Top 10 Tips for the Big Day

 I'm revisiting and updating this blog to help support one of this year's London marathon entrants who's currently preparing for her first 26-miler (the mad fool!!). It's been a couple of years now since I gratefully staggered over the finish line - we've had a whole pandemic since then - but the lessons learnt on that day are still etched into my mind. And as they're no use to me, as I'm not intending to run it ever again, the only thing I can do with those lessons is share them with other people. So strap yourself in, pop pickers, here we go:

The best thing I did was get myself a room in a hotel in central London for after the marathon. A lot of people get a room in Greenwich or Blackheath the night before to be near the start, which isn't a bad idea, but I got one near Victoria Station - as close as I could get to the finish area - so I could have somewhere to go and collapse after the race. And also somewhere to collapse again after going out on the town to celebrate actually finishing. 

If I were doing it again, I'd book the hotel room for two nights - the night before the race and the night after. That would have meant I was more relaxed on the morning of the race, and not rushing around trying to get to the hotel in the morning and dump my bag there before setting off to Blackheath. And would have meant not getting up at the crack of dawn and worrying about train connections, and so on. Oh well.

You're probably planning to get to the start early. Don't. Get there earlier. I can't emphasise enough how important that is. Whatever time you think is early enough to head off in the morning, isn't. You have 40,000+ runners (plus a fair few of their family/friends/support groups/significant others) all trying to get to Blackheath at the same time. The stress that puts on the somewhat limited Network Rail connections is unreal. The train you're planning to catch will be stuffed to the gills with marathon-goers. Take an earlier one.

On a similar note, it's a good idea to get on your train at the point it starts from - Victoria, Charing Cross or London Bridge, which all, I think, run services to Blackheath. If you're looking to pick up a train at one of the stations en route instead, your chances of actually getting on will be severely reduced.

Wrap up warm. Blackheath is basically a windswept moor on top of a hill with precious little shelter. Even on sunny days, it's freezing. You will want to keep a warm top on, an old sweater or cardigan, over your running gear for as long as you possibly can. When I'm running a race, I usually buy something cheap in a charity shop especially for the day, and then dump it just before the start. All the discarded tops are collected up and taken back to charity shops, so you don't have to feel guilty about it.

Furthermore, don't dump your outer layer until the very last minute. The length of time between when you think you're nearly at the start and when you actually are is considerable. You'll trot through the holding area before the actual starting line for a good 20 minutes. So keep your top on over your running vest until you see the whites of the starter's eyes. 

The moment you get to the start area, put your race bag on to the truck that ferries them all to the finish and then, without delay, get in line for the toilets. I've been to big races before. I've seen insane queues for the loos before, but nothing like this. I stood in line for 45 minutes watching people get progressively more panicky as the PA announced that the race-bag trucks were leaving and the starting pens were opening.

Having said that, there's really no need to panic. There are toilets all the way up to the starting line, so if you can't get to go before you're called to the holding area, don't worry. And bear in mind too that, with the amount of water you'll be taking on during the race to keep hydrated, the chances are you'll be stopping off for a toilet break somewhere on course anyway. 

Oh, there is one PS here - bring a little bit of toilet paper with you. You'd be amazed how much of the stuff 42,000 runners can get through. Nothing worse than queuing up for ages only to get into a cubicle and be confronted with just a cardboard tube.

Try not to get over-emotional when you start. The feeling once you actually get going can be really overwhelming - this is it, this is the moment you've trained for all this time - especially when you hear the throngs of people cheering you on and the little kids high-fiving you. I was in tears for the first 100 metres or so, which does nothing for your running I can assure you.

Also - try not to give in to the temptation to set off like a dog chasing a squirrel. The temptation is massive. You've been hanging around getting tenser and tenser for ages, waiting for your race to start, so you just want to get going! Easy there, tiger. That's the energy you're going to need for the finish 

Make sure you've got support on the course. Hopefully you'll have no problem getting your friends and loved ones to come out and cheer you on. And you WILL need them. It's brilliant having thousands of strangers shouting encouragement to you, but there's nothing as morale-boosting as getting hugs and support from the people you're closest to, just as you begin to think you can't go another step further.

Plan out with then beforehand where they're going to be standing (if they're reasonably mobile they should be able to get to 3 or 4 places on the course in time to cheer you on), and get them to bring a placard or flag or something so you can spot them in the crowd. Very easy to miss them otherwise. Oh, and get them to bring any supplies you may need when you're halfway through (energy gels, sweets, ibuprofen, bandages, a fully-equipped ambulance, that sort of thing), so you don't have to cart them round for the whole race.

