Sunday morning was lovely and cool and mum helped me get everything together before waiting with me at the start line. 1608 people ran apparently, I started at the back and came 1088. It is one of the fastest marathons in the world so I got caught up in the moment and the first 15k I went far too fast. The heat started beating down and the sun came out and that started zapping me. After 21k everything started to nag me. I was using all the water stops and as they have the useless little cups I got a bit of a walk every so often. I pride myself that I managed to do this without drinking any Gatorade. I did it all with Powerade and gels. I chatted with a few people whilst I ran. One person said he kept thinking I was Paula Radcliffe ( yeah Paula Radcliffe in a really bad day). Another guy assumed I knew everyone in England and asked if I knew Maria Hamilton. Another guy asked me which bit of England I came from and I said Bristol to which he high fived me as he was from Forest of Dean. One funny thing. Was a squirrel jumped from a trip and misjudged it, so landed on the Tarmac with a thud which made us all jump and start looking out for flying squirrels. We had been running under a bridge so at one point I thought someone had thrown something at us. My name was on my bib number so everyone was shouting my name and cheering me on and even the announcer at the finish called my name out and congratulated me on my Union Jack skirt. I must admit the last few km I was thinking about stopping, calling it a day and never running again. Everything hurt, I kept thinking I was useless. But once I finished, I felt amazing. I get a few months grace and then I have to start training for the next one. Aiming for sub 4:45. When I do the 4th one in October I will have done 4 marathons in 18months so 2016 will be a break from them and I will focus on half marathons instead - much easier to train for.
The problem with training for marathons is the time and how much it takes out of me.
Once the race was over I hobbled through the finish area before heading out to where I was going to meet my lift home. Aka my brother and sister in law. We eventually managed to meet up whe they had water and chocolate milk and after working out how to get the seats up I painfully got into the back and just chilled as parents were collected from the park nearby. Once home, it was decided to buy a BBQ and the evening progressed with my Dad and brother trying to put the BBQ together whilst my nephew tried to help. My mum and sister in law made burgers and potato salad and I helpfully sat in a chair and drank cider. When it was time to turn the gas on there was a slight disagreement about how to light it as there was an ignition switch but the instructions said use a match. Once it was finally lit we had to wait before burgers went on and then Robyn (my sister in law) did the cooking. It was a lovely end to the day.
Monday (today) has been painful. I've been trying to stay active, gentle walking, that sort of thing but my thigh muscles are in agony and trying to stand up or sit down takes time and preparation. So today hasn't been a day of doing stuff. It's like being at home. With my parents I went food shopping, bought a new kettle ( who knew that black and decker did kitchen stuff!) went to the bank and picked up my nephew from day care. I'm hoping my legs will have recovered a little more so I can actually start doing holiday things. On the list is go back to Toronto, visit a vineyard, visit a conservation lake, maybe do a little day trip outside of Guelph, spend some time with my sister in law. But I'm sure I'll come up wi lots of other stuff to do. There is a train station so I can head over to other places by train. Roll on my legs stopping hurting.
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