Blowing the top off a well earnt – in my opinion, pint of Stella Artois, Jim Mearns sitting next to me, from nowhere made the rather unsolicited enquiry “Martin, have you ever run a marathon?” Deep within me as he asked the question and knowing, and about to acknowledge that, no, I hadn’t, there was a feeling of impending doom that those days were about to end such is Jim’s skill of influence and persuasion!
So as not to roll over and seem to have been had by a second-hand car salesman with 15% APR on offer – I immediately pushed back and retorted that marathons were/ are definitely not my thing, too long, boring, training is crazy, could never commit, I’m a lazy so and so, bad back, asthma, busy family life…………………. Give me a 10k, I said, a half marathon and my wee favourite Saturday morning Parkrun any time you like – but a MARATHON, nope, never, nada, no happenin’!
“But you’ve a crackin’ wee engine in you – you’d cruise it. What if we get a few of the guys lined up” he tried to convince me. “I’ll have a look and choose one that seems the easiest”
EASIEST – you having a laugh!
“Canny see it happening Jim”
“Listen, if you can run a half marathon you’ll cope no problem, and let’s face it you’ve done everything else, a marathon would complete the circle”
“Canny see it happening Jim”
Sunday 7th April 2019 – 06.10 am.
“Wonder what shorts I should wear. I don’t want gels to be falling out of my pockets. Oh, cheers Mark, is that my porridge ready!"
Yip – my worst athletic fear (other than injury), the goliath, the one I usually sit at home to watch had become a reality and was looming. In a little under 3 hours I’d be lining up at the Old Trafford Cricket ground with a few thousand other people to take on the ASICS Manchester Marathon. Damm it – how did that happen?
The Lade Inn – Autumn last year.
Facebook Messenger is a great thing.
By the end of the main course that night at the Lade Inn I really felt as though I had been laid in to too! Not only had I tentatively agreed to run a marathon with Jim but had agreed in his choice of event, early in the spring, “flat as a pancake, real carnival, only a couple of hours down the road, you’ll love it, make a weekend out of it”!
Some of my fellow Harriers will remember that message and the feeling of dread upon receiving it. I won’t journal all of the subsequent teasers but suffice is to say it was posted to quite a number of individuals to whet their appetite with the view that we could perhaps get a few to bite and come along with us.
There was initial, well, I won’t say hysteria, but definite and noted interest with I think at one point up to nine expressing more than a passing thought of taking part. The messages kept coming – there was no going back!
The winter here, as you well know, is very unforgiving and the prospect of stepping up training (when we’re ordinarily snug and cosy under warm duvet’s) to a level where sufficient preparedness is achieved to take on such a run meant that in the end there were four left standing, notwithstanding the fact that a few others were already committed to training for London.
Whilst training for me was sporadic and patchy at best, with a virus taking hold a month before the gun and lasting for two weeks, the others set about their task diligently and clocked some pretty decent miles.
The four making the journey to Manchester the day before the event consisted of me (of course!), Jim Mearns (of course!), Mark Saez, who like me was dipping his toe in the marathon abyss and our other seasoned marathoner David Wardrope, already with two events under his belt.
Arriving and settling in to our ideal accommodation in Eccles just before the other big event of the weekend, I became a bit frantic to find a pub (not like me!) with a tele so as I could see my favoured and invested on Rathvinden run to hopeful glory at the Aintree Grand National! Pub found (with a tele a size that wouldn’t have been out of place in an Odeon Cinema) we got our beers and found a seat only to become aware of murmurings among the other patrons that they couldn’t get the TV to work – “building works, they’ve cut the aerial cable, there’s no signal”! Tch. Making do with watching the race on an iPhone, I was encouraged to see Rathvinden coming home third (always take each way in the National my Dad always told me).
Watching the long boats putt putt past us as we had another beer, time, we decided to go back and get organised for an early dinner.
Dinner done and dusted and it was time to head back, cup of tea and in to our scratchers with clocks set for an early rise. Taxi booked for 07.20am.
