Marathon day.
It ends with sublime weariness, but starts with such a naive energy and sense of purpose. Highly strung in the morning, totally plucked by the afternoon.
Here we are at 06:30, assembled for a clamorous communion in the hotel restaurant. Water, and bananas and bread and coffee, and more water, taken in the company of 150 marathon zealots. Febrile energy, apprehension, anxiety, manic glee. High-pitched chatter. We’re a chaotic army of excited monkeys, and a well-meaning someone is about to throw open the cage door.
The breakfast temperature is high, but Copenhagen remains a cool and decidedly Scandinavian marathon. Slick, tidy, restrained. Yes, the riotous train to Blackheath and those dawn buses to Staten Island may be part of London and New York marathon mythology, but there’s something to be said for being able to leave your hotel room fifteen minutes before the start of the race, and still find time for a pee in the bushes and a marital dispute about who was to blame for dropping the new camera. (It has a new dent in it but still seems to be working properly. Just like the camera.)
I make my way to the back of the field and team up with the five hour fartholders, a pair of jovial, grey-haired ladies in their late fifties. The 5 hour fart team is the usual miscellany of the frightened-looking, the elderly, the plump and the grinning maniacs. One particularly haggard looking bloke with stringy grey hair and a deathbed look, inhales deeply on an unusually long, misshapen cigarette.
Next to me a young guy carrying a ladder. Apart from the two teddy bears behind me, ladderman is about the only wacky runner I will notice all day.
I’m too far back to hear the start being signalled, but gradually we move slowly forward, and those distant drums are now less distant and more frantic. Farewell M, farewell dry land. I clamber onto the marathon surfboard.
Not nervous or worried, or even resigned. Negativity has no currency at this point. There’s no one to indulge you anymore. Get on with it. The calf was still a faint worry, but there’s nothing to be done about it. Try to run steadily. Hope for the best. The weather is a more immediate concern. The forecast was for ideal race weather – cool and overcast with occasional showers. The reality? Strong sunshine and heat.
Other runners fascinate me at the start of races. I look at what they are wearing, and imagine the thought and the research, if any, that went into their choices. One young guy next to me has tracksuit bottoms on, and a thick, coarse teeshirt, complete with collar and buttons down the front. A woolly jumper is draped over his shoulders. On his feet, ancient gym shoes that I suspect were never designed for running, and are now so old that they’d be no use for anything apart from gardening. He’s going to run a marathon in them. And he will almost certainly beat me.
We shuffle across the start line and make our way up the opening stretch – Vester Voldgade. I’ve never been much good at extended periods of intense concentration, but today that will be my strategy. No wasted energy on chatting to other runners, clapping the bands, bantering with the marshals. Just keep focussed. Look straight ahead, keep up with the pacing group, get into the marathon groove.
But concentration isn’t easy for the first kilometre or so. An overweight German in lederhosen, galloping beside me, keeps blaring his horn and bellowing. A few people chuckle. My German isn’t great, but I am fluent in puerile marathon banter, and would bet my house on him yelling things like "Are we nearly there yet?" Mercifully, his marathon seemed to end after a few minutes. I don’t see, or more importantly, hear him again.
The 7000-person snake leads us up through the city, past the State Art Gallery, into Radhuspladsen and beyond, across the canal into the northern parkland areas. The kilometres tick by. There are 42 in a marathon, which is a nuisance, but of course they come along much faster than mileposts, so I decide I like them. The numbers become hypnotic. Each one represents about 2½ percent of the race. Three kilometres become 7½ percent, eight kilometres an encouraging 20 percent. Ten kilometres, and a quarter of the race has gone. But how easy it is now, from some detached, post-race vantage point, to list the kilometres and the percentages clicking by. The reality is different. Every kilometre is a steady plod of seven minutes or so, and doing that 42 times has to be considered something of an inconvenience, especially on a hot sunny Sunday morning.
Still in front of me are the fartholding grannies, constantly waving and shouting at spectators, and being waved and shouted at back. These ladies are well-known to the average Copenhagen male, for reasons about which it seems impolite to speculate.
