here's the very long version - I've never done one of these before. Well, I s'pose it was a long race...
As you know, during the run up to the marathon I had a minor injury – peroneal tendinitis – from ramping up my distance a bit too quickly. Because it was just 4 weeks from race day I really thought I’d blown my chances of running, but because I am rather prone to chronic tendinitis I wanted to make sure I treated it early and avoided any long-term problems if possible. So, lots of ice and physiotherapy, and sets of calf, hamstring and peroneal strengthening work. Complete rest from running for 10 days (I did a bit of cycling and weights work to maintain some fitness), then some trial runs – 2k, 4k, 9k, 18k…despite a few niggles, everything seemed ok so I decided to go for it, although I had rather reduced my time targets from an ambitious 4h35 down to 5 hours. Main objective was to finish without further injury.
Had a quiet leadup, with the only exercise in three days before being a 3k walk! Sensible eating, early nights, and an early start on a cool and misty Friday morning. Roads were closed, so I parked about 1.5k from the start and walked in along with many of the other runners. There were a 3k fun run, and 10k race, along with wheelchair 10/marathon events, with a total of around 20 000 participants – 2000 of which were marathon runners. The start was quite lively, with inevitable queues for loos 
I was lucky in that because I run with two of the local clubs, I knew a lot of people – runners and supporters, and wearing club colours gives us instant recognition out on the course. We arranged ourselves more-or-less by expected finishing time which meant I was hanging about down the back with a bunch of other ‘social’ runners, avoiding being trampled by the super-keen starters. I started with a very easy slow trot of about 7min per kilometre – and then locked in at between 6:40 – 6:50 per k right through to the 30k mark, with a few slower sections…including the one where I did a one block diversion and nipped home to use my own loo and then realised I hadn’t fed the cat, so did that too. Not something most people do mid-race, but hey – I said I was a social runner 
I felt pretty good up to the half way mark, but frankly it is a very boring course – flat and straight, so fast and popular for people chasing a PB, but the monotony did get to me. The mist stayed until around 11h00, which was a real blessing since it kept us cool. Once that burnt off the temps went up to 25+ - fine for me since most of the summer training was in much worse conditions, but it probably did slow most of us at the back of the field down a little bit. The fast runners were long since home by then! Helping to pass the time, some good friends of mine kept popping up at various places with a shout and a camera. I expect to see the pictures in sequence of my deterioration from ‘annoyingly chirpy’ to ‘staggering bravely along’. There were also bunches of supporters with pompoms – I presume that was you guys???? Great that you managed to get here at such short notice 
I thought of you when I saw them.
Our club had set up a couple of stations along the route and it was great – we had pre-arranged all our favourite indulgences so were greeted with sliced fruit, chocolates, and ice cold drinks (the other water tables didn’t have chilled drinks).
Edited: 26/01/2013 at 06:48