Which brings us on to gels. Take them. Lots of them. I know they're a bit weird, but get used to using them on your training runs and use them on the Big Day. The isotonic ones are the best, and I like to use a variety of flavours just to surprise myself en route ("Ooh! Orange!") I took one every 5k, and while they don't immediately make you feel like a superhero, they will start to have an effect after half an hour or so and stop you feeling like your energy is draining out of your soles. Just one thing - if you're taking them every 5k, that's 7 sachets to get you round the course. That's quite a bit to carry, so if you can get someone to resupply you about halfway through (see point 5), that would be peachy (which is one of the flavours available, coincidentally).

Never, ever think about how far you have to go. It'll destroy you, Just think about the next mile, or getting to the next landmark. I went through the whole course on Google Streetview several times, marking down landmarks and pubs and so on, so when I came to actually run the course, it was very familiar to me. I'd be running down one stretch of road and thinking  "Ooh, another 100 metres or so and I should be passing the King's Head" or "oh yeah, that's that Tesco megastore on the right, so I'm nearly up to that bit with the big park and the funny-looking church". It really helped to break the course down into manageable chunks.

The other way to look at it is that it's basically four 10k runs, and to think about each one separately. Concentrate on finishing one at a time and don't think about the others. The first one's to the Big Ship (the Cutty Sark); the second is from the Big Ship to the Big Bridge (Tower Bridge); the third from the Big Bridge to the Big Building (Canary Wharf); and the fourth from the Big Building to.. well, to the Big Finish, I guess.

Always take a drink at the water stations, even if only a few sips. It's really easy to dehydrate without realising it. Don't feel that you have to grab a bottle and keep on running, just because that's what the pros do. It's not easy to drink and run at the same time, so stop and have a sip if you want before moving on. Losing a few seconds here and there is not going to make any difference. 

On the other hand, don't swig the whole bottle - be sensible with how much you drink. Just drink what you think you need. Take on too much liquid and you'll start feeling bloated - and you'll probably have to take an unwanted toilet break too. And while we're at it, don't grab too many sweets from the people proffering them round the course. There's a limit to how many jelly babies you can stuff down your throat while you're trying to run, and it's quite a small number. I speak from experience. 

This is the MOST important. Savour every moment of the day (I was going to say "enjoy", but you won't enjoy EVERY moment..). It is like nothing you've ever done before, and you may never do anything like it again. And it is fantastic. How many times in your life will you have thousands and thousands of strangers turn out to cheer you on as you shamble round 26 miles? How many times will you be the focus of so much open-hearted goodwill and open-ended admiration? How many times will you be able to get such a sense of self-fulfilment and pride for a few hours' work? You need to remember every moment and cherish it - even the times when the pain hits and you want to cry. Especially those times in fact - those are the times you got through and overcame. They're what make doing this special.

Above all else, don't worry. You're doing this. You have, as the London Marathon slogan goes, got this. I promise.

  

A Virgin No More

So I did it. Popped my cherry, as it were. Broke my proverbial duck. Went the whole way, opened my account, got on the scoresheet, chalked up my first notch on the bedpost... yeah, yeah, calm down Rob. You ran a race, that's all. Big deal.
But hey. What a race. What an amazing experience the London Marathon is. If you're only ever going to run just the one, then London's got to be that one. I have never known anything like it.
The day began early - earlier than I'd originally planned, actually, as before heading to the start, I had to take a suitcase to the central London hotel I had booked to collapse into post-marathon. It felt weird waking up and thinking that my legs were somehow going to carry me 26.2 miles. It just didn't seem feasible at all.
Suitcase dumped at the hotel, I took the train to Blackheath and it was here I learnt my first important lesson about what to do on Marathon Day. That lesson? Whatever time you think is early enough to head off for the start, isn't. Head off earlier. 42,000 runners all trying to catch the same train to the same place makes for some very, very packed carriages. I managed to squeeze into one at London Bridge, but it was touch and go for a bit. People trying to get on at stations further down the line didn't stand a chance. I hope they all made it eventually.