Concentrate, keep focussed. Concentrate, keep focussed. Eyes forward, arms moving, regular steps. Breathing: slow and steady. Movement: slow and steady. Concentrate, keep focussed.
The rhythm is mesmerising. That’s the whole point. Pattern is all. Predictable and regular, with no energy wasted on analysis and decision-making. Let the trance swallow it. This is running narcosis. And into this clockwork universe, almost unnoticed, slips the languid tolling of a church bell. We pass through Elmegade and along the lakeside of Sortedams and up towards the great parks in the north, with the massive boing always there in front of me. Eventually, this great ominous clanging melts into my consciousness until I can no longer hear it, like the sound of one’s own snoring. Then it returns. Or maybe it’s me that returns.
Suddenly, here it is. I don’t know what the church is called, but I see it now, perhaps 15 kilometres into the race. Someone has draped a banner across the entrance: GOD WILL NOT FORGIVE US FOR IRAQ. I was shaken back to reality for a moment.
It reminded me of something extraordinarily perplexing I’d read in Friday’s newspaper. Donald Rumsfeld, staging a crass photo-opportunity at Abu Ghraib prison, the place where the USA finally lost the Iraq war, and a whole lot more besides, saying with no trace of irony: "The United States is the last best hope for humankind". Staggering.
Chime on, Copenhagen. Chime on for the rest of us.
On through the park and beyond, past the massive FC Copenhagen stadium, where we come across a spinning class – a group of young guys cavorting on static bikes to blaring techno-funk. We exchange good-natured derision and move on to the next adventure. I’m now behind the two teddy bears again. As I pass them, one of them trips over a cobble, falling heavily. His head falls off as he sprawls in front of me. I stop to help him to his feet. He babbles something in Danish. "Er, I don’t understand", I say. Immediately he switches to English, apologising for falling and hoping that he didn’t put me off. Sums up the Danes really. Perfect English, perfect gentleman.
I’m still hanging onto the 5 hour pacing group. One of the fartholders has lost her balloon. In deference to our place in the athletic pecking order, we stop to walk for 30-60 seconds at each water station. These are a cornucopia of delights: saft or sports drink, at each. And banana halves, orange quarters, sweets, and water. This one, at the end of the park, also gives me a line of bushes to pee behind. The sun is getting stronger, and I realise that I’ll be burnt to a crisp by early afternoon. There’s a girl in front of me wearing leggings and a tracksuit top. She also has a Walkman, and kept veering in front of me through that last kilometre. At this water-station Vera gulps down four cups of sports drink, and trots off, carrying another two in each hand. I fear for her.
My other form of nutrition is a collection of Marks and Spencer’s Rhubarb and Custard. I set out with 8 of them, 4 in each pocket to ensure optimum equilibrium (and how often do you use two consecutive words ending in -um? Um…). The idea is that I should suck one every 5 kilometres. Apart from giving me a sugar boost, the theory is that my pockets will get lighter the further I run, until a point will be reached when I am so light that I will be floating along effortlessly.
That’s the plan, but it doesn’t work. The sweets begin to stick together in the heat, and to accumulate large lumps of fluff and other unspeakable elements found in the deepest corners of well-used running shorts. After ten miles, it’s like sucking a bumble bee with rigor mortis.
Fifteen kilometres. 37½ percent. Around here I begin to lose it. There’s plenty of life in my lungs, but my legs are tiring. Here I have a mouthful of gel, though I drop the lid and it bounces away into the gutter somewhere, so I have to throw the rest away. It seems to help, but doesn’t last long enough. 15-20K takes us along the harbour, past the Little Mermaid and the new opera house, past the gargantuan roll-on-roll-off car ferries and the royal yacht, and through the deferential lunchtime crowds. As we move along the dockside I hear one of those huge metallic clanking sounds that you get in these places, though you never see where it comes from. It’s also here that I feel something draining from me, and it’s here that I begin to lose the pacing group.
