Marathon Blog

I certainly chose a tough one for my debut half marathon! The Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon.

I woke up and looked outside at a torrent of sleet spitting down past my window. I could hear my sister whining something about not wanting to run. Breakfast was three weetabix with lots of sugar, a piece of toast with vegemite, some melon and two glasses of orange juice (I also drank a glass of water and half a lucazade before the race)… with hind site, I think it was too much as my stomach felt quite sloshy for the first half of the run.

I learnt some valuable lessons when I got to the starting area… the most important being: arrive earlier! Over 1,200 people were running in the race so it took ages to register, queue to leave bags, queue for the toilets and queue to get out of the sports hall and to the starting area… in fact, the queue to get to the starting area was so bad that I ended up missing the start by 5 minutes! Doh! Next time I will arrive an hour before the start rather than 40 minutes.

When I eventually crossed the start line, I started my watch so that I would get an accurate time. I had decided to run in shorts, a thin long sleeve top and thin gloves… even though the weather was pretty nasty (it was hailing for most of the first hour), I found that I didn’t get too cold or hot at any point during the run.

The first mile or two went well as I overtook a lot of the people who had started before me. After about a mile I overtook my sister… how had she managed to get to the start line so far in front of me?! I slowed for a chat and then sped on again.

The hardest part came next… between about 2 miles and 7 miles my stomach felt awful… I felt like my entire abdomen was one large stitch and my stomach felt very gurgly. I think it must have had something to do with nerves because I have never felt like that during any of my training runs. I realised that the discomfort wasn’t slowing me down so I just pushed on.

The scenery was beautiful and on any other day I would have appreciated the lovely rolling hills… but those hills really put a spanner in the works! I had a nice steady pace going and then I would hit an uphill slope and have to expend vast amounts of energy just to keep pace with the other runners. I must admit that the downhill hill sections were nice but all I was thinking in the back of my mind was “what goes down must come up!” There was a particularly long up hill at about 7 miles which was a real killer… but I think it also killed something in my stomach because it was at around that stage that my abdominal muscles relaxed and I lost my stitch. From then on I found it much easier and I settled into a good fast pace as I started counting down the miles. As each mile marker past I would look at my watch and spend most of the time before the next mile trying to workout what end time I was on target for (it is amazing how bad at maths you are when you are running). I eventually worked out that a sub 1:30 time was possible and that target drove me on.

My only memory of the last 2 miles is of constantly checking my watch. I started to recognise where I was with about 1km left to go and I picked up the pace… amazingly this bit was on the flat so I could really lengthen my stride.

Nat was near the end to cheer me on… she only spotted me when I was next to her so I only got one “Go Will” worth of support out of her. I hurtled towards the finished line just in front of a guy that I had been next to for most of the race… my sprint finish is something I pride myself on so I couldn’t let him win! I crossed the line and stopped my watch.

My final time: 1:29:05… right on target for a 3 hour marathon! And thank god there are no hills in London.