london marathon, or, living through a racing nightmare

marathon related nightmares are not a new concept to me. as you can see from the entry from october 4th, before new york city marathon i assembled a small collection of fairly vivid nightmares that kept me from sleeping properly many nights before my first big race. strangely, i can't recall having any such nightmares before my second marathon in london. instead, it seems as though nightmares were reserved for the race day itself..

when i woke up on marathon morning, my dad peaked into the room i was staying in and announced that him, my mom and my brother - who were all in london to cheer me on - are coming with me to the start. i immediately found the idea of having an entire entourage with me quite hilarious. but, i was in a foreign country with no one to chat with at the start. why not let them come?

there were 3 ways to get to the marathon start in greenwich - 2 different trains options and 1 bus - all 3 endorsed by the race organizers. team AK decided to take the faster, more direct train, leaving extra early to allow time for bathroom, bag check, prayers, etc. to take that train, we first needed to take the tube to canary warf and change. on our way to canary warf, i was thinking to myself that everything is a bit off. i am in london with my family. they are travelling with me to the marathon start line. it is 75 degrees outside. i spent all of yesterday sightseeing in london and my legs are killing me. my brother keeps taking photos of me, as if he was making a documentary about this. i haven't been to the bathroom in two days. did i mention it's 75 degrees outside?

after we got to canary warf, we followed a big group of runners that seemed to be heading in the direction of the train to greenwich. i thought to myself: if all else fails, just follow the crowd. ironically, it was only a few minutes later that it became clear that the crowd, which me and my entourage submerged into, was terribly wrong: the train from canary warf to greenwich was not running.

one hour before the start, we needed to reassess. do we go back to central london and take train #2, or take the tube to north greenwich, where we catch a local bus to greenwich? the crowd was split on the issue and the race officials we ran into had no idea (!?!). oh what the hell.. i guess north greenwich was closer to greenwich, so that's where we went.

after getting off the tube at north greenwich, a soothing female voice announced that due to road closures the bus to greenwich is not running. nor are cabs. for all practical purposes she may have as well said "you're fucked." and now what? once again it was time to defer to the crowd and see what everyone else thinks - and everyone else started walking to greenwich - a lovely three mile walk on a warm sunday morning!

what followed was almost like a scene from little miss sunshine: the four of us race-walking three miles, me taking off my clothes while walking, my mom holding the vaseline, my brother in charge of GU, my dad carrying my coke and my bag. i couldn't help but laugh the entire time. eventually, after consuming and applying all the necessary products and materials, i couldn't hold myself anymore and started jogging to the start, leaving my prep team behind, an effort which quickly came to a halt once i got to a hill, on top of which the marathon village was situated - 160 feet high, to be precise. between the walking and hill climbing, i kept thinking to myself: this would be a great warm up before a 5K, perhaps.

needless to say, i essentially missed the start of the race. after dropping off my bag i ran towards to crowd, by which point the starting zones had been dissolved (i had number 2 out of 9, by the way), people were cheering and after i squeezed into the crowd of costume-wearing walkers (numbers 8 and 9, mostly), we started moving at a pace that remotely resembled a jog. after crossing the start line i knocked a few people over ("new york asshole!") and found my way to the side walk in an attempt to move faster.. i ran close to 10 miles like this: hopping on and off side walks (sometimes running behind the spectators), dodging people, using the thin space between the runners and spectators on the left (often screaming out to warn kids with eagerly and fully extended hands to create space for me), endlessly repeating "excuse me, excuse me, on your left".. however, by mile 4 the writing was very clearly on the wall: i was a full minute behind my pace and the crowding was not getting any better.

eventually i started facing a whole new problem. perhaps it was mental exhaustion from trying to get by people or my legs got tired from going back and forth between mini-sprints when possible and slow running when i got trapped between people, or maybe it was the miserable heat after a full training season of freezing temperatures. or, alas, the fact that i couldn't train properly in the last few weeks before the race due to my achilles tendon finally caught up with me.

whatever it was - by mile 13 i was ready to stop, same way i felt in new york at mile 20. how could i have hit the wall so soon? knowing that 3:10 isn't happening by any stretch of imagination didn't help and the only thing that i was focusing on at this point was my family who was supposed to be waiting for me at miles 15 and 18 (there was an out and back element at one point in the course). after not seeing them i looked for new reasons to keep running. 8 more fucking miles and i want to stop. why am i doing this? i will never run again, ever. at mile 20 i finally walked a bit. and then at mile 21. and 22, 24 and 25. i drank and poured so much water over myself i felt like i was swimming but at this point i knew that even if i crawled, i was gonna cross that damn finish line.

after the finish i was overcome with so much happiness i started laughing. i hugged my parents and my brother with so much enthusiasm they thought i went mad. i'm done with this disaster of a race, i didn't get injured, and i'm with my family - what could be better?

i briefly considered how great it would have been to come in at 3:10, qualify for boston and start thinking about running sub-3 in new york, how to improve my training, etc, etc. but seriously - whatever. maybe one day i will, and maybe not. and maybe it shouldn't (doesn't?) matter so much. for now, i am ready to just chill the hell out. and keep running.