my flat to shower and rest (or what felt like die!) I also had hundreds of messages from all my friends to reply to when I got home which took me about an hour and a half. After that I passed out on my bed from exhaustion.

The next day was a Monday and straight back to work for me. Other than severe blisters which were causing me to limp around I was reasonably okay. I had some muscle stiffness but nothing too unbearable for sitting at a desk all day.

The last two weeks really have flown past and if you've stayed with me this long, now's the time to say the reason why it's taken me so long to write this is that I've just left my first real job and started a new one this week. The first couple of days at my new company have been great. Give me a couple more weeks to make a proper verdict but right now I'm very happy with my new situation.

This is my last post about the marathon and I would like to say HUGE thank you to everyone who donated and supported me along the way. I appreciate it more than I could possibly express. I truly believe without the support of my friends and family I couldn't have done it, and I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed it. I've been asked a lot since, will I do another marathon? My answer has to be, why not...

More Running, a Cold and Fundraising Plans...

This is a short update on how my training is going. It's going to cover January and most of February. I'll try to do another post at the end of February to make up for my lack of communication.

January was quite difficult with a 12 day break (a couple of days either side of 7 day skiing holiday) meaning I had a considerable amount of catching up to do. 12 days might not sound that much to some people but at the moment I'm running three times a week and hockey twice a week. I managed to get back on track reasonably quickly, starting back at lower distances and building up each week. I'm now running 4, 6 and 12 miles a week, next week I'll step up to 4, 7 and 14.

A view from my room of the sunrise at the end of my run in Sicily

In general the running is going well. I had a work conference in Sicily at the end of January but I still managed to run once whilst there (5 miles) and at the weekend. People have asked if it's getting easier now but I think the runs are just as hard as they always have been because I'm continually trying to run each distance faster. I can't recommend RunKeeper (the app I use) enough. I don't think I'd be doing half as well without it and I'd have to concentrate so much more on my timings too. Now I can just put it on, relax into the run and think about anything I want to.

I've had a cold the last two weeks which has made training really difficult. I've only actually missed one run but I've been running slower than I wanted to be. Last Sunday I was very weak for the whole day after running 12 miles (I ran the same route 7 minutes faster this week which is a big increase and shows how unwell I was). I'm starting to feel much better and I'm really hoping not to catch any other illnesses before the race.

I can't believe it's only 10 weeks until the marathon. I feel quite anxious about it if I'm honest. There are a lot of things that could go wrong. I might get an injury running (so far I've been very lucky) or I might get an injury skiing (I'm going again for four days in March). I might not manage to fit in all my training runs planned (I can't see this happening but you never know). I might find the really long runs (14+ miles - more thank 2 hours) mentally and physically really stressful. Anything could happen. And that's what makes me nervous. But I can't control most of those things, all I can do is take precautions.

My fundraising is going quite slowly. I haven't done any of the events or ideas I had planned yet but I am starting to put some of the plans into place, and next week I am hosting a Tea Party at my family home in Gloucestershire. It's going to be quintessentially British with little sandwiches, cakes, lots of tea and homemade lemonade. I'm also hoping to do a raffle there as well.

My invitations for the Tea Party (don't judge, I made it in 10 minutes in Powerpoint)

I'm trying to organise a bake sale at work also. The main challenge with that is making and transporting enough cakes for people to buy. I'm going to have to come up with a clever plan. Luckily I only live a 10 minute walk from the office so I can also do three trips if I need to. All solutions welcome!

In my next post I'll give you an update on how the Tea Party went with lots of pictures of the food and decorations (I'm hoping to have bunting up and I'm praying for sunshine...).

If you'd like to donate, you can click on the link in the left sidebar or here.

Shelter is an extremely worthy cause and your money makes a big difference to the work they can to help the homeless and change housing conditions in the UK.

Starting out: 2 miles to a Half Marathons

I thought it would be interesting to write about how my marathon training is going so far as it's the question I've been asked most over the Christmas holidays. In case you didn't see from my last post, I am running the London Marathon in April 2016 for Shelter. To be more precise, 24th April 2016. That's 114 days... The last two months have gone by in a flash!

