My First Half Marathon

I ran a half marathon on October 12th. It was my first. And it was the inaugural Royal Parks Half Marathon…so newbies together then.

I got to Hyde Park nearly an hour before the race, and immediately joined the toilet queue (or one of the queues). The queues were rather long, and agonisingly slow. The men decided to ditch the queues and use the bushes, while the women looked enviously on. Eventually, with less than five minutes to the start of the race, well, several women (and I may possibly admit to joining them), decided to duck behind a screen…and pretend we were camping.

After an exceptionally awkward start, and learning the horrible lessen, that you can over-hydrate, the race started about a minute after I managed to find a gap in the fence and get to the start.

The first two miles were quite good, I ignored all the mad people racing off at the start, and kept to a nice slow pace I knew I could maintain for the duration of the race. We ran past big ben, and over Westminster bridge, and then started down the road towards embankment. It was unfortunately at around the 3 mile mark that I could feel the blisters popping up! And with 10 miles still to go :(

The run on the road was otherwise pleasant, I certainly wasn’t last, and even managed to overtake quite a few people by maintaining my nice slow pace. At about half way, we left the roads, and headed for the parks. We ran past Buckingham Palace, which was great, and then heading into Hyde Park. The blisters at this point were well and truly in evidence, and the pain was forcing me to walk patches.

The sun got hotter, and I was regretting the decision to wear the non-technical charity vest. It was around this point that my spectator, my lovely Tim was there, to cheer me on. Because the track wound around Hyde Park a fair way, Tim was able to run around and see me several times, each time he was a very welcome sight! Especially when he gave me a powerade, as I’d “hit the wall” after two hours of running/hobbling.

The course doubled back on itself quite a few times. Some runners afterwards complained about this, I however found it very encouraging. Just the sight of plenty of other runners, they haven’t all finished yet then, kept me going. There one on guy ahead of me, running in this enormous costume. It was a real boost whenever I saw him. If he could do it in that costume, I certainly could do it with all my extra fat!

I walked most of the last 4 miles, in total agony. The only reason I didn’t pull out like any sane person, was that people had sponsored me. The thought of facing them on Monday, and explaining…”well, I had blisters…”. Nope, I was determined, even if I walked the entire remaining distance, I was finishing.

The wonderful stewards were very encouraging…”Not long to go now…” they kept saying. They were of course lying, which I told them. It made them laugh. The drinks attendants at the last water station were calling out “get you ice cold water here…”. They also were lying, but anything that brought a smile to your face at that point was VERY welcome.

I must say the Marie Curie cheer point at 10 miles, was the most wonderful thing. See, now I was glad I’d worn the charity vest. Even after three hours of shouting at all runners, not just their own, they were extremely vocal when they saw my coming. I even managed to jog for a kilometre past them (I did stop as soon as they were out of sight though).

Three hours and five minutes, exactly. That was my time, according to my timing chip. You would have thought this would have put me off my dream to run the London marathon… no. It only made me more determined!

How it Began...

So last December I decided I was unhappy with being an unfit fatty. I had trouble keeping up with my rather tall husband as we trek around Disney World. This was made especially worse as I used to be a fit sporty kid. I used to ride my bike all day, run cross-country races (I even won once), and swim laps for an hour without blinking. As an adult though I struggle with a flight of stairs.

I decided to run the London Marathon 2009. That would give me over a year to train, surely that would be enough time?

As part of my “plan” I entered the Royal Parks Half Marathon, despite having never run a race as an adult.

I spent hours researching training plans, subscribed to Runners World Magazine, bought new trainers (and more new trainers!) and books and other kit. I already had my own treadmill, as this wasn’t completely out of the blue…I had been running irregularly for the last two years.

I started following a 5K training plan from the Nike website, and then I followed a 10K Nike plan. I decided to do an actual 10K race at the end of the plan, to get a bit of “race experience”. I entered the Bupa Great Capital 10K on 20th July 2008.

After the 10K I started a Runner’s World half marathon training plan, it was relatively achievable 3-4 runs a week. Speedwork…err interesting.

I also entered the Adidas Women’ Challenge on 7th September, a 5K fun run to get some “mass start” experience. As I understand, the difference between a race and a fun run, is a race gives you an official finish time (either chip, or crossing the line), a fun run doesn’t. You have to time yourself.

A few days before the half marathon, the London Marathon public ballot results came out…I didn’t get in. I was depressed, although I know in advance the odds were 1 in 5, I think this year they were 1 in 8 with the new online entry system.

After running my half, I decided I really REALLY wanted to run the London Marathon…it was after all the reason I’d started training properly.

So, I applied for a couple of charity places…and got one!!!

Thank you VICTA (Visually Impaired Children Taking Action)