The Clock Lies...

(The story of this marathon begins here)


Breif version: Fantastic night, really bad arch pain, too many hills, much needed hot chocolate. Clock lies, real finish time 07:11am. Huge thank yous!

If you have the time, feel free to read the long version....

As we'd been put in a slower start group we spent the first several miles at an awkward pace having to continually nip through gaps and overtake people. We soon found our stride though and began to enjoy it. The rain had stopped before we started and the cloud cover provided some warmth and light to the evening so the early hours when there was the possibility of it being very cold and very dark were actually pleasant. The usual drunks were out in the centre of town, getting in the way but cheering people on. However, it felt like there were less people out than previous years but I guess the weather earlier on might have put them off. To keep ourselves happy we decided to cheer on the people cheering us on from houses and roadsides along the route, thanking policemen, volunteers and spectators.

After last time's terrible problems with letting myself get dehydrated I decided that I would make myself have some water at every mile marker. That way, even if I forgot to drink the rest of the time, I was getting some hydration. I was even good and picked up two bottles of water at various points to make myself drink them.

They put all the big hills at the start of the route. Just a mile in, we reached the first one and from there on in my arch complained, every step felt like I was walking on razor blades. It was worst on the hills but still niggled away on the flat. We decided that we weren't doing a marathon, we were just walking to the pub so we picked pubs along the route as our goals rather than thinking about how many miles we'd done. Arthur's seat seemed easier than other years, I don't know if this was due to the extra light from cloud cover or just that I'd done it so many times during training walks. Our friend was a volunteer team leader on the night so we made him smile (or hugely embarrassed him, I'm not sure which) as we passed his section.

At the 10 mile marker we stopped for a toilet break which gave us a good chance to refuel with something to eat, stretch out our legs and reply to the texts of encouragement we'd been receiving. At 10.5 miles we lost the half mooners as they turned to head back to the finish line. In previous years, this has been a real down moment, they will all soon be home yet we still have hours to go. This time it really didn't bother me, I had no desire to be on my way home.

I was so thankful that we'd done the big seafront section of the route for our training walk. It reminded us that we could do it and also gave us things to chat about and have a giggle about to keep us going. By this point it was getting hard. In the middle of the day, walking 13 miles really isn't that difficult but no matter how much training you do and how nocturnal you become, nothing will prepare your body for walking in the darkness, when it thinks it should be sleeping! We had some motivation to keep going though, at mile 15 our friends N & J were waiting for us with hot chocolate and pain killers so we powered on. As we neared, there were thoughts of whether stopping would make things worse but one sip of that sugary sweet hot chocolate and we knew we'd made the right decision. We were energised and ready to go again.

From mile 13 onwards we had been counting down the miles until the end, that way, instead of having done 16 miles, we were only ten miles from the finish! It kept us motivated and made the walk seem far more doable.

Between miles 17 and 18 I was really struggling, my arch was unbearable, I was tired and finding it really hard to hold things together. I had a little cry and put my headphones in to distract me from my feet and within a mile I'd pulled myself together and was positive again. I honestly believe that to finish a marathon you need to really believe in the cause that you're doing it for. I would happily have given up at that point if making it across the finish line didn't mean so much to me.

As we hit Portobello promenade the sun was rising over the sea and it looked really beautiful. A bit of positive thinking spurred us on, having hit the wall earlier made for a far easier stretch along this route than the previous two years and getting to turn back to town just after the baths was a happy moment when our training walk had taken us all the way to the end of the promenade.

The final miles were tough but other than the pain in my arches, I felt nowhere near as bad as I had the previous years. That was until they made us go up Abbeyhill at 23 miles. My foot was on fire, but I gritted my teeth and powered on up with "we're just going to the Regent" in my mind. I know Edinburgh is full of hills but that was cruel and unusual punishment. I wonder if the person who planned the route has ever been to Edinburgh.

The final miles seemed to take forever but at the same time, passed in an instant. As we walked along by the Botanical Gardens we started to see people who had finished. I've done two marathons before yet had completely forgotten that at the end of it I'd get a medal!

For the first time we knew that we were going to have friends waiting at the finish line for us so as we entered the park and passed the 26 mile marker we were on the look-out for them. There was a moment's pause so I could grab my blip, a glance at the clock and then confusion as to how we'd lost half an hour of time in the last mile.

We stumbled across the finish line, hand in hand, tired, sore and emotional but so, so proud of what we had achieved. Turning round we saw the real time and realised that the clock on the finish line was half an hour fast and we'd actually finished at 7:11am! We'd made fantastic time! After gathering our bags we headed in to the park to meet friends. A sit on our space blankets and a sip of chai later and things seemed so much better. There was pain but there was also so much happiness.

We were given lifts up to town where we went for tea at Costas until the Chocolate Tree opened. More friends joined us in the chocolate tree and we ate ice cream, drank tea and generally revelled in how awesome we were! It was then off home to bathe and sleep and generally recover before heading out for drinks in the pub as we'd been walking through KH's birthday.

A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me in this, through donations (I've now raised £470), well wishes, joining me on walks, meeting me at the end or driving me places. I truly could not have done this without you all!