I remember leaving the docks and heading back through the city centre now. I remember passing through the crowds of spectators and tourists, and seeing them part like the Red Sea before me. Copenhagen doesn’t have crowd support like London or Chicago, but it offers something else much in keeping with the spirit of the Danish: respect. No one has come here specially to watch me. The city is hot and crowded, and as I pass through these medieval streets, people step back from my path, and they cheer and wave and offer applause. It’s such a small thing to them, but priceless to me.
How do they know I’m here? And how am I able to hang onto the marathon thread through the multitudes? The answer is red flags and red balloons. Everywhere today there are red balloons and flags to guide me. Just as I think I may be lost, someone steps from the crowd with a red flag, and sometimes a whistle, dispersing the throng, and pointing the way for me. Red balloons straining at lampposts and tied to bushes help to mark the way. If the marathon has no other memories for me, I will always remember the frantic red flags and the applauding crowds shrinking to let me pass.
Every marathon has a hole in it. A period which loses you; a crack through which you seem to fall, an empty space you can’t recall. Mine happens around here. As we pass through the city centre and out again, I lose it. The 5 hour pacing team had vanished now. I stop to walk for a bit. I know I’ve blown it.
Past the halfway point where I’m surprised to find one of the 5 hour fartholders, standing by the side, urging on the slowbies. She’s done her duty, and been relieved by a fresh pacer. But she’s stayed here to encourage the back-markers as they pass along.
I’m run-walking now through this long, lost stretch. I remember patches. I see a guy lying at the side of the road, writhing with pain and coughing and groaning and shouting hysterically. There are 4 or 5 paramedics around him, seemingly unsure what to do. I see a footbridge crossing the road, high above us, and up there are marathoners. Are they behind me or ahead? I can’t recall crossing the bridge, so they must be in front of me. I wonder how I will get up there.
A little further on, I loop back through another small park, and come across a water station being dismantled. And just past this are barriers that are coming down as I pass. I look round, and see no runners behind me. Ahead of me I see no runners. This is the worst moment of the race. I’ve been abandoned, and wonder if I’ll be able to find my way back. Surely the marshals will be going home soon, and I’ll eventually arrive at the finish to find nothing there?
Then up ahead of me I see a forlorn looking young guy with bushy sideburns. Dressed entirely in black. He looks like a resident of deepest Somerset, but turns out to be a fireman from Munich called Willy, on his 3rd marathon too. We walk and jog together for 2, 3, perhaps 4 miles. He had been hoping for 4:30 but now he says, he’ll be lucky to finish in under 6 hours. Six hours! What a disaster.
Another water station, where I eat a banana and 2 or 3 orange quarters. This seems to wake me up a bit, and as we get towards about 18 miles, I tell Willy I’m going to push on. I feel much stronger for the next couple of miles, reaffirming my faith in the mysterious ways of the banana. I start to do some calculations. There’s something not quite right. There are about 6 miles to go, but my watch is showing not much more than 4 hours. This couldn’t be right. From Willy’s remarks about finishing in 6 hours, I’m expecting to be way behind this. Is my watch malfunctioning? No. I pass a church whose clock says 1:40pm. We’d started at 9:30, so it’s true. I have 10 kilometres to go. If I can do 10K in an hour, which I’ve done many times, I can easily beat my Chicago time of 5:16.
If seeing the dismantling of the barriers was the worst moment, this is one of the best. Yes, my thighs are aching, and I can feel a couple of toe blisters waking up. But I’m in with a chance after all, and I want to take it.
And I really do try, but I just can’t stretch far enough. These last 6 miles are a kaleidoscope of fatigue and emotion. It’s a long sequence of snapshots. Stumbling past those roadside cafés where dozens of Danes cruelly lunch on herring salads and large glasses of icy beer. Jumping to their feet, raising their glasses and roaring encouragement at this unknown guy tottering past. It’s like a scene from Cabaret. Thank you.
Back along the harbour again, past Nyhavn and the old house of Hans Christian Andersen. Through the city centre once more and the army of red flag wavers, slicing a path through the crowds, trying to spot the red balloons. Past Kennedy’s the Irish Bar (slogan: "The best feckin’ pint in Europe").
