Christine Currie

Today was the day of the marathon I have been training for, on an off, since about January (although it wasn’t until recently I actually picked the Unionsmarathon). I finished in a time of 4 hours 29 minutes and 59 seconds, according to my watch, so just attained my “stretch goal” of breaking 4 and a half hours, although I fear the finish official might not have been as prompt as me in stopping his watch. I was second lady, securing me 500 kronor and a nice blue technical t-shirt that made a nice thank you gift to Dave for all his supporting.

The marathon was small and friendly - there were probably more people manning drinks points than there were actually running it - but pretty tough. I wore Dave’s Garmin watch round and it calculated the climb to be over 1000m, with a lot of that coming on very hot gravel tracks in the second half of the course.

The day dawned bright and sunny - much too sunny for my liking - and it was in the mid 20s by the time we got to the start/finish field. This was next to a beautiful blue lake, which I was going to run most of the way round as part of the course.

I started well but didn’t feel my best. Dave first saw me when I was nearing the end of the lake, at about 10km and I told him I felt rubbish. When I saw him next, I told him my knee hurt and, in typical Dave fashion, he just shrugged. That stopped me complaining and the knee pain seemed to go away a bit later.

As we approached the half marathon start, we moved from road to gravel tracks, and the sun seemed to get hotter and hotter. However, at half way I was on track for under 4 hours so felt I was going pretty well. Over the next few kilometres everything seemed to get a bit tougher. I was running on my own - one of the penalties of a small field - and my mental resolve was getting weaker and weaker. Eventually it cracked, or my body gave in and I had a little walk. There was a pretty big hill so it wasn’t such a disaster.

By 28km I was feeling pretty dreadful and meandered into the drinks station contemplating giving up. Luckily it was manned by a crew of about 6 who had nothing better to do than administer to my every need. I was sat on a chair and fed banana, cola, sports drink and water, while I sponged more water over my head. They offered to get a car to drive me back to the finish but the refreshments and the 5 minutes sat down had perked me up so I said I’d go on, at least until the next drinks station 4km further on.

From then on I managed to jog most of the rest of the way but needed a walking break every so often. My back ached most of all, which I’m blaming on either pregnancy or birth, even though they were over a year ago!

As I neared the lake again the clouds had started to roll in and the wind had got up, making it a bit more pleasant for running. With 2km to go, it started raining and the thunder and lightening had started. I knew that I had to keep going at a reasonable pace to avoid the worst of the downpour and to attempt to beat 4 and a half hours.

I was surprised to see the entrance to the field with 1km to go as it hadn’t seemed big enough to include a 1km loop. This was probably the worst part of the course, as what followed was a pretty convoluted loop around the field with an out and back into some woods, presumably to get us up to the required distance. I think Dave appreciated the advance warning of my approach and he and Emma were waiting for me when I finished, along with a medal, a t-shirt and a 500 kroner note (about £50 and double the entry fee). I think Dave and Emma were the best bit!

Emma seemed to have had a good day and we even made it home in time for her to have a late dinner, ably cooked by Dave while I directed from the sofa!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 8:49 pm and is filed under Running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.