My First Marathon

In Episode 1 of "30 Years of Running Marathons", Jason D runs his first marathon and talks about the challenges he faced while training for this iconic race. He takes the audience on a tumultuous journey through the highs and lows of attempting to run 26 miles/42km,  and shows that things are not always as they seem.

Thanks for listening. Keep on running.

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The race is on,

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Race is on. So let's get straight into this podcast. This podcast is all about my 30 years of running marathons. I'm gonna take you back to my very first marathon when I was just a young man who just saw it as just another challenge. Little did I know that 30 years later, I'd still be running marathons. And over the years, I've run many marathons, 10 ks, half marathons, even ultra marathons. I've experienced the highs and lows, the train and the setbacks of injuries. You name it, I've experienced it all over those years. And I'd like to pass on some of this to anybody who's listening. Maybe you're thinking of doing your first marathon. Well, maybe I've got a few tips that you can learn from my journey. So I'm gonna take you back to my very first marathon, which luckily enough happened to be the London Marathon. And I'm sat here reminiscing about it now, and I'm looking at this photograph now of me crossing the finishing line. I , I don't look at all happy . Um, I look my head's down and I just about had it . And the , the time wasn't brilliant. I thought <laugh> , I could do a lot better than what I did. But that's just a competitive side of me. I've always run. I ran when I was at school, back when I was at school, it was more sprinting, so it was hundred meters, hundred meter relays. I did a bit of cross country , but all the medals that I won were through sprinting, doing the sprints, a hundred meters, 200 meters. And my friend, he was very, very good, very good at running. And he was coached by his mother. And his mother was very sure he would get to the Olympics. He never did, but at the time, she was pretty sure he would. And me, I was a shy kid, so I , I , I didn't, you know, my parents never pushed me into anything. So I was very unaware that I had any talent for running. But I remember his mother saying, apparently to my, my parents, that she had the chance to coach me. I could have been as good as him. Unfortunately, that never happened. I was too shy to get involved in anything , uh, coaching or football team, anything. I kept myself to myself. I didn't have any friends. And for me, running was just a natural thing I did just to, to , to relieve the stress, to have a bit of time for myself. It was, I never saw it as a , a thing I would ever do professionally. So my friend never got to the Olympics, and I never really pushed forward as such in my running . I was never a , you know, to me, I never thought I was a brilliant runner. I've not been a bad runner. Um, I've , I've been lucky as, as regards, I've always been slim. I've always been active as a kid. I used to play football with my friends after school. I guess back then there wasn't the distraction. So we didn't have , uh, the internet games, consoles is very much outdoors, climbing trees, playing football, just generally keeping active. And I've been lucky because that stand me in good stead. So I've really put any weight on. I've been lucky in that respect. And I found running easy, and I've always ran , and I've just kept running, running and running. <laugh> as the saying goes, maybe I'm running from something or maybe I like to think I'm running towards something. Certainly for me, the marathon sums up life. You get your highs, your lows, it never runs smoothly. And that , I'll tell you how I first got into the marathon. Literally, I was bullied at school, so I did a lot of running away from the bullies, and I couldn't get outta school quick enough. I was never academically brilliant Anyway, so I left school, but as soon as I left school, my parents said, well, you're not gonna be hanging around the house. You need to get a job. So I remember the first job I got, it was in a , a local sports shop, and the owner of the sport shop was a former rugby player. Now , the school I went to was very much into rugby, but being a a , a slight guy, running was more my style, long distance running rather than being bashed to pieces by the, the bigger boys. So running, you know, running was my thing , but rugby never was. Anyway, he was a former professional rugby player or , or back then it was amateur and it was a small sports store and always being very shy. It was a good experience for me because customers would come in, I'd have to chat to them, I'd have to sell them stuff . And during that year I worked there . I learned a lot of stuff. More importantly, I learned about all the sports equipment. And for me personally, it was all about the, the trainers, the sports shoes. Um, I knew , and it's still been a good stead . 