On the 20th October I will be taking part in the
first ever Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon, this will be my 6th marathon
but my first one in 2 years, my last marathon outing being at Liverpool on the
9th October 2011.
With my previous marathons I have kept a record of my
training by keeping a blog and had planned to record my journey to the Yorkshire
Marathon 2013. I’ve not managed to do
this partly due to time and tiredness but partly because I never finished my
blog about Liverpool. It is fair to say
I have always felt that I had unfinished business with Liverpool Marathon and
having failed to get into London Marathon this year I was about to sign up for Liverpool when it was
cancelled!
I have mixed feelings about my trip to Liverpool and I guess
it is time to make my peace with that marathon so I don’t take the ghost of
that memory with me to the start line on the 20th! So its a little
late but here is my blog for . . . .
Liverpool Marathon 9th October 2011 05:37:14
If you scan my previous entries you will see that my
training had been hit and miss, I wasn’t focused throughout the whole 16 weeks
of my plan. I seem to remember doing a 6
week rescue plan and setting off for Liverpool on the Saturday hopeful but
secretly scared. I had had a bit of a
tickly throat on and off in the week before, it was nothing at all really and I
hardly gave it a second thought and just put it down to my nerves!
I stayed in Liverpool (well in Wirral in think) on Saturday
night had a lovely meal with great company and went to bed relaxed and looking
forward to the next day. I rarely sleep well in hotels, but that night was even
worse I kept waking up my throat tickly and I had a bit of a dry cough but I just
put it down to the heating in hotels rooms, I think I got about 2 hours sleep
in total!
I felt excited and nervous the next morning, I had a couple
of pots of instant porridge, a final check of my kit bag and we set off for the
start line. After dropping my bag off
and the normal 2 waits for the loo I joined the starting pen with about 10 mins
to go. The start time came and went we
waited and waited, eventually the message filter back that the race start was
delayed, we had no idea why or how long for and eventually runners started to get
restless, legs that had been warmed up began to cease up and runners started to exit the pens. We seemed to be waiting for hours but about 45
min later the race finally set off.
I’m not sure how much
of the course I can remember now, we went through a park some housing estates
and worked our way to the Mersey. I
remember feeling quite comfortable at first but about mile 5- 6 I started to
struggle a little, I thought perhaps I had set off too fast so slowed the
pace. When we reached the Mersey I think
I realised I wasn’t feeling too well and had a stop at a portaloo, to try and come
round a bit. I felt a little better
after this but as we turned to run along the side of the Mersey we were running
into the wind and I found myself run walking a little. After a while we left
the side of the Mersey and ran through a market square, there was a water
station and some supporters here and I caught sight of TSR waiting to cheer me
on. I had not expected him to be there
as thought he was driving across to support me in Liverpool. I can still remember the smile on his face as
he saw me and the quick kiss and cuddle lifted me and kept me going to the
tunnel.
Running under the tunnel under the Mersey had to be the best
part of the race! It was a weird
sensation running down, it was hot under there and all you could hear was
trainers hitting the ground, heavy breathing and of course oggie oggie
oggie, we seemed to run downwards for
ages but eventually we got to the bottom
and started the climb back up the other side. As you did so you began to
feel a vibration through your feet it was weird and a little worrying at first.
After a while it became a bit clearer
and I realised it was a steel band playing at the exit to the tunnel. For probably more than half a mile you can
feel the beat then gradually could hear them.
I can’t find the words to describe this, the best I can come u with was
awesome awesome awesome!
The route, as best as I can now remember, then took you
through Liverpool city centre and past the finish line, I was really starting
to struggle and was desperate to see TSR in the support crowd again but he
hadn’t made if across the Mersey yet. I
did see Gill from Kirkstall Harriers though and that was great! The route took
us back out of the city centre we headed up a long hill, at least it felt long.
The only good bit was you could see runners coming back down the hill and you
knew you had that to look forward to. I
ran walked up the hill and just kept telling myself it wouldn’t be long before
I too was coming down the other side.
What I wasn’t prepared for (I can’t say I didn’t know as I had seen the
course map) was the torture of running round and round and round and round and
round and round princess park. It was a
complicated route and you could see other runners on different paths but you
couldn’t tell if they were in front of you or behind you, it just seemed to go
on and on and on. I felt ill, my legs
ached, my throat was sore and I was struggling to breathe, I remember another
runner tapping me on the shoulder and asking me if I was a tennis player! I had my earphones in so wasn’t aware that I
was grunting as I tried to breath. It
must have been very annoying for runners around me. I remember passing a first aid point and considered
just stopping and withdrawing , but
there were some portaloos so I hid in one of these for a while why I had a good
cry instead, pulled myself together a bit and set off again. I said a little
prayer of thanks as we seemed to finally leave the park and I thought we would
be heading back down the hill to where TSR would be waiting for me but NO! We
turned a corner and the route lead us back in to another park which we again
went round and round and round.
Eventually after what seemed like a marathon in itself we did leave the
park and headed back down the hill towards the town centre and the finish line.
Even running back down the hill I found
hard and I’m still not sure how I kept going as I just wanted to stop. Eventually we came back into the city centre and
with a mile of flat road to the finish line I tried to keep running as I
desperately searched the crowd for TSR. Then
just before the final turn for the finish I saw him and I wanted to just stop
there and then, for a brief moment I didn’t care about crossing that line. But I kept running and although I had a very
brief walk when I was out of sight as I went round the next corner I managed to
start running one last time and ran across the finish line.
Now for some reason as you came through the finishing funnel
instead of giving you a goody bag with your items inside it, you were given the
items separately and by the time I was reunited with TSR I felt like one of
those contestants from crackerjack when they used to pile them up with prizes
to see how much they could hold before they dropped things! Not good when you
have just run or in my case, run walked and nearly crawled a marathon.
It was a good job TSR was with me as I was by this time
quite disorientated and had no idea where to go to get my bag back. I think I probably cried again. We had a short but slow walk back to the car,
I was hungry, cold and my running gear was soaked. My last memory of Liverpool
was being so desperate to get out of my running gear I just stripped off behind
some building in an industrial estate, I couldn’t move and was in such a state I
needed help putting my warm dry clothes on. For ages afterwards I kept
expecting to see myself on one of these caught on CCTV programmes!
So in conclusion Liverpool was not my best marathon, but I earned
my medal and it hangs with pride with my others.
I had a great weekend but a terrible marathon, to run a
marathon you have to want it and be prepared to make sacrifices in other areas
of your life! I already knew this but I learnt the lesson again the hard way in
Liverpool, Marathons (at least for me) are too big to just wing it!
I accept that you can’t plan or control illness, it is just
one of those things, bad luck I guess, but someone asked me the other day if
the same happened again would I run? The
truth is I don’t know, but I don’t want to have to find out. So please if you have a cough, sneeze, runny
nose or other viral type things please please stay away from me until after the
Marathon!
