A marathon event is very different when you arrange yourself and run it as well. Normally when you run a marathon, even as frequently as I do, you seem to spend quite a bit of time the night before the race preparing and then again on the morning. When it is your own event your thoughts are consumed with sorting out everyone else, both the helpers and the runners and no time is hardly left to get yourself ready to run, never mind mentally prepare. This is the sixth race I’ve arranged and run, and was no different.
Even though I officially closed entries a week before the race, there were plenty of alterations to do during the last week. Some entrants kindly told me they were unable to run for a variety of reasons, through injury or lack of training etc. There was also the usual handful of runners that contact me to say they hadn’t realised there was a deadline or have only just found out about the event and can they still enter? I do try and accommodate as many as possible to try and give them a chance to experience the event. It also helps create a better atmosphere if you have runners who come to the race as opposed to runners entered but not turning up. So I do keep altering the entry list. The other positive is, it helps me generate even more money for my chosen charity, the Brathay Trust. This does create a lot of last minute extra work for me as I’m trying to allocate numbers to runners and make the timing sheets.
On the morning of the race, time is always very short even when all the preparation has gone to plan. The kitchen and drinks table needs to be set up, the runners turn up and need to be registered and handed their numbers. Time keepers need to be given their last minute instructions, clip broads and stop watches. Only once I know all this is going correctly do I think about getting myself ready.
Every time I organise a race there is always something I forget that I need for my own race preparation, this time it was to have my Garmin ready at the start. So as I’m making a few announcements at the start I’m praying for my Garmin to locate satellites in time for the start. It wasn’t and I had to waffle of a few extra seconds (which seemed to go on forever) before I started the race.
Another of my morning duties is to put the start and finish signs in place. This consists of pushing the sign’s steel stakes into the ground, how difficult could that be? Well it turned out to be very difficult this time. I was struggling to find a spot where they would go into the ground without hitting stones. After several failed attempts, I decided to lean my whole body over the sign in an attempt to drive it into the ground. This was a very bad idea, as soon as I put my weight onto the sign I felt a sudden pain in the left side of my chest. Oh No! That’s something pulled and immediately I know I was going to have a sore chest for some weeks. This is also not good when you are very busy organising a race and going to run a marathon in 1 hour! I think I managed the rest of the organising and to run the race on adrenalin.
I started the race and joined in from the back. I found myself held back by the bottle necked start so ended up chatting to the runners as I went passed them, making my first mile or so very slow. I then soon settled into my rhythm and a reasonable pace. The thick warm weather started to affect me by half way so the light rain during the second half was very welcome. I was relieved the sore chest wasn’t affecting my running too much but knew it would be worse tomorrow. I kept picking off runners throughout the race and finished third in 3 hours 25 minutes and 18 seconds. I was very pleased with my time but more pleased to see my friends and other runners having a good day and relieved the organisation had gone to plan.