'cause obviously for, you know , in my future life, I knew, you know, what running to , I needed , how they were made, how they were constructed, and what you needed in a good running shoe . So I was in my element, but I don't know , I guess because I was young, it was my first job, it got a bit tasker after a while, even though I was in my element, and I thought, it must be something else I can do . So I went from various jobs. I went from , um, various different retail outlets because I was still relatively shy. I thought, well, maybe I worked behind the scenes. So I went to work in a warehouse that was tough. Um, and just various different retail jobs, and I really couldn't settle at all. Then I found myself outta work , uh, being outta work, having worked since I left school, it was, it was quite a depressing time. I thought to myself, what , what can I, what can I do if I'm not working? I need something to keep me occupied. So obviously it was the running and the running led to another thing down the line, and that was the marathon. I thought, what can I do that would be seen as an achievement? Even if I'm not working, I must be able to achieve something. So I'm thinking, okay, the marathon, and the only marathon I knew back then, obviously the , the , there are far many more marathons now, but the one that's still, eh , I think everybody around the world knows is the London Marathon. Uh , being in the uk, London, it's local to me , London Marathon, that was the biggie. And it's still, you know, even to this day, it's still one of the biggest marathons around the world. And luckily it was local to me. So just on a whim, I applied. I'd never run that far before, even though I'd always done running. I guess the furthest I'd run was maybe four miles. So even for I guess a , a park experience runner like me, it would still be a challenge. But it was a , it was , I guess I , I , I , I , I guess I was, you know, taking a slightly easier route because it wasn't completely outta my comfort zone in the sense that, you know, I wasn't completely overweight. I wasn't a smoker, you know, it wasn't within the realms. I couldn't do this. Having watched it many years on the television, I saw all shapes and sizes going across that finishing line. So it was in the realms of my possibility , and that made it slightly easier for an unconfident young boy thinking , yes, I could do this . So , so I applied, and obviously you apply and then you have to wait quite a long time. But I just kept on running, just running in the hope that, you know, I would get an entry. I mean, back then I didn't realize how difficult it was to get into the London Marathon, even more so nowadays. But back then, it was still tough. I mean , it's a bit like getting the, you know, the golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, or I guess winning the lottery. It's, it's, it's within the realms of that. And when I received the notification, and obviously back then there was no internet, so everything came through the mail. And I remember receiving the letter and inside I said, yes, yes, yes, congratulations. You are in . And they sent this little , uh, booklet, and it was basically a training plan, and it had two , and it did everything from how you warm up , et cetera , walking down all the , you know , foods you should be eating , um, how you should keep hydrated. And there was two plans . One plan was for starters, one plan was for the advanced. And I'm thinking, I'm looking at them thinking, Hmm , you know, the starters plan doesn't look much. Maybe I should go in for the advanced plan, or maybe somewhere in between, because the starters was very, very basic. And it was literally for people who've done no running whatsoever. And a lot of it was based on the time you spent running. So not so much the distance. I mean, there wasn't all these, you know, like today we have all the sports watches, the smart watches , Strava , et cetera . There wasn't any way to plot your mileage. So everything they, they said in the training plan was very much based on time. You run for so many minutes, you run for 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. And it was literally, the distances would be, well, you know, you start off at maybe half a mile, mile two, mile three. It was really starting from the basics. So I did , I probably adapted the starter plan to , so I , I didn't feel quite confident enough to do maybe the advanced plan, but I thought I'd stick somewhere in between. I wanted to make sure I'd done enough training to at least finish the marathon. So I quite go for the full advanced, but I added to the starter. So I started maybe a few weeks down , um, confident. I wanted to be confident that I could at least finish. And the competitive side of me said, look, you are already quite a decent runner. You need to finish quite well. So I had these ludicrous times in my mind, not only of finishing, but getting under the four hour mark, which as many runners know, to get under four hours, especially for your first, is it's, it's a good time. A lot of runners aim to get under four hours . So that's what I was aiming for. Another string to my bow was obviously going into places like WH Smith and picking up the running magazine. So there was running magazines like Run as World , um, athletics Week. The I'd buy all the magazines I could, and