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The Big Day. The Race. 26.2 Miles.
Sunday, 14 April 2002
My memories of the race, not necessarily in order:
- After about seven or eight miles, another runner on her cell phone informed us that Paula Radcliffe had won, and that the world record had been set. Hmmm...that makes two races Chris and I had run in where world records had been set. I'll bet we were the only two people there that were at both the Crescent City Classic and the London Marathon. Hmmm. Perhaps I should look into this, hire myself out as a good luck charm or something.
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| Some kind lady took our picture at the Cutty Sark (mile 7) |
- Marianne, Michael, Rebecca, and Julie planned to see us at miles 14 and 21. These points in the course were only a five minute walk apart (for them!) and they were going to hang out with Vicky from dinner. (I don't think they found her. I think her friends passed by much earlier.) Anyway, we saw them at mile 14. Along with those guys was one of Marianne's flatmates and her boyfriend and a couple of his friends. They were stationed outside of a pub (naturally) and boy, did they yell when we ran by! We had planned to stop and take a picture with them and say hello, but their yelling spurred us on to run by, victoriously, instead. It was a great feeling to see them, and that pumped us up for a few miles.
- There was a couple from New Zealand, Polly and Ron, who we stuck with for much of the race. And Dave the Telephone. And Brian the Snail. And Superman. We had our own little crowd.
- They gave out sponges intermittently, but they were always gone by the time we got there. We never got a sponge. Ah well. There were mist showers to run through a few times, though. That was nice and very refreshing. Especially since my quads were burning, the cool water really helped. It was actually much warmer that I'd expected. I never felt overheated or anything, but never cold either. The sun was out at the beginning of the race, which was nice, but there was cloud cover for most of the race, which is even better.
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| Chris at his spiritual home during the race, the toilets. |
- I took a total of 6 gels throughout the race, and one packet of electrolytes. I usually took some of the Lucozade if there was any, and drank a little of it. I never had any stomach problems or anything. No dehydration, nothing. Chris, on the other hand, insisted that it was the Lucozade that made him have to pee five (that's right FIVE) times during the race (compare that to my ONE, thank you) but he nevertheless picked up a packet of it every time it was offered. Men. Sheesh. And then had to pee five minutes later. (I should say, though, this didn't bother me at all. In fact, I secretly looked forward to Chris's bathroom breaks so I could walk extra.)
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| Those paramedics are hams! |
- Sometime after we passed the mile 18 line, Chris and I were running along, and I felt a very distinct "pop" in my left shoe. Sure enough, one of the blisters that I had picked up while walking around in the days before decided to commit suicide inside my shoe. Blech. It was the most disgusting feeling, and immediately, I was in excrutiating pain. Fortunately, immediately beside us were some (as you can see, very friendly) paramedics. They sat me down and took care of me (well, but a bandage on my toe, what else could they do? Chopping off the toe seemed like a good option to me at the time) and I was really, really worried that I'd either have to give up (no question) or limp to the finish line. Fortunately, I was able to ignore the pain after a little while, and soon enough, it went away completely. Who knows how. I was expecting to take my shoes off afterwards and find a lake of blood inside my shoe, but there was never any. Whew! I hate blood!
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| Chris, taking a leisurely break in front of the Tower Bridge. On the *$#@ uncarpeted cobblestones. |
- When we got to the infamous cobbles at mile 23, the carpet was gone! Apparently, they lay down a carpet to shield you from the cobblestones in front of the Tower of London. By the time we got there, it was rolled up and off to the side. I thought that was appalling. The fact that many of the water stops were out of water, that I could understand. At least it was only every other water stop. But the fact that they rolled up the carpets and just put them off to the side really made me mad. Why would they do this? Mean. We had to walk through much of this stage, because running on the uneven stones would have either meant hurting my blister or tripping. Either one would be bad. There was also a part at this stage of the race where there were more tourists around than runners, and we had to dodge them. It was like a dream I had before the race, where I lost my way. I literally could not tell for a little bit of time where the race went. Found it eventually. :P
- I don't know if Starburst (formerly Opal Fruits in the UK) had some minor sponsorship going on, but almost every piece of candy that was given out throughout the race (and there was a lot) was Starburst. Strange. But good. I also got some gum drops at one point and a mini Mars bar later on. Yum.
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| The tunnel with the aforementioned "What wall?" sign. But this is inside the tunnel. But there's the 20 mile marker! And in front of those two girls is Dave the telephone. He's in almost every picture I took. |
- At mile 20 or so, there was a tunnel to go through. At the entrance to the tunnel, there was a huge sign that looked like a brick wall (surrounding the tunnel) that said "What Wall?" Indeed. We never hit the wall. Amazingly enough. I loved that sign.
- Sometime around mile 15, we met Superman. He was running his 209th marathon, and he'd raised over £26,000 for charity. Wow.
- We took two minute walking breaks every mile. And sometimes on the uphills. But we made up for it on the downhills. Who said London was flat? Liar! It was most certainly not flat. Okay, I'm sure compared to other courses it's flat, but to just say it's flat, well, that's not true. To be fair, none of the uphills were steep, but it was definitely a gently rolling course. That didn't upset me too much, I liked the downhills. Everytime we got to a downhill, I'd hear Cilla telling me about the runners who do everything to maintain an even pace, even though that means slowing down on the downhills. Nutty! So I took her advice and cruised down those downhills, enjoying the speed.
The Finish
Throughout the race, I smiled. It was hard not to, with all of the cheering, the spectators, our names being yelled out. But I was a little concerned about the emotion, or lack thereof. I just wasn't feeling any strong emotions. Fortunately (for my mental well-being) around mile 24-25, Big Ben came looming ahead of us. At this stage, I was already feeling tired. For the last mile or so, I'd been digging down deep to keep going. It wasn't that I'd hit the wall or anything, I just needed to concentrate. So I'd pick a spot about 10 feet in front of me, run to it, pick another one, and on and on. It worked really well for me, even though I had to tune out the crowds and Chris, who uses an altogether more vocal method to keep himself going. Nothing wrong with that, it didn't annoy me or anything, just a different style. So when Big Ben came up in front of us, and I was cruising along comfortably, I lost it. Not badly, but it hit me where we were, and how far we'd come, and I started gasping. If I hadn't been running, I'd have been crying. Sobbing. But it's hard to breathe and run and cry at the same time. So I just gasped and tried to keep myself together so I wouldn't have to stop. It was all very happy and emotional, and my frown was one of pure joy. Snot was running down my face, too, but what could I do?
After we turned the corner heading up towards Buckingham Palace, I stopped sobbing. I was able to enjoy the crowds again. I passed someone I recognized (well, his name, anyway, from his website) but didn't want to stop and say hello. As we ran down Birdcage Walk, along St. James's Park, the crowds got thicker. There was a sign ahead that said "800 meters to go." Hmmm. That seemed reasonable, until I realized that's half a mile. Not that half a mile is far normally, but at the end of a marathon, it's an eternity. And because I wanted to be able to run strong at the finish, I told Chris I wanted to walk a little, so that when we turned the corner on to the Mall at Buckingham Palace, we'd be running. So he obliged.
Then we took it home. We missed our group of spectators at mile 21, probably because of my blister, so we were hoping they made it to the finish.
Didn't see them, didn't see them, didn't see them...oh there they were, at the very end, on the left side! Screaming our names, videotaping, taking photos. Unfortunately, I was overcome once more by tears at this last stretch, so that's all caught on video.
As we crossed the finish line, Chris and I grabbed each other's hand and raised it high in the air. And smiled.