Here we go, then

Lesson 2 - the moment you get into your holding area, put your race bag on to the truck that ferries them all to the finish and without delay, get in line for the toilets. I've been to big races before. I've seen insane queues for the loos before, but nothing like this. I stood in line for 45 minutes watching people get progressively more panicky as the PA announced that the race-bag trucks were leaving and the starting pens were opening.
As it turned out, there wasn't much call for panic. The walk from the starting pens to the actual start takes you past a whole set of (largely empty) toilets, and there's plenty of time to nip in and do the business before you set off. No-one ever mentions stuff like this in the guides you read about pre-race planning. You're welcome.
Lesson 3 - don't discard your outer layers until the very last minute. Blackheath itself is an open hilltop with a tendency to being cold and windswept, and the length of time between when you think you're nearly at the start and when you actually are is considerable. I threw away my cheap and cheerful waterproof jacket (£3, local charity shop) thinking my race was about to begin, only to have to grab someone else's previously discarded top a few hundred yards further on. Whatever you're wearing on top of your running vest, keep it on until you see the whites of the starter's eyes.
And then - finally, 47 minutes after Mo and his elite chums had started scampering down Shooters Hill Road - we were off, under the red arch and taking the first few faltering paces on our 26-mile odyssey. I'll try not to bore you with a step-by-step commentary on my progress (though, to be frank, I've been doing little else to my nearest and dearest for the last two weeks) and instead just bore you with a little vignette from each mile, as it were. Here we go:

"High-five, anyone?"

Mile 1 - did NOT expect to get all teary in the first 100 metres, yet here we are. Overcome by the emotion of the occasion, the shouts of encouragement and all the little kids high-fiving me as I run past.
Mile 2 - bloke running says to his mate "2 miles gone, 24 to go". Thanks for the reminder, fella
Mile 3 - ooh, brakes off, speeding down the hill to Woolwich.... this marathon lark is easier than I thought!
Mile 4 - grab my first water bottle, and then carefully dodge my way through everyone's discarded ones. Not a skill you get to hone on the training runs
Mile 5 - ahead of me I see a pub, The Rose of Denmark. Thanks to my assiduous study of the route via Google Maps, I know I'm nearly at the end of this mile. Hurrah! The pubs along the route were probably my most useful landmarks.
Mile 6 - Greenwich, my old hood. Felt like a returning hero with everyone cheering me on (well, cheering everyone on, but it's easy to individualise it when all you can hear is "COME ON ROB" bellowed in your ear. The closest I'll ever get to feeling like Mo Farah) 
Mile 7 - in which I learn that trying to hold a water bottle and simultaneously open an energy gel packet is, frankly, impossible.
Mile 8 - this is where I thought it might start to get hard, a long boring run through some unprepossessing council blocks and tatty shops. But no. The crowds are still thronging the route, the course is still reasonably flat, the pace is easy, my body's relaxed and to be honest I'm having a ball. 
Mile 9 - explosion of joy as I see my family and friends for the first time. My wife runs out of the crowd, gives me a huge hug and almost cries "Rob, you're running so well!!" Never have I heard her so upbeat about my running ability. She thrusts three energy gel packets at me and shoos me off, shouting at me to keep going. 
(Little aside here - the night before she'd told me to look out for the bright yellow sign they'd made for me, saying "I know what you're like, Rob, you won't be concentrating and you'll miss us". So I conscientiously kept an eye out for the bright yellow sign, which my wife conscientiously left at home by mistake).

Selfie time

Mile 10 - bit of a boring (though rather pleasant) meander around Surrey Quays, if I'm honest, with the crowds finally starting to thin out a bit.
Mile 11 - second meet-up near Rotherhithe tube with friends and family, more hugs etc AND bonus cheers on the other side of the road from Parkrun pal Roger.
Mile 12 - HUGE crowds, huge noise on Jamaica Road. I see an enormous Chelsea football flag (my team) and with a surge of emotion I shout "CHELSEA BOYS!" and run towards it. It's actually a bunch of female Chelsea supporters and I get a lovely bunch of hugs before moving on. Tempted to ask them if they know the score in the early kick-off but decide to press on.
Mile 13 - Tower Bridge. Oh my God. I've made it here and I'm hardly worse for wear. What is happening? It's like I'm not actually running, but being carried forward on a wave of euphoria. I stop for a selfie. Well, how often am I going to get a chance for a picture like this?
Mile 14 - it suddenly gets sticky underfoot, I'm practically having to peel my trainers off the tarmac with each step. What's going on? Ah. It's the Lucozade station. People are taking one sip, then binning the bottles. The roads are literally coated in the stuff
Mile 15 - time for a much-needed pee. I don't tend to go much on long runs - usually clear the system completely beforehand - but I've been drinking much more water than normal on the "mustn't get dehydrated" principle. Result is, I'm busting. I've been avoiding the portaloos en route because of the queues, but here the race goes briefly underground and people (well, men) are taking the chance for a quick slash against the tunnel wall out of sight of the crowds. I open up, start.... and can't stop. A minute passes by. Two minutes. This is the pee without end. Nothing I can do, I'm helpless as my timing for this mile flies out of the window. Finally it dries up. Adjust my shorts, tidy myself up, and on we go.