obviously leading up to the marathon, there was always a big section on marathon training. So I would look at the training plans. I even had , um, these magazines would come with little free little , um, log books . So whereas now we'd plus it all onto STR on a phone, and it all records automatically. Back then it was all written out by hand. Uh , and I've still got them today actually, these little logbooks that I had back then. So I'd be writing , okay, from my home across the first field, it's half a mile across the second that makes it a mile. So what I would do is I would know once I go across the two fields, that's a mile, and I would look at my watch and I'll get a rough time going further down the high street is another mile. So then I would know that that would be , uh, two miles on top of that. And that's literally how I did my training. And I , I , I , I just, you know, I roughly estimated the miles , um, based on my local knowledge of my , luckily I had some nice training runs around me , a mixture of , uh, rural and quiet roads. And literally that's, that's how I worked it. So I worked with what I , I roughly knew my distance was compared to my time, and it was very unscientific. Unlike how I do my training nowadays, where I most runs , do their training nowadays with all the technology we have . And that , that's literally how I , how I , how I did it. So I would just, you know, write in my notes how I felt during the run, how the run went, and I would log it all in my logbook, and that's how I'd do it. And I'd correspond that with the training plans the London Marathon given me . And I remember looking at the longest run you had to do, I said, you must be able to do this run at least once before you even think about getting to the start line. And it was 18 miles. And even, even though 18 miles sounds a lot, I was thinking, yes, but at 18 miles, we've still got another eight miles to do. How can you do 18 miles in training one run and still be able to do the extra eight miles on top? To me, that didn't make sense. I was like, well, surely you have to do almost distance, 23, 24, 25 miles. But no. So I, I stuck to that. And ironically, when I did the 18 miles, I just found it unbelievably tough. And there's me thinking to myself , if I'm finding it tough, how are people who are not even runners find it? And I struggled through it and I thought, I mean, it really not my confidence. I mean, I think it was the last long run was approximately three weeks before the main race. And I'm thinking, I'm not sure if I can do this after all. And there was me taking on this challenge because I had, to me, I had nothing else in my life. I didn't have a job, didn't have friends. And to me, this was the, the one thing that was gonna show everybody that I could do something. I could do something good. I could impress people. I guess it was more about impressing my parents and everybody else. And that shouldn't be the reason you're doing it. But that's how I felt and struggling on that 18 miles. I could still feel the pain today. Um , <laugh> , I didn't, I didn't , didn't enjoy it one bit. And luckily I had a few weeks, you know, before the actual race and everything was tapering down, you know , mileage was cut down to the actual race. And it gave me time to reflect. I thought the first thing I thought was, I'm not as good as runner as I think I'm, and secondly, you know, just, just give it your all . That's all you can do. Don't worry so much about the time now . You've just got to finish it. You've come this far, four, five months of training, you've just gotta finish it. And that, that was my only goal. I laid my expectations. I thought, I'm not the runner that I thought it was this. I can understand why now they call it a challenge and why it's estimated that approximately one to 2% of the population run a marathon. You seal these runners on television and sometimes they call 'em fun runners, but there's, there's , there's no fun in it. And of course, you don't seal the training that goes on behind it . They say, when you run the marathon, it's your victory lap. You know , all of the hard work should have been done beforehand , but obviously it's one tough victory lap, and it's literally the final push. So there I was on race day, my parents took me to the , the start line. I'd never seen so many people, thousands and thousands of people. And I remember, I think it was in Greenwich Park where we were starting, and I was standing there amongst all these people, my parents, and I just, I just didn't know what to do. I had, you know , my race number on, I was, I was drinking a bit of water and I was standing there. Music was blaring out . I mean , it was more like a , a party like, or a festival like glasbury rather than , you know , the impending doom of 26 miles, which I still couldn't get into my head at that moment. I just had so many thoughts in my head. I thought, firstly, I thought, I can't back out now, I've got to do this. But secondly, I was thinking, what if, what if I fail ? And my, my , my dad has always been very strict. His philosophy has always been no one remembers second place. So we'd be watching the Olympics, and you look at