21st April 2024
After a week of successfully avoiding coughs and colds and anxiously wishing the race could start at the beginning of the week to save waiting around, the moment had finally arrived. I had a fully functional but very ordinary evening meal at Premier Inn, New Southgate (prawn linguine since you asked – four prawns!) and set my alarm for 6:30am. After a reasonable night’s sleep, I ran myself a bath, made a couple of porridge pots, scoffed a banana, and got ready for action. Louise had carefully applied a foot dressing for me which held up remarkably well through the race, the only chaffing I got was under my left upper arm as it turned out. I had a fair distance to travel but as with most locations in the capital, everywhere is fairly accessible by public transport. I’d already worked out all of my timings but somehow still felt the need to run up the road to Arnos Grove tube station just in case! There was one other marathoner on my train. The more the journey went on, the more runners you’d see. By the time I’d reached London Bridge for the final connection to Blackheath, everyone was a runner. I felt sorry for the local folk finishing their night shift and trying to get home with carriage after carriage rammed with excitable athletes.
The sun was out but as expected, it wasn’t warm. I had over an hour to wait. Best keep my warm clothes on for as long as possible I figured. I drank my pear squash, ate an energy gel and had a power nap on the grass. I later had a wander around and completely fortuitously bumped into David Craig and his wife Jackie who were both sitting down. There were around six or seven Badgers in my Blue start area but probably around five to ten thousand others too at any point so spotting team mates with the low morning sun was always going to be tough. DC then saw Wayne Repton so there were four of us. Upon dropping my kit bag off before making my way to the starting pen, I met Stuart Stafford, who was also running. Bonus.
It was around 400 metres from the pen to the start line but the organisers like to get you moving quickly. I walked it all the way to the line while everyone around me ran, working on the basis that it would be a few hundred metres less for me to run that morning and precious energy conserved. Small margins and all that. My plan was to qualify for 2025 so I needed 3:05 or ideally better for this, and to try and replicate last year’s effort where I ran splits of 93 and 85 and felt like a million dollars over the final 10K. How much of that was down to the slow start, I might never know, but it was the best sustained feeling I’ve had in running. I wasn’t here to run between 3 hours and 3:05 either, I’d be so disappointed missing out on a sub-three by the odd minute, so really the goals now included a sub three time. I was not in shape to attempt a PB but I hoped I might beat last year’s time of 2:58:23. The weather was good, one mild bugbear was there were pacers for both 3:05 and 3:00, in fairly close proximity understandably at the start so getting caught up in the throng of chasers around the pacers was unavoidable.
I had to try and slow myself down quite a bit at the start and in the main I achieved this. Conserve energy. Do not get caught up in the occasion. It is all about the last 10K. I was hugely confident but not cocky and also excited about what I might and could achieve. I believed the world was my oyster regarding finish time. My mindset was excellent. The opening 5K was just shy of 22 minutes – a good and unspectacular start. If I were chasing a PB, I’d have been far more aggressive but I wasn’t. The next 5K felt a touch quicker but I’d warmed up by now and was working REALLY hard to try and discipline myself to rein in my pace. The split was almost identical. So far, so good. I enjoyed looping around Cutty Sark. The crowds are all to your right so you get a great close up view of the old tea clipper to your left. It rained there last year, this time it was a lovely sight for the runners. I made a mental note to add it to my bucket list of places to visit properly.
I felt good and began to speed up fractionally. I’d decided ideally (on the hoof) to get to ten miles and then start increasing pace. By the time I’d got there I was already moving through the gears but that was fine. Early dreams of a ten minutes negative split were jettisoned in favour of a more measured approach. I chatted to a Spanish looking 65 year old with a cockney accent and perma-tanned leather skin, telling me he ran a PB at Boston the week before so for me to crack three hours with my PB being 2:46 would be a walk in the park. I hate it when people say it should be easy. It never is, Not in a marathon. All manner of things can go wrong and you have to work pretty hard to get fit enough in the first place. Maybe if I was an Olympic level competitor it might be “easy” but I’m just a good club runner, dad, husband and I work full-time. Equally, I know the people mean well in what they say and this chap was no different in that regard. I was mega-impressed with his capabilities but did wonder why he was PB’ing in his sixties. He must have come late to running. Imagine what he might have done in his thirties. It reinforced my mantra about making the most of each opportunity and getting the best out of myself while I still can.
