And I'll show you.. a woman with a bad knee who ran a marathon (with apologies to Ralph McTell) Well it doesn't rhyme, but I did run the streets of London on Sunday. But disaster nearly de-railed the plan. My knee swelled up the week before and I paid for an MRI so my GP could advise me. He us also a sports doctor for our county football team, well versed in sports injuries. On the Friday, he rang me and said his suspicions were right, I had a torn cartiledge. "Normally, I'd say don't run" says he, "but here is the plan...forget about racing, back off the pace, take it easy. Your recovery might be a bit longer."
So, armed with Voltarol gel, and filled with paracetamol, I headed for London. I was a complete bag of nerves. On Saturday night, I hardly slept a wink, and might as well have been sleeping on a bed of nails.
Sunday morning, got the K tape out and taped up my knee, took a light breakfast with a side order of 2 paracetamol and made my way to Blackheath to join 50,000 other runners. There was a fresh breeze and we were standing round for an hour, it was freezing 🥶
I joined the toilet queue, left my stuff on the bag drop lorry, and rejoined the toilet queue.
I started the run next to someone dressed as a rhino. Then there was a duck, and a couple of purple dinosaurs. I was in good company! Having abandoned all thought of time or pace, decided I might as well stay with the party crowd.
My reason for running? The main one was running in dedication to two of my brothers: Declan had been killed in an RTA at the age of 42, and Seamus died suddenly just over a year ago at the age of 58. I'm 67, the eldest. I also ran "memory miles" for local people, the names of their loved ones printed on my vest. On the front of my vest were pinned two small angel pennants. They had been gifted to me by Seamus. He asked me to run my first half marathon with them in memory of Declan, one for me and one from him. He was not to know that he too, would leave this world early.
So I ran (slowly) and sometimes in tears for all the memory miles. Declan had run this marathon for a bet (couch to marathon in 6 months). He was killed 5 months later. I met my nieces at mile 21, and we all bawled.
The roar of the crowd and thousands of people calling my name is something I'll never forget. Coming into Tower Bridge and it was a wall of sound. Somewhere round Canary Wharf, there were a few drunk men, all shouting my name in a chant, along with "we will never forget you" It made me roar laughing. 🤣🤣
I took loads of photos, videos, talked to everyone, hugged strangers. By mile 21, I had eaten 8 gels, a ton of jelly babies, drank water like I was in the Sahara and getting sick of sweet stuff, when a stranger gave me crisps - heaven! Mile 22 and someone gave me salted pretzels - amazing.
By mile 23, I was convinced I had a blister, so stopped and took my shoe off - no blister, just hot feet!
Coming into The Mall and a lot of people were walking, but I decided I was going to run it, and I did, with an 8 min/mile pace finish.
It was not the marathon I had planned, nor was it the one I got. I got something better - a marathon of memories: poignant, funny, and sad all rolled into one big roller coaster. And maybe, just maybe, it has helped my grieving for what has been lost, and found, on the streets on London. The impossible became possible. And I found joy in small acts of kindness.
PS: NEVER AGAIN!
PPS: I've entered the ballot 🙈
PPPS: And a wee bird whispered "What about the Loch Ness one? You've always fancied that 🙈🙈🙉
Race report mid sussex marathon
The 2018 Virgin London Marathon :-)
My Runiversary
Quiet member, tortoise-like runner, but I completed the Royal Parks HM - thank you everyone