the podium and they go, well, no one's gonna remember third or second. You know , one of our athletes would come second and they'd be like, that's nothing. People only remember the person who won it. So despite all these Olympians, I mean, how many people actually get to compete in the Olympics? How many people actually get on the podium? I mean, just to get a medal. But no , if I had run the Olympics, you know, for most people that'd been achievement not to my dad . If I'd come third or second, would that be an achievement? No, he would say nothing. Not unless I came first. And that, that was his attitude. So to be in , um, a race, I , we say they still call it a race, but really it's a race more against yourself than anybody else to be amongst thousands of people. Well , you know, you're not gonna win. Yeah . Winning is finishing, winning is beating yourself, getting to that finishing line . It's not beating the person behind you. It's not comparing yourself to others, which is essentially a philosophy for life. Don't compare yourself to others, but of course we do. More so now than ever. But that's not what the marathon's about. You're competing against yourself. So for him , and I remember what he said to me . He said , I , I wouldn't, he said, I wouldn't run a marathon unless they paid me. And I'm thinking, you missed the point here. You really have. Because he never had any hobbies. He never did anything for fun. He was a lorry driver. He worked hard, worked long hours, but he had no interest. I mean, he had interest in sports , for example. He watched the football, but he never did any sport. He never had any hobbies. So he couldn't see what I would be running a marathon just for the, so-called fun of it, even the sense of achievement. But of course, it wouldn't have mattered how much they paid him. He wouldn't have gone out there and trained . Bri might initially to start with realize how tough it was and given up. It's very blase to say, well, if they paid me, I'll run it. A lot of people can say that. A lot of people would be sitting in their living room thinking, well, look at that overweight person. They might say, oh, he or she's so fat. Must be easy if they can run it and finish it. So did they know that? So-called that person you're calling is a hundred times fitter than you sat on the couch. They're getting out there and doing it. And that's what it's all about. It's getting out there and giving it a go. And until you give it a go, you don't know . And that's what I did. Okay. I had a slight advantage. I was, you know, in my eyes, a fairly good runner. So I don't proclaim my achievement at running my first marathon is out of this world. But to me it is. And even to this day, every marathon I run is an achievement because I know how tough it's, every single marathon is an achievement, no matter how many times you run it. Anyway, back to the first one I did. So there I was amongst all these thousands of people, and I'm just listening out for instructions where to go . And I was literally just following everybody else. So you had your number on and it had a color on, and that's, that's where you go to and you , you wait for the stewards to marshal you towards the finishing line. But I couldn't even , uh, sorry to the start line, but I couldn't even see a start line. There was no visible start line . So I'm just following everybody else with the same color number as me. I , I've now left my parents behind. They were going to wherever they were going. And this was me. This was , this was literally me walking the green mile as I saw it. So I'm following all the others. And we're , it's literally like you're crammed in like sardine into so many people , very phobic . And I hear this, this , who to go . So I'm like, okay, let's the start of the race, but we're not moving. We we're just, we're just stood there. And I'm thinking, is this it ? We're wasting time there . How am I gonna get a decent time now? That's how competitive I'm, I was still thinking about the time. So we're walking, we're walking, we're walking. I'm thinking, how long is this gonna take? Okay, I'm comfortable with this, but now I'm getting nervous. And when we started to move that a little bit quicker, we walk getting it a little into a , I'm thinking, okay, now it's starting . Definitely too late for me to , to go back now I've gotta do this . And then we started into a little , little jog. I'm thinking , okay , we must be getting near to the start line . Now , I , I can't recall how long took to get to start line it . Uh , it felt like forever looking back now, probably must have been a good 15 minutes from when the who to went . And you see this, this, you know, this, this , this , you know, all the , the , you see the starters of one side. You see all the crowd and you go through and that's it. That is it. You've literally gone from a, a walk to a canter to a jog, but you're still, you've still got these thousands of people around you. And it's like literally running within a sardine can with running all these people around you. And bear in mind, you know, all my training runs, and this is the same for all runners. 