Lon-done (sic) for another year, and this past four months’ training has been, for the large part, successful. Sunday’s race was hard work, and my plan to go under four hours was achieved by the skin of my teeth. 3:59.42.
Good for age entry for women older than 60 is 4:25, however, so my place for 2025, and the 45th London Marathon, is secured. Unless the powers that be level us up with the men, in which case I’m a hot mess.
The title refers to the conclusions that Google used to draw when I first consulted about the concept of Good For Age. A whole list of beekeeping advice, basically. However, now Google knows my obsession and launches straight into TCS London Marathon Good For Age times and Hugh Brasher’s statement in Runners World that the new range of super/cheat shoes have made everyone faster.
Except me. I find those Alphaflys, with their weird bicycle-helmet-pointy shape and platform soles supremely ugly. What is worse, as a slow runner of mature years, I am rather chary of looking ridiculous. The elite runners in my club, all of whom ran well under three hours last Sunday, look fine in them. They need those extra seconds for their Championship/Olympic qualifications.
Last Sunday, I enjoyed passing slow runners wearing clownlike shoes. When I finally finished, and chatted in the pub to my faster club mates, they advised getting over myself about wearing the carbon plated monstrosities. Wasn’t I a bit grumpy about running two minutes over my preferred time, they reasoned? Ergo, help myself out with some decent footwear.
We’ll see. Brooks Hyperion look quite attractive.
As for my race? It went reasonably well. I think. the four-banana strategy is a good one (one with breakfast, one in starting pen, one after three miles and one after 10 miles). From then on, it’s on to Voom carbohydrate bars/or (next time I would prefer) SIS gels, Lucozade in cups, a Lucozade gel (swallowed about a quarter of it) and plenty of water.
I’m cross that I didn’t bother to hunt in my zipped back pocket for the salt sticks, because the cramp in my hamstrings, calves, achilles, foot muscles and glut muscles started at 19 miles and had to be carefully handled from there on in.
I reckoned the muscles that helped me out the best were facial ones: I smiled and smiled. Determined not to have the sense-of-humour failure that ruined my Manchester marathon in 2022 (when I walked for two miles), I chuckled, gurned, chatted and acknowledged the huge, huge, loud crowds (the biggest and rowdiest ever). I high-fived all the children. I danced to the music.
My favourite bit was the stunningly uplifting Rainbow Row (Butcher Row, Limehouse) at mile 21. It was the best crowd ever, with a stage covered in talented drag queens giving it all that Cher. I wanted to stop and take a photo but had decided to leave phone in my bag because I didn’t want to be bothered with tech. The watch was a bit shit, telling me I was running 10-minute miles, which I patently wasn’t.
For the record: the food and fuelling was ok (pasta the night before, pea and rice risotto the night before the night before. Bagels and peanut butter frequently, beetroot bars and bananas; chocolate, overnight oats, fruit…). Guts behaved themselves, no portaloo stops. However, I felt drained of energy a lot of the time, and this has made me resolve to address vitamin and minerals levels.
What an extremely tedious paragraph that was (am reminded of a comment in one of my favourite books ever: Jill’s Gymkhana, when Jill describes a lovely picnic she shared at a horse show, and then comments that her author mother would put a line through such ramblings).
There’s method in my ramblings, though, as I use these blogs as a training manual, and try to replicate successful fuelling, and avoid those that resulted in digestive distress, as happened in both Berlin marathons (too many baked goods, I reckon).
Yesterday I checked my iron levels in the usual way, giving blood, and my vintage B- was accepted. Blood UK won’t accept you if they find your haemoglobin lacking. This means my running will be terrible for the next month, so I’ll only run for fun, if I run, in the next month.
I’ve signed up for the Big Half on September 1, so will break from the blog for six weeks or so until I start the training for that.
This final blog of this training block is dedicated with love and thanks to my Kent AC training partner, the super strong Sarah Young (pictured above, after waltzing round in 3:49), who keeps my positivity pilot light glowing, and ensures that MG (Marathon Gran) gets to run another year.
Marathon Gran 