Veni, vidi, vici

I guess you want to know what happened, eh? The bare facts are that I finished my first marathon in 5hours, 24 minutes and 44 seconds. But what, I hear you ask, was it like?

I reckon my preparation was as good as it could have been bearing in mind my recent problems with achilles and knees and after the final 10 mile training run I did the sensible thing and wrapped myself in cotton wool for the rest of the week, I even stopped drinking. The ultimate sacrifice I’m sure you’ll agree. The final piece of the pre-race master plan was to stay overnight in a Travel Inn which I found right next to the DLR so that Wendy and I could be well rested before the start and avoid an ungodly early start with the HJ mini bus. All we had to do was take a leisurely breakfast, jump on the DLR and 35 minutes later we’d be in Greenwich, sorted. However like most well laid plans of mice and men fate had other ideas.

We breakfasted heartily on porridge and toast at the Beckton Travel Inn’s very own interpretation of an Olympic village, I guess it’s good practice for 2012, I wasn’t sure if it was the scrambled eggs or the nerves which I could smell though. After that we popped onto the DLR; destination Greenwich. The banter among the runners and supporters on the packed train was surreal and at times it read like a Spike Milligan sketch.

Lady runner (I’m guessing from Barnsley) lifts her fleece to reveal a Whizz-Kidz running vest with a hand stitched “JO” sewn on her vest above her number.
Barnsley runner: “Eeeeh, do you like what me mam did for us?”
Barnsley supporter: “Ay, smashin’ that, shame your name’s “OJ”!
Barnsley runner: “Eeeh, I know. But she put one on me back an’ all so that one’s the right way round!!!”
Maniacal cackling and laughter all round.

We then had a change at Poplar and that’s where it all went wrong. Today of all days the DLR had a “technical difficulty” resulting in them terminating the service which stranded us north of the Mudchute station on the Isle of Dogs with the advice to walk to start or…………..walk to the start. Mmmm, some choice. We weren’t alone though and so we and a few hundred other runners began a 4 mile yomp to the start via the Greenwich foot tunnel. By the time we got there we were too late to make our designated Blue start and as the gun went off we were still dumping our gear on the “odds & sods” lorry and had to tag onto the tail end of the Red start with the fun runners and fancy dress brigade. Not the best start I’m sure you’ll agree but we decided that nothing was going to spoil our day and we just had to relax and take it in our stride.

It took us 25 minutes to get over the start line but straight from the get-go the atmosphere was amazing, I hate to sound too smug but if you haven’t done it you simply have no idea. There were times when I thought “this support is all for me”. We were told to print our names on the front of our shirts and this was a fantastic piece of advice “Come on Nick, sexy boooyyyy!” honest. Ultimately Wendy prevailed in the namecheck stakes but I guess that’s something to do with with being a bouncy 6” lass with your name emblazoned across your breasticles.

Straight away we knew our #1 enemy was going to be the heat and around mile 1 a priest standing outside his church was the first of many to shower us with water albeit a paltry portion of the Holy variety (some of you may know that I’m an agnostic but as long as I was allowed to survive I was happy to take the blessings of Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists and maybe even Presbytarian soap dodging tree huggers alike). After that we were regularly showered by firemen, spectators with hoses and kids with water guns, I thank you all!!!!!!

Cutty Sark and 6 miles came up in good time but after that I don’t remember much until 12 miles and the landmark Tower Bridge. Zoe & Karen spotted us and gave us a huge holler and I must admit to having a bit of an emotional moment. Shortly after that though the wheels started to come off. Between 12 and 16 the heat seemed to be at its peak and I started to struggle with my breathing and felt light headed and nauseous. I was in trouble. I remembered that one of my German friends had collapsed at 35km during his first marathon the week before during similar temperatures and I knew I had to back the pace off even further in order to survive. Wendy was great in telling me to dig in and kept me focused and I simply set my sights on getting on mile 17 where we knew her Mum, family and friends were waiting for us. If I could just get there, refuel and stretch I hoped that I could start again. Lin, G and James were great at providing encouragement, vitamin I, water and factor 20 and as we set off again we now knew that the “miles to go” were into single figures as we headed into Canary Wharf. Suddenly we had a break, the weather clouded over a touch and a breeze sprung up which I guess was generated by the tall buildings. This enabled me to cool down a little and get back into some sort of rhythm, my moment of crisis had passed.