It’s really hot and sunny now, and I’m struggling badly to keep shuffling forward. I’m trying so hard not to walk, but I can’t quite manage it. As I turn off the main road into a hazy, tree-lined avenue, I discover Bob Dylan’s psychedelia classic, Mister Tambourine Man, running around my head:
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming.
It continues:
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wandering.
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.
And a marathon really is like an LSD trip. That’s it. Acid for the middle-aged. The series of small adventures that you later try to stitch together to make sense of it. The Tardis-like sensation of being away for ages, even though the clock says otherwise. The feeling that you’ve been somewhere else, but you’re not quite sure where. Somewhere that ‘normal people’ never get to and would struggle to understand. Something that will change your perception forever. Something that forces you to reorder and reposition your assumptions. That complex intertwining of apprehension, excitement, pain and elation, but almost always with a happy ending. Something that leaves you thinking you’ve been lucky and privileged to have experienced it.
But the last couple of miles of the marathon is way too early to enjoy the experience. Physically, it’s where you most feel the pain. But at least you now know it’s nearly over. Nearly over. Nearly over now. The worst period is 10-15 miles, where you’re beginning to hurt, and to tire, but you still have 10 or 15 left to do. Your situation seems hopeless. But anything over 20 and at least you’re on your way in.
I can’t say too much about the last two miles of this marathon because I can’t recall anything much about them. I try to keep shuffle-jogging, but I have to keep stopping to walk. I pass one of the flag-waving marshals with a dozen red balloons tied to her waist. She calls out: "Nearly there. Just six hundred metres to go." It’s a long 600 metres. Along the canal, left over the bridge, round the corner and there, a hundred metres away, the finish line.
They haven’t dismantled it. It’s still there. They haven’t gone home. There are hundreds of people here, cheering and applauding as I reach the finish line. I nearly fall over, and perhaps I would have done if that lovely grinning, plump, blonde lady hadn’t caught and hugged me. She squeezes me, and says well done, before handing me over to the grinning teenage girls with their armfuls of medals.
Two glasses of strawberry yoghurt and another banana, before realising I’ve not stopped my watch. It says 5:20:26. I’ve missed my Chicago time by 5 minutes, but I don’t care just now.
I stop to wait for Willy the German guy. He eventually comes in about 5 or 10 minutes after me, and we shake hands. We sit on a wall and chat. Someone comes by and congratulates him. An English guy. He’d slept in the bunk above him in the youth hostel the night before, apparently. He also sits down to talk. Then his mate arrives, who turns out to be the ladder-carrier I’d seen at the start. They tell me their story. The guy with the ladder has run round Denmark with the ladder on his shoulder, raising money for an African children’s charity. His name is Chris Jolly, and you can read his story here. I promise to include them in my race report.
Then M appears, and we pick our hesitant, hand-holding way through the wind-blown marathon debris back towards the hotel.
The shower that you thought you’d never have. Washing the city from your hair and wiping down the marathon slate. Sinking into bed for an hour or two of fitful sleep. Itself, almost worth doing the marathon for.
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
I did everything I could to make Copenhagen hard for myself. 20 pounds heavier than planned. No successful long runs. Disastrous complacency. Demotivation. Mentally unprepared in the two weeks before the race. Way too much beer. No nutrition strategy. It was how not to do things. But what a lot of raw material to work with. I can sense some déjà vu as I say this, but… next time around, things will be different.
A couple of days later, at the airport, waiting to leave. Using up my Danish coins on a slice of pizza and a coke. And there it is, drifting through the departure lounge, the song I’ve been looking for. Nena’s mid-80s pop classic: 99 Red Balloons.
Ninety nine dreams I have had.
Every one a red balloon.
It’s over now, I’m standing pretty
In this dust that was a city.
If I could find a souvenir,
Just to prove the world was here.
And here is a red balloon…
I think of you and let it go.
That’s it.