I officially started my training at the beginning of November. Before then I had been playing hockey twice a week, very basic level netball once a week and going for the occasional 2 mile run. I would be quite proud of myself for going on these short runs. I never tracked the distance I just went out with my iPod and did a short lap down to Kings Cross and back. It wasn’t until the week before I started my actual training that I realised quite how short the runs were and quite how slow I had been running. Back then I wasn’t running for fitness or with a goal in mind, I was running to destress, for time to myself.

Now when I go for a run, things are very different. I have to start thinking about it the night before: what am I going to wear? Is the sports bra I want to use clean? Should I have one less glass of wine and one more glass of water? If I’m going for a long run (+8 miles), am I going to get up early and eat before? It’s a lot more serious, but then I getting some good results from the extra effort I’m putting in and I’m raising money for a really important and deserving cause so it’s definitely been worth it.

At 9am on Boxing Day (can’t believe it was only 5 days ago) I ran the distance of a half marathon. In fact, I did a small bit more but that’s because I couldn’t remember what the actual distance was. I didn’t run it very fast (probably because I was carrying around 2 plates of Christmas dinner and 2 bowls of pudding from the day before). But in two short months I went from running 2 miles to 13 miles. For people who don’t really think in distances, that’s running comfortably for about 30mins (I was slower then) to running for 2hrs.

I genuinely think I can put the majority of my success down to two things. I say success because I think most people would call that a decent achievement whilst working 9-5, playing hockey 2-3 times a week and having a social life.

The first is the fantastic support I’ve had from family and friends. Maybe I was just blind to it before but there seems to be more and more people popping-up with an interest in running. I could probably do another post with advice from a second set of experts. I’ve had so much advice and tips and support that it was almost overwhelming to begin with. Not in the sentimental teary way, in the which person do I listen to and which advice do I act on way. But everyone’s training journey is different. Everyone’s circumstances are different. Having a broad range of support has been really helpful and has given me the chance to pick and choose what I want to do.

Even those who aren’t able to give running advice have been great. Every seems to really care – even when I started to sound like a broken record “I just ran 10 miles!”. And this means a lot to me. Running for a long period of time, mainly on my own, although my brother has kindly joined me over Christmas period, can be really boring and mentally tiring at stages, and to know that my friends and family are proud of me and care if I get a personal best or run a new furthest distance really helps.

The second is attitude. Attitude has had a massive impact on my performance. As soon as I realised what a big deal running the London Marathon is, not to mention the £2000 I need to raise for my charity place and the £100 deposit you need to pay, I knew I had to take this whole thing a lot more seriously. When I first thought about doing the marathon in February earlier this year, I just wanted to be able to say, I’ve completed a marathon. Living in London, I thought it would be the best location to do it in. And that’s about it. I didn’t care if it took me 5 hours to complete or if I had to walk for a bit.

Now, the idea of walking makes me angry and I’m beginning to think seriously about the time I could get. I decided, if I’m going to do this, I might as well do it properly. I've been pushing myself to improve in every run I’ve done. I haven’t stopped once or given up, even when I fell over 3 miles into a 10 mile run (it happens…) and most importantly I’ve believed in myself.

I’m not exactly built for running. I’m short with little legs and I’m carrying about 2 stone extra weight for my height (I’d love to claim it’s all muscle but I know it’s not). But I haven’t let this get me down. I can do it. I’m not one of those people who believes that wishing for something will make it happen (I love Disney but let’s be realistic here) but I do believe that if you want something bad enough and you’re willing to work hard for it then you have as good of a chance as anyone else.

This attitude keeps me determined. It’s what sets me apart from all those people who say, “I could never run a marathon”. I’m no more capable than anyone else. I just know what I want to do and I’m doing it.

For those looking for tips to start running, my advice is to start small and build up. Be dedicated, don’t let the rain or a hangover put you off. Set weekly goals and track your progress with running apps – I use RunKeeper which reads your time, distance and pace out every 5 mins. Find a route you like and music you can relax with. After about 20 mins, I don’t even realise I’m running anymore. I think about what I’m doing for the rest of the day, what I can eat or drink later, movies I want to see at the cinema, how the money I’m raising will make a difference and the conversations I’ve had with family and friends over the last couple of days. Relaxing and daydreaming while I run helps me forget the distance and the pain.
Before you know it, you’ll be thinking about your next run as soon as you’ve finished your last.