99% of them are done in your own. You are on your own running with your own thoughts, your own sense of rhythm of pace. And here I was being controlled by other runners around me. I'm literally cocooned in amongst other runners running at their pace, which would maybe was a good thing because if I had a straight row in front of me, I probably would've gone way too fast. And they're all around you and it's just a completely different environment to when you're training. And any thoughts of trying to keep to your own rhythm or timings or anything just completely went out the window. So there I was , I'm just like, and you just hear this cacophony of noise of the crowds. And it was that noise of the crowds that certainly, you know , make it a , a party atmosphere. And , and , and certainly what I realized was later on in the race, it's the crowds that get you through it. And , and the further we went, the more as runners we spaced out . So there was more room to run. And I'd run along with, you know, I tried to get into a consistent pace and I'd run along with other people, join on with them. I could certainly couldn't talk to them as some people were. And then there's all these, these things that go through your mind. Frustrations. When I know someone in a , a penguin suit or someone can , something, a large heavy item on their back go past you and it knocks your confidence. You're thinking, am I really, really that that slow as someone in that costume can run past me, someone who's carrying a hundred pound rucks that can run past me. 'cause I'm that slow. Look at that fat person there running past me. How can they be passing me ? That's not right. And your mind, it's, it's all in your mind. Your your brain is playing mind games with you. And as it's your very first, I mean , this is my first ever race. I've never even done a 10 K before to get it into your head that people are always , people are always gonna be passing you and you can't judge them on there . You know how they look . You know , it's, it's, people will run past you, but then you might pass 'em later on and vice versa. And that's what , and I just had to try and , and concentrate my own race, which was very difficult when you've got so many people running past you and with you . And the first few miles , they were fine. I was quite comfortable. I thought, okay , the trains kicked in , this is good , this is good . And you know , I saw some wonderful sight . You go around <inaudible> , you see all the tourist sites . I'd never been into the center of London before. So for me, this was a , an eye . And that's what I was trying to concentrate on . I was trying to take my mind away from the actual, because if I thought I still got after six miles, another 20 miles to run, I would never , never have finished . So there's me, I'm just trying to keep to a , a pace that I was comfortable with. Admittedly, I was crossing the miles off as I went, which is probably not the best thing to do. I kept looking at my watch , which was another rookie mistake. I was just looking at the time , I was thinking it that how long is this gonna take? I'm supposed to be a good runner. Um, I gotta 10 and the 13 mile mark in a way , it's a good mark. And the way it's not, so about 13 mark are at the halfway mark and you can look at it half glass , half full. And I was doing a bit of both. I was looking at half glass thinking, okay, I've done a half marathon, which, okay, I'd run that distance in training , but I've never actually run half marathon itself . So I'm thinking if I drop out now, so too bad done a half marathon, okay, my dad's not gonna be happy about , I've gonna be happy about a half marathon . And then I'm also thinking to myself, I've got another 13 miles to go . I've just done 13 , I've got another 13 to go . So I'm starting it all over again . And then I've got to 16 , which you thinking, okay , I've , I've broken the , you know , the back of the hill , the hump of the hill or whatever you wanna call it, you know, I've got over the worst of it, but course 16 miles, that's when the infamous wall comes in. Or it can come in at that stage, you've got 10 miles left, you get to 17, okay, you're in single figures now, but that's when your body really starts to tell you, this is it. It can take no more. It's done everything. And in technical terms, basically, you know, you , I guess it's very technical, it's also the gl in your body. But basically, you know, your body's used up all its energy reserves now, burning your fat into energy, which takes a far lot longer than the carbohydrates, the fuel system that your body uses. And it all very technical. But yeah, in layman's terms, you basically run out of fuel and now your body's basically burning the fat, what's left in your system, just basically just to , to try and get energy to your muscles. And for me, it just wasn't happening. Despite all the nutritional information given to me . The London marathons , there's all this carbo loading. So you load up carbohydrates days before, and that, and despite drinking all the way around , I was still suffering. And it wasn't a case of it just suddenly came on, it just literally hit you like you're running. So I literally just felt like I'd this, this, this