Gatecrashing a marathon, legally

The coming weekend I should be taking part in my first marathon for close to four years. My last marathon was in Malta in 2004 – a thoroughly enjoyable experience, which I recorded in an article in the St Patrick’s Athletic Club newsletter, The Shamrock.

 

My ‘exile’ in Belgium, then the birth of Gianluca, have had a significant impact on my running. I even gave up, becoming a ‘semi-retired’ runner. Around ten months ago, I started afresh, and set a target of running the Brussels 20km in May, to be possibly followed by a marathon. It was not to be. When I decided to apply for the 20km, the race was already fully booked. That was a huge disappointment, partially mitigated later by the fact that I fell ill during the week preceding the race – I would have applied in vain. To make up for this setback I decided to build on the fitness gained, setting my sight on the Brussels marathon on 14th October.

 

It hasn’t been a typical marathon training schedule. I’ve been doing a regime that is quite close to running on alternate days. At 45, I need more time to recover after my runs, so I’m generally running 3 or 4 times per week – 10k’s on weekdays and a long run in the weekend. I reckoned if I was able to increase my long runs to close to the marathon distance, I should be able to tackle the 42.2km on race day, without doing any heavy weekly mileages, for which I have neither the time nor the strength or the aptitude.

 

But I have been more determined to achieve my 8th marathon than any time since I ran my 7th. So much so that I even managed to keep up the long runs in baking temperatures during my 3-week July stay in Malta. Twice then I went out in the evening at 6, well hydrated, and carrying a half-litre jogger’s flask of water (which I had been lucky enough to get as a freebie from a 10k race just a few days before) for 2h15m runs – 25km starting at temperatures around 32C. I found this to be a good way to beat the inferno that is the Maltese summer. As opposed to starting in the morning, from 6pm it gets cooler during the later stages of a long run. I was also lucky that at least the air was not humid, so I managed to keep up my long distance running in spite of a heatwave approaching 40C maximum temperatures.

 

Once I managed to overcome the hurdle posed by my stay in Malta – it became evident that this time I was going to make it. Unless…

 

The long runs kept getting longer – 2h30, 2h30, 2h45, 2h45, 3h00 – I applied and paid to take part in the Brussels marathon of 14 October at the end of August. Early September my long run had reached 3h00 (33km) without any particular difficulty. Two days later I caught a cough. I hoped it would go away, but it started to get worse and soon I had to stop training altogether. Normally a cold is over in a bit more than a week, so I still had time to fulfil my plan of increasing my weekend runs to 3h15 up to 2 weeks before marathon day. But the days ran into weeks, and I just wouldn’t recover. I had to stay put for close to four weeks – i.e. bye-bye marathon

 

By the end of September, i.e. 15 days before marathon day, I had recovered sufficiently to go out for my first run in close to 4 weeks. My lungs weren’t at all happy with the chilly morning air – I coughed regularly during this 10km ‘comeback’ run – but the worst was over, and I had just had a crazy idea. I had paid to take part in this marathon. I had every right to be on the starting line. It’s a pleasant loop going through the city, along roads cleared of traffic, right through my old haunt the evergreen Bois de la Cambre, down Watermael-Boitsfort, up to another beautiful park in Tervuren… Why not join the starters, gain experience for a possible participation next year, and carry out a long slow run WITHIN an official marathon? I would carry on as far as my legs and lungs could carry me, possibly to the half-way mark, or slightly beyond, or … dare I hope for a miracle, and go the whole hog???

 

Immediately the idea came to mind, I knew I would try it out. It was an intriguing idea. It’s like gatecrashing a marathon, but perfectly legally because I have actually applied and I’ll have an official race number. I have wild dreams of doing something on the same lines of those paid pacesetters who instead of retiring half-way feel so strong that they carry on to the end, at times even winning. Well, not even with the best training in the world can I ever hope to win a marathon. Neither should I really entertain any hope of running 42km, even at a slow pace, on just one three-hour run 6 weeks previously. And yet, I wonder where my run tomorrow week will end. My recovery from the illness is proceeding well. I’ve run 10km today week, then Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today (Saturday).

 

This morning I did the trial for my legal gatecrash of 14 October. If today I were to be able to run for 2hrs, then 8 days later I should surely be able to beat the half-way mark and at least enter Tervuren. I passed the test with flying colours  . I ran 22km with no trouble at all – I only have slightly sore muscles due to recent lack of prolonged use. The months of endurance building have served me well – there’s still some fitness running around  . And there’s still another week left to recover. Although, of course, running almost twice as long as I did today will be well nigh impossible. I realised this the moment I came back to base after 2hrs this morning, when I imagined going on and repeating the same loop… No. No way can I dare hope to break the marathon jinx yet.

 

Last summer I told my good friend Charles Tedesco that the most difficult part of a marathon is actually getting to the starting line. I’ll very probably make it, but surely, this time, it will simply not be enough to take me to the finish line. Surely not…