At the beginning of 2013 I volunteered to help a guy at the gym with his university research project into the relationship between stride pattern and speed whilst treadmill running, as you do! So, whilst I was rigged up with heart rate monitor and a camera recording my increasingly erratic stride pattern, he asked me whether I had any races planned. To my surprise I found myself telling him that I wanted to do a marathon before 2014 when I would reach the big 40. I didn’t actually know I wanted to run a marathon until that point but I’d said it now so there was no going back!
So, that's when I decided that in October 2013 I would run the Chester Marathon.
The training begins....
I was already signed up for the Chester half in May. The organisers arrange monthly training runs which are great for meeting other enthusiastic runners and you can choose the pace group to suit. This combined with my club runs with the Delamere Spartans would surely get me marathon fit!
After the half, the training runs started up again for the marathon and on my first run I met an amazing lady from Liverpool. She was in her 60s, had already run two marathons so far that year, London and Windermere, both completed in a time I could only dream of! In addition to her own marathon training she was also training with a blind runner who she subsequently guided in the Great North Run, inspirational stuff!
So the training was going pretty well but the long runs were a bit of a shock to say the least, however I was still on track for managing my target time of sub 4 hours 30 mins. I was so grateful to have met Sarah at the organised training runs, we had a similar pace and plenty to gossip about so were able to keep each other going. The 16 mile run went well and then a week later, on my birthday we did 17 miles on the cycleway and even bumped into my Iron man cousin who shares the same birthday. He was cycling and I was running....I think he had the right idea! We both pointed out that a few years ago we'd have been in the pub on our birthdays....how times have changed.
The following week I started to get a niggle in my calf whilst on a Tuesday Spartans run and that's when I learnt my first lesson about marathon training. I've read so many times in the running magazines to listen to your body and don't over train.....well I kind of didn't follow that advice, instead I'd heard there was a 5k race with PB potential, well I couldn't miss out on that could I?!! I managed the PB and was pretty chuffed but the niggle had (unsurprisingly) got worse.
Still, I wanted to stick to the training plan so the following weekend I set off on my first 20 miler. Looking back now I know it was totally the wrong thing to do, about 8 miles into it my calf just went and I instantly had to stop running. It was pretty painful and it wasn't long before I had tears in my eyes knowing I was probably out of the race with it being only 6 weeks away. I was miles from home in what seemed like the middle of nowhere limping along the cycle track, what a sorry state I must have looked to the cyclists who stopped to check I was ok.
Tunes, fundraising and a poorly calf....
I can’t thank everyone enough for the advice and help that followed. Spartan Rob’s advice on fuelling, hydration and mental rehearsal, Alan and Claire with advice on calf injuries, and all the encouragement from my family, friends and other running pals. I subsequently spent a fortune on sports massage, physio and acupuncture and got up early every day to do the exercises I had been given by the physio. This involved standing at the top of my stairs, eyes barely open performing eccentric calf raises and gradually progressing to hopping around the house....just what you want to be doing at 5am every morning!
I'd hardly done any running in 6 weeks, I was missing running with the Spartans but couldn’t risk making it worse. I ditched the target time I had in mind and decided that even if I had to walk some of it, I would complete that marathon! I also wanted to take the opportunity to raise money for a charity very close to my heart, The Brain Tumour Charity.
Over the past 10 years, cancer, and brain tumours in particular have had such a huge impact on the lives of a number of my very close friends. Each of those friends have shown such courage and strength and were also incredibly supportive of me in this challenge.
In addition to asking people to sponsor me I also asked them to nominate a song I could add to my iPod for when I was finding it hard going and for each song nominated I would donate an amount to my charity fund.
Many suggestions followed and each of them represented a memory, had a meaning or would simply make me smile. There were songs that reminded me of the people I was running for including....’Staying Alive’, ‘Walking on Memphis’, if anything would keep me going they would....
My university friends made some upbeat nominations that reminded me of our carefree uni days dancing away in Newcastle nightclubs to the sounds of Sister Sledge, Take That, and a rather appropriate Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will Survive’ which certainly came in handy during the race!
Spartans Zippy and Matt came up with so many suggestions I was starting to worry about how much I’d committed to donate per song and whether I could actually fit all those Bare Naked Ladies tunes on my shuffle, Matt!
I added a few myself including cheesy film theme tunes seem to make me laugh when my energy levels dipped. I was later grateful for the tunes from all those classic 80s films like Top Gun, Flash dance and Rocky (obviously) as an alternative when I couldn’t face another sickly energy gel.
When it came to the fundraising I have Mum to thank for starting this off by inviting her friends to a candle party at her house. It was a fun evening with a great group of ladies and I was totally overwhelmed by their generosity and the generosity that followed from all the friends and family who sponsored me.
The girls that I met on a running holiday in the Alps, who have completed many marathons were full of encouraging words of wisdom shortly before the race. Mary told me to keep smiling when feeling tired, keep tall and looking forward and finally to enjoy the experience and the priceless moment when I crossed the line. Then, in true no nonsense Vicky style, she told me that it’s all in the mind, it’s only 1 mile 26 times, quickly followed by “don’t you dare walk or you’ll have to tell me that you did!”
The day before the race I was full of panic about the unknown and had an overwhelming fear of not finishing. I was particularly worried about my calf and made an appointment with the physio who gave me some last minute words of advice whilst strapping my legs up with some very fetching pink and blue kinesio tape.
