Imagine what I could do if I trained properly!

After a busy week, culminating in a rainy soaked Open Morning at school, we jumped in the car to get up to London.  It was possible to locate petrol stations on Sat Nav by looking at the congestion and added time on the map - each petrol station was adding between 4 and 15 minutes to our journey.  It was all rather stressful as I needed to get to the Expo to pick up my race number. As we passed Battersea Power Station tube station I jumped out of the car and into the shiny new tube station and took the tube and DLR arriving at the expo at 2.45pm.  

And then the fun began.  To be more 'covid secure' we had been told that we had to leave our kit bags at the expo, so I wandered off to find the queue, which ended outside the ExCeL centre.  It then snaked, Disney style, through the central plaza and then into one of the exhibition halls for some more queueing!  I  eventually handed my bag in shortly after 3pm and set off to join another, thankfully shorter, queue to pick up my race bibs.  I had two to wear this year - the standard race bib, and an extra one that I still don't fully understand - it seems that all us oldies who got a good for age place were entered into the WANDA age ranking championships.  There is no danger of me breaking the record for my category - that stands at 2.31.05 - but it came with the promise of an extra medal!  It was only at this point we were asked for evidence of reporting a negative LFT.  

Once into the expo it was relatively quiet - I reckon most people felt they'd spent too much time standing around already and just wanted to get back to hotels/homes etc!  I tweeted about the long queues and was told that I should have come earlier in the week if I wanted a less stressful experience, which is not helpful to anyone who can't get time off work and/or can't afford an extended stay in London.  I toddled off back into central London for supper (I'd missed lunch with the travel and queue chaos), a whole load of cold medication and an early night.

The weather on Sunday was much more promising than the torrential rain of the day before.  I donned my 'throwaway' sweatshirt and made my way to the yellow start.  The yellow start was tiny, I didn't see any familiar faces amongst the runners, but one of the volunteers was the very excellent Danny from the (also very excellent) podcast With Me Now.  And then, a few minutes later, my friend John arrived and we posed for a photo because I am, at heart, a teenager and never get tired of having a comedy surname!  

It was surprisingly cold at the start.  I began to wish I'd bought an old pair of pyjamas to wear too as I was starting to shiver so much that I couldn't use my phone.  I just about managed to reply to a message from a friend asking what my plan was, I said 'Put one foot in front of another and repeat until someone tells me to stop!'  In reality I had no plan.  My training has been less than ideal, I lost my motivation somewhat when I found that I couldn't get to Boston, and the preceding week at school had been rather busy.  I'd run a couple of reasonable half marathons, but nothing close to a PB.  Husbando and my friends were encouraging me to go for a Boston Qualifying time (3hrs 55 for my age group) but that seemed totally out of the question as I stood at the start line.  

I started fast.  It was hard not to when starting with a group of fast runners, one clue that I was going faster than I possibly should was when I went through 5k in 23mins 30 secs - faster than I have run a parkrun in a long time.  I tried to slow down, but it wasn't happening so I decided to just see what happened.  I grabbed water at all the water stations, high fived all the children I could get to on the edge of the course and chatted with my fellow runners.  I may have sworn at the anti vaxxers who thought that their idiotic placards would encourage runners.  I was delighted to see Husbando just before Tower Bridge - he enlisted the help of fellow supporters to yell out my name!  

I went through the halfway mark about 2 minutes slower than my half marathon PB.  This was madness!  I had a quick loo stop and hoped this might make me run slower when I restarted - it did not!  I still felt pretty good at that point, and was doing all sorts of mental maths in my head.  I was using my Garmin to keep an eye on my pace, which was fine until we hit Canary Wharf and my Garmin recorded a 6.07 and a 5.43 minute mile!  I think, but the time I got to the 19 mile marker, my Garmin said I'd run over 20 miles, so it was back to trying to manually calculate pace.  

It was during these mental gymnastics that I worked out that I was on for a sub 4 pace and a PB.  I wasn't confident enough of my numbers to be sure, but it did seem likely.  Which was good because I felt like I was working rather hard at this running thing!  At 24 miles I reckoned I could probably walk the last couple of miles and still just about get a PB.  It was very tempting because everything was hurting, but I knew that one of my friends was somewhere on the Embankment and Husbando and my youngest child were on Birdcage Walk - I didn't want them to see me walking!  But good lord it was hard work!  It was messing with my head knowing I could slow down if I wanted to!  

The noise on Birdcage Walk was immense.  It was almost a relief to turn at the top of St James Park where there were no supporters and onto The Mall where the supporters in the stands were not quite as raucous as those at street level.  I could see the finish.  I could see the time of 3.39 and some seconds as I ran towards it, I could hardly believe it!  Would I be able to get there before the time went over to 3.40?  I'd started about 30 seconds after the clock started so knew I had a little bit of leeway.  I couldn't see the clock as I passed under it but my watch told me I'd done it.  A new PB of 3h 39n 21s - about 8 minutes faster than my previous PB and 15m 39s faster than the qualifying time I'd need for Boston.

I staggered down The Mall, desperately thirsty - but the water bottles had been placed in our kit bags so I had to wait.  It never ceases to amaze me how different the runners look on each side of the finish line.  Looking at the zombies who were trying to read the little number on their bib to work out where to collect their bag, it is hard to imagine them running anywhere!  

Husbando met me by Admiralty Arch - I foisted my bags on him and we walked along Whitehall to meet up with friends (John ran a 3hr 2min marathon and Helen had completed the virtual) for lunch - burgers and beer!  I never eat burgers but it was just what was needed!  

I'm still in shock!  My body hates me for pushing it so hard but I am also so incredibly happy with my time - it is beyond anything I thought I was capable of achieving.  

Huge thanks to all the volunteers on the course!