Arriving at Greenwich Park on the morning of the London marathon is always a very special moment. The initial butterflies in the stomach you felt when you picked up your number now become a positive swarm in the pit of your stomach. Everywhere you hear conversations between nervous runners as to how many marathons they’ve run, what their finishing times will be and how their training has gone. Then the swarm of butterflies really takes off when you see the park and you hear the London marathon music. I must look up the name of this tune to motivate me when i train for future marathons. Hang on, did I say future? I swore this would be my last. That’s the thing about the marathon it becomes an obsession, an obsession with achieving what you truly know you can do, aware that on the day things can very quickly change and that the personal best you were on for at mile 16 suddenly looks a very different proposition at mile 22 when the fatigue and pain hit.

On this occasion I had trained so well until the end of March, running a very quick Reading Half which made the possibility of beating my PB very real. Then the dreaded injury struck. April became a series of acupuncture treatments, massages, stretching and x training. I was looking at a 4 week taper period which would mean I would lose fitness and miss two to three of the really big endurance runs. Through shear bloody mindedness, great treatments and knowing my body after so many marathons I managed one long run and two quick hour runs which would mean at best I had only lost a small amount of fitness and would just have to accept that it was really really going to hurt if I went for my target of a sub 3 hour marathon.

As I started I was a mass of confusion. When you try to run a sub 3 you really have to go for it from the gun. It’s hard to make up time in the latter stages of the marathon but you are also acutely aware that if you go off too quick you will face a very miserable last hour. So I set off 15 seconds per mile slower than my target pace knowing that if I felt any twinges from the injury I would just back off and accept that 3:10 was still a very good marathon and also give me a good for age time. I would reevaluate at between 3-5 miles knowing that if things were going well I could make up that lost 45 seconds over 21-23 miles. At mile three I suddenly got hit by a wave of optimism. I was feeling good, there was no pain and the pace was comfortable so I stepped it up a little. Buoyed on by the biggest and noisiest crowds i had ever witnessed at a London marathon, I went through the half in 1:30:48 so had limited the damage and gave myself a real chance of getting very close to 3 hours. Anyone who has run the marathon will know that crossing Tower Bridge is a truly incredible and emotional experience. You feel like a real hero. This year was no different, the encouragement and noise from the watching masses gave me goosebumps and I did have a brief lip wobble! The next 40 minutes was my best part of the race. I was comfortably 5-10 seconds per mile under race pace so started to eat into the deficit.

I knew that my relationship with pain had changed over the last few years so I was ready to suffer the last 10k. After all it’s only 40 minutes or so and I run 40 minutes so regularly and can picture a route. I can tick each part off in my mind and I know I can do this. The pain does come though and at mile 19 my first real moments of doubt start to appear. My calves are feeling heavier and I start to worry that another 7 miles may just be a bridge too far. So I set myself small targets in my head and am encouraged by a levelling of of the pain. I think of the people who have encouraged me during my training period and I really want to tell them that I’ve run sub 3 as they know how bad my April had been. They will be so proud of me and this really galvanises me. I know too from previous london’s that this is one of the quietest parts of the route and also that you are going to feel pain. You’ve been running for over 2 hours and are at that ‘wall’ part of the race. You need to be strong, this is why you do it, to overcome that self doubt and prove to yourself that you have learnt from previous experiences.

My target now is to just settle at this pace, don’t push and get to mile 22 when I know the crowds really start to kick in again. At this point I know it’s only 4 miles to go and I know that i can tolerate this and deal with any more. What can go wrong in less than 30 minutes after all. So I make the decision in my head that this is now only in the mind. If I want it I can do it and if I bomb now I will get 3:05 at worst so it’s a risk worth taking. I’ve cut this so fine though and know I need to run at 6:40 pace from mile 23. I manage it, just. I cross the line in 2:59:49! The last 800 metres were torturous but there was no way it wasn’t going to happen. Tiredness is an odd thing though and as I run up Birdcage Walk I am constantly checking my watch to see I haven’t made a mistake. The problem is I’m so tired I can’t work it out so I just grit my teeth and run as fast as I can. The feeling of finishing is so great. I never thought I would do this in the middle of April and I am so proud of myself.

My inspiration for this years marathon came from an interview with Paula Radcliffe. In it she said that she never set limits and through experience knew that she could run ‘on the edge of pain’. Crossing that barrier is fatal so that was my plan. From mile 16 I did exactly that and stayed on the edge and it worked.