That was, without doubt, the toughest thing that I have ever done, not only in terms of the race itself but also the training. There were times in the month leading up to the race where I was seriously questioning whether I would be able to finish the race or not. I am very pleased to say that I did, although it was not easy!
First off though, a massive thank you to all of the people who came along to support me on the day, it really meant a lot and it may have caused me to get a little bit emotional (it was a fly in my eye, honestly!).
To the race itself; it was a gloriously hot day, so there were sun tans all round. It made for hard going but after learning the hard way whilst training I made sure that I had plenty of supplies in my very stylish bum-bag. Although originally daunted by the idea of doing 17 laps, it was actually surprisingly helpful and not at all dull. The support there on the day was amazing, not just in terms of my own but everyone, with pockets of spectators all around the course giving encouragement to all of the runners.
I had been hoping to come in at around the 3:30 mark and for the first 15-16 miles this certainly felt achievable. And then, the wall hit! This was the longest distance that I had run before and although I had hit the wall in training before, it was never as bad as this. for the last 4-5 laps I had to walk a couple of times because my legs were on the verge of giving up, which was a bit disappointing. That being said, I was still able to put in a sprint(ish) finish, coming over the line 65th out of 354 finishers, in a time of 3:39:20, which is respectable!
Straight afterwards, I was saying that I would struggle to do another marathon again this year but having had a couple of weeks rest, I am eyeing up the Fosters law marathon in September, so we shall see....
The final word has to go to the organisers, tz runs, who put on a fantastic event. All of the support staff were amazing and I want to say a massive thank you to all of them!
