Hi Rick
Congratulations on your run. Two minutes off a 5 km is impressive. It’s a gruesome distance to run, so you might as well get it over with.
So, London just wasn’t my day.
All those months of preparation and careful tapering blown out of the water by a dodgy stomach. Cold weather, nerves, grapefruit squash in the morning, a bug from one of the kids. I never was quite sure.
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Posted in 2004, the marathon journey
We arrived back on Sunday, to find Guildford lying in a warm green haze. The moment had arrived, and I knew it was time for those first three miles. A very gentle loop, following my favourite route along the River Wey from the bottom of my road. The sun was going down, and there were cool patches in the warm air. The path was dry, and the river still. Summer running. Definitely a different season from last weekend in London.
I wasn’t worried about the time, yet the miles came up in 8:52, 9:09, 9:06. Almost metronome-like.
It was a good five days of recovery in Sicily, eating pasta, going to Syracuse and Etna, and resting tired legs on Taormina’s beach.
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Posted in 2004, the marathon journey
London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared
And battle come down
Engines stop running
But I have no fear
London is drowning
And I live by the river
The Clash – January 1980
Around the corner, the view suddenly opens up. I see the City skyline first, then the turrets, and finally the bridge itself. Tower Bridge. The London Marathon, 12 miles. It’s the greatest sight in world running – and I’ve no doubt about that.
The crowds here are massive, the roar of noise incredible. Twelve-deep and wildy enthusiastic on the bridge, the line of spectators is even thicker, more frenzied on the other side. If the cold rain has been falling all morning, now it’s cascading. Running beside me is a chef, tossing pancakes all the way. I’m cold and drenched from head to foot, and the crowds must be soaked through, too. My race has just fallen apart, but it doesn’t matter, since this is the London Marathon.
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Posted in 2004, A1 - the best of roads of stone, London, music, racing
Clothing is now causing me obsessive concern following a deterioration in the forecast.
All week it’s been showing Sunday as 14 C, sunshine and light southerly wind (perfect).
Now suddenly it shows 11 C, rain and wind.
Meltdown scenario.
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Posted in 2004, the marathon journey
I’m just four days away from the London Marathon.
Four months of training have somehow shrunk to four days and a single two mile jog.
If I can think of little else but the race on 18th April, it seems a good time to take my mind off the road ahead, and to look back on the journey that has brought me here.
It’s a journey that started on The Embankment one chilly night in early December, as I left a party at the Globe Theatre on the South Bank. I walked across the floodlit Millennium Bridge to admire the view.
That reflective walk brought me eventually onto the London Marathon course, as I walked, dreamed and finally had to run to catch my train from Waterloo station.
A whole winter and a passage into spring have gone by since then, and I’ve experienced it all. The highlights and lowlights of just one season in one lifetime.
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Posted in 2004, the marathon journey
Spring in England really is a magical time. Whenever I’m running out in the countryside, through the parks, or just about anywhere at this time of year, it is easy to appreciate Chaucer’s love of April:
When, in April, sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March,
And bathe the vein and root
Of every plant with such liquor
That genders forth the flowers,
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Posted in 2004, life and times, Surrey and Sussex
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