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