Apart from an occasional comment, I have never posted in over two years of being on HealthUnlocked but the time has come.
Last Sunday, I ran my first ever race, the London Landmarks HM. It was the culmination of my running “journey” (very X-Factor I know) which started over two and a half years ago at a parkrun in Bracknell.
The Journey:
For 40 years, I had always insisted that “fun” and “run” should never be in the same sentence. Then in Feb 2019, my dog sadly passed away and as a home worker, I was concerned I would never leave the house again. I decided that I would give parkrun a go. I am very analytical and liked the idea that parkrun is very measurable. I am a keen golfer probably for the same reason. Rather than start with C25K and then graduate to parkrun, I started both at the same time.
On my first parkrun I posted a time of 39m 45s (a top 82% finish) and was beaten by an 80+ year old woman. Revenge was to be mine though, as on my 5th parkrun I ran the full 5km without walking. My expectation had been that I would improve but I would plateau around 31 to 32 minutes. In fact the plateau was around 26 minutes. Amazed!
I started to run longer distances and in Sept 2019 I signed up for the LLHM the following March, something I had never dreamed of doing. I trained throughout the winter and was ready until the event was cancelled two weeks beforehand. As I had collected nearly £1000 of sponsorship, I decided run on the day anyway finishing in 2h 07m 39s. Very pleased.
LLHM was postponed 2 more times. There were positives in the delay, in that my daughter signed up for LLHM and the additional training made me faster peaking in running a relatively hilly solo HM in under 2 hours.
The Race:
So nearly two years after signing up, the big day finally arrived, with my heart set on a sub-2 hour time. I had done it on undulating terrain on my own, so surely I could repeat it on a flat course running with others. I arrived early into wave 4 (2h to 2h 15m estimated finishing time) but a very long wait for the toilets meant I joined our pen towards the back of it. Checked my watch and my heart beat was already at 154 bpm. I don’t believe it ever went below that. Like I do with my training runs, my plan was to run steady in the first half and speed up for the last 6 or 7km. To beat 2 hours, I needed to run at 5.41m/km pace.
The course was extremely twisty and really disorientating. You were constantly coming back on yourself and passing runners going the other way. It wasn’t until we started to climb up to the Tower of London around 9 miles, did I know exactly where I was. The good thing about such a course was that there were always loads of people cheering you and calling your name and family and friends can spot you several times on the route.
After 10km, I was still keeping up with the 5.41 pace and feeling comfortable. Then for some reason unbeknown to me, I ran the next 2km a lot slower. I wasn’t too concerned because I knew that I normally finish strong and from 8km I picked up the pace and brought it back to 5.41 pace again. All good again but I began to realise that with 3km to go I was starting to flag. My watch was telling me that I was exactly on 5.41 pace. It then became a battle to keep running hard, to ensure that my watch would not tick over to 5.42. The last 3km was the hardest running I have ever done and seemed go on forever. Eventually though, I turned the final corner and with my last bit of energy ran through the finish line in a time of …….. 1h 59m 33s The relief. An overly obsessed target of under 2 hours achieved.
I then made a mistake. I stopped immediately after the line which induced a slight wobble. It was spotted by the medics who immediately ushered me into the medical tent. They took my blood pressure which was a very low 94. I read later that during hard runs, your legs help push oxygen to the heart and suddenly stopping cuts off that supply and can lead to giddiness. Fifty minutes and several checks later my blood pressure finally rose to over 100 and I was discharged. In the future, I will always keep moving after the finish. Sadly, I missed my daughter finishing by about 2 minutes but we met up quickly after.
What Next?
What is next is still to be decided. I will continue to parkrun. As a parkrun nomad, I have a lot of personal bests to beat now I am quicker than I was 18 months ago. I would like to do another half marathon, another large one with plenty of distractions but do I want to do the training?
I tend to enjoy running more after I have completed it. I like the outcomes and the achievements more than necessary the doing and the thought of the half marathon drove me on.
Whatever I do do, I know that I have come further than I ever would have dreamed of all when I first started out running.
If you have got this far, you have done well and I hope that my tale can inspire others to do similar.
I would like to thank the forum for all the advice I have read and in particular to @roseabi and @linda9389 for their half marathon posts. They have been invaluable.
I’ll be back in two years time.
Le Chef
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