The day had finally arrived. After months of fundraising and lonesome training, I was meant to be prepared for my first attempt at a half marathon. I was meant to be at the peak of my fitness, raring to go, ready to crush the time I had set myself as a target. The culmination of all my efforts, the aching, blistered feet, the long hours out on the road. This day was the reason for all the expended energy and discomfort over the previous three months and now the day had arrived, the excitement I felt was dashed by my faulty immune system. I had one working nostril, a head that felt so heavy and a chest that heaved and crackled after going up and down stairs, let alone running for 21.1km.
It was a windy, grey day down on the coast. Autumn was slowly arriving after an extended summer. As I lined up at the start and said goodbye to my hardy supporters, who had braved the windy conditions to stand and watch me run for all of 20 seconds before I glided into the distance, I started to feel a little better. The gun went and 300 odd runners of all varieties headed off in search of the finishing line. For some, that finishing line couldn’t appear quick enough.
The first mile marker arrived quickly. Mentally this was good. I tried to kid myself. If every mile was as easy as the first, I should be home and resting with a box of snotty Kleenex for company in no time. In fact it was the perfect tonic for my cold, as all of a sudden the symptoms that made this race so daunting lifted, allowing me to feel clear in my mind as well as my nose.
Mile 2 and 3 were very similar. I ticked them off as easily as the first one. As this was my first attempt at this distance I was understandably nervous about the daunting mileage. In training I’d managed to complete 12 miles, it was a struggle but I made it. That extra 1.1 mile was of concern to me though. I can only liken it to taking to the stage for the opening night of a play, but not attending the dress rehearsal. I hadn’t quite gained enough knowledge of the distance to feel comfortable with what I was doing. Of the many training schedules i studied before I settled on the one I was to follow, none of them suggested running the race distance. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had now, however the first few miles gave me no concern at all.
Miles 4 and 5 were pretty mundane. By the time I’d reached this stage of the race I was running along a straight coastal route, to my left was nothing but blue sea and grey sky and to the right intermingling between my fellow runners were families visiting the beach, grasping at the dregs of summer. I had run this route a few weeks previous and found it invigorating running alongside the coast, it made a change from the country lanes I’d run most of my miles around in training. Today though, the magic had washed away into the sea. It was dull. Keeping at a steady pace, the only satisfaction I could gain was by overtaking some of the runners in the same pack as I was. This was mildly entertaining, but by the time I’d reached the 6 mile marker I had a bigger problem than boredom.
I can pinpoint the exact moment when the race started to slip away from my control and I relinquished the use of my legs and brain to some kind of running demon who just wanted to punish me. Admittedly, I never thought that running this half marathon was going to be easy, I knew it would be the most intensive physical exercise I’d ever put my 32 year old body through. What made this unpalatable was other people making the job of completing the race look so easy. This race was similar to another coastal run I competed in 3 years ago. The circuit was a loop so unless you were with the leading pack, at some point during the race it was more than likely that you would pass a long line of elite runners making a sprint to the finish line. The previous race I mentioned was a 5 miler, so I found it less galling than this event to see elite runners with quite a healthy lead over me. What compounded my mood was that just as I approached the turn, a runner passed me heading towards home pushing a toddler in a push chair. I have a lot of respect for him, he must be super fit, I struggle to manoeuvre my daughters push chair around my local shopping centre, let alone run 13.1 miles with her. At the time I was begrudgingly envious of him, but my overriding feeling was that he was taking the piss. This was the moment that ruined a nice coastal run for me, after that I never fully recovered. After this, my memory of the next 3 or 4 miles is a little hazy.
It was now a mental and physical struggle. My brain kept telling me to stop, but some how my legs carried on albeit at an almost non existent cadence, but they were turning over slightly, the sole of my foot just millimetres above the surface at any given time. Some how I pushed through to 12 miles, where a very helpful and kind volunteer handed me a cold bottle of water. I can only imagine that he saw me struggling and felt that I needed a ‘pick me up’. What he was probably thinking was, ‘this guy looks like death warmed up and he still has the hardest bit of this marathon to complete, I’ll give him this bottle of water to lure him into a false sense of security and then bam! Try and get up this mountain!’
Looking at this image now, it still fills me with dread. As I reached the foot of the hill, one of the volunteers pointed towards it’s summit, I’m not quite sure why he felt the need to do this, I knew that I had to climb to the top because I’d made my way down it 2 hours previous. His dramatic finger pointing did nothing to ease my discomfort. I looked up and I could see a few walkers about half way up, they had obviously run out of gas – it was going to take a miracle for me to make it to the peak without stopping. The hill reminded me of the gruelling ‘travelator’ in the 90’s TV show Gladiators. At least I would only have to run to the top once, unlike some of the unfortunate contestants who would do their best impression of a goat climbing a mountain.
I soon joined the walkers half way up the hill and after 2 hours of moving constantly my legs finally gave up and I stopped. My fear was that I wouldn’t start again, but I knew that once I reached the top, the finishing line would be in touching distance. I gave myself a minute to recover and then I would force myself to start again. I took a slow jog to the top and quickened a little once I’d reached the top. I’d done it, all I needed to do was get over the line. The last thing I needed to hear in my fragile state of mind was ‘Daddy, why is that man not really running, he’s hardly moving?’ I glared at the child in between grimacing and trying to focus on the finishing line, the child’s Dad did his best to deflect the question with lots of ‘erms’ and ‘arhs’.
I crossed the line in 2 hours and 15 mins, 15 mins over my initial target, but that was a secondary concern, I was just happy to finish my first half marathon.
My brother in law (the guy in the photos who looks the same at the beginning of the race as he does at the end and doesn’t look like he has broken a sweat) finished in a highly respectable time of 1 hour and 45 mins.
It was now time to recover and focus on challenge number two.