The whole of Canary Wharf was a blur of colour and noise and before we knew it we were through 20 miles. I glimpsed Jean H on my right (outside a pub) and around now the crowds became even more intense and vocal, during my brief walking breaks I almost felt like I was letting them down so I quickly got back running again. At times it looked really frantic behind the barriers and it felt better to be on our side running rather than watching.

The final few miles were a blur of Alzheimers & Anthony Nolan cheering stations, the London Eye, Cleopatra’s Needle and Big Ben and then before I knew it Birdcage Walk and The Mall were upon us. By this time I had been running for 1 ½ hours longer than I had ever done before but I didn’t want it to stop, the finish came too soon. Four months of training were distilled into a few hundred emotion laden yards and Wendy & I crossed the line together, as promised.

Job done, medal presented and back to the meet & greet with the other joggers on Horseguards. What a buzz. Thanks to:
Gordon for doing a great job of co-ordinating the training.
All the club supporters who made it up on the day.
All of the running buddies who have motivated us on the long runs and on the track.
But most of all thank you to the person who started all of this with a lucky penny.

I have uploaded a few cameraphone photos onto the flickr site and you can view them here, I hope they give you some sort of feel for the day. One of the staples of my reports has been the running/motivational quote and I could have used any number of well used marathon quotes in this final FLM entry. Instead I have decided to paraphrase Albert Camus in order to pay homage to my long suffering friend.

Don't run in front of me, I may not follow,
Don't run behind me, I may not lead,
Run beside me and be my friend.

I hope that you’ve all enjoyed my journal and my occasionally verbose outbursts. I have run this blog as an adjunct to my fundraising page in memory of my mother Jean and if you have enjoyed my ramblings I implore you to log onto www.justgiving.com/nickdubyah and donate whatever you can spare. Whether it’s £2 or £20 it can make a huge difference. My mother’s illness had a huge impact upon myself and my family and the Alzheimers Society does tremendous work to help fund research and provide support for sufferers and their families.

And so ends the final instalment of Nick’s Marathon Odyssey, the end of the journey. Or is it? I have a plan so you’ll all have to come back next week to see what my next challenge is. You know you want to, don’t you?

N

“Houston, we are go for launch” or "Per ardua ad astra"

So there you have it, training done. Crikey! I’ve just made my last entry in my training log and from 31st December ’06 the raw data is:
Miles: 297.1
Time: 49hrs 43minutes 05secs
Avg Min/Mile: 10.04

To give that some perspective 297 miles is further than Horsham to Carlisle or Newcastle, it’s even further than Nantes in the Loire (assuming I can swim, which I can’t). If all goes to plan by Sunday afternoon I will have run as far as Dusseldorf, actually that would be plain stupid but you get my point.

One of my colleagues asked me if I was nervous, I am not. The best analogy I could summon up was feeling like an astronaut on the launch pad; my training is done, I have completed it to the best of my ability and there is nothing more I can do to prepare myself for the task ahead. Consequently I find myself strapped into a rocket on the launch pad and control has passed out of my hands, someone else has their finger on the button and the only certainty is that when the blue touch paper is lit I will be off. Granted my progress will be slightly more pedestrian than an Apollo rocket but I’m only working with an eighth of a horsepower here.

So if I’m not nervous what are my emotions right now? Well, I’m anxious not to do anything stupid like trip over the cat or fall over putting my socks on. Apart from that I don’t feel very much at all. I’m sure that once I get up to the Expo on Saturday the butterflies will start to kick in but until then I’m trying, and so far succeeding, to keep a lid on things. People who have never attempted something like this look at me like I’m mad, people who have been there before look at me with a mixture of pity & envy. Right now I just want to join the club and be able to say “you have no idea!” accompanied by a maniacal grin.

