Of course there is another way of getting into the London marathon. The golden bond place. Where you pledge to raise a certain amount for a charity and they give you a place. This was the first time I had attempted to raise a lot for charity and at that time I didn't really have a real connection to any charity. So I chose the one with the lowest amount you needed to raise. So I ended up choosing Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland where you had to raise £1,000 and a worthy cause. It was tough raising money as back then I was a student. So all my work friends, school friends and uni friends were also students. So it was a challenging task raising sponsorship. But I made it to £1,000 with the help of a few generous donors.
So now the place was sorted it was onto training for the marathon. Did I learn anything from my first race? Well I knew I could cope with a half marathon, I just need to up my long runs. But at that time I still had no clue what to do in between. I didn't know about tempo runs/fartleks or interval sessions. Of course sometimes I ran faster but I just trained naturally. During the week then I just did runs between 3 - 4.5 miles. I built up my long runs accumulating in a 20 mile long run 2 weeks before the marathon. So I really thought I was ready going into the marathon. Interestingly my long runs followed the same pattern. I would start off easy and then get quicker and quicker as they went on. Obviously I did this by feel as no garmins in those days for mile splits.
On to race day. I was totally buzzing! I had no sleep due to the excitement of it all. But I felt ready. I was determined to start slowly which is exactly what I did. Maybe even too slowly. After 6 miles I was feeling great so decided to start upping it like I did on training runs. I remember the first half of the course being pretty quiet. When I started upping it though I found my self weeving all over the place and going up on pavements. Probably working far more than I should of. Then getting to Tower bridge around mile 12 and there was this wall of noise. It was amazing. I still to this day have never experienced anything in a race like it. I got to halfway in 2 hours 7 minutes. I had not been tracking my time but I knew it was because my first 10k was extremely slow because I did pick it up quite a bit in the 2nd 10k. Just after halfway my parents and brother were there supporting which was great.
However at mile 14. Yes 14. The wheels came off. I didn't know what was wrong at the time but all of a sudden the top of my legs were in agony. Turns out I got cramp in both my quads. I must have walked for about 4 miles. I never thought about quitting once though and was determined to keep moving forward. Then I got speaking to an older women who started walking with me. She asked me if this had put me off running which I said no. Then she gave me drugs which I assume were painkillers. My old school friends ribbed me for years after about this (taking drugs not speaking to an older women!). But although I still found it difficult, I did manage to run bits after that and the rest of it was just a run walk to the finish.
How did I feel when I finished? To be honest I was absolutely gutted. I crossed the line in 4.48. I had been so fixated on a sub 4 hour marathon in the build up, I just did not have any back up goals. My family were absolutely over the moon as none of my family had completed a marathon before. I didn't really appreciate back then what I had achieved. But I certainly do now. I think the fact that you are so knackered after it plays with your emotions too and also everything you have put into it training wise.
Would I do London again? It never really crossed my mind to do it again until this year I got inspired. My name is in the ballot for 2018. I don't think I would do a golden bond place again. Its all about how many people you know really unless you are prepared to do other ways of fundraising. I have done marathons/cycles since for charity but they were not golden bond so no pressure on amount raised.
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