MY STORY OF THE LONDON MARATHON 2008 - APRIL 13th. Did I hit the infamous brick again on my third marathon??? YES!!....not once, not twice but three times!! More about that later. More to the point, I did complete the London Marathon 2008 on a very unpredictable weather of April the 13th 2008. Unlucky day...at least it is not on Friday. I woke up in an early with the Wembley Stadium in view of a bedroom window. The air was cold and the sun was shining. The condensation was puffing out from my mouth. I thought I would be fine wearing my skimpy short and vest as I would warm up as soon I start running. I was on my way to the underground station but at half way, I realised I left my watch back at house so went back to house to fetch it. So the planned time departure didn’t go as planned. I finally reached Greenwich Park (pronounced Gren-ish, not Green-wich. Well I didn’t know that) with an hour to go to start. I wanted to go to a toilet so I went to find one and I saw this massive queue at least up to 100 metres. The panic started to get in. I finally did my nature duty with 10 minutes to go. At this time, my personal marathon started early as I quickly ran to one of the baggage lorries and stripped down to my kit and then dumped my bag to this lovely lady who shouted back at me “Good Luck” while I was running away to the start. Got to the start and realised I will be starting at the back of the race and the race just started. It was a warm start and everyone was buzzing even me. It felt like my first marathon. I had my 4 hours pace band on my wrist so it would tell me how many minutes and seconds I should do every mile. I was cruising along and felt comfortable even when a flash rain was pouring down from when I was at 10 miles. The rain was a relief to myself it cooled me down and it was heartening to see spectators still smiling and cheering while being dampened. Much to my delight I saw the Maasai warriors on my run. They are a group of 6 people from Tanzania to raise money for their home village to have clean water. They wore in their traditional outfit and the front two were singing and the back four were dancing while running. I actually spoke to one of them and giving him a gesture of will power and then he smiled back. This is something I would never forget. The first 15 miles I was knocking off the time off my pace and I was on course to break the 4 hours mark easily. From there I decided to slow down as I thought I would save some energy for the last few miles especially thinking about the wall I had last year. I didn’t want that to happen again. Now it seems that I chose a wrong tactic at that time as I did lost my rhythm in my running later on and then I finally stopped running at just after 21 miles. I was in shock at hitting the first wall so early with 5 miles to go. The last 5 miles was the gruelling run I did. I had to run over my legs pulling up and cramps on my feet. It was a stop and start run throughout. Coming to 23rd miles, I knew then I wouldn’t able to beat my target time of 4 hours. My mind was racing instead. After much deliberation, I came to realise that I could aim to beat my last year’s race time of 4 hours 9 minutes 11 seconds. And guess what? It started to rain in my last mile. I was still in agony while running to stay in rhythm. I saw 600m signpost and I knew then that I can complete it. At that stage, there were two people Edward Stuart and Tara Sethi from the crew of DELTA, my charity which I run for, cheering me on. I must have ran so fast as they only took a photo of my backside! Finally saw the finishing line, I ran as fast as I could and I DID IT. I done it for the third time and it don’t get any easier I think. I was caught up in so much excitement of finishing the marathon and knowing that I completed the first of a few events for DELTA. So when I finished I forgot to keep track of my marathon time and was confused. I knew it was close and it wasn’t till the next day I found out that I did it in 4 hours 9 minutes and 49 seconds. I could not believe it. It was an almost exactly same time as year but 38 seconds slower! (I knew I shouldn’t go for that piss!) Now I am back home, finishing this article with ice pack on my leg and a hot water bottle on my hip and is feeling quite proud of myself. The aches I have are all worth it so anybody thinking of doing a marathon, I would surely recommend it. More importantly to this date, I have raised just over £1000 for the charity DELTA (Deaf Education thru Listening & Talking Association and will be still raising money as my next event is the London to Brighton Bike ride in less than 10 weeks time. Ermmm...will start training for that but not too soon! Enjoy the statistics below of the race this year comparing to my previous marathons. LONDON MARATHON SUMMARY 2004 2007 2008 10K 0.51:48 0.57:05 0.52:55 20K 2.02:16 1.53:27 1.47:10
Half 2.12:14 1.59:35 1.53.09 30K 3.45:32 2.50:57 2.44:13 40K 5.27:06 3.51:35 3.56:22 Finish 5.42:17 4.09:11 4.09:49 2007 2008 Overall Position: 11014 14025 Position (gender): 9051 11492 Position (age): 1201 1545
Mile Time Split 2007 Time Split 2008
1 10.22 8.37
2 9.21 8.26
3 8.41 9.08
4 8.40 7.46
5 8.41 8.21
6 9.21 8.45
7 9.21 9.15
8 8.59 8.42
9 9.00 8.31
10 8.54 8.48
11 8.52 8.30
12 9.16 8.28
13 9.03 8.45
14 8.55 8.52
15 ------ 8.56
16 18.36 9.24
17 9.14 9.13
18 9.16 9.08
19 9.49 9.54
20 9.58 9.52
21 9.45 12.22
22 9.32 10.43
23 9.53 13.06
24 9.20 -
25 10.01 24.07
26.2 16.15. 12.06
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