What do I want from the Marathon? Well, apart from a medal, t-shirt and a space blanket I don’t have any firm expectations. I think it is something I will have to experience for myself before I can pass judgement. Previous participants I speak to have had their own reasons for doing it and have taken their own benefits and lessons from it. I think that is what I am most looking forward to; seeing for myself how I stand up to the challenge and determining what my limits are. I don’t want to get too philosophical about this but it’s a big deal for me on many levels.

And so the countdown has begun, the clock’s ticking and I’m on my way. This won’t be one small step, (in fact I reckon it will be around 42,327 steps) but it will be a giant leap into the unknown. Luckily for me however I will have my own version of Buzz Aldrin at my side for support and guidance plus 30,000 other like-minded loons so I won’t be lonely that’s for sure. Next week will see me post the final blog of my odyssey, let’s hope it’s a happy ending.

N

Jinxed by Jack Hargreaves. It was all going so well………

Oh dear, I appear to be falling apart a little. I haven’t missed a single Sunday training run/race in the schedule but this week I’m afraid I put up a black by stopping half way round the 14 miler. Regular readers will know that I have struggled with my left achilles for a few weeks now but so far I have managed to contain it through a complex strategy of running slower and drinking red wine. However this week the right achilles really started to play up and I decided that enough was enough. With only 2 weeks to go and with all the long runs behind me I decided that now is not the time to be a hero and so I stopped at around 7 miles somewhere between Maplehurst and Monks Gate and waited for the cavalry in the form of Ali & Nigel. After an intensive course of sympathy, advice and Mini Easter Eggs from the pair of them I felt much better, thank you.

It was a shame really as it was a beautiful morning for a run with clear skies and warm temperatures and I must admit that before the wheels came off I even had a few Jack Hargreaves "Out of Town" moments spotting Foxes and a Woodpecker along Sedgewick Lane. I bet there won’t be many of those to seen on the 22nd. Subsequently I decided to compensate for the abbreviated run by doing some cross training and cycled a route through Copsale, Southwater & Christ’s Hospital. Following some sound advice on hydration from Pete Leuw last week I made sure I stopped at the Bridge House in Copsale for some essential fluid replacement. Lovely light straw colour, cheers Pete!

So I think an easy week is in order. Plenty of HI-RICE and maybe an easy run on Thursday. 10 miles next Sunday? We’ll see but one thing is for sure; wild horses won’t keep me from the starts line in 2 weeks from now. The advice and encouragement which has been forthcoming from all those who’ve been there and have the T-shirt is amazing and made the training experience so much more bearable. I’ll try not to let you down.

N

Loving the taper

So, courtesy of Worthing Harriers I have finally joined the “20” club and I must say it’s a relief to get a run under my belt with a 2 in front of it. One of the most quoted pieces of Marathon lore suggests that first timers should train for the first 20 miles and then do the 6.2 for themselves, we shall see how true this is. For now however I am happy that my preparation has been as good as injury, work and personal commitments has allowed.

In recent weeks I’ve carried a bit of an achilles strain and consequently missed 10 days of training plus a blog, sorry. I hadn’t really felt it during the training runs but after Silverstone it was pretty bad and daily thereafter it provided me with a nagging reminder that what I am doing needs proper preparation and can’t be taken for granted. I prescribed myself plenty of ice and vitamin I and kept my fingers crossed.

Fate chose the perfect date for my first 20 miler but thankfully the mid-week forecast of high winds and rain proved to be a little extreme. It was a little windy but what do you expect on the seafront in April? Laps aren’t usually my cup of tea but they seemed to work for me this time, 4 lots of 5 miles? Piece of cake……….

