Rosa and I trained together for the most part. I'd had an amazing 20-miler final long run. I was ready.
oh, and in a tutu.
Rosa, Dawn, Chuck and I met in the wee morning hours of the 17th of April to head down to Greenwich Park. And I thought I had this one, I really did. After waiting for 27 minutes to let 2/3s of the other 38,000 people running the race start, I crossed the start line with Muse in one ear, Rosa in the other and a veritable feast of bell ringers, beer tipplers, preachers, drummers and drunken supportive idiots cheering along the route.
And life felt good. Until I crossed Tower Bridge at mile 12 and then it was just metaphorically downhill from there. The day was hot, but no hotter than Edinburgh. The crowd of 10,000 was exhilirating and, unlike edinburgh, I had cheerers in The Isle of Dogs, Canary Wharf, The Strand and the Finish Line. But it didn't seem to matter.
Rosa and I, who'd up to that point had been running together, split off from me and I had a little walk. And then a run. And then a walk. And a run. You get the picture. I met a girl who'd thrown in the towel and chatted with her a bit. I got passed by a man running in a gigantic giraffe costume. I marvelled at how lovely everyone else's charity supported their runners.
I finished the half in 2:17:11, slightly under pace for my desired 4:30:00 finish.
I honestly don't know what happened but my brain refused to send the signals to my feet to just go faster and get it over with. In Edinburgh, I remembered hitting the mile 20 and thinking 'yes, it's only six more miles. you can do this, you can run a 10k'. And then I proceeded to smile, enjoy the end of the race and sprint the last 400 meters.
In London, I hit mile 20 in a fug of exhaustion. All I can remember from then on: running through the showers, which caused me to shiver; smiling wanly at a Charity Girl (not my charity--mine was disappointingly unsupportive) who gave me a Jaffa cake; thanking the darkness of a tunnel out loud; flicking off Paul and Mark while simultaneously screaming at them 'this f***ing sucks! this is s***!'; seeing the 385 yards 'til the finish sign and thinking 'nope, just i'll lie down here' and crossing the finish line in what felt like an hour later. In reality, I crossed the line in 4:54:47, 34 seconds slower than Edinburgh.
There was a dearth of joy.
In fact, the woman at the line who tried to cut the timing chip off my shoe had to move my foot to her. Nothing worked any more. So I rescued my kitbag from the giant trailers located eons away from the finish line and drooped on a curb. I couldn't get up. But a nice binman eventually helped me. Shaking, nauseous and shivering on a 26-degree-celsius day, I thought I was going to faint. And with jammed mobile phone reception to get a hold of my adoring fans to carry me to the victory party, I nearly walked myself to the medical tent.
Alas, I limped my way down to the Embankment. It's amazing what a free shower, massage, dinner and beer(s) will do to transform you:
In the end, I raised over £2400 for charity, which, you know, isn't so bad. But I won't be running another marathon for a long time.
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