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Nigel's Story
Today underlined how secure is my conviction that London really is simply the best event at this distance in the world, with incredible crowds and amazing atmosphere and a sheer wall of noise and shouts from start to finish. Very tough competition at my level as well (see att.).
For once, no major mishaps. Weather was perfect. Rain held off until 6 hours and with a sunny start and cooling off last 15k as clouds came in it was impossible to ask for better.
4:29:28 is actually marginally the slowest marathon I've run (4:26 six years ago) but time moves on and this was the first occasion I have really felt it was as good as I could do on that day. Didn't walk a step today -- not a single one.
Great to see Ash smiling at the JDRF supporter point across the road as usual at 13 miles.
Feeling great just then although after that 20-30 km was slow through Limehouse and down Westferry Road in Docklands. Massive crowds, and still heavy traffic on narrow roads and then my mind started to wander on the way up to Canary Wharf past Mudchute where it all fell apart last time. Saw a couple of 11 minute miles appear from nowhere in that stretch as the legs began to stiffen up as well.
Turning west and homewards at Poplar always changes everything for me as it's 'just' 7 straight miles back to The Mall from there. A few more gaps appeared on the road ahead and so I began to stretch it out a little (in relative terms, you understand: keeping even pace beyond 30k actually felt like a huge acceleration).
Caught up an old uni mate just before 20 and ran with him for a mile or so. He was puffing and falling off my shoulder after that and I was trying to think of the race as 5 x 5 mile trots and so we shook hands and I hit hard for home from 21.
Thought several times I might have gone too early, but Thames Street has the loudest crowds on the entire planet, and once the Blackfriars underpass came into sight and thereafter the London Eye alongside and Big Ben ahead I was anyway determined to close the deal with no messing. My last mile was the fastest of all of them except the first to just squeak in under 4:30.
My friend rolled up in 4:37 or so with no walking either, and as he put it, by getting older we may not get faster but we do learn to suffer better.
Massage at the Macmillan supporter point afterwards was sweet pain as exquisite as any you could imagine!
It was a struggle at times across the past six months to get the mileage in, with far too many runs due beside the North Sea at a winter's dawn or dusk in Aberdeen. Frankly, there was way too much going on even to contemplate running a marathon this year.
But five years of failed ballot entries went into today's place for the sixth. Such hard-earned gifts are simply not to be declined, so the race just had to be run.
And it really was entirely worth the wait.
Best,
N
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
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