Greater Manchester Marathon - Race Report

Most marathoners, myself included, are control freaks. Through their respective rituals and practices, they will try to manipulate every possible variable of a race: hydration, nutrition, comfort, pace/speed and to some extent even the course itself (don't go too wide on that corner!). But the mere mention of one particular variable will strike fear into the heart of any long-distance runner seriously gunning for a shiny new personal best: wind. No, not the kind that prompted Paula Radcliffe to take an unscheduled roadside toilet break during the 2005 London Marathon, but the kind that sweeps almost unnoticed across flowery meadows before hitting you square in the face with all the subtlety of an anvil.

For almost every kind of weather there is some line of defence. Hot and sunny? Don't sweat it: just don your cap and sunglasses and take on plenty of fluids. Pouring with rain? No need to get all pissed off: you'd only be drenched in sweat otherwise. Even snow and ice can be negotiated pretty well in the right footwear. But wind? Well, the best you can do is tuck in and 'draft' behind another runner, preferably one bigger than you are. Then again, there aren't many big guys towards the front of the pack and, man, why is this guy going so slowly?! See what I mean? That's why I and -- I suspect -- most of the other 7,999 runners who had signed up for the Greater Manchester Marathon were anxiously checking the long-term weather forecast up to a week before the big day.

Never before have I been kicked so hard in the teeth by Carol Kirkwood (for those of you not resident in the UK, she's... no, wait, you have Google! Look her up yourself, damn it!). Meteorologically speaking, Sunday 29 April was a truly vile prospect: 5°C, heavy rain and, crucially, gusts of up to 45mph. As the big day encroached, the long-term forecast proved uncharacteristically accurate. What's more, the conditions were set to gradually deteriorate right up to Sunday morning and then improve again! (As I write this on Monday afternoon, I'm considering stripping down to my underwear, such is the intensity of the sun effortlessly beating its way through the tinted glass of the conservatory roof...) It was as though the running and weather Gods had got together for a piss-up and chosen us as the butt of their cruel, drunken practical joke. Well, all I could do was suck it up and take it like a man. Albeit a martyred one. Probably a contradiction in terms, right? Yep, thought so.

On the morning of 29 April, 8,000 marathoners awoke at some unearthly hour and gingerly pulled back the very corner of their net curtains to peer outside. Faced with incontrovertible evidence of those dreaded weather forecasts, some 3,200 runners turned over and went back to sleep. I, on the other hand, had made a 300-mile round trip for this event and had resorted to run whatever the conditions. As an added incentive, I had been kindly put up by my cousin and her fiancé, Mark, who would also be running that morning (somehow it's always more motivating to do these things in twos).

Mark and I drove separately to the start as we would be heading in different directions after the race. Once we had parked, we figured we should do a bit of a recce of the finish area. "May as well get used to the cold", I thought as I pulled on my gear (racing shoes, running tights, a base-layer vest and t-shirt) along with a bin bag sporting head and arm holes. I soon realised I had underestimated the temperature. After 20 minutes of milling around outside, my arms and hands were genuinely painful. Mark and I agreed to keep warm in my car until the start -- I headed straight there while Mark took an unenvied detour to the portaloos. When I got back, I rifled through my running bag for a long-sleeved top. Hadn't packed one. What an idiot. Despite all my preparations, I had made a total rookie error. 

Mark got back to the car to find a gibbering wreck in the driver's seat: what was I going to do?! I hadn't even started the race and could barely feel my extremities! Mark said he had a long-sleeved top I could borrow, but it was locked in his car, the key to which was now at baggage collection a 10-minute walk away. We looked at our watches: 30 minutes until the start. Selflessly, Mark set off to get his key anyway, but after 20 minutes he still hadn't reappeared. Something must have gone wrong -- we would never find one another now. I frantically scanned the contents of my car: compression socks! I pulled them over my arms and looked at them. They covered my arms pretty well but the parts meant for the feet were flapping about annoyingly. Thankfully, there was a pair of scissors in the first-aid kit in my passenger door. I customised my socks. There. Now at least my arms would be warm.

I jogged over to the start and jumped the barrier to the section for runners targeting a 3:00-3:29 finish time. We were given a motivational speech by Ron Hill, the legendary runner from the North-West who had been only the second man to break 2:10 for the marathon (none of the UK's current marathoners are quite as fast). "I'll settle for an hour slower than Ron", I thought (3:10 would also be a 'good for age' time for entry into the 2013 London Marathon). The gun fired without a countdown and the pack of around 4,800 runners moved off quickly and smoothly.

