Don't do long flat road!

London Marathon 13th April 2014

London as a race was an abomination, as an event and weekend with Susie it was brilliant. Would I do it again? Only if I could get a championship start or ran in fancy dress as a fun run! 

The race started badly as I was stuck behind the crowds in the good for age pen,  meaning it took 30 seconds to even cross the line. Managed to weave myself through the crowds so I could run freely by about 5 miles. Shortly after I caught and passed Marc Penn feeling good and on a reasonable pace so looking good for my 2:48... Then ouch my hip popped, I eased back a little hoping it would go away but it didn't and my vastus medialis quad muscle started to twinge in reaction to the form change. Manage to dig in and go through half way at 1:24:19 but knew the race and target time were dust as a much bigger and major slow down was coming. Even the slight turns on the route cause stabs of pain, but I wanted that finishers medal the same that Mo would get...

The pain got worse and moved to the right leg as I was overcompensating, the pace got slower and slower as the legs denied the pace the rest of me wanted, and the HR dropped as I realise it was pointless maintaining it just to keep going at the slower pace. Time to re-focus, no I would not get a good time, no I would not be remotely close to my target but I would finish regardless as the injury would hopefully only be a temporary one. The fear that Kielder 100k may have to be ditched started to creep in...

At about 24 miles I saw Steve Angus ahead and caught up with him and started to walk and chat. His race has also gone badly. We should both have finished by that point but geared on by each other started to play the crowd running up to them, raising our hands to our ears to instigate cheers and having fun since London as a race was over. Steve was way better than me at playing the crowd as he had had bad experiences running in London before something about going south to hotter dryer air - hard to prepare for. It took two hours after finishing for me to be able to put any weight on my right heel.

Lesson: I DO NOT DO LONG FLAT ROAD RACES

Finished in 3:09:56 only my third time outside of three hours and second worst road marathon time the worst being my first in 2006. Still to get a good for age time on a bad run whilst carrying an injury cannot be sniffed at. Even if I did spit out the dummy and sulk for a bit after.