Marathon Man

I always enjoyed running at school, especially long distances.

I liked the challenge not just of running for the sake of it but trying to beat my own times.

In my 20s I ran as a way of keeping fit and counteracting my terrible diet and over consumption of alcohol.

I stepped things up to run a half marathon.

Which led to many more. And the progression to the 2002 London Marathon. For a half marathon, I hadn’t done any specific training. The running I was already doing gave me a level of fitness where I could take 13.1 miles in my stride. A full marathon needed dedication.

For four months I ran for an hour every night after work and on a Sunday got up and went for a run that started out at that level and got a bit longer each week so that in the end my Sunday morning was taken up by a 3 hour run.

All went well until two weeks before the marathon, when I strained a muscle. A quick trip to the doctor got me some highly effective painkillers. After resting, I went for a short tentative run the day before I traveled to London, and felt no pain. I was still worried whether it would hold up to a marathon.

So on the day of, I took it easy, didn’t set out as fast as I would normally have done and made it ’round the course without needing to walk any of it.

In a time of 4 hours 29 minutes.

For some, once is enough, been there done that, never again.

I wanted more.

tnocs.com contributing author and 2024 Olympic hopeful JJ LIVE AT LEEDS

I knew I could go faster. I wanted to test myself.

I enjoyed the weirdly invigorating feeling of emptying myself completely. I also liked the idea of combining running with sightseeing.

So I got an entry for the 2003 New York Marathon.

Once again, preparation was going great. I ran a half marathon a month before and didn’t break a sweat. That was as good as running ever felt. My best time for a half marathon was 1 hour 45 minutes. Based on that and the condition I was in I was aiming for somewhere between 3.5 to 4 hours.

And then with 3 weeks to go I got a cold. A really stinking, snot filled one that took over a week to shift. Getting back to pounding the pavements after that, I felt lethargic and heavy legged. This was New York though, nothing was going to stop me.

I flew in on Thursday allowing three nights to adjust before the run on Sunday. I’d been to NYC once before so it wasn’t new to me, but I couldn’t help myself. I love exploring, any sensible thoughts of resting up ahead of the run went out the window in favour of cramming in as much as possible. On top of that I couldn’t sleep, part jet lag, part nervous excitement and then stress at the fact I couldn’t get to sleep took over.

Didn’t slow me down though. I got my marathon entry through a charity, on the Friday night they held a get together for the thirty or so of us running for them. It was a sedate affair, drinks and nibbles and done for by 9PM, so as not to overdo it.

Except me and one of the others thought we’d have one more drink, which turned into another drink. And another. Soon enough it was midnight, we were the only people in the hotel bar as it closed up around us.

The only saving grace being that at least it wasn’t the night before the marathon. But still, there’s a reason why getting smashed two days before you run 26.2 miles isn’t part of any recommended training regimen.

So on that very early Sunday morning, I woke up bleary eyed, but full of nervous energy. I hoped that would be sufficient to overcome the wreck that my preparation had become, and that it would carry me through.

Spoiler alert: wishful thinking is not an appropriate substitute for a sensible pre-marathon lead in.

26.2 miles is a long way to run.

That’s self evident. But it’s when you’re travelling out to the starting line and the bus keeps going… and going… that the distance really sinks in. All the way out to Staten Island we went, starting out at just the other side of the Verrazzano Narrows bridge.

The first few miles with just over 35,000 participants meant a steady start with the pace dictated by the crowd rather than your own usual tempo. This helped me at first but it didn’t take long for the loss of conditioning to become apparent.

Six miles in: I had to give in and walk.

This was entirely new territory to me. I felt embarrassed that I was the only person walking as runners streamed past me. Worse than that was a sense of panic that if I was walking already, how was I going to make it through another 20 miles?

The thought ‘I want to quit’ never entered my mind. But the subtly different ‘what if I have to quit?’ did.

Part of what kept me going was having no idea how you drop out of a marathon. After all, it was a long way back to my hotel in Manhattan and I had no money on me. I assumed that every so often along the route there are stewards to take care of dropouts and get them to the finish. But I didn’t want to find out.

The nervous energy that had flowed through me at the start of the day now morphed into an altogether less helpful nervous energy, that was entirely centred on stressing me out. There was nothing to do but keep walking and work out how to get through it.

