Post Marathon Thoughts

It was good, it was great, it was painful, it was horrible, it was exciting, it was boring, it was inspiring, it made me question myself about almost everything and it nearly made me cry. I did it. Somehow I managed to drag myself round the Chester Marathon in 4 hours 12 minutes and 52 seconds. It might not be under 4 hours as I hoped but I did it! I managed to muster up the willpower to keep running through the pain and can now call myself a marathon runner. I'm not going to give you a step by step account of the race (It took over 4 hours that'd just be boring!) but here's a little post match analysis.

I'll start at the start. I was cold and nervous, I had no idea what to expect and I couldn't stop thinking how stupid I was. We shuffled forward, the gun went off, we shuffled some more and eventually I got to the start line and began running. I just followed the crowd and it was as easy as that, for the next 4 hours and a little bit more I just followed the crowd and kept on running. Simple as that. Well not quite.

There was lots of tough patches through the day. At first I felt comfortable and kept a pretty good pace, hitting well under 9 minute miles. The first discomfort came about 6 miles in when desperation for the toilet kicked in, but I'm under orders from Alice not to talk about the beige poo I had. I carried on pretty comfortably, enjoying the route and the weather as all went well. I got to the half way point easily enough but then the doubts kicked in. I'd never run further than a half marathon before. Never had my training took me passed the 13 mile point so from then on every step I took became a step further than I'd ran before. The problem was each step became more painful.

A couple of little stops to stretch helped ease the pain and it stayed off till 16 miles at which point an evil little hill started to get the better of me. Luckily for me near the top of the hill there was an extremely loud crowd which included one woman I'd never seen in my life who screamed my name so loud she's jumped straight to the top of my number 1 fan list (it's a short list). I managed to keep plodding on but I was noticeably slowing. I finally hit the 20 mile marker but it didn't turn out to be the great achievement and signal of the home stretch I thought it'd be.

Near the start of the race I was chatting to a bloke who told me the 18 mile point was where it got hard. He was wrong, but only by 2 miles. At 20 miles every bit of my body started to hurt. Not just my legs but my back, my arms and I had the weirdest sensation in my bum. This started to spread till my head felt funny. I remember thinking I didn't feel solid, my body felt like it was made of liquid. I started to rub my head and I could feel someone else’s hand on my head grabbing it. These weird feelings got the better of me and as I realised there wasn't someone on my head but I was getting dehydrated I started to worry about not being able to finish. I couldn't come so far and not finish. I started to walk and luckily I reached a drinks station round the 21 mile mark. I carried on walking whilst drinking then tried to run again.

It was at this point I found out that I should of just ran through the feeling no matter what. Every muslce in my lower half was so stiff that it felt impossible to lift my legs. I got going eventually but it was difficult and I couldn't sustain any real pace. It was at this point that I realised my goal of a sub 4 hours marathon had slipped away. From now on it was just about finishing. And that is just what I did. I wanted to stop, I wanted to sit down, I kept thinking I could just walk the rest, I'm not going to finish under 4 hours now so it's just about finishing, what's the point in running? But I couldn't imagine myself walking over the finish line. I had to run and I ran all the way to the finish despite the pain. I was helped at 23 miles by seeing Alice, Mum, Steve and Ted the dog. From then on the streets were lined with people cheering us on and they helped no end. I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes for much of it and despite the longest mile of my life (I checked afterwards, between 25 and 26 was actually 1.5 according to mapmyrun) I got to the end.

I crossed the finish line and I'd done it. I was in agony, I wanted to cry, I was confused and I couldn't find anyone. Eventually everyone found me. The first thing I did was hug Alice and told her never to let me put myself through that again. I was just happy that I could tick run a marathon off my bucket list and when I grow up I can tell my grandkids that I did a marathon once. But there's the problem, is it only going to be once? At the time it was definitely never again.

Now it's the day after the marathon and I keep thinking I could of done it under 4 hours. But I'm in no rush to do another now. Mostly because I've realised I feel very similar to the day after being mugged, my whole body aches, every time I go up stairs I wince and I'm £40 poorer! So for now I'm not doing another, but who knows, maybe one day. Whether I run another marathon or not, I know one thing. If there's ever a marathon nearby and I'm free, I'm going down to support. Those random people you've never seen before shouting your name is brilliant motivation and keeps you going. It's just what I needed. So thank you. Thank you to everyone that supported me. Whether you came with me, left me a message or you were one of the thousands of people along the route cheering everyone on cheers.