The One Legged Marathon Race

Today is the day. The Manchester Marathon. We had looked at staying over in Manchester but as we’re taking the boys with us the logistics were difficult, so it’s a stupid o’clock start instead as we drive over.

We have pre-booked parking in Manchester United’s official car park which you would think would make things easier and probably does, once we’d found it. A lot of the roads were closed, as you would expect, but more with roadworks than the race I think and the signage was confusing. There was lots of signs for car parks without telling you which one was which but we got there in the end after several U-turns.

From there we can walk to the Race Village which is at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground and then on to the start. Just as I’m warning up Daughter joins us, so now my full support crew has been assembled and I head to my start pen.

Normally in a half marathon I would get a start pen pretty close to the front of the field but here I am over halfway back in start 5 (I think). Clearly this is now serious. Each start is set off five minutes apart, consequently it takes me nearly 20 minutes to get to the start line.

When I do get there we are held on the line for a few minutes and I’m on the front row, like an elite! It also meant I have a completely open road in front of me which I squander by heading over to high five the dogs and of course L and Daughter.

I have been training for this for months and the aim is not only to beat my only previous marathon time of 4:02:27 at Birmingham in 2017 where in blew up in the last few miles but to go under four hours. My schedule is to run 3:55.

Manchester not only has a 4:00 pacer but a 3:59 and 3:58 pacer to split up what is a popular target time. So I start with the 3:58, planning to start at that pace and then edge it faster after the first 10k. The thing is I struggle to stay with her, she’s too slow! Four hour pace is 9:09 and I run 8:50 for the first two miles and I’m getting a crick in my neck looking backwards to see where she is.

The route starts with a mini loop around Trafford which then takes you back close to the start where I get chance to see my awesome support team again about three miles in. I had hoped they might then be able to get the tram further down the course but, as everyone else had the same idea, sadly that didn’t happen. Meanwhile I head off through Timperley and towards Sale.

As I knew I probably wouldn’t see them again and hadn’t left any gels with L as I did last time, I had instead loaded up my triathlon number belt with them. I hadn't tried this in training and this is probably why it was an unmitigated failure. The High 5 gels I use are too narrow to fit snugly in the slots in the belt and I soon lost several of them. That’s one lesson to learn for next time.

Unfortunately not long after I’d passed my support crew I felt my calf start to tighten. This is an old problem of mine that I haven’t suffered with throughout all my months of training and now it has come back to haunt me on race day. In truth, I had had the odd twinge in the last week but I’d shrugged it off. I stop and stretch; it eases a bit but not much. The too slow 3:58 pacer passes me and I'm sure she was laughing as she did so. 

I hobble off in pursuit but soon stop again and do more stretches, then I sit down remove the calf support off my good leg and put it on top of the one already on my the bad one. I theory offering twice the support. The 3:59 pacer passes me.

Mile 5 takes me all of 10:36 and I consider giving up. Can I run another 21 miles with only working leg? Probably...

So I tough it out. I manage to keep off my toes and heel strike every step of the way to minimise calf movement. I settle into full on fast hobble mode aka a pace of about 09:25. The 4:00 pacer passes me.

Oh well, at least I can admire the view. Erm, perhaps not. The course takes us through a lot of residential areas and it isn’t one for the sightseer. They rather cheekily announced before today that next year’s route will include the city centre and more of the city’s landmarks. Just to rub it in. However, the crowds are large, vocal and brandishing gifts of jelly babies and the like

A large proportion of the course, about 4 miles worth, takes place in Altrincham which is actually quite nice. I go through halfway in 02:02:40 which isn’t that bad but obviously I’m not going to break four hours.

Then we leave Altrincham and head back to Sale with only ten miles to go. Only 10 miles... hobble hobble.

They say the first half of a marathon is about patience and the second half is about determination. In my case the first half was about preservation but now the determination kicks in and you know what? I do it. 

Obviously 4:06:48 wasn’t what I was looking for but it’s quite an impressive time for someone with one leg. 9:28 per mile. I was 6,728^th out of 13,654 finishers.

The race medal is ok and the t-shirt very nice, black and wearable. I now have two marathons under my belt, I just hope my calf will allow me a third.

A Nottingham one would be nice. Manchester reckon this year’s race boosted their local economy by about £6.8M, attracting thousands of visitors, 75% of whom were from outside the north-west of England. Next year, with the race taking in the city centre as well, they expect it to provide an even bigger economic boost. Nottingham get on it.

Sadly, we don’t help boost Manchester’s economy in the evening as we have to head home and we go out in Nottingham instead. We have some decent beer but our second time in the Marrakesh Moroccan restaurant is a disappointment.

