Another tick for the ambition list
29 November 2004. Inspired by .
My legs. My god, my legs. At about 24 km into the marathon (a marathon is a little over 42, British reader), my dodgy knee made a sudden lurch in a way it never has before (and never should again). If the esteemed Charles Brewer esq hadn't come by at that moment and offered running accompaniment, it might all have been over at the 25km rest stop.
But it wasn't. Alternating between limping and running, and sometimes both, I made it all the way to the finish. At around 29km, a fellow runner told me I should stop, because her friend had forced an injury like that and hadn't been able to walk for three months.
I contemplated that thought, and also contemplated having made it so far and not getting the medal at the end. Three months out of action. A lifetime with a medal. Thanks for the advice, but I'm keeping going.
From 28km onwards, I couldn't run an entire kilometre without stopping for a straight-legged hobble. Slowly the numbers kept on ticking over. As I passed the 20 Mile signifier, I knew I would somehow make it to the end.
There were lots of tiny moments that made such huge differences. The moment around 22km when I said "vale, gracias chicas" to the cheering Spaniards (and they whooped me on my way); the moment on the 17km marker when the band stopped tuning up and screamed "Well shake it all baby, now!" just as I passed them; the small kids holding out their hands for us to slap; the marshalls cojoling me in Italian to stop walking and to run just around the next corner; dodging disinterested tourists on a sidestreet and then the Duomo looming out at the end of it; the really really dull sections and the hideously cruel steep-sided underpass. This was not a fantastically supported marathon but in those small sections that were, it was like a pit-stop for the legs.
For those who count such things, my final time was 4 hours 31 minutes. But that's not the point. I've run a marathon. I may walk like a comedy tin man, I may be in pain when I put weight on my left leg, I may have a real problem with stairs right now and I may even be using crutches for three months.
Three months ago I was training for a marathon. Today, tomorrow, in three years, in thirty years - I'm someone who's run one. As long as the damage isn't permanent, it was worth every aching, blister-building and, as I discovered when I removed my shoes afterwards, bloody step. I've run a marathon. And that feeling that's still tingling my cerebellum, that moment when I finally saw the finish line and a mixture of strangers and friends cheered me home - well, it's the best pain-reliever there is.
And a massive "thank you" to everyone who sponsored me over on this website here. It really did make a difference. If you meant to and didn't, you still can on that website as a way of saying 'well done' - Medicins Sans Frontieres will forgive your forgetfulness.
We all finished, by the way. They counted us all out and they counted us all back in again.