Mudeford Sailing Club

What to do on a Sunday when there’s no racing!

By Ali Reeves

I always fancied doing a marathon and it was on my mental list of things to do before I reach a certain age. (35? Ed) For the past 3 years I have always entered the ballot for the London Marathon, but had never been successful.  True to form last autumn another rejection letter turned up on our doormat, but this time with a leaflet for the Edinburgh Marathon.  Being someone who tends to act on impulse, I looked at the sailing calendar for 2010, 23^rd May, no racing.  I mentioned it to T who was probably preoccupied at the time “Why not, go on, we’ll make a weekend of it”.  Within 20 minutes I had done my online application, booked flights and a hotel – I had heard people say that the Internet was a dangerous thing; maybe this was what they meant.

After a few days, the reality of what I had done started to sink in. To make sure that I didn’t chicken out I decided that I ought to try and raise some money for charity and also tell everyone that I knew what I was doing.  I chose SSAFA Forces Help as a charity close to my heart and signed up.  All I needed to do now was some training – what could be easier?

Things started well. I arranged things with T so that I could run part of the way to work whilst he delivered my work clothes, towel etc in the car & I started doing longer runs at the weekends, but then, end of November, T became ill which created several problems.  Apart from being extremely worried about him, I couldn’t run as part of my commute as I needed the car & he was at home.  When I got home from work, I didn’t feel I could go out again so the progress I had made started to ebb away. In January, things started to improve, so I started out again, but now had to do all my runs in the evenings and weekends.  In February I entered a half marathon & completed in 2 hrs 13 minutes – back on programme, or so I thought.

In March I set out one Sunday to run 15 miles. Ten miles in and “ouch”, sudden pain in right leg. I had to walk the rest of the way home and was limping badly by the time I arrived.  Monday morning and I was on the phone to Claire Van Wingerden for some physio.  Claire is always very positive and made me feel better, but this was the start of several weekly visits.  Of course, rest would have helped, but I had to try to keep exercising. By 2 weeks before the Marathon I had built back up to 10 slow and uncomfortable miles – not where I had planned to be, but I was determined to get round the course somehow.

All too soon, the weekend arrived. We flew up to Edinburgh on the Saturday morning and managed to see a little of the city.  I’m not a city girl, but I loved it & we will definitely visit again. The weather was glorious on Saturday, but Sunday morning dawned grey and dull. By the time we sat down to breakfast, it was pouring with rain – great!  Naively I had assumed that all Scottish hotels would serve porridge, my staple running breakfast, but no, not a porridge bowl in sight, so I made the most of what was available and managed to get a waiter to bring out some bananas. We walked down Princes Street towards the race start which was shrouded in grey fog, visibility was less than 100 metres.  At this point I was starting to feel a little nervous – what if I had to stop because of my leg? What if I was so slow that the sweeper vehicle insisted on picking me up?

The weather had started to clear by this point and the cloud was starting to break up as I headed towards my start pen. As a slow runner, my group was one of the last to start. Once the race started we started to move slowly forward for what seemed an age before we even saw the start line.  It took just over 15 minutes to get through and the pace then picked up & we started to run. The route looped round and quickly left the city, but I soon realised that I was in danger of doing a “Paula Radcliffe” if I didn’t stop to use the facilities at 3 miles. I was reluctant to stop especially when I saw the queue, but needs must. Over 10 minutes lost so early, but I managed not to panic.

By this time the sun was blazing and it was extremely hot. I don’t mind the heat, but I could see that several people were really struggling.  The residents were absolutely wonderful and many of them had their hoses set up in their front gardens to spray the runners as they passed (I just hope they weren’t on water meters).  They also offered extra drinks, jelly babies and Vaseline (which I was grateful for by about 9 miles with chafing from my running vest causing me to run with my arms sticking out at an odd angle). 

Just before the half way mark, my worst nightmare came true & my leg injury was back with a vengeance. I was determined to keep going, but how? I found that I could keep going with a fairly fast but awkward power walk, so gritted my teeth, swallowed my Ibuprofen and off I went. To add to my mental anguish, the fast runners were returning on the other side of the road and the thought of how far I still had to go almost had me in tears for a few minutes until I gave myself a very severe talking to.  Seeing one very athletic looking young man collapse on the other side of the road made me wonder what sort of state I would be in by the same point. 

Eventually I had reached the turning point and was on my way back. There were still people on the “out” leg, which made me realised that although I was very slow, I wasn’t going to be last. According to my watch, I was also comfortably in front of the sweeper vehicle, a big relief. It seemed that every time I started to flag, somebody would be doing something to keep me going, a radio station with a mobile stage set up, a piper, a children’s choir, the SSAFA cheerleaders or just people cheering us on.  At about 20 miles, a bubbly welsh lady came up beside me and started to chat – just what I needed & we egged each other on for the rest of the way. For the last ¼ mile we agreed to run to the finish and crossed the line together after which we had a big hug and thanked each other for the support. I checked my watch - 5 hours 42 minutes. Oh no, I’m not satisfied with that, but don’t tell Terry whatever you do.

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