London’s bustling streets and unparalleled atmosphere that showcased the British capital at its best were a delight to behold.
Life is like a marathon. It is full of pages that will take your breath away. There will inevitably be highs and lows and a mix of emotions. You may feel unstoppable one moment, and then, the next, questioning yourself as you struggle through seemingly endless pain.
Until last Sunday, these were stories and anecdotes for me, passed down from generations past and friends who had recently completed the 26.2 miles. From world record holders to club runners, each person spoke with such depth and clarity about their relationship with the marathon.
Considering the number of miles I had run up until February 13.2 in the 2022 Royal Parks Half Marathon, the marathon seemed like a distant dream and a goal that seemed out of reach from the outset.
Last year I ran about 10km to 15km every week but it wasn’t targeted. I only downloaded Strava in December and bought my first Garmin watch in January. To say that I had to be like a sponge to absorb as much information as possible would be an understatement.
So in November, I sat down for coffee with Amrit Gathora, a six-star Abbott World Marathon Major finisher, to explain just how much help I felt to get right to the start line of the London Marathon. My abiding memory of the Royal Parks four years ago was finishing the race with severe pain in my right thigh, which made the last 10km quite uncomfortable. I didn’t want to repeat that situation with a third of London.
In the years since the Royal Parks, I have improved my form enough to run 2:32.45 in the 800m in the media race at last year’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. In September that mark was set in 32C heat and showed some progress in my speed endurance. The fact that it was one of the few times I ran a track because the school prioritized the work I had to do for the marathon.
So I signed up of Traverssmith The 100 Days to London program, run by Amrit, focuses on community cohesion and achieving small goals each week. The consistency of trailering during the week and long runs every Sunday was just what I needed and I’ve never looked back.
Committing the cardinal sin of starting training in carbon shoes, specifically the Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 2, I had to go to physical therapy in January and, due to my over-impatience and naivety, was experiencing seborrheic inflammation in both knees.
Looking back on those early days now is surreal. On February 1st, I took part in a 14-mile season that started in Canary Wharf and finished in Marylebone, passing through Poplar and Limehouse, the final end of the London Marathon course.
Each subsequent weekend turned into my longest run ever, adding a mile each session. Combined with running sessions and strength and conditioning at the gym, I noticed huge improvements in my fitness pretty quickly.
One session comes to mind. On February 22nd, I was part of a group that covered 16 miles of Hampstead Heath, which included almost 1,000 feet of elevation gain. It was also my first time practicing with multiple gels (Morten ended up being the final choice for London). Those bumpy muddy hills gave me a lot of anxiety beforehand, but even though my legs took two days to recover, it turned out to be one of the most important sessions of the entire program.
During this long process of traveling to London, I wanted to improve my speed over shorter distances. I took my 5km and 10km bests to 21:47 and 44;27 respectively, before lowering my half marathon mark from 2:01 at Royal Parks to 1:41:35 (7:36 min per mile average) at Bath Half Marathon.
It gave me a lot of confidence, not only to trust the process, but also to realize that a four-hour London marathon, which is seen as the benchmark for any runner, is possible.
The preparations for going straight to London were quite good. Leg speed continued to improve in the running sessions and I was averaging 6:30 minutes per mile for a 5x1200m session with 90 seconds rest between each repeat.
Then, two weeks before the big day, my sore throat, which had been nothing more than a nuisance for a few weeks, got worse and even the east became a problem. I quickly realized this was not something I could ignore and immediately went to an emergency doctor.
Within three seconds he looked down at my throat and said, “You have a pretty bad tonsillitis.” In a way, I’m relieved that the cause has been found, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about the quick turnaround in getting fit. I got a week’s worth of antibiotics, leaving three full days before London to recover the energy I’d lost from the medication.
In a way it was a blessing in disguise because it forced me to stop running, which was weird for me to get my head around when I was running 40 miles a week in March. I wasn’t quite sure what my energy levels would be on race day, but I was sure my legs would be rested.
However, this did nothing to calm any nerves that were always going to be high in the few days leading up to London. It was the same feeling as preparing for a big exam at school, where you just had to trust the revision you had undertaken over the previous months.
Pacing was always going to be key and I was aiming to go out around 8:20 per mile to Tower Bridge in the hope of going faster in the second half of the race. That belief came from a fast 4x4km session, 1km apart, at my 20 miler in Victoria Park, where I clocked a 7:40 minute mile in the last 4km.
