The race report:

I made sure that I started near the middle of my pen and I was across the start line in about 15 seconds. I went through the first mile point in 6:43, which was too slow, although I had noticed within the first mile that I was sweating quite a lot.

I picked up my pace to try and claw back some time and reached the 3 mile point in 19:19 so I was back on target. At this point I realised that the sub 2:45 pacer was just ahead of me. I decided that I would run with this group so that I could just concentrate on running and not have to worry about where I was or about hitting mile splits.

I passed the halfway point in 1:22:23. Up until about 16 miles I felt that I could run comfortably at this pace. Seeing Liz Yelling struggling on the other side of the road was probably a sign of things to come! The pace started to feel a bit harder to maintain at 16 miles however at this point I passed my training partner who I was expecting to be very strong considering the 100 mile weeks he had been putting in, but unfortunately he had came down with a heavy cold in the week before the marathon and suffered. This gave me a bit of a boost which carried me through the next few miles.

When I hit 18 miles I was glad to be in the shade around canary wharf but just before I had turned in to it I felt a twinge in my right calf which soon disappeared and was the beginning of cramp setting in. at 19 miles I felt terrific but by 21 miles I started to suffer. I looked at my watch and told myself there was less than 40 minutes of running left. At this point I was starting to drop of the sub 2:45 group and just wanted to keep them in my sights but by the next mile they were long gone. I cant remember much about he next few miles other than being amazed at how I was still passing people when my pace was dropping so much, I imagine they must have felt as tired then as I did at 25 miles.

As soon as I saw the underpass I knew that when I came out of the other side I would be on the embankment and would be near the finish. After the 24 mile point there was a lucozade station and I made sure that I drank every last drop to try and get some fluid back into me.

At the 25 mile point my muscles began to spasm and my pace had slowed right down to 7:30 per mile. I knew I had lost a lot of strength as when my heel was clipped it took me about 4 steps just to stay on my feet. I was still amazed that people were stopping to walk at this point and was getting quite annoyed with them in my head and had no idea how I was still passing people. It was just dogged determination that got me to the finish without losing too much time and in the end I only lost 4-5 minutes and managed to stumble across the line at pretty much the exact time I had predicted. 2:49:49.

My plan now is to just concentrate on shorter distances and I have a time in my mind that I would like to run for the half before even considering running another marathon. I’m not sure how long it might take me to hit this time or even if I will but I’m just going to work hard and be patient.

I’ve pencilled in the Redcar Half as my next target race on 12th June which is 7 weeks away at the end of this week, I have the mileage in my legs so I think I might just need to get myself back out running and keep myself sharp, I’ve also planned a 10k, 5m, and 7.5mile races before then. I think the biggest change that i will probably make to my training this year, other than keeping the mileage up, will be to make sure that I race more often.