Waving for the camera

Mile 16 - I'm running behind a woman who is taking a handful from literally every bowl of sweets that's held out in front of her. What on earth is she doing with them all? She can't be scoffing them all surely. She'd have eaten herself into a sugar-induced coma. That or thrown up.
Mile 17 - I'm now in uncharted territory - in that I've gone more than 16 miles without taking a single walk-break (unscheduled loo and selfie stops notwithstanding). Still feeling, well, if not exactly frisky, alive at least.
Mile 18 - the buildings are looming noticeably larger as Canarty Wharf comes closer. Starting to run out of steam a little
Mile 19 - finally have to give up and walk for about 100 yards as the race goes up a steepish ramp. Then around the corner I see my family for the third time, hollering my name and waving my last batch of energy gel packets at me. Heart is duly renewed.
Mile 20 - a sudden shooting pain in my left hamstring. I'm immediately terrified I won't be able to finish, or that I'll spend the next six miles suffering increasingly painful muscle spasms. I hobble to the side of the road, give the back of my thigh a quick squeeze, and decide to risk it with a little run. Mercifully, nothing happens and I pick up the pace once more. 
Mile 21 - ah, Limehouse. I know this bit. I'd said to myself that if I could get to here unscathed, I'd definitely finish. Well, here I am, scathed a little it's true, but still running. I'm going to make it. Massive cheers and encouragement from the MNDA supporters at the Craft Beer pub at the milepost - thanks, guys, you don't know how needed that was. 

Still smiling. Sort of

Mile 22 - a woman falls in front of me (I'm unsure if she tripped or just collapsed) and a group of us stop to help. I say "help", in my case it was more "stand around looking hopelessly for a first aider or someone who knows what to do". Happy ending - she gets up, she's OK, and off we all set
Mile 23 - past Tower Bridge, and now it's just the home stretch. I can do this. Except, of course, this is exactly the time my legs start to say to me, no you can't mate. I thought the last 3 miles down the Embankment, past all the tourist sights, would be a buzz. Instead, I'm beginning to struggle.
Mile 24 - at Blackfriars underpass, I have to take a walk-break for the second time. I may not be looking my best, as I'm offered a bottle of water by a rather worried-looking steward.
Mile 25 - my Garmin watch, which has been manfully struggling on since claiming to be on low battery since Mile 20, finally gives up completely and dies. The wimp. I will do the last mile literally time-blind.
Mile 26 - as I run up to Westminster Bridge, something literally kicks in and lights the fuse of my enthusiasm once again. Probably just the thought that I'm nearly done. I get to see my family one last time near Parliament Square and their undiminished excitement makes me smile and gives me the lift for those last few yards down Birdcage Walk.

"Sprint" finish

Last 385 yards - that's a glorious sight to see, as you turn into the Mall. The sign that effectively says "You bloody hero, you've run 26 miles, and now you're nearly done". Although I suppose it could also effectively say "Thought you were finished? Nah mate, there's still about a quarter of a mile to go", if you were in that frame of mind. I start sprinting for the end, desperate to finish ahead of (and out of camera shot with) a bloke dressed as what appears to be a jukebox. No fancy-dress fun-runner's going to spoil my moment of glory, no sir. 
And then I'm across the line, arms aloft, and it's over, and suddenly the tears are back, as what I've just done impresses itself on me, and my legs start to ache and creak as I make the long trek back to pick up my race-bag and find the meeting point, and my wife calls to tell me to meet her somewhere else and I literally can't take anything in. She's saying things and it's like I know they're words, but I can't really make them make sense. So she has to say it all over again VERRRY SLOOOOWLY AND CLEAAAAARLY until I've actually understood, and hey, there she is, and there's my stepdaughters, and our friends, and even my dog, who's been taken on possibly the longest walk of her entire life, and who licks my face and lies down next to me as I collapse on to the grass in St James's Park as if she has an intuitive understanding of my suffering state.