After around 12 miles, I saw a group of Badgers friends supporting outside a pub. I didn’t need a lift at that point but it was still wonderful to embrace their support. I tried second guessing my first half split. It was only over Tower Bridge and round the corner and as it materialised it was 90:28. I’d need to speed up to break three hours but that was all built in to the plan. I upped the pace again gradually and marginally and probably ran what ended up being the fastest section of my race. I saw Mark Repton supporting and watched a little of the elite race unfold in the opposite carriageway but not as much as usual, I was probably concentrating on my own race too much to be distracted by events nine miles up the road. I overtook Chris Finill (http://www.everpresent.org.uk/finill.htm) and congratulated him on what is a quite fantastic 44 year streak of excellence. There were a few sections where the wind was coming right at you so I made moves to tuck in behind the biggest or tallest runner around of a similar pace. I knew I was in for a treat at mile 17 where Louise and Rory would be waiting and watching, possibly with my friend Dean and his family too. I spotted Rory’s coat as he was in the arms of his mum, and managed to sneak a quick high-five in before leaving them in the distance. I have spectated as well as participated in this race and both are good to do. I did feel they may be a bit cheated though, if Rory’s spent three hours or so “watching Daddy”, the amount of time actually seeing me in action equated to approximately five seconds, a poor return in my book!
I felt okay but I knew I was working now. I was probably travelling at 6:30 minute miles. It dawned on me that I hadn’t taken a gel at the first station. They were available at miles 14 and 19. I don’t carry things with me on runs if I can help it. It was a mistake on my part but irreversible. I took two gels at mile 19 but by the time I’d got any benefit, I was probably only about three miles from the finish. When I hit 20 miles, I knew I had 44 minutes to cover the final 10K to bag my fourth sub three. Last year I had closer to 38. Also, I didn’t feel capable of sending it now. I was tiring. I told myself to keep going and send it later, maybe with 5K to go. Or maybe a mile! Or maybe not at all! I saw Matt Green and Mark again. That helped. I didn’t want to look flaky in front of them but I wasn’t overtaking everybody as I was half an hour earlier. One or two people were coming past me. My mindset had changed from one of confidence and positivity to a more negative one, but by no means an abjectly negative one. I made myself smile a few times – that would help! Every possible little advantage.
With 5K left, I was working flat out, there was no top gear today, I had slowed pace a little and kept telling myself to just keep moving, not to stop, counting the miles down, doing the maths. Sub three was still on but there wasn’t a big buffer so any mistakes or weakness would be fatal. My pace was still good, just not as good as I wanted it to be. ‘Serves me right for being over confident at the start’ I chastised myself, in error. Hopefully, it was around now those gels would kick in. I grabbed a few jelly babies from bystanders and a bit of water. There were some tired runners out there, quite a few getting in my way. The crowd support was amazing along the embankment, just when you need it to be good. When I reached mile 25, I knew it was in the bag but I still had to keep going, there was precious little room to manoeuvre time wise. I was using the roadside mile markers as my guide rather than my watch-recorded distance which is often way out at London, although not by very much this year I found. I tried to increase my output along Birdcage Walk, desperately looking at the horizon for the point where the runners turn right towards The Mall. It came and I looked down at my watch knowing that I was safe but wanting every possible second of time to count. As the line approached a 2:57 something evaporated but I might just dip inside last year’s time. One year older but off a slightly better, albeit still poor training build-up. Would I take that? I had no choice! It was what I’d got and I had to really work for it over those final few miles, a lot more than I anticipated. My official time was 2:58:06, so 17 seconds better than 2023. I was shattered. I did not want to walk another step. I needed water and slowly made my way along towards the bag collection area.
Lying against a metal railing, I saw my mate Kingy from Tamworth. He ran 2:54 but was slightly disappointed. I sat beside him and in our fatigued states, tried to converse while getting our breath back and trying to pull ourselves together so to speak! We were there a good fifteen minutes or so I’d say, both feeling our ages, both spent, both chilling. Foil blankets on, we ambled octagenarian-style to the bag lorries where I glimpsed the unmistakable black and white Badgers vest. This one belonged to Chris Tweed. The three of us headed off to the meet and greet areas which were really badly signposted and therefore incurred extra walking at a point in my life when I really did not want to walk a step further than was absolutely necessary. See, I told you about those 200 metres at the start! I know why people do it but it doesn’t mean they should. Following the herd isn’t always wise.
After the race, I met my family along with our friends Dean, Inma and their daughter Isabel who had travelled up from Sussex that morning. The kids played nicely together while the grown ups enjoyed a sit down and a cup of coffee in Holborn before heading back home. It was nice to catch up and even nicer to have someone else play with Rory for an hour or two. I don’t think Daddy was quite up to it!
On reflection, I was chuffed to bits with my performance and time. It was a stark reminder about just how tough marathons are to complete, but to have done it in under three hours considering where I was ten or twelve weeks earlier is miraculous. It had been a massive goal for me even back in September and October of last year and I have placed a lot of focus on getting as ready as I could for it despite the obstacles ahead of me. There’s certainly room to improve. A longer, better training block, maybe a gel half way round (!), no running to the tube station prior! Next year, I will have the added motivation of chasing a sub three time in my 50’s. Easier to achieve aged 50 than 59 I suspect.
Chris Hortons Marathon Journey 