“Wonder what shorts I should wear. I don’t want gels to be falling out of my pockets. Oh, cheers Mark, is that my porridge ready!"
The 7th April 2019, an ingrained and indelible date on my mind to say the least had arrived, it was here and no sooner had I decided which of the 4 pairs of shorts I had in my bag to wear, than we were in a taxi, thundering towards Old Trafford. Nervous – me – yes! The others if they were, were doing a good job of hiding it. Doubt they were TBH.
Note to self – stick to the plan, stick to the plan, stick to the plan – er, whit plan! Remember to drink plenty but not too much – coach told me once that over hydrating can do you in! Remember to use your gels – don’t wait for the light-headedness to kick in and try not to dribble it all down ye!
There were millions of toilets near the start and when we arrived at 8am they were all empty – available, clean. Davy mentioned in passing that if anyone needed to use one there were thousands to choose from. I kinda did but favoured leaving it a while nearer to the start time so off we went to drop our wee bag and get “race ready” like the true international athletes that we are!
That done (half an hour passed) and I thought, yip, go to the toilet now. In the space of that half an hour the million afore mentioned convenience’s had a billion needy customers! The queue, I’m sure, went to Liverpool! Oops.
It was all smiles for the pre run snap, I even managed to find a (sort of) co-ordinated) T-shirt.
That done we lined up in the green wave, well except Mark, he was standing beside some African fellas nearer the front. Vassos Alexander (who’s he?) (think he works with Chris Evans on a radio show and is a keen runner and Parkrun advocate), was giving an interview from the starting podium – that’s all I remember, that together with what seemed to be a 12 inch remix of Oasis’ Roll With It. It played for ages.
Wheelchairs away and racing in a blaze of blue smoke and fireworks and loud bangs (not their tyres mind, no drawing pins seemed to have been dropped at the start line) then it was the Elites, “I know the roads down which your life will drive” then the white wave “I think I’ve got a feeling I’ve lost inside” then the red which we had juked in to in order to avoid that toilet queue “Cause it’s all too much for me to take” and we were on our way.
The first three miles were round a few streets that eventually lead us back to Old Trafford and round past near the start line – you guessed it;
“I know the roads down which your life will drive
I find the key that lets you slip inside
Kiss the girl, she's not behind the door
But you know I think I recognize your face
But I've never seen you before”
……..was still spinning on the turntable.
Jim had said to me that he was only running a mile and if I wanted to I could join him. Magic. He then caveated that by saying that at the end of the mile we could decide if we wanted to do another, and so on.
We kept that strategy going for no less than 15 miles, well through the half way mark which we completed in a swift 1.41.20, being buoyed on by the crowds, the choirs, the millions of offerings of jelly babies.
At mile 15 I really needed to make that toilet stop and so Jim continued on his way. I came back out on to the course and seemed to have lost some of the impetus I had managed to keep going to that point. I knew Jim would have been well up the road by now so didn’t attempt a catch up.
Phew.
By mile 19 my wheels were squaring quickly and at mile 20 I saw the 3.29 pacer run past, then the 3.30 pacer followed by the 3.35 pacer. Davy ran past me as I was otherwise indisposed against a wall in not the most pleasant of poses.
Russell had messaged me the night before advising that it wouldn’t be pretty, you’ll be in pain, you’ll probably want to throw in the towel but under no circumstances should I stop. He was right on all of the above!
As I said to Davie Searil in a FBK message after the event, I had a devil sitting on my right shoulder telling me to quit, you’ve done enough, be proud of how far you’ve gone, you’re knackered. Fortunately, on my left shoulder there was a wee angel cherub speaking ever so more gently but more convincingly that it was nearly done, keep going almost there, a big medal, a T-shirt, a marathon.
Then I saw someone in the crowd holding a lovely home-made banner which said “Whoever Finishes Last Gets to Sort Out Brexit!” then a few hundred more yards one which simply and succinctly advised “Don’t be Sh!t” That was enough for me!