26.2 miles later

And that's that really. I ran my marathon. Like I said I would. In 4 hours, 21 minutes and 39 seconds, since you ask (so well under the 4.5 hour target I'd set myself). £1560 raised for MNDA, too, which I'm immensely proud of - and so should you be if you helped me reach that sum.
Was running a marathon as hard as I thought? Actually no. (Except the training. The training was, at times, torture). I have nothing but happy memories of the race itself. I spent most of it with a huge smile across my face, bemused by the selfless, generous enthusiasm and support of the London crowds. I know it's a cliche to say how wonderful they are - but that's because it's true. To the people who came out to support their friends and relatives and shouted their name and hugged them as they went past - the emotion you poured into it made it feel you were doing it for all of us. As for every single person who went and stood around for hours just to cheer on strangers and give them the odd jelly baby or high five, you are all simply brilliant. And the best thing is you don't even know how brilliant you are.

Will I run another though? That's the question I keep getting asked. And the answer is, no of course not, are you mad??? It's a daft distance to run. And there's the training - that long, hard four-month slog in the cold and wet and darkness of an English winter. 

Maybe though - maybe if I can get my family to stand at the 9-mile mark and cheer me on in each of my long training runs, and then dart back to the town park gates to be there when I finish; or if I could get the good people of London to line the streets of the borough of Enfield week after week to support me as I stagger through a strength-sapping sixteen-miler. Then, maybe, just maybe, I might be persuaded to put myself through it all over again.  


   

I've Got This. Apparently

So I set out in London on a marathon yesterday. It seemed to take forever, and it was hard work, but I made it in the end.
No, not THE marathon. Obviously. The marathon journey on public transport across the city to EXCEL, the exhibition site in the back of beyond (east London, actually - ed.) where all the entrants have to pick up their race number, timer token and literally whatever free stuff they can bung in their bag and carry home with them. 
It's basically a device to get you to visit what amounts to the Virgin Money London Marathon 2019 Expo, a manoeuvre which would normally activate me into automatic cynicism mode. But as I walked up from the station, with lots of other excited entrants, and saw the banners with slogans like "You're all amazing" and "Nervous yet?", I couldn't help feeling a little emotional. 
So much so that when I picked up my race number, I actually got a little teary and had to sit down for a little and compose myself. What's that? No, YOU'RE crying because you've just realised there's no going back now and you're actually going to do this amazing thing.

The exhibition itself was the usual melange of marketing, merchandise and photo opps. I resisted the urge to buy anything (though I do seem to have signed up for the opportunity to do yoga in Costa Rica, which is faintly troubling), got my photo with Mo Farah (well, a cardboard cutout of him - the real one was still involved in some beef with his fellow elite athletes about a stolen watch, it seems), and took up the challenge of running at world record marathon pace for 400 metres.
Ever tried doing that? It's harder than it looks. A lot harder. They put you on a huge treadmill, and set you off at a reasonably comfortable pace, before whacking it up to 12.89mph. Phwaaaaaaaahh. My legs started going round like Roadrunner's when Wile E. Coyote's bearing down on him with one of his more fiendishly ingenious Acme contraptions. I had to keep my eyes looking down straight at my feet to make sure I didn't fall over them. After what seemed like about 3 hours, with my legs turning to jelly, the nice young lady in charge of the thing called out "Give Rob a big cheer, folks, he's halfway through". You what?

Look out, Wile E Coyote's coming

Halfway through 400 metres? I thought I'd reached Greenwich at least. Finally it reached the end. I'd done a quarter of a mile at Mo's (well, actually, Eliud Kipchoge's) pace. The idea of going that fast for any longer, let alone 26.2 miles, is literally insane.
Leaving the exhibition, I saw a banner saying "You've made it. You're ready. You've got this". I admired the banner-writer's confidence in me. Really not sure I have got this, unless "this" is a nagging sense of inadequacy and a general sense of impending doom.
Despite that, however, my final preparations for the Big Day are now in full swing. My name has now been successfully ironed on to my running vest. My number is safety-pinned on likewise. And my timing token is, after a great deal of effort and swearing, attached to my left trainer. I've never been able to do this with ease. The little plastic ties they give you never seem long enough, while the instructions with the "helpful" drawings are about as clear as an Ikea manual in Mandarin Chinese. And yet the proper runners always seems to have their timer tokens impeccably secured. I often wonder if in the pre-race preparations, they glance down at my miserable effort and sneer knowingly. 

