Bits of me keep hurting

It’s a bit naff to talk about one’s ‘marathon journey’, but I did have a bit of an excursion to pick up my number yesterday at the London Marathon Running Show. It started with an early trip on the DLR and Elizabeth Line to Heathrow, where 84 Dutch marathoners were disembarking and resting their powerful legs on a posh coach, all the way across town to Docklands and the ExCel, there to register their barcode, receive their numbers, pins and kit bags and have their senses assaulted by the hard sells of New Balance, Garmin, Voltarol et al.

I was their in-coach entertainment, riding shotgun next to the driver, microphone in hand, pointing out the sights and marathon-route landmarks along the way. I have a stash of facts, figures and anecdotes about the Greatest Show on Earth (for the London Marathon is indeed it), and threw in some good stuff about King Charles I’s demise outside Banqueting House, Big Ben being the name of the bell not the clock and so on. It is a lovely gig, and it’s great being in among a bunch of tall, strong, fit people who are excited about this Sunday as I am.

Once the Dutch were safely in the Running Show, hopefully not being seduced by the idea of box-fresh New Balances with event discount, I took my leave, bought a coffee and sat down to enjoy the speakers. I was hugely amused by a member of TCS London Marathon crew, who was a natural comedian, giving advice to first-time London Marathoners (how far the start is from Greenwich station, portaloos, bag stowage etc etc) and making me laugh out loud. Next up, the pneumatic Anita Bean:

…the most pertinently named sports nutritionist in the world. It was comforting to hear the familiar stuff about grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight we need to consume to keep those glycogen stores topped up, etc. As images of oats, bagels, bananas and potatoes popped up on the screen behind her, I mentally checked off all the bland white carbohydrates sitting in my food cupboard.

Much of that starch has been packed away down my gullet; the pasta dish will be consumed in a couple of hours, and more bagels packed in my kit bag for a late, start-line top up in Greenwich.

In previous years I would come back from Excel stuffed with bits of Cliff bar and protein-rich Yorkshire flapjacks all free-to-grab from the stalls, but since the pandemic, no-one has been allowed to dip grubby fingers into freebie platters. The cost of putting on a huge event like this becomes annually more eye-watering, which is presumably why my kit bag contained just a number, a bag identification sticker and four safety pins. It used to be like a Santa sack, back in the good old days.

Now we are V60: the Good For Age cut-off is kinder, the advice is more familiar, the freebies non existent, but the nerves are as real as ever. I am bound to feel Pollyanna-ish on this optimistic day before, but I am just happy to get out there and enjoy the brightest day in my personal diary.

Bits of me that have hurt today: an imaginary blister, my eye, where I accidentally collided with my new lemon tree, my right knee for reasons unknown, my stomach from eating muesli too fast, my sore-base-of-foot lesion, which has hurt on and off since this time last year.

Here’s what I did this week:

Monday rest, hot yoga

Tuesday:6x Hillyfields Hill with J, S and B

Wednesday: rest; erecting a greenhouse

Thursday: carbo-bang run (quite hard to do the quick minutes within the easy running), which was about four miles in total, then hot yoga, then led a Medical Tour around Bloomsbury. Knackered.

Friday: Dutch Marathon Tour on coach, then cooking/eating with friend who has come to stay for marathon weekend

Saturday: volunteering at parkrun, coffee and toast, with running buddies, sitting, eating, behaving as calm as I can. Name on Vegan Runners vest. Best socks located.

See you on the other side.