“You bloody idiot” was the first thing I thought when I ended the phone call with Ellen from the Prostate Cancer Research Centre on a wet October evening in late ’17. Ellen wasn’t the idiot, though. In fact, I’m sure she’s very well educated. The idiot, of course, was me. I’d just taken the plunge and signed up to run the London Marathon 2018 and my first marathon at that, after yet another year of failure in the ballot. I’d never been too upset at the rejection before. I hadn’t even run half that distance and I didn’t even really like running all that much. Sure, I’d run a few 5k and 10k races, but at that stage, I’d never really trained with any serious effort and I hadn’t really run much at all since a summer 10k in London. So what on earth was I thinking? And why now?
Well, indeed, 2017 hadn’t been my greatest year. I’d turned 30, having spent my late 20s in total dread of doing so. I wasn’t fit; it’d been a year and a half since snapping my leg in to a million pieces and it had scared me into an early retirement from amateur football and I’d done little since it had healed. I’d stumbled into the year in a toxic relationship. I’d eaten terribly and mildly abused my body in other ways that didn’t particularly lay a good foundation for running any sort of distance, let alone a marathon. But I needed a change, I needed something to work for, an excuse to sort myself out before it was ‘too late’.
That phone call with Ellen turned out to be one that was to change my life for the better. It sent me along an untrodden path that allowed me to create a new lifestyle, to hit ‘reset’ and start afresh, and I threw myself into it. My training was to begin on January 1st 2018. As I’d never done anything like this before, I had no idea where to begin. Pretty scary. I decided to sign up with a local Personal Trainer/Gym, where I would go twice a week and who devised and took care of my marathon training plan. All I had to do was follow it, work hard and run 26.2 miles on April 28th. As easy as that…
Another huge driving factor, along with the issues described above, was the fact that I was going to run the marathon to raise money for charity. I won’t go into too many details about the Prostate Cancer Research Centre (I’ll save that for another blog post), but knowing I wasn’t just in it for myself and that I was running to raise money for a cause that had such a profound impact on myself and my family drove me to give it my all.
Admittedly, I don’t remember a whole lot about the training part of running the marathon. It’s a bit, well… forgettable. Anyone who has run a marathon for the first time knows of the monotony of long runs and churning out miles day after day. It was hard and mostly wet and cold. I remember hating hill training and adoring rest days. I remember running a half marathon for the first time and thinking that there wasn’t a hope in hell I could double that. But I also remember feeling like I was doing something with my life, that I finally had a meaning and a purpose and that I was doing something good. I felt that I was making a difference.
Fast forward to April 28th 2018, then. Marathon day had arrived. I’m not an anxious person, but I had heaps of it that’d kept me up for a lot of the night and the anticipation for the day ahead was palpable. I travelled to Greenwich Park with Mum and Dad from Watford Junction that morning. It was great to know they were going to be there supporting me, as well as my girlfriend Yasmin who perhaps is the only person that could rival taking up running as having completely changed my life. What a gal.
Getting on the tube was fun. It was first time that I got a sense of the magnitude of what was about to happen. Hoards of Lycra-clad runners; some standing alone, contemplative and silent and others, in small groups, chatting nervously about their hopes and dreams for the day ahead packed the carriages. There was even a man dressed as a unicorn. Ah, the London Marathon.
Entering Greenwich Park, I made my way to the General Woolf statue near the observatory to meet with some fellow PCRC charity runners for a team picture, then followed the crowds into the starting pens. This was it. Months of training, exhaustion, hard work and anticipation all coming together to create a memories that’ll last forever. As the clock counted down, I tilted my head back and faced the sky, closed my eyes, took a deep breath and drank in the atmosphere. It felt incredible to be standing there. No anxiety, no fear. I just felt entirely and utterly alive.
And then we were off! The klaxon sounded, the crowds roared and tens of thousands of runners finally descended onto the streets of London to run 26.2 miles in the 2018 London Marathon. My plan for the day was to loosely aim for 3 hours and 30 minutes and ran at a pace that, if I could sustain it for the full distance, would give me a chance. A laughably ignorant plan, looking back. The race began wonderfully. I felt good, my legs felt fresh and the adrenalin was coursing through my veins. People are absolutely right when they say London is the greatest marathon in the world. The crowds are truly epic and the noise they create is like nothing I’d ever heard before. Perhaps the first major dose of this came running past the Cutty Sark. Crowds of people five or six deep roar your name as you stumble past. Five miles later and you turn right and hit a thunder clap of sound as you run over Tower Bridge. It was absolutely breathtaking and brought a tear to my eye. This was the first time in the race that I thought of my Grandad Les, who I was running in memory of. I’ll never forget that moment.
After that, it got very serious. I’ve not yet mentioned that the 2018 London Marathon was the hottest on record. Considering you train in sometimes freezing winter conditions for most of the time leading up to the race, no one was really prepared for the heat we felt that day. By mile 16, I was starting to really struggle. My legs were aching and I was pretty thirsty, regardless of the amount I’d been drinking throughout the race, and it was an effort just to weave into any shade you could find along the route to escape the beating sun. I hit ‘the wall’ at around mile 18 – I’d been warned about it by many – and it truly sucked. My body just said no more. Stop it. From that point on, I sometimes walked, sometimes jogged but not at anywhere near the pace I needed to make 3:30. I got over it somewhat in the final stages of the race and picked up considerably in the last couple of miles but in the end, I crossed the line in 3 hours and 57 minutes. Certainly not a time to be disappointed with at all and I was unbelievably pleased with it.
After collecting the medal, flashing a smile for the photo and grabbing the goody bag, I found my way along The Mall to meet up with Mum, Dad and Yasmin. It was such a great feeling. Before heading home, we spent some time with the PCRC folks for some complimentary food and drink before hobbling back on the train to Watford.
I’ve not looked back since. Rarely has there been a week I haven’t filled with miles of running. I love it and it’s a part of me now. Running a marathon is the greatest thing I’ve ever done and it has changed my life forever.
Cheers!
JM
Moody Running 
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