Keep going I did – albeit at a snail’s pace and a jog in for the last two miles, I kept reminding myself at 24 miles that all I had left was three laps of the Heritage Park at Stewartfield, a favourite training place of mine. I even managed to get a bit of pace going for the last half mile.
I crossed the line in 3.55.21, four and a half minutes ahead of my red-line time of 4 hours and absolutely shattered.
Mark had a solid block of training leading to this event and even managed some 20 milers along with Gerry and some others. He was running well and arrived ready and prepared for the event with only his old skeleton in the cupboard. Yip, his back. Having run a swift first half in 1.35 he was on course for his targeted finish of somewhere in the region of 3.15. His ailing spine once again curtailed his ambition, losing vital pace from mile 16 as a result and nursing it home to finish in 3.39.
Davy, with already two marathons done and dusted this year had a plan of steady and consistent and that is exactly how he executed the challenge going through the half way mark at 1.47.09 and finishing strongly in 3.43.49. Davy like the others has stuck to a strict training regime and it certainly paid off.
My first half running buddy Jim, had a mile by mile plan and stuck to it. Aiming for an average of 7.45 m/m during the early stages, he went sharper than that, crossing the half way mark as I mentioned in 1.41.20 very near his half marathon PB! With the G33 completed a few weeks ago and a busy season of Ultra’s on the calendar Jim’s training has been on point and he is running really well. Jim brought the yellow and black vest home first in a time of 3.29.41, a time he says would have been a PB had the course not been 0.2 miles longer than billed.
Bringing up the rear, you’ve read my story.
And so, it was in to the finisher’s enclosure, a massive blingy medal, a t-shirt and an alcohol-free beer which for some went down a treat. It went down a treat for me too but only for a wee while! Irn Bru, I needed IRN BRU. By now lactic acid had gone to work and my legs were like concrete! The others seemed remarkably unfazed by their achievement coping well with having just run the distance, me on the other hand, a bag of spanners, just needing a lie down and an IRN BRU!
A snack van readily supplied me with a Coca Cola “will that be diet, love?” the lady cheerily and expectantly asked. No, sugar, I need the sugar!
Of home to Eccles in our taxi and once there Jim presented us with a dram to toast our day. That went down nice.
A rest, followed by a lovely warm shower, glad rags on and we were off up the street for a hearty Bangladeshi curry. The guys, able to further toast and celebrate their occasion stayed out for a couple of more beers – me, off home to bed!
Up the next morning – all looking remarkably refreshed we set about hatching a plan of finding a greasy spoon for the biggest fry up known to man. A couple of miles up the road and we tucked in to exactly what was needed. Then our journey home.
A great weekend with the guys, great banter and laughs, ideal accommodation and a 26 odd mile run in to the bargain!
So – the marathon tale goes. Done it. Ticked the box. Nobody can take it away now. Do another? At the end of the race I was as convinced as Theresa is of her deal that there would be no other. Then the wee motors start to go around in the head. What if;
• I had trained more
• Gone a bit slower in the first half
• Sorted out my regime of nutrition and fluid intake
• I had trained more
• I had trained more………………………………
Watch this space.
Martin.
4 comments:
Stupendous report Martin! I won't mention the race in case it brings on more leg cramps. But seriously, well done all four. There are trials and tribulations in every marathon and a 50:50 chance of it going well:falling apart depending on a multitude of controllable factors (e.g. training) and uncontrollable factors (weather, injuries, mind games, etc), so the club's representatives were right on the stats.
Alan
Great report Martin, and what a fantastic weekend. Great company and a few beers/miles thrown in. Looking forward to the next one....I meant to ask " have you ever run an ultra?" 😁
Fantastic report which captures the highs and lows of a marathon weekend.
Echo that Martin, I realise I now have a rival in the long-race report game! Really well done for hanging on in there and getting it done. Even as I was reading it I was thinking 'wonder if I should suggest an ultra?'but Jim's beaten me to it!
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