Lap 1 saw me start in woolly hat and gloves but these were discarded at the end of the lap. Wendy and I had managed to park on the course near the start and only lost a few seconds stashing them in the car. From there on I think it’s fair to say that on lap 2 we took it more steadily, on lap 3 we took it easy for a bit and then slowed down on lap 4. Initially 10.5 minute miles felt ridiculously slow but after 2 hours we slowed further to 11’s and I reckon that this is our expected race day pace. It’s so slow compared to some of the training runs but I have to remind myself that I will need to sustain it for around 5 hours and I have calculated a simple algebraic calculation which backs this up; (a+w)*b=S² (a=age, w=weight, b=beer, s=slooow).

I only have two criticisms of the race:
1 More lavvies please
2 I know we all have drawers full of them but sometimes, just sometimes you think you deserve a Mutley Medal for a job well done and what do you get, a towel. I ask you.

As a more positive footnote to Worthing I would like to thank the HJ supporters and fellow runners on Sunday for keeping us motivated, particularly Alan & Nigel, and the marshals were fantastic. As usual Keith V picked up a V50 medal (perhaps he should change his name to Keith V50?) and the ladies claimed 2nd team prize. Well done also to Julia, Jo & Sarah andf the other HJ's out there. No medals for us but satisfaction of a job well done.

And so I meander back to the start of this blog, 20 + 6.2, can it be done? Near the end of the last lap I asked myself if I could go round once more and I found that mentally I could, whether my body will be quite as willing in 3 weeks time I don’t know. I find it ironic that looking back over the previous weeks it will be the 12 mile lollipop which will haunt me and not the 18’s & 20, weird, but having broken the back of the training I feel relief and anticipation in equal measure. Time to taper, beer & pizza anyone?

Weekly total: 26.1
Long run: 20
Weight: 95.2kg
FGI: 8

Quote of the week:
"On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high." -Ayrton Senna

N

Who do you think you are, Nigel Mansell?

Stop press:
Horsham Joggers trio beat Nigel Mansell in 3 lap sprint around Silverstone!

If only it was as easy as it sounds, Wendy Tee & I rolled up at Silverstone on Sunday morning looking for a half marathon PB confirmation to back up the amount of effort we have been putting in recently. Nigel Mansell was the starter and he then joined in with his sons for the 3 laps. Game on, the moustachioed one was going to be toast.

I have done this race twice before and as this race track is officially the flattest place on earth it has great PB potential, unless the weather’s bad…………Predictably it was hell on a stick, really strong gusting winds and cold temperatures melded together to lash us with a sleet & hail storm at the end of mile 1. At times the wind was so strong that it felt more like yachting than running as I tacked and jibed my way down the hangar straight and getting a drive through penalty at the end of the first lap didn’t help my cause either.

My target was to get under 2 hours for the first time and so I planned to do 9’s which should have got me round in 1:57. The mile markers took the form of 15ft high Adidas towers with a clock on top of each. Unfortunately as a consequence of the strong winds most of them had been blown down (or maybe laid down due to elfin safety) and this meant that my first split check wasn’t until 8 miles. I worked out that I had been doing 8:50’s but now the weather really began to kick in. It clouded over again and then a really vicious hailstorm kicked in. As this was going on Liz Yelling was just finishing and in her interview over the PA she said that it was like having handfuls of needles thrown at your face and she had an “ice cream headache”, whatever that is. I just knew that I was being sapped and my left hamstring was tightening up. Think FLM, think survival, think don’t be a prat. There will be other opportunities. Consequently I knocked the 9 minute miling on the head and finally dragged myself across the line in 2:03. However this was still 20 minutes quicker than Barns Green last October and 40 minutes ahead of the man Ferrari fans call Il Leoni for his never say die attitude.

I have to congratulate Wendy and Tee for their performance and perseverance. Due to the shocking conditions they also both picked up injuries to go with their PB’s and they certainly earned their medals. Despite all that though they can still say that they whipped the 1992 Formula 1 World Champion around his favourite track!

N

No title this week, everything hurts too much to be witty.....

Did I not like that? For me that was without doubt the hardest run so far and for the first time I got an indication of the mental and physical challenge that awaits me on April 22nd. Physically I wasn’t feeling particularly bright all weekend but it was just one of those days when nothing felt right and I had no gas in the tank. I knew I was in trouble even before the 1st water stop but I tried to tell myself that some days you just have to grit your teeth and grind it out.