sudden, it was like an invisible shield that had come up in front of me. And I literally just ran into it and banged my head on it because literally I was, I was almost coming to a standstill. It was some , like someone had put the brakes on and I was looking around, and by this stage, you know, the runners had had , we'd all disperse. So now it was looking like a battlefield. There was some runners that were , um, had now stopped at the side of the road , um, you know , speak to family and relatives and that we're trying to them to get going again . Uh , people collapse , people struggling like myself, it was just like a , you know , and that's plastic , bottles , cups , whatever. Everything was just spread all over the road. And it was , it was a miserable sight . And , and to make matters worse, it started to rain, which really, you know, set the tone. And it was a long straight road in front of me. I remember there was , um, an underpass coming to an underpass, and there was me, I was almost coming to a standstill. The rain was tipping down. My back started going, all I could see in front of me was this road in front of me underneath the underpass. Traffic was going across the top and I just, it felt like I was in hell. And I say , if you're in, hell just keep going. But my mind wanted to keep going. My body, my legs didn't. And despite the goal of finishing, I also had another goal. And my other goal was, I was determined, this is a running race, okay? To me, the marathon's about running, I was determined I was not going to stop and walk . And there was two things in my mind. Firstly, I knew if I stopped, I'd never get tired again . I'm not one of these people who can just stop and then start running again or even stop and walk or Jeff . And as it's now well known term free where you walk and run, there was no way I could do that. So even if it was just a very slow little trot, or just a , as long as I kept moving and didn't slow down to a walk and stop, then I was winning. And that's what I did. I just, like, everything went out the window. The time, the , the , just like how many miles were left because it was like nine to 10 miles left. Just everything went out the window. And it's the old please just step by step . And that's literally what I did. I was thinking to myself, and this was my mindset, and it's more or less the mindset I used today . The mindset was if this is the last thing I do, I would do it. I wasn't thinking, I didn't know what time of day it was . All the crowds in my mind had disappeared. I was on , on my own little cocoon. And I didn't know what time I said , I didn't know what time of day it was. I couldn't care what time of day it was. I'd forgotten what day it was. I wasn't thinking about if I finished what I was gonna do afterwards , where I was meeting my parents. Nothing, nothing mattered. I was in the moment and that's all I could think about step by step . And literally that's what I did. And it worked. I mean, I, I, it was painful. The most painful thing I've done, I just kept little by little and it's a horrible thing to say, but, you know, passing others who were walking or had stopped gave me personally the confidence to say, look, there's always someone worse off than you. As my n always used to say, and this is genuine in life too. There's always someone worse off than you think positive you can do this. And that's what I did. I went under the underpass, came up on up the other side, and I just kept going. And I remember go , I think it was going around the aisle of dogs , uh, Canary Wharf . There weren't, there weren't the crowds there, there was no one cheering you on. It was literally me against the world. And I just staggered through and so many emotions going through my mind. I guess the main one was, I've done all the training, I've got nothing else in my life at the moment. I've got to do this. There was no plan B. And so I just, I just, I just kept going. I just tried to keep my legs moving, though they didn't wanna , I'm thinking , no , there's no way you're gonna give up on me . And I , and I'm not one to swear, trust me , I do not swear. But there were quite a fews and I just didn't care anymore. And that , that was my attitude. But as you got nearer and nearer, you could hear the crowds. So, and, and this is, this is how my mindset was working and how I work today when I run route . And I was thinking, okay, step by step 16 onto 17 miles, try to get to 20 . That's a nice figure. If you drop out of 20, 20 miles is more than what most people are . And so I got to the 20 mile mark. Obviously I'm still struggling. The wall has hit, but then I'm thinking, okay, six miles split down into two threes. You've done many, many three mile training runs. And that's what I did. So I went to the 23rd and then I split it down even more. So I'm thinking, okay , down the 23rd , if I can get to the 25th mile , I've only got a month to go . Of course in my not , I'm thinking just a mile ago . And it was great. You know, the last mile, you got the most crowds on the course of anywhere and they're all cheering you on. And that's what really keeps going. Because as I now know, the last mile in any race