Someone has faith in me anyway

My carb-loading is in full fettle (do Easter eggs count?). I read a guide called "Five Good Ways To Carb-load", of which number 2 involved eating a lot of beetroot. Err no. Bollocks to beetroot. Number 5, however, proposed putting honey in your tea or coffee, a menu suggestion that I have been enthusiastically carb-loading the bejeesus out of ever since.
I have also been reading a lot of serious guides about How To Run The London Marathon, which perhaps I should have been reading a little earlier. The one thing I have gleaned from all of them is not to go off too fast at the start. No danger of that given my performance on the EXCEL treadmill, you might think, and you're probably right. But actually, I do have a tendency to start too fast for my own good, even if "fast" is pretty much a relative concept in this case. So I will try to keep myself in control.
Most importantly, my sponsorship is now complete. More than complete, in fact. Thanks to the many lovely people who have more confidence in me finishing the damn thing than I do myself, we've raised well over £1000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association - and if you feel like adding to that admirable total, you can at this Justgiving link. A huge thank you to everyone who has.
So I suppose in a way, the banner was right. I have made it. I am ready. And I really have, despite my pessimistic qualms, got this. No matter what happens on Sunday, I've made it through all the training to get to this point, I'm as ready as I'm ever likely to be, and above all, I've got my fund-raising target - got the money to combat the disease that killed my friend. Didn't think I'd manage any of it and yet here we are.
Just the 26.2 miles to knock off now. Piece of cake.

And Now We Taper

Did a 20-mile run last week, lads. Nothing special. No big deal. Just part of the training. Just the big two-oh. Just the 32.3 kilometres. Just the six parkruns one after another, and then another half. I've had worse.
That's a lie. I've never had worse. At the end of the 20, I was hurting so much I felt like I was going to cry. Except I didn't have enough energy left to cry. I hardly had the energy to walk home. Stretches? Forget it. Couldn't lift my legs. My muscles practically screaming at me. Back of my knees felt like they were held together by two elastic bands stretched to way beyond their capability. I got home, collapsed into a hot bath (yes, I KNOW it's supposed to be an ice bath, but there's only so much agony I can face in one day) and contemplated what manner of stupidity had got me into all this.

Except... except maybe it wasn't so bad after all. It might have hurt like crazy, but I DID manage the 20 miles. I DID keep on going even when at 16 miles I thought I couldn't physically run another step. And my favourite moment - some joker in the park knocking back a can of Stella who came up to me after I was finished and said "Come on, jog with me", the look on his face when I told him I couldn't because I'd just run 20 miles. Now that was a look of respect! OK, it was from a park-bench alky who'd have trouble running a bar tab, but still.
And now? And now we taper. The four most beautiful words in the English language. The training runs continue, but the distances get shorter, the pace gets less strenuous, and the physical demands on my body get less... well, less demanding. The next fortnight is dedicated to not doing anything stupid, steering clear of any injuries and maintaining what I laughably describe as my peak physical condition. As the multitude of helpful marathon preparation guides keep reminding me, I can't get any fitter for the marathon over the next two weeks. Whatever level of ability I possess right now, that's as good as it's going to get.
So now I can concentrate on some of the little things that I've been pushing to the back of my mind. Like raising more sponsorship (little reminder - the link's right here ). Like examining the course and working out where the water stations are. Like ironing my name on to the front of my running vest (the first race I did this for, I lovingly applied the letters R-O-B to my vest, making sure they were perfect and even, only to realise I'd stuck them on to the back rather than the front - which is not much use if you're hoping people are going to cheer you on as you run towards them). 
One other thing I'm determined to make time for is getting my marathon haircut. Well, you want to at least try and look good in the official photos. For the last couple of weeks, my hair's been getting floppier and floppier, and as you can see from the photo above, that doesn't make for a good look at the end of a long run. After a couple of dozen kilometres, my hair is closely resembling Donald Trump's at a US airforce base when he stands too close to the helicopter he's just got out of.

Not a good look

It's not a good look. So when I make my appearance on the start line at Blackheath in two week's time, I will be shorn and shaven and looking my best for the big occasion.
Of course, the last couple of weeks before a marathon is not just about tapering and making the last-minute preparations. It's also about carb-loading. The dietary advice seems to be that this is the time when you tilt your diet from being protein-rich to being more carbohydrate heavy. Which is fine by me. Carb-loaded a whole bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk only the other day. Delicious. 