The first few hundred yards were downhill and I immediately settled into quite a nice rhythm, hitting both of the first two miles in 7 minutes dead (to finish in 3:10 I would need to average 7:15/mile). Since the course looped around South Manchester, the landmarks were few and far between. In fact, they were pretty much limited to Old Trafford. No matter. It was at least largely flat. I got chatting to a fellow called Rob and together we eased our way to 10km at between 7:00 and 7:10/mile. I can't recall much of our conversation but do remember Rob geeing up the spectators in crowded areas. The energy generated by the crowd gave me (and others too, no doubt) a huge boost, so I stole Rob's tactic and started to shout and whoop whenever I saw a reasonable number of onlookers. To my surprise, they didn't look at me like a complete loon but cheered and egged us on with unbounded enthusiasm. What a buzz. I was so grateful to all those members of the public who took to the streets to support us. They probably don't realise how much of a difference they made.

I unwittingly left Rob behind at a water station and -- just as unintentionally -- sped up, logging mile 8 in 6:53. Maybe I needed a pacer. I had, after all, been overtaking other runners pretty steadily: at the start mat my position was 379th; by the 10-mile marker it was 269th. At that point I struck up a conversation with a Scouser called Jamie. He was aiming for "anything below 3:30", but seemed to be running way in excess of his expectations. This was his first marathon (poor guy!), though he had done a handful of half marathons. Together we maintained a steady pace (between 7:04 and 7:16/mile) for the next 10km or so and tackled the only real hill of the course. We were mocked by spectators on more than one occasion for doing "too much chatting and not enough running". Apparently we were enjoying ourselves too much! I moved ahead of Jamie as the course narrowed along a muddy farm track and ultimately lost him at about mile 15. I would have no more running companions, but that was perhaps for the best, as it can be all too easy to lose concentration at this point.

The biting north-north-easterly wind was starting to become more of a factor as we edged north-westwards.  I held my pace and passed a few more runners, feeling strong while others seemed to flag. By mile 20 I had gained another 46 places and was sitting pretty in 213th. In fact, my time by that point (2:21:14) pointed towards a 3:06 finish.

Then out of nowhere, things really got tough. The proverbial 'wall'? No, I had prepared for that. In retrospect it was a combination of things. For one, the wind was no longer just a factor: it was my main obstacle. Strong gusts were hitting the thinning pack head-on. The wind lowered the temperature further still and we were pelted with hail. The runners around me no longer flagged but slumped and in some cases pulled up. As though sympathetically, one of my left calf muscles knotted suddenly and tightly before releasing again: a warning sign. A month or so earlier I had strained my Achilles tendon and now the tightness in that area, which had been perceptible since about mile 10, was spreading steadily upwards. 

I tired, slowed up, got frustrated and sped up again, prompting another intense shooting pain in my calf. "Don't do this to me", I muttered to my own body, foolishly expecting it to take heed. Instead, the cramps got more regular and more intense, so that my entire left leg buckled under load. "OK, I'm giving this too much thought", I decided. From then on, as far as I was concerned, my legs were no longer part of me. I shifted my attention to the people and places around me. I remembered that my best friend, Brett, would be somewhere around the 25-mile mark, waiting to give me a final push. It was the perfect focal point.

I would love to end this report with some tale of superhuman stamina and endurance, but in truth I plodded my way to the finish line on auto-pilot. One or two people passed me but, miraculously, between mile 20 and the finish I managed to climb another 30 rungs up the ladder to 183rd of 4,760! (Apparently I wasn't the only one having a hard time towards the end!). I managed a spurt of sorts in the final strait, focusing solely on the finish line and completely blanking out the encouragement offered by my uncle and cousin who had come to see me at the end. And it was just as well they did: when I sidled over to talk to them I was so cold that my words were slurring as I spoke, and I was shivering uncontrollably. My uncle offered me his coat and hat and I did away with the silly foil blanket I'd been handed. I later heard tales of runners being treated for exposure. The conditions had been cold and miserable, but at least I had made it!

So, the all-important question: what was my finish time? Well, I came home in 3:10:36 -- not bad considering! I suppose that's not fast enough to qualify as a good-for-age time, but on the advice of a friend and fellow runner I'm going to call the organisers of the London Marathon to find out, just in case. A wise man once said: if you don't ask, you don't get.

See my GPS data here.