Diary
London Marathon, 23rd April 2006
Friday, 21st April, 2006
4.30pm
Traveled down to London by car arriving at about 9pm, was looking forward to having my family supporting but unfortunately timing wasn't great, so it was looking like another solo effort,
9pm
The hotel was situated next to Hyde Park, so this was a good opportunity to wake my legs up, so ran through Hyde Park and did some recon on the finish of the marathon down the Mall, sat on the steps overlooking Buckingham Palace. I think of all the marathons this one means the most, the final one, on home ground, I'd been looking forward to this since back in Barcelona 5 weeks previous,
Saturday, 22nd April, 2006
The idea is, get up early (6.45am), have breakfast, navigate the London Underground to the marathon expo, all before the masses build up to register for the race,
The expo was massive, we registered, collected our race numbers, timing chips and race packs, then went back into the centre of London to catch up with Mikes wife and young son Dan on their London tour,
6pm
Having been held up, we met up with Ellie Wood and the Diabetes UK crew at the DUK pre-race pasta party, which was scheduled for 4pm -6pm, so there was just enough time to meet the volunteers before going back to the hotel for some more nosh,
8pm
Having got sorted for the race, everything was ready to go, my number and race chip in place with a race belt loaded with 5 GO Gels, 2 Power Gels and 2 snack bars. From previous marathons I reckon that's what it would take to get the whole way through the marathon knowing that there would also be food on the course so there was no risk of running short, I also took the usual pre-marathon 8 units of Lantus (a reduction of 7 from my normal daily dose), all that's left to do now is go down stairs and get some evening grub....It just so happens that my Mam and Dad joined use for some food, apparently they'd been dropping hints all week but the penny didn't drop until I stepped off the elevator and saw them in the bar
Sunday, 23rd April, 2006
The London Marathon is the biggest and most prestigious of all the marathons, attracting people from all over the world with an enormous field of nearly 50000 people, the point being, get too the race start early before 50000 runners and X amount of supporters try to get there on the London Underground, lol, it almost worked, was a good idea in theory Mike.....
Got to the race start at approximately 9.30am, I was scheduled to be interviewed by the BBC before the start of the race at 9.45am, unfortunately it ran late and the race started before the interview, so eventually got over the start line at about 10am behind 30000 other runners, maybe it was immaturity, it was certainly not inexperience, I know how to run a good race and how a late start would impact my chances of achieving my target of sub 3 hrs, I should have seen the light and just enjoyed it but I had a point to prove, I wanted to see what would happen when a diabetic runs a marathon on the limit,
I arrived at the mid point (13 miles) on schedule in 1hr 30mins, ideally I wasn't going to push it till after half way, in reality however, I'd ducked, dodged, weaved and bounced from one side of the road to the other in an attempt to plot a course through the wall of runners, I was on schedule but had put in far more than I should have, at 18 miles I had to stop for a typical race blunder, the toilet!, no good, within the 5 mins it took for a toilet stop I saw the sub 3hr target wasn't looking good and my legs tightened up making the last 8 miles a battle, if I've learned one thing from triathlons etc its once you slow down you don't hurt less, you stiffen up and hurt more at half the pace, at this point all you can do is grind it out,
The sub 3hr dream will have to wait till next time;) but what a way to finish the race, the support made amends, the noise from the crowd was immense and it brought me back, seeing my Mam and Dad 600m from the finish of the London marathon having ran myself into the floor... priceless, I grabbed the flag of my dad and turned the corner into the mall, my sugar levels are still spot on and I'm still Diabetic And Lovin IT, finishing in a pb of 3hrs 20mins....
Collecting my medal was an awesome feeling, this is it, the finish of not only the London Marathon but 5 completely different marathons, 5 weeks of traveling, including many thousands of air miles and 130 miles of running, all in an effort to clearly show a diabetic can do anything, anytime, anywhere in any state:)
Later having eaten the bag of pretzels, apple and wagon wheel out of the post-race finishers bag I met up with everyone and we made our way over to the post-race DUK expo. I commend Ellie and the Diabetes UK team for putting it all together:) 10 out of 10 and then some, I think I'm going to need allot of piecing back together.
It was great to see everyone had completed the run but it was interesting from a diabetes perspective to see the diabetic runners on Lantus were happily tucking into the buffet and looking pretty comfortable considering what they had just accomplished, compared to the some of the other diabetic runners using mixes, looking completely wrecked and clicking their heels while calculating what insulin they need and whether they could eat anything without upsetting their regime, its clear to me Lantus works, just one extra shot of rapid when I decide its time to wipe out the buffet, to think I ran an entire marathon, ate exactly what was needed without extra injections, overcame all the unexpected twists and turns on a single shot of 8 units of Lantus the night before..... now back to the hotel for further celebration;)
Question: So what did we learn???
Answer: That there was no difference between myself representing the Diabetics and Mike representing the Non Diabetics, we both completed 5 marathons, we both did pb's at London (Me 3hr 20mins, Mike 3hr 40mins) and we both had to overcome problems at some time or another, I learned how my glucose levels react and that I should basically eat exactly what any other athlete eats during such a race and Mike learned even he can suffer from hypos and hyper's, at the beginning of the challenge Mike was worried about letting me go (more what my Dad would say if something went wrong), but towards the end I think he gained enormous trust in how I managed my diabetes
But more importantly as in triathlons I found once I'd sorted my basal insulin I could focus on the race and not have to worry about sugar/insulin levels etc, so when I step up to the start line I'm not disadvantaged or concerned about what time the start is and whether it will effect what I can eat. I find that doing such challenges has taught me a lot about how to reduce the impact of being diabetic and there's defiantly more left in the tank.....
