In 7 days time I shall be running the London Marathon. I am incredibly excited and terrified at the same time.
Yesterday Carrie was busily organising how she would get around London on race day and where she would go to cheer me on. She has decided upon a spot somewhere near the mile 16 marker. All this organisation stuff brought it home to me that it’s a suddenly become very real indeed. In seven days time I will be running 26.2 miles around the streets of London. That’s twice I’ve said that here now and I may say it again just to try to get to grips with it.
Now, I mentioned that I was terrified up there and you may wonder why. I’ve done the miles. There has been plenty of training.
Until a few weeks ago.
The post on this blog before this one was a very self congratulatory post about achieving a personal best time on a training run. Well, once the soreness in my legs had abated from that run I found that my hamstring didn’t feel quite right. Next time I went for a run I came back with quite a severe pain. I took a week off training and tried again. It was still quite painful and so it has continued. This has meant that my training came to almost a complete stop many weeks before I should have begun my taper. I am desperately hoping that I had built up enough fitness to carry me through on Marathon day.
I can’t do much about that now, so I’m going to try not to think too much about it and concentrate upon enjoying the Marathon experience.
Carrie was busily organising herself yesterday so I thought that maybe I should check that I had everything I needed. I sorted out some clothes that I could wear at the start but would be happy to discard. I also sorted out some clothes to wear at the end. I am usually very warm when I’m running but a little while after I stop my temperature drops dramatically and I can often feel incredibly cold. It’s a strange feeling that feels like you are cold at the very core of your body. It’s a cold that hurts from the inside and it takes quite a lot of doing to get my temperature back up. Therefore I’ve got some clothes to put in my kit bag, that I can collect at the end and try to stay warm. I also have my Shotblocks (a kind of solid gel) for nutrition during the race. I’ve trained using them. They are a bit sweet but they are the best thing I’ve found so far for eating on the run.
I will be visiting the Expo at the Excel Centre on Saturday 23rd to collect my race number and I should imagine they will give me tracking chips too. I have been sent notification of what my number will be and I need to take that form along with me, together with some photo ID. My race number will be 46648.
So what else do I need? Aha, most important, running shoes.
Ugh! They’re downright filthy. I shall put them in the washing machine so they will be brig
ht and shiny for race day.
I also need running shorts and shirt. The shirt has been supplied by Save The Rhino and I’ve taken that into a t shirt printing shop for them to put my name on it. This is so that people watching the race can shout out my name as I run by. I’ve found that this has given me quite a boost when it happens at the Cambridge Half Marathon. I must remember to collect the shirt this week.
A quick check of the running total on my fundraising page http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JimMowatt shows that it currently stands at 2014 pounds. This is absolutely fantastic and I hope that combined with the money from all the other Save The Rhino runners can make a significant contribution to preserving this magnificent species.
There is still time for you to contribute more. For those who have already contributed then prod family and friends to throw in a few quid if they can. Save The Rhino would very much appreciate it.
So, apart from the recent lack of training and the hamstring niggle I reckon that I’m all ready.
ZZ9, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Appreciation Society have organised a slouch to watch me slog my way around London. They will be meeting at the Surrey Quays Railway Station for 0900, outside the Lower Road entrance.
For those people looking to try and figure out when I will reach particular bits of the course then calculate that I’m hoping to finish in around 5 hours. On race day there will also be a tracking link on the home page of the Marathon web site . I will have a tracker that will register me crossing a timing mat every 5 kilometres so you should be able to follow my progress quite closely through that.
Just seven days to go. I’m running the London marathon in seven days.
Have I mentioned that before?
On that subject. There’s a wonderful video that pokes a little fun at people such as myself…