What a difference two weeks makes!
It was just 14 days since I ran what I consider to be the worst race of my life – Coventry Half Marathon. It was my third attempt, having to withdraw from the previous two due to injury. I had another injury – a double ankle ligament tear which put paid to any proper training for 9 months – but this time I was determined to recover sufficiently to compete, and I was given the go ahead with just a day to spare.
But everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I suffered from a lack of training; I suffered in the heat; I dehydrated; I underestimated my ability on hills; and both of my legs cramped – many times. The most painful of these left me writhing on the ground under the ring road, contemplating the wisdom of all my life choices.
For the first time ever, I had found myself having to walk in a race. Although I had covered those 13.1 miles many times before, this was my first official race at that distance. And I hated every minute of it. I eventually finished 30 minutes slower than my average for that distance, loudly insisting to anyone who would listen to never let me do anything like that again.
Yet, here I was, two weeks later, on the start line of the 2025 Leeds marathon.
Given the lack of proper training, I had long since abandoned any aim for a specific time: it was all about finishing. The Hawks End hills of the Coventry half were not so much a distant memory as a present-day warning – in front of me stood a whole 26.2 miles of hills. The first 16 miles were bad enough – a series of undulating roads meandering through the Yorkshire countryside, but after that, a three-mile beast of an incline.
Starting in the 4 hours 45 wave, I both surprised and disappointed myself at my speed relative to what lay ahead. Soon passing the 4-hour 30 pacer, I made a joking-but-serious comment that I would no doubt see him again on one of the hills. And so, it happened; not out of choice but from knowledge of my performance – or lack of – when the incline gets serious. I passed the 4-hour 15 pacer, but before long, the hills arrived. I passed the 4-hour 15 pacer again, this time going the opposite way, followed by 4 hour 30 around the halfway point.
Please that I had competed half the race significantly quicker than the half marathon two weeks earlier, I dug in for the rest of the ride, and at 16 miles I found a second wind through the village of Otley and the beast that lay beyond. That’s what finally did it. With so little training, and almost none on hills, climbing that mountain battered me.
I had to slow down, switching from running to jogging, and jogging to walking, on and off for about 5km. Occasionally slowing to soak up the garden sprinklers thoughtfully put on for us, as a light relief from the 25 degree spring day, and stopping to take photographs and help a young lady having trouble getting to gels in her bag, I pushed on up the longest hill in the world and back to the city beyond.
And the began my usual countdown: only two parkruns to go… only one parkrun to go. With a relatively flat last 5km my legs were done for, but my watch told me that with a push, I could finish in under five hours. I half did not care, being happy just to finish in the circumstances, and half actually did care – for no other reason than my OCD determining that finishing a few seconds under the hour is better than a few seconds after it.
I dug deep and counted down the final three miles, feeling my pace pick up as the hills gave way to flat roads. I ended with the pace at which I began, until the last five hundred meters. I always finish strong, no matter the distance, but it was not quite enough. With the finish in sight, my watch clicked over five hours just a few hundred yards short, crossing the line at 5 hours and 33 seconds. I mildly chastised myself for stopping to take those photos I’ll probably never look at again but felt it too harsh to do the same for helping the runner in distress.
This was my first marathon, but it seems I have unfinished business. With better preparation, I would be aiming for 4 hours 15 minutes – so training starts soon for Manchester 2025. Training for time and training for all those hills that they do not have in Manchester.