is always the toughest, the most difficult. You know, you , you can, you can see the carrot, but you just can't get there. And the finish line, it's like a mirage. It's somewhere in the distance, but is it actually there? And of course, 'cause it's the last mile, I know it's the last mile I've seen the , the mile mark. I'm getting anxious. And that's the worst thing you can do at after all these years, I now know. But back then you think it's only a mile. Come on Jason, come on, come on, come on. And I get anxious and everybody rounds me getting anxious and there's a anxious tension . You almost there . Almost there . You're almost there . And you've gotta try again . You know , I'm trying to calm myself down, but you can't, you can't . I'm just get anxious and anxious and anxious to get to that finish line. And then you do actually see, and I'm looking at now my , my frame picture. And on this picture I've got here, there's not many runners behind me or next to me . In fact , I've a lovely clear photograph of me finishing the line. But, and I , I don't, from what I recall, I don't think I even looked up at the time because I already knew, to me this was a slow time, which I know sounds d because one minute I didn't think I complete it. It doesn't come towards the finish line. I'm thinking, you idiot, you should have gone a lot faster. Why didn't you go faster? How quickly your mind changes from being negative to positive to negative? I just, and , and this is how your mind works in this situation . Certainly it's how my mind worked because I was thinking, you know, the competitive person in me was thinking , no , you shoulda done a lot faster . Anyway, that's beside the point . I could see, I could see the line and the last few yards I'm like , yes , I'm gonna do this . I'm actually bloody well gonna do this . And I'd like to say it was a sprint finish , but it wasn't . And looking at my photograph, now, I can see, well, apart from a much skinnier version of me, I've got my head down. I haven't got my head up. I've got no strength to raise my arms. I'm literally just , but to be honest , if I had to crawl across the line, I would've done. And it was a funny feeling at the end, I guess I expected some kind of , I dunno what I expected . I expected , I guess I expected more. A sense of achievement. It's difficult when you're so exhausted and you've been through that, and then you cross the line, you think, is this it, is that it? I finished , now I can stop. For me personally, it's the first time I've stopped in. And you look at the time here, four hours, 48 minutes, 23 seconds, <laugh> , I laugh at that now because there's me naively thinking I could have done under four hours how naive I was. But I mean, I , I guess that's what it's like when you're, you're young and you try these sin the first time, exuberance of you , shall we say. But I'm still proud because like your first love, you always remember your first marathon. But yeah, I didn't feel any sense of great achievement. I remember, you know, walking to collect my medal , put this lovely medal around my neck. It's still the best medal I have to this day. And I looked and I thought, okay, this proves that I've done it. But is that it? Shouldn't I be feeling a relat ? Shouldn't I be like jumping up and down If I had the strength, shouldn't it be some kind of fanfare? Shouldn't I be feeling inside of me? Like I'm on top of the world. I can get that dream job and get that dream girlfriend. I can have everything I want . Shouldn't I be feeling invincible? Shouldn't I be feeling I'm better than everybody else because I run a marathon that I can do things that you can't? I've got some superpower. None of that. I didn't feel anything, anything. I felt a bit deflated, but then I felt the aftermath, my stomach was turning over like nobody's business excuses the details, but I really could, really could feel my inners coming out. And that was like that for the last few miles . I really thought <laugh> , to be honest with you, that I was gonna crack myself. I was, yeah. And luckily it had some port to loos , uh, behind the finish line there. And after I clicked away everything, I opened the border loo went in, and literally the whole of my inners came out. I just literally myself. And it just went everywhere, partly on my pants, my shorts. It was just, it was just gross. And I just, my head were in my hand , and then I thought I was gonna be sick. And it was like, I think I'm just gonna stay for the rest of the day . I can even get up from here . I was embarrassed because basically I'd myself . But you know what, after these years of running, it's quite a common thing to yourself. And of course nowadays we take things like Imodium before the start to avoid these things , but back then it wasn't the knowledge we have now and <laugh> . So I basically myself and I, I didn't even know if I could get up off the toilet. There was me thinking, well, <laugh> , I'm , I might have to sit here for the rest of the day. But it was my one little moment of reflection. I mean, the one thing it , it proved to me in some ways I glad I had shot myself because I sat there with all this everywhere and that, and it