Game of Moans

The other day, a friend of mine was quizzing me about my marathon training. The long runs you have to do each week, she wanted to know - were they painful or boring? Well, naturally, I had to put her straight on that matter right away. You're quite, quite wrong, I told her -  they are both painful AND boring.
Actually, I'll take the boring bit over the painful part any day. I can cope with a bit of boredom. That feeling of  "oh God, if I have to run round this sodding park one more time, past the same sodding trees, and the same sodding lake, and the same sodding teenagers loafing about on the same sodding park bench, my brain will literally implode". There are ways to counteract that - counting off the distance you've covered, for example, or playing complex games in your brain like trying to remember who killed who in Games of Thrones,

Let me think - who did he kill?

or which members of the cabinet haven't yet resigned over Brexit. Basically anything to distract your brain from the tedious task of plodding on for hour after hour.
It's the pain that's harder to take. Sometimes it seems to me that long-distance running is more about pain management than anything else. Or rather, it's about trying to spread the pain equally around your body and stop it overloading just the one part. Last week, the aching was mostly in my calves, the week before it was my hamstrings giving me grief. Now, just for a change, the backs of my knees have decided to get in on the act. I'm expecting my ankles and the balls of my feet to start complaining that they haven't had their fair share of attention soon too. 
One particular little niggle is the ligament at the top of my right hamstring, just underneath my bum cheek. It likes to give me a little tweak every now and then - usually when I'm somewhere in public which makes it difficult and somewhat embarrassing, not to say downright socially unacceptable, to give it a quick massage to make it go away.
Last week's long run (17 miles, at least 4 of them torture) was especially hard on my calves. I had to stop a couple of times to stretch them out, and I even got a spot of what I suspect was cramp in one of them at one point. By the end, it felt like my legs were coming apart or even falling off, as if the nuts and bolts holding them on to my hips had all worked themselves loose. 
Thankfully, I'm friends with a fantastic physio, Isobel Phillips (you really should check her out if you're anywhere near North-east London and, like, your legs are falling off - email her at isobel@abody4life.com), who pretty much put me back together again with a customised therapeutic massage. When you get a really good working over like that, which actively targets whatever muscular problem you're having, you realise the difference it can make.
Keeping my muscles stress and strain free and avoiding any injuries is now becoming a bit of an obsession. One friend of a friend managed to break his leg a fortnight before he was due to run a marathon in Paris, which I suppose is a pretty foolproof way of ducking out of it. But it's not just fractured femurs I'm trying to steer clear of. Knackered knees, aching ankles, twinged toes - I can't afford anything that's going to take away any of the limited training time I have left. I'm even scared of catching a cough or a cold between now and April 28th, just in case that would disable me for a few crucial days. Basically I just want to be wrapped up in cotton wool for the next four weeks and only allowed out for runs and meals.

Somewhere not Palmers Green

There's something to be said for taking a mid-training break somewhere sunny, overseas and near a beach. And that something is "Oh bloody hell, where am I going to be able to run which doesn't involve toiling up a gravity-defying clifftop incline, plodding over strength-sapping sand dunes for miles, or ending up on the barbed-wire strewn building site of a would-be holiday resort apparently abandoned some time in the mid-1980s?"
I'm not a huge fan of trying out experimental new courses for my runs. For me, familiarity breeds content, not contempt. I like to know where I'm going and what horrors lie ahead of me. And while going running while on holiday always seems like a good idea in theory, in practice it usually means getting up at about 6.00 in the morning so you can be finished while the temperature is still in the "stiflingly uncomfortable" range and before it hits the "actually might pass out" level.

Not Palmers Green on a wet Wednesday

This is a long-winded way of saying I spent the last week on Gran Canaria, off the coast of Africa. There are worse places to run, it's true. The broad, flat beach promenades are lovely - and would have been perfect if they could have just joined up without the steep hills in between. And some of the views from the coastal paths were simply stunning - you don't get panoramas like this (see right) when you're plodding round Palmers Green on a wet Wednesday afternoon, I can tell you.
What Palmers Green does have, however, are pavements for running on. Everywhere. No roads where I'm forced to run in the frighteningly narrow gap between the crash barrier and the Canarian car drivers whose haughty disdain for the speed limit would gladden the heart of many a former Top Gear presenter. Or roads where the pedestrian space is effectively a dirt track sporadically riddled with rocks the size of small meteorites. So if my 15-mile long run was about a minute-a-mile slower than it ought to have been (and sadly, it was), I'm blaming the conditions.

