Glad that's over!

Well that’s the Marathon over and done with and all I can say is Thank God!

So I got up at 5am on Sunday to get a good breakfast and just have some time to properly waken up then I headed down to the centre square at 6.30am to be ready for the 7am start. Like last year it was rammed with people all excited and nervous of the day ahead. I was a little worried myself as it had been a year since I had ran in a race so big. The Ultra in May was only about 25 folk and Goatfell was about 180. This was 1800 and I didn’t really like it. I Couldn’t imagine how horrible London must be!

At the start with Graham and Fredelina

The atmosphere was great and the gun went off on time and away we went. The start went fine for me , starting in the middle and getting to the side of the pack and just slowly gaining some places as the route soon narrows and can easily bottleneck down to a walk. Everything went fine until around 5km when we started a series of little very easy climbs. My Achilles on my left foot was really hurting me and I couldn’t stretch it out so had to run on my toes for a while , it never ever fully went away all day. Like last year all was great and arriving in Vallorcine at the 18km mark I felt ok. From Vallorcine its then a 1000m climb to the top of the Aiguilette Des Possettes. This climb also wasn’t too bad at all , normally this is the best spot to run on as you run along an amazing ridge at 2200m with the Mont Blanc Massif in front of you but this time it was windy , wet and visibility wasn’t great.

On the way up Possettes

Once reaching the top at 2200m its then 800m straight down to the village of Le Tour and this is where it all went horribly wrong for me. About 50m down I began to get a pain in my left knee that I hadn’t felt for years. It was a stinging pain under my kneecap and every time I made any kind of impact on it it was agony. This really slowed me down pretty much to a walking pace when I should have been able to fly down. I was passed by what seemed like everybody. Eventually I got to Le Tour and went straight for the medical tent. I thought that was it over. To cut a long story short after serious consideration of quitting I got back on my feet and pushed on. I then just took it in stages. Saying to myself , just get to Tre La Champ at 32km , get to Flegere at 37km then it is only 5km to the finish and 5kms I know like the back of my hand.

In Pain

Arriving at Tre La Champ its then an 550m climb to Flegere which actually went not too bad but instead of my knee killing me it was now my right hip as I had been forced to limp for miles with my sore knee meaning I had hurt my hip. It was not pretty but I got to Flegere. I still cannot actually believe I managed to get there but once there I knew I was almost done , and the last 5km with the final 150m climb to the finish were brutally sore but for the first time in this race those kms just seemed to pass by.

Managing to run the last wee bit

I managed the 42km( 2511m+ 1490m- ) in a time of 6 hrs 26 mins , 1 min 21 seconds slower than last year and considering the pain I was in and had to stop then I am quite happy with that. I reckon if I really went for it and didn’t get injured then I could do a sub 6hrs. However this was a training run for me as the CCC is in 2 months time and to be honest this didn’t go as planned and has left me with many questions to answer towards my training (climbing for me is going to be rare this season unfortunately) and also my ability to even finish the CCC.

For those that don’t know. The CCC is an Ultra Trail Race at the end of August that starts from Courmayeur in Italy and follows high trails through Champex and back to Chamonix (Hence the name CCC) Its a total of 100km with 6000m of ascent and 6000m of descent and regularly passes over Cols at 2500m in altitude. The current record for it is an incredible 10 hours , the cut off time is 26hrs. All I hope to do is finish it.

Finally I would like to thank Dorian for nursing me up the final 200m to the finish line and also a big shout out must go to Graham who clocked an awesome 5hrs 45mins in his first ever big race. Awesome effort. I ran with Graham until Possettes and after I had a toilet stop I thought I may catch up with him after seeing him ahead on the summit but starting that descent I knew he would be well ahead in no time. Great effort.

I reckon after the CCC which has 1800 runners I am going to go back to running low key races. I am really not liking running in a pack and the only way to stop that is to start winning them! which aint ever going to happen. To me there is something just much more pure about racing out on your own with no support. It really builds up your mental toughness to just keep pushing and that is definitely how I managed to finish this Marathon.

Its now time to rest for a few days and hope my hip improves and isn’t too serious so I can continue to train for what I now realise will be by far the toughest thing I have ever tried to do.