The only way to conserve energy and keep going at a rate that would allow me to finish before sunset was walk a mile / run a mile (slowly). This wasn’t how I’d envisaged it but needs must.

There are positives and negatives to the New York Marathon. The crowds were amazing, they really kept me going. I’d learnt from my London experience seeing people had written their names on their t-shirts / running vests and having the crowd shout out personalised encouragement.

I’d written “JJ” on my t-shirt this time, it was the closest I’ll get to feeling what its like to be famous as people called out my name, told me to keep going, I was doing great and looked great. As tempting as it was to put them right that how I was doing and how I looked could in no way be described as great I decided to let it slide, allow my ego to be massaged and hope it would fool my brain and legs.

The negative for New York is those long straight avenues. In London, the course constantly twists and turns, it gives the feeling that you’re getting somewhere. Whereas Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn and First Avenue in Manhattan both went in a straight line for 3 to 4 miles. When you’re already struggling those avenues add an extra element of mental torment as it feels like you aren’t getting anywhere and they’re never going to end.

The halfway point comes around the point you cross Pulaski Bridge from Brooklyn into Queens. I got there in 2:23:32 which isn’t terrible but was tempered by the fact that included the first 6 miles where I was running. My mood sank, if its taken me this long to get here and I feel this bad now how am I going to make it?

The third quarter took 1 hour 38 minutes – at my best I could run almost double that distance in that time. It was tough attritional going but the good thing was that I wasn’t feeling any worse. I’d reached an equilibrium where the alternating run / walk kept me going without draining me anymore. The further I got the psychology of the situation took over, it stopped being a case of, “can I do it?” It didn’t matter how slow each mile was, by ticking them off I knew that I was going to make it.

The last quarter only took 1 hour 19 minutes as the lure of the finish line spurred me on. The last couple of miles through Central Park were lined with cheering masses that had stayed on to welcome home the stragglers, there was no way I could walk past all those people. Its amazing how the brain can be tricked into forgetting how badly the body is doing.

The struggles of the previous hours melted away and the endorphins rushed in. It was back to the joy of running and this time with an adoring public shouting my name. OK, maybe not adoring but after all the suffering I can be forgiven one flight of fancy.

I crossed the line in the unthinkable time of 5:20:21.

Finishing 27,499 out of 34,735.

There were mixed feelings afterwards. It was the worst physical experience I’d ever had. Hours of prolonged struggle against my own body and legs and against the doubts going through my mind. I felt pride that I’d made it to the end and didn’t quit.

On the other hand, in terms of personal goals it was a resounding failure. Partially self inflicted of course. Having gotten over that cold I should have made every effort to look after myself instead of draining myself of energy before I even got to the start line. Ah well, regrets, I’ve had a few but then again, can’t change the past and it was still an experience I’ll never forget.

Back home people without the experience of running a marathon told me 5 hours was really impressive. It was well meant but didn’t help. Being 51 minutes slower than my first marathon really wasn’t impressive.

There was no way I wanted that to be my last marathon experience, I wanted to know what I could do on a good day. I’d never been to Paris and their marathon was 5 months away in April so that was the new target. And what do you know? Two weeks before I came down with Glandular Fever (I believe you guys call it mono).

Except I didn’t realise it at the time. I just knew that things were very wrong. I still went to Paris not knowing why I felt so exhausted all the time and it briefly crossed my mind I could try walking it but that was one bad decision too far even for me – I didn’t make it to the start line.

I would have been gutted but on getting home I got my diagnosis and soon found that the physical horror of 26.2 miles through New York was nothing compared to barely having the energy to move about my flat.

And that was that.

I tried but couldn’t get back to the level of fitness needed for a full marathon. I did a few half marathons with my times well down on what they had been and after each it took me weeks to even think about exercising again. I could achieve a certain level of fitness but anything that meant pushing too hard wiped me out.

I’ve had periods of running since then but solely for keeping fit. It still crosses my mind that maybe I could give it another go, a 10K or half marathon anyway to see how it goes. I wouldn’t be as quick as in my 20s.

As much as I would love to have found out what I was capable of with a clear run and no illnesses or injuries, I could live with that now.

Maybe one day….

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