proved to me I couldn't have done anymore . And I could not have given any more , despite not running as fast as I wanted to. I'd run the marathon and this is what it does to, it had made me myself everywhere. And in some ways that was a good thing. Maybe if that hadn't have happened, I would've been like, well, you know , if I'd come across the line, you know, without any effects, feeling fresh as a daisy, would I have been happy no matter what the time? Probably not. No , it wouldn't have been. Because the a marathon, you do it as a challenge. And when I myself there, I knew that I had achieved something. This is how tough it was. This is what it took. And in some ways, obviously not just the physical relief, but the mental relief, then I started to realize I had achieved something. I didn't care what anybody said. I didn't care what my parents said, whether my dad was impressed or not. I was impressed. I certainly knew my grandparents would be . So they were, so I managed to stagger out after cleaning myself up a bit at that Port Lou farm . My parents were they impressed, looking back, I think they're a bit nonplussed about it. There was no great passing on the back from my dad. No celebratory drinks. Not that I really drank much at that age anyway, but no great sense of of, I mean, I still, I still have this sense of achievement, but I, I didn't really have many people to tell. I had my grandparents family. I mean , back then there was no Facebook. I could go on and say, look at me, look at me. I've run the marathon and show all the photographs and everything and a medal . But like most people who run a marathon, certainly after their first, it's never again , I'm never gonna run another one again. And the next few days after the marathon, I was, you know, obviously I was, I was experiencing the physical effects of it. So I had the painful legs and you know , I was struggling to walk and then I suddenly felt really deflated. I suppose it was about coming up to a week afterwards. And the initial, you know, from crossing the line thinking this is it . Then obviously myself and thinking , okay , I've worked really hard for this . I've achieved a marathon . Brilliant . Well done to now almost a week later thinking , this is it . I've lost all my confidence again , I feel as low as anything . I feel terrible what's happening to me nowadays. It's a very well known phenomenon, if I can say that. Right? Got my teeth in phenomenon coming down from a runner's high, or should I say a , a race high. You do a race you feel you've also pumped up. Finish that big sense of achievement like a drugs high dopamine hits in . Yes . And obviously you come back to reality. And for me, back to reality was still not having the friends I wanted, not having a job, not having everything I else I wanted in life. I still had the one thing that couldn't be taken away from me, and that was obviously the achievement of running a marathon. But for me, it was only ever supposed to be a one off . It was there to gimme confidence. So despite having a job, I worked for a little while. Not all my time has been wasted. That was, to me, that was what it was there for. So it was only ever meant to be one marathon. But then with no sound of a job on the horizon, I thought Zen turned to , what about another one? I mean, back then there weren't the number of races there on now, but I'm thinking maybe, maybe not a full marathon. Maybe do a half marathon . And of course my family said, well, you know, if you can do a full marathon, half marathon's , nothing , it's easy. I'm thinking, okay , maybe I can do a half marathon . That's, that's what I was looking forward to. I was thinking, well, I can achieve something else. Okay, it's not a big achievement as a marathon. Nothing's gonna compare to the London Marathon. And as I say, back then, I didn't realize how lucky I was to have got into London Marathon to have run it. That has been my first and only London marathon. 30 years later, I've still not managed to get back in and that's how much I treasure looking at it. Now as I sit here, my London Marathon medal and my massive photograph framed showing me crossing that line as a young boy. But little did I know back then that that would lead to 30 more years of running marathons. But that's what this podcast is all about, is me getting off my chest the 30 years of the marathons, and not just marathons, but half marathons and races that , that I've run. And along the way , anybody's listening, you might pick up a few little hints and tips about how you can not just run a marathon, but just enjoy running that first marathon. And my next objective was to run a half marathon. Because naively I thought, well, I've already run a former marathon , half the distance, so surely it's half the effort, half the training little or did I know how difficult it proved to be? I mean, it wasn't just difficult. It was renders and it was quite a frightening experience. Actually, looking back now, I mean, I can laugh about it, but at the time it was horrific and not an experience I wanted to repeat, to be honest with you. Um , but I'll tell you more about that in the next episode of 30 years of Running Marathon .