However by the time we turned for home after the Polo club I was running in what an IT geek would term “Safe Mode” with all non-essential systems shut down just so I could continue to put one foot in front of the other. By the time I made it to Strood Lane my CPU usage was running at 99% and not even the best efforts of Bon Scott and Angus Young could keep me going and I walked most of the next mile. Around this point Julia G caught me up and thankfully she gave me a little pep talk about training always being harder than the day and generally made me realise that it was ok to have a bad day sometimes. This gave me the kick up the arse I needed to run/walk the remainder. Ironically after all of this drama queen act I actually came in quicker than last week over the same distance, and if you had offered me 18 miles in under 3 hours on 1st January I would have bitten you hand off but somehow I still felt very deflated. Funny business this running lark, the grey gloop between your ears really is more important than the legs and lungs.

Last week I quoted one of my heroes, Muhammad Ali, and to paraphrase he said “…the will must be stronger than the skill.” I momentarily lost that part of my psyche in Strood Lane but I will be sure never to make that same mistake again. PMA my boy.

PS. Thank you to Paul A and his kids for servicing our needs. The training run supporters deserve our thanks for their efforts, particularly now that the distances are creeping up.

Weekly total: 22.5 miles
Long run: 17.9 miles
FGI: 4

Quotes of the week:
"Perfection is giving your all, so those who think those who try their hardest and fail aren't reaching perfection, they're wrong, because if you try your hardest, you have reached perfection.”

“I don’t train. I just run my 3-15 miles a day.”

N

Duck spotting (a beginners guide) & Navigation the A-Group way “What blue tractor?”

My how I enjoyed that! It was dry for all of 10 minutes before the weather turned bad, deteriorated and then got steadily worse. I noticed that even the Waterfall Course at Mannings Heath GC was closed as I passed it while doing a passable impersonation of a Mallard in Asics. You know the saying “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck it’s probably a Jogger doing marathon training.” However the weather is an uncontrolled variable which we must tolerate, but the terrain……..

Now I’m not criticising the map/instructions per se but I did note that Pete wisely chose the Half Moon pub at the Warninglid crossroads as the location for the 2nd water stop. This gave him the capacity to service runners arriving from all 4 possible directions. Apparently Sarah H was the only person to pass this particular initiative test and I’ve heard that she will be giving map reading lessons to A-Group at the earliest opportunity. I don’t think Horsham Joggers will be entering a team in Orienteering events any time soon. I thought that I was doomed never to see the eponymous blue tractor in the written instructions until it finally appeared on the causeway at Hammerpond towing a trailer of soggy bales. I’m guessing that this was a different tractor, how I laughed. Personally I clocked 17.9 miles (1,100+ feet of ascent) in 3 hours 2 min which I was pretty pleased with.

I also seem to be winning my battle with hunger/fatigue on the long runs and in addition to the rocket fuel I now take a chewy bar along to sustain me from 10 miles onwards. However I still can’t believe the amount I’m eating in the week. On a workday I try to take sandwiches whenever possible and usually I find I fancy a nibble around mid-morning which will see me through to lunchtime. The previous Monday was no exception but I was a little disconcerted by the looks I was given by my office colleagues as I put myself outside of my wholegrain ploughmans; the reason? It was only 8:50AM………..what a guts.

Finally, I know I’m running the risk of jinxing myself but I feel I’m coping better with the fatigue and I feel I can see light at the end of the training tunnel. Also the run-in to the big day is now mapped out for me and for the first time it all seems possible.
11th March - 18 mile club run
18th March – Silverstone Half (hoping for sub-2hours)
24th March – Legoland! Come on, give me one day off.
1st April – Worthing 20
This is then followed by the tapering runs of 14 and 10 miles. I’m getting excited, easy tiger.

Weekly total: 29.5 miles
Long run: 17.9 miles
FGI: 9

Quote of the week:
Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: A desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. - Muhammad Ali

I’m not around Tuesday so see you all on the track Thursday.
N