I signed up for this with 13 days to go whilst suffering Equinox24 post event blues. 13 days is not long enough to recover from Equinox24 and prep for a marathon. With this in mind I decided to run in fancy dress, start from the back and see if I could overtake anybody. I also had in mind the fact I still wanted to raise £500 for The UTS Foundation and with UTS being just up the road it seemed right.
This is what it looks like starting a marathon in last place.
And this is the message you give to your pal who roped you in to the run!
Big thank you to Duane Roberts who got me there and back and was patient enough to wait for me to finish after pacing the 4hr runners to within a few seconds of 4 hours.
The very eagle eyed amongst you will note that I have a Pirate bandana wrapped around my arm. A Pirate pal of mine took his life recently and we had run a marathon together before as well as raced Outlaw together. Together in the loosest sense bearing in mind he finished about 5 hours ahead of me! Anyway, it seemed right to run with Hutch in my thoughts.
It was warm and up to 10 miles was all good. A few chatty runners keeping it interesting and a game of trading places with Dotty's Trotters. After 10 miles things started to slow down as the lack of fitness began to take it's toll. When the 5 hour pacers went past the wheels came off. I struggled massively around 18/19 miles as the mental strength just wasn't enough. With 20 miles done and 6 to go I caught up with a puking runner. She was having a torrid time trying to even keep water down. We established a fairly consistent run/walk strategy which got us through the next 4 miles. Once back on the outskirts of the town centre and with Rebecca over the worst of her sickness, I trotted on a little and got the last bit done with company from a fellow Outlaw, Paul Davey of Wakefield Tri. Without the pair of them the last 6 miles would have been miserable as sin. Both finished in relatively good spirits just behind me.
This sprint finish lacked any real sprint. The tale of the tape showed 2404 runners starting. I started last. 2360 finished and I was 2264th in 5:35:07. That's a 4.97% overtake success rate. The rapidity with which things disintegrated is shown in the splits:
6.2 miles 1:07 10:52 pace
12.4 miles 1:12 11:41 pace
18.6 miles 1:24 13:36 pace
24.8 miles 1:33 14:59 pace
1.4 miles 17:13 12:36 pace
Colin Robertson, the inspiration behind the good work of The UTS Foundation was at the finish to cheers me in. Everything was made worthwhile from a selfish point of view because of the ace hoody he gifted me but, more importantly, my fundraising passed target and completed a total of my original £1000 goal of 3 years ago.
No medal or t-shirt for this one as I picked the 'green' option when entering apparently. Target hit so I was happy. I would say a lesson was learned in that a marathon will always find you out however, I knew that already!
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