Race Day
I found I was more emotional before the race than afterwards, I received lots of encouraging messages and reminded myself of the text that Spartan Fay had sent to me before the Chester half “nerves are your adrenalin friend!” My poor Mum who’s been there at the start of most of the races I’ve done, is now used to these nerves and the last minute checks.....race number, safety pins, gels, tissues and of course the all important lip balm! Normally I wouldn’t run a race without wearing my Spartan top but just this once I decided to don the charity vest. I tried to eat as much porridge as I could about 2 hours before but there’s nothing like race nerves to put you off your food!
We were so lucky that it was a beautiful sunny day, everyone at the Race Course seemed calm on the outside but like me with nervous excitement on the inside. I always find the start of a race very emotional, thousands of people who have spent months putting in the training finally lining up to give it their best shot.
Sarah and I ran together for about the first 20 miles, we both laughed along at the banter coming from a group of Liverpool club runners just ahead of us as we ran through the city centre. Meanwhile Mum had hot footed it round to lower bridge street to watch and cheer!
I loved the first half of the race, the pace felt comfortable and we managed to chat to other runners. For a while we ran with 3 welsh lads, one of them had challenged himself to run 24 marathons in 12 months for Cancer Research and had raised an unbelievable amount for the charity.
What a great group of guys, that certainly passed a few miles until Sarah and I felt we couldn’t carry on at their pace any longer. However not before we crossed over the border into Wales with them and the pacer just ahead of us started singing the Welsh National Anthem, what a great moment. I put my headphones in for the first time after that and giggled with Sarah as by chance the first song to come on was the Full Monty’s “Hot Stuff” just as the 3 rugby bottoms started running ahead of us!
After the first half there was a 3 mile loop to complete before heading up the hill into Holt. That’s when I noticed everyone start to go quiet, the realisation that we had another 13 miles to run was sinking in, this was now serious stuff! At that point my Uncle’s song recommendation came on, he’d suggested it to make me smile and that just what it did ‘Your Feet’s Too Big’ by Fats Waller, brilliant!
We finally reached Holt and I was so delighted to see Spartans Ben and Suzanne who must have been waiting for well over an hour since the last Spartan had gone past, probably wondering whether I’d given up! The calf was niggling by now and Sarah’s runner’s knee pain had kicked in but we managed to keep each other going and the beautiful scenery on the way round certainly helped too.
The support was amazing at each of the villages and drink stations and as we came towards Aldford the cheering and encouragement from Sally, Graham and Richard was just what I needed, it meant so much to see my friends come out to give their support.
I was so glad that I had decided to wear my water belt on the day, it was such a warm day and I just kept filling my bottles at the water stations as I was running along. I had 4 of my own gels with me which I was glad of as I tried one of the Lucozade gels provided by the organisers at one point and had to throw it to one side, it was ridiculously sweet!
Miles 20 to 25 were definitely the hardest, I had pain in what seemed like every part of my legs, the knee pain was so bad at times that I forgot about my calf injury, I had to stride it out and stretch every now and again. Sarah was also suffering but didn’t want to slow down so that’s when I lost her. My body had given up but my mind kept me going and the advice people had given to me about the mental strength needed, all began to make sense.
Just before reaching Huntingdon the 5 hour pacer dressed up as Robin [Batman] over took me. I had gone from between 10 and 11 minute miles in the first half to 12 then even13 minute miles (some would say that’s pretty much walking but it was more like a wonky jog/shuffle!). At this point I decided that time was now important and sub 5 hours was my goal.
Thank goodness for my Auntie and Cousin who appeared at this point with their overwhelming enthusiasm, in fact my Auntie even ran with me for a bit whilst vigorously hand clapping and Robin commented “well if that’s what your Auntie’s like goodness know what your Mum’s going to be like at the finish line!” He ran with me for a while and when I told him I wanted to beat the 5 hour mark but had started the race in front of him, he looked at his watch and said “right then you can do it but you really need to leg it!” Not quite what you want to hear when you’ve just run 25 miles but it did the trick!
The last mile...and the best mile....
That’s when the Spartan spirit kicked in and the hill training I had done with the club (along with a quick blast of “don’t stop believing!”) was invaluable in getting me up the hill on Sandy Lane, just 1 mile to go and I somehow managed to run that last mile at the same pace I had run my first mile.
I didn’t need any more music after that, I will never forget running along the river and hearing my sister before I even saw her, with my nieces and nephew jumping up and down and cheering as loudly as they possibly could! A little further along I was so delighted to see Spartans Emma, Zippy and Rob who were shouting my name and telling me I could do it, followed by Suzanne, Barry, Seren and baby bump who arrived into the world just a few days later. I was so touched that they had managed to be there.
Finally reaching the race course was an amazing feeling, it seemed like a long way to the finish line around the soft race track but the cheers from the crowds melted all the pain away. Just before I crossed the line I looked to my left and saw Mum with her arms in the air so I did the same and shouted ‘I did it!’ with a look of disbelief on my face. My time was 04:56:40, yippee!
I think my first words after the race were something like ‘why on earth does anyone do a marathon more than once?!’ I was adamant that I would go back to shorter distances and that it was a one off. A few months later when my body had finally got over the shock I somehow found myself posting an entry to the Sandstone Challenge, just a short 33 miler in June....what have I done?!!
I met some truly amazing and inspirational people on my first marathon journey, from those I met in training to the fellow marathon runners who each have their own stories of courage, passion and commitment. I was also supported by a number of friends who have gone through and are still going through an incredibly difficult time and also those friends, family and Spartans who gave me no end of encouragement and helped me raise a fantastic £848 for such a great cause.
And that’s why I love running.....