Also not Palmers Green

I arrived home from the Canaries to find an email from the charity I'm running for, the MND Association. They contact me every Friday with helpful tips and advice, and rather less helpful recommendations of how far I should have got with my training by this stage. It's very kind of them, though I could probably do without them entitling their emails with the  foreboding "X WEEKS TO GO!" (where x < any number which would represent the lowest amount of weeks in which I might feel ready to run a marathon). Chaps, I know it's only six weeks to go. Reminding me isn't helping.

I'm also getting handy tips from the lovely people at Virgin Money (the backers of the London Marathon), one of which actually made me laugh out loud. This is one of their top ten motivational tips. 

Don't take the "all or nothing" approach, they advise.If you’re short on time, they say, (err, yup) or really not feeling up to a long session (it's like they're reading my mind), just go for a shorter run for however long you feel you can spare (I'm extremely cool with this so far). And then they quote "legendary running author Dr George Sheehan" (nope, never heard of him either, but apparently he was huge in the recreational running world in his day) to ask the apparently rhetorical question “Have you ever felt worse after a run?”

Hahahahahaha. Umm. Guys? Not sure how to break this to you. But yes. Frequently. Usually in a region running anywhere north of my ankles and south of my hips, with particular poignancy in areas such as my lower calves, upper right hamstring and the whole of my groin. 

Don't get me wrong, running has its moments. But right after a gruelling training session when you've expended every last ounce of stamina and effort you have, and your legs are moving with all the gymnastic joie de vivre of an arthritic sloth, is not one of them.

On that note, it's time for my 16-mile long run of the week. I can literally hear the "FIVE WEEKS TO GO" email being prepared, ready to flutter into my inbox on Friday. Can't wait.

My Hero

So I wanted to tell you a bit more about why I'm running the London Marathon, and what (or rather who) I'm running it for. He's a man named Eric Rivers, one of the bravest men I've ever known, who died just over three years ago of the crippling, cruel condition Motor Neurone Disease - a man I'm proud and privileged to have called a friend.

Eric was one of those people who made everyone around him smile and feel better about themselves. A keen and excellent cricketer, he loved nothing more than sport, his friends and - above all - his wife and daughters whom he adored. He was a man who loved life. And then MND came along and took away all of that.
Some of you may remember Eric - he became well-known nationally when he and his family were featured on Nick Knowles' DIY SOS programme. The episode in which Knowles' team rebuilt the Rivers' Enfield home is emotionally wrought even by DIY SOS's standards. But what really came across in the broadcast was Eric's shining intelligence, his quiet courage in the face of adversity, his devotion to his family and above all, his utter humanity. If you can find it on iPlayer, I'd urge you to watch it.
Eric took the fight to the disease which was destroying his body, delaying its progress far longer than the doctors had predicted was possible. By the end, MND had taken everything it could - his mobility, his speech, even his ability to breathe properly. But it could never take his mind or his spirit - he was able to keep communicating via eye movements and a special computer, and even managed to maintain an active social media presence! The wisdom and courage of his writing in his last months will always stay with me.
Eric, and fighting MND, is pretty much the reason I started running in charity events. When I did my first half-marathon for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, Eric and his family were in the crowd, part of the charity's "cheer squad" spurring on their runners at the Royal Parks course. Sometimes when I'm training, and I feel like I'm at my last gasp and I can't go on, I think of Eric and how he'd have coped. And then the rest is easy. Well, easier anyway.
So if you can, please do help me fight back against MND on Eric's behalf. I'll be running the marathon for the MNDA - a fine organisation that finances medical research to combat this incurable monster of a disease, and supports the people and families torn apart by it.  
You can donate via Justgiving by clicking on this link . I'd really like to raise at least £1000 in Eric's memory - that's enough to fund a specialist communication app for eight MND sufferers for a whole year, or pay for a month's worth of laboratory equipment for research into a cure. That's real differences being made to people's lives.
Thanks for reading this far, and putting up me with getting all serious on you. Next time - more mildly amusing stories about the calamities of marathon training. I promise 

PS. You can find out more about MND and the MNDA here mndassociation.org