Good luck to all FLMers

[MickCollins]

Well, it might not be an epic report, but for what it's worth, here's what London meant to me...




It’s just occurred to me why it’s so much easier to report on something you’ve watched, rather than on something in which you’ve participated. I report on things for a living, mostly football, but I earn my living by sitting in a press box and trying to offer a vaguely interesting insight into what happens before my eyes. Having sat down and tried to recapture the sights, feelings, emotions and sensations of a London Marathon in which I took place however, I find myself stuck, caught in the middle of a thousand thoughts.

For me, perhaps, living just two miles from the start, the day begins more strangely than for many. Everyone is used to the idea of marathon streets being quiet before the pack surges down them – of marathon towns experiencing the calm before the storm, but for me, it’s the double oddness of my own town and my own street being devoid of traffic as I step out of the front door.


The walk down to the park takes me past at least fifty policemen (which is a lot, even for South East London), each guarding a road, ensuring the route stays untroubled by traffic. I’m within a hundred yards of the park before I see any other runners, when they seem to arrive en masse, and by the time I’ve walked through the side gate, I’m confronted with the full scope of things. Baggage lorries, tents, tannoys and people peeing – everywhere. This is my usual Sunday morning route, and it’s usually dead to the world, save for a couple of dog walkers, until at least half past eight.
[SIZE=3]I stroll across the park to meet Colin, a former work colleague I’m running with, and James, a friend of Colin’s. Collin talks non-stop at the best of times, and today he’s noisier than usual, and I’ve never been so glad to hear him. Inane banter and daft jokes, and the nerves hold off. Until the point I’m standing, handing over my bag, and standing there in a bin-liner, surrounded by thousands of other similarly attired people. A year ago I was planning a day on the booze, having cheered the field through, and the following day, having made a rash promise, I embarked on my first run for a long, long time. How did it get to this point?
Normal rules about peeing in public don’t seem to apply. To my right, as I stand amid a line of urinating runners, intent on killing a privet hedge which wraps around the park café, is a man with a blow-up doll tied to him, giving the impression that it is the doll relieving herself, rather than him. It’s too strange for this hour of the morning, and I glance to my left. There’s nobody there. Then I glance down and see the top of a woman’s head, as she squats down.
“Well, it’s marathon day, and you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, haven’t you?!” she laughs.
I ponder turning to agree with her, and then realise the potential consequences, and keep staring straight ahead. Nine o clock, and I’ve nearly peed on a strange woman’s head. London
Wrapped in our bags then, we’re in the huddled masses, creeping slowly forwards to the start line, a journey of 400 yards and 15 minutes. I spy my brother, with his wife and two children, standing by the side of the field, and make my way over. He looks as stunned as I feel that this is all actually happening.
James, for reasons best known to his charity, is running with an inflatable spoon in his hand. Within seconds, two small children, independently of each other, have called out to ‘Mr Spoon!’. We have a brief ‘team meeting’. James has five more ‘spoon shouts’ in the bag, and then it’s got to go. It doesn’t survive to the end of the park’s outside wall, as a young lad looks bemused at his luck, collecting the inflatable piece of cutlery within 200 yards of the start line.
The first mile is half jogged, half walked through the huge crowds, ticking by in 11.16, and the second and third sail by slightly quicker in 10.45 and 10.01 as the flock around us thins. My daughters see me as I go through the second mile, standing there with my wife in their new ‘Go Daddy, Go’ T-Shirts, which must have been printed in the week and hidden away until I was safely out of the house. The pair of them are wearing the sort of delighted expressions only the under eights, who have pulled the wool over a parent’s eyes can manage.
Mile four drifts past in 10.07, and five is livened by the sight of a woman dressed as a bunny girl emerging from the park to the side of the road, having just joined the long line of urinating males. As Colin pointed out, there are certainly people who pay good money to watch that sort of thing. I don’t remember seeing her on the video supporting the Olympic bid, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have harmed our chances any.
By mile five we’re into a decent rhythm, or so it seems, as the rate drops back to 10.32, and the crowds start to congregate slightly, awaiting the bottle neck at Cutty Sark. I spy my Dad and youngest brother in the crowd.
“You’re being beaten by a Goodie” my brother calls out, slightly to my bemusement. Tim Brooke Taylor plays a bit of golf, and
A hundred yards further on, and all becomes clear, as I see a chunky, perma-tanned ex Big Brother contestant trundling along. He’d actually told me I was getting beaten by Jade Goody, who went off the Green Start, and thus claimed a 15 minute head start. Relived, I get my mobile phone out and called him back, to assure him she’d been ‘reeled in by my relentless pace’. Well, I said it was a strange sort of day…
By this stage I also got a call myself, from BBC Radio, who I freelance for, and who had arranged to speak to me from the course as part of their marathon coverage. They had equipped me with a heart rate monitor – a device I’ve never used before – which was transmitting my nearness to death through to a ‘fitness expert’ in a studio somewhere. Given that I’d never even bothered to measure my resting heart rate, quite how he knew how close to exhaustion I was is beyond me, but I cheerfully went along with it, burbling away until they had heard enough and cut to another piece of audio somewhere. Daft as it sounds, it was actually quite pleasant to have someone to talk to, and it passed the time nicely as the sixth mile slides past in 10.45.
The Cutty Sark, if I’m being honest, was something of a disappointment, as the route seemed to be surrounded by particularly high barriers, making it feel a bit claustrophobic. I walk past it about three times a week anyway, so there’s no novelty, and as a piece of course design, as great as it is to the spectator, I just found the twists and slopes a bit annoying. The thought that I’ve become a miserable, moaning runner occurs to me all too clearly – sod the view, let me moan about the route. I muttered to myself through to the end of mile seven, which results in a 10.45 mile.
Eight and nine are, let’s be frank, dull. Deptford is, well, Deptford, and as the Aussies like to observe, you can’t polish a turd. The fact we went through them in 10.31 and 10.24 is in no small way connected to the fact that we just wanted to get out of the place. The combination of twisting and turning though, looking for gaps in the flock, and changing my pace every few strides in the desperate search for a clear run, left me facing an unexpected problem.


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