I arrived at Blackheath both confident and apprehensive. I kept telling myself to “trust the process” knowing that I was about to push my body through something it had never experienced before. After dropping my clear bag into one of the many trucks that take them to the finish line, I headed down to the starting pen and waited for the Channel 10 announcement.
Wearing a fluorescent green t-shirt, black shorts and New Balance FuelCell SC Elite v5 shoes, I soon entered the pen and was escorted to the starting line within five minutes. Expecting to “go 5,4,3,2,1”, I was surprised at first that it was a back-to-back start, but considering the number of people involved, it wasn’t a shock.
Then we left. I soon got into an 8:30 minute pace for each mile and just kept going through each of them. The size of the crowd, especially with people decorating their homes to support the runners, surprised me. I’ve covered four London marathons but you never get down to the start line so this is all very new to me.
The first time I went “oh wow” – there were many times this happened on the course – was walking up to Kati Sark. The noise was deafening, people were lined up 10-15 rows deep. It was so loud that it would be difficult to talk to someone next to you.
I chose not to wear airpods because I wanted to soak up the atmosphere since this was my first marathon. It was the best decision I made that day. There were moments when the support was so great, like on Tower Bridge, where it was hard not to get excited. I thought to myself, “is this really happening?”
As if the inspiration from the crowd wasn’t enough, I got a notification just before Tower Bridge saying that Sebastian Save and Yomif Kejelca had broken the two hour barrier in 1:59:30 and 1:59:41 respectively. At that moment, a loud “oh my god” came out of my mouth.
I crossed the halfway point in 1:53:21, the goal was around 1:50, and I was feeling pretty comfortable. The momentum was consistent and I approached D0gs Island confident that I could keep it up for a while.
Seeing my family and friends around Canary Wharf gave another boost and so did the gels. I took a total of six, each containing 40g of carbs, two of which were caffeine. They thankfully fit my stomach pretty well, which I hoped would help me get through the last six miles relatively comfortably.
Soon I was in shock. The term “hitting the wall” is synonymous with marathon running and, more specifically, with the body suffering from severe glycogen depletion. This is because the muscles become depleted of stored carbohydrate fuel, leading to sudden fatigue, heavy legs and possible dizziness.
I experienced all three of those symptoms in the last six miles. The first time I realized my body wasn’t right was at Limehouse when my left knee seized up. Within five minutes, I was suffering from pain in my left groin and left calf that I couldn’t “shed” until Embankment.
The crowd, as many others will say, definitely helped me get through that part of the course. Giving up never crossed my mind. I was raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital, which had helped my family in their time of need, and I told my Nan, who died just days before last year’s edition, that I intended to run it next year. Those two factors kept me going.
Although the Embankment felt like the longest stretch of road in my entire life, I bounced through it and through Westminster in about 9:30 minutes per mile, and was already starting to get excited as I approached Buckingham Palace. I was cheered on by Jeff Wightman, Kat Merry, Chris Temple and Rosie Tinbergen announcing that I was finishing my last 200m. I also saw my boss Wendy Sly and Eamon Martin, the last Briton to win the London Marathon back in 1993 (2:10:50), cheering me on.
As I crossed the line, I put both hands in the air in honor of my Nan and looked at my phone and watch. Official time? 3:54:30. Thinking I missed the four hour mark, I hit it in my first marathon. The emotion soon took over, and my eyes filled with tears when I received the medal.
It’s been a few days and it’s still pretty hard to process. The size, grandeur and scale of the event is hard to fathom. I will take away many memories from London, but what will last is that the marathon showed the city at its best. The London Marathon set a world record of 59,830 finishers, surpassing the 59,226 set by last year’s New York Marathon.
It was a privilege to be a small part of it. The phrase “no man is limited” could not be more aptly associated with the first ever “sub-two hour marathon”. I am sure that Save and Kejelcha will now open the doors to others. But the phrase can also be associated with every person who has crossed the finish line, each on their own journey.
There’s a purity to running that makes it irresistible to participate in and irresistible to watch. So expect the figure of more than 1.1 million people who applied this year to be higher in 2027, when the total is released next week. This “running boom” shows no signs of plateauing anytime soon. Now that I’ve experienced driving London as well as covering it, I can understand why.
