Marathon 3: Marathon of the North

Writing up the rest of these marathons is going to be rather difficult as they were quite a long time ago!!! However I will do my best.

The marathon of the North was what you could call my comeback marathon, having had to skip both Brighton and Manchester with a bad knee injury that I developed in the CTS Sussex marathon (which I only managed half of). The day in itself was a roaring success and I remember that I had loved every minute, but that’s not to say it wasn’t tough!

Sitting out with an injury can be a big knock for your confidence when it comes to running, always wanting to jump back in and carry on with where you left off but never wanting to push too hard and aggravate the injury you’ve just recovered from…so what do you do having not run more than 6-8 miles in 8 weeks….of course you blow all the rules out of the water and go and run 26.2 miles.

The atmosphere of the day was amazing and one of the reasons why I love running, everyone coming together with one thing in mind, complete 26.2 miles and get the medal! All the training (or not in my case), is a common denominator of big events and is quite magical, people from all different walks of life, different careers, different life challenges, different shoe preferences, running clothes, friendship groups, all coming together having gone through a few months of training, pushing themselves through similar physical and mental barriers, leading to that one day…four or five hours of running.

The marathon of the north had beautiful weather – possibly a bit too beautiful, with some lovely sunburn to show for my 5 hours in the baking weather, battling with one of the hardest things whilst running … hydration!!! Always one for battling through, and the support of my two fellow runners, one being the absolute trooper Andy Lee helping to get me round my comeback marathon.

It was never going to be about speed, the main aim was to complete the distance and complete it I did, however there was always one goal in mind….to not let the man with the giant cross on his back beat us…

(Always time to pose for a photo)

Crossing the line was…painful and I have to say the shuffle to the metro was fun, blisters galore and the threat of cramp being there with any sudden movement, but the sense of achievement that despite almost 2 months of no running I had still completed a marathon, you couldn’t top it. 

(We did it!!!)

The highlight of the day….having a lovely chat with some old Geordie’s on the metro post match, one of which told me he could have walked the Marathon faster than I ran it…cheeky sod!!!