(Sunday 7^th April)

Plastered

We start the week by getting plastered. I just hope the chap doing it is better at getting plaster on the walls than he is getting his van on our drive. At least he tells me he is happy with L's stripping as he gets down to work. We leave Daughter plasterer sitting or rather trying to prevent the dogs getting plastered.

Monday night’s dog training is declared a puppy session and two people we haven’t seen for ages promptly turn up with their new dogs. So it’s puppy mayhem and the Lad thinks he’s in heaven e.g. I can’t get him to concentrate on anything.

On Tuesday Derby are away at Manchester United in the League Cup. I pay for a day’s worth of Sky Sports (oh the shame), so that I can watch. I advise L that she may wish to be out for the duration but I think even she is looking through her fingers as Derby win on penalties.

Wednesday it’s dogging and a pint with L in the Nags Head after she’s visited her parents.

I manage to bike Wednesday and Thursday but tennis is off as my opponent is away. So L is the only one on court this week. While watching her session, I can see why we struggle to get an indoor court on a evening. Of the eight courts, three are taken up by lessons and a fourth with a cardio tennis class.

L plays again at 4pm on Friday. Does even Serena train this often? On Friday we also do our 6am run.

Then in the evening we’re off out on the razz. It’s one of our neighbours 75th birthday party at the Beechdale pub. Not a place we’d normally frequent but it’s nice to live life on the edge occasionally.

L picks him up a Party 7 as a birthday present or at least the modern equivalent. In this case, Adnams Ghost Ship. We should have took it with us as at the party there’s a buffet but no beer. Amazingly, despite advertising three ales, the pub has run out of cask beer on a Friday night. I resort to bottles and we watch our neighbour drinking lager all night but he says he’ll cope with his Party 7.

I then spend Saturday morning arguing with my optician about the un-recyclability of his contact lenses solutions. He supplies us at least 100% more than we need, in bottles that cannot be emptied without stabbing with a large knife and are made of plastic that cannot be recycled. He is as immovable as am I.

(Saturday 29^th September)

Office Companions

I’m the car today, which L thinks is because I can't walk due to my allegedly broken ankle. She does have a point. I don’t think walking for the bus is helping my ankle, mainly because I’m always rushing at both ends.

However the main reason I'mon the bus is in case I was going to book the vets for MD, as he still has diarrhoea and seems a bit off colour. He is eating but only chicken, sausage, rice and Doggo’s posh food but not his own dog food. 

I read somewhere that if a dog is ill then they might develop a phobia about their current dog food, thinking that is what may have caused it. So we might have to switch him to something else to see if that works. In the end, we don’t take him to the vets.

Both L and I seem to have the same problem with our office companions. Her seventy-something one is often snoring away before 10 o'clock in the morning while the twenty-something in my office is usually doing the same. Today he went outside to his car for a smoke and fell asleep while he was there. I think there might also be a potential fire risk there.

Derby have rather unfairly had their FA Cup 3rd Round tie with Manchester United shifted to tonight because they are Manchester United and that is what they wanted. It’s not even on TV. After a 13 year run of 58 consecutive televised FA Cup matches this one hasn’t been chosen. 

The reason for the shift? They were supposed to have the League Cup Semi Final on Tuesday... only now they haven’t because Bristol City knocked them out in the Quarter Finals. Oh how we laughed, not that it helped us as it was too late to shift the game back. Derby give a good account of themselves but lose to two late goals.

 (Friday 5^th January)

The Blue Peter Garden

Firstly I apologise to MD. I had booked him into a dog show today but instead he, along with Doggo, is being dumped in a multi-story car park in Salford. They are at least incarcerated in what they call MediaCityUK where both the BBC and ITV have studios as his errant owners prepare to run the Salford 10k.

It’s not all bad for them though. Both dogs get to wee in the Blue Peter garden while I meet Pudsey Bear and L gets to stand outside the Rover Return. Daughter comes along to support and even seems to enjoy herself.

It's fairly well organised but there was a distinct lack of useful stalls in the race village e.g. nothing athletically minded so there was nowhere to get an energy bar from. I had to have chocolate instead! It was also a right scrum getting into the start pens but I managed to cram myself in somewhere near the front eventually.

The route takes us past the Lowry, the Imperial War Museum, Old Trafford football ground and Salford Quays from where we have done the Great Swim. I only notice some of these places because obviously I am too focused on my race.

It’s a fairly flat traffic free course but it’s also quite twisty and rather dull. I particularly objected to spending a whole km running around Manchester United’s car park. Mile marking could also have been better but overall it's a decent training run with an ok t-shirt and the usual cheap medal. I’m a bit disappointed with my time being a minute down on the Castle Rock 10k and into the 46s but the main thing is that I’m still not injured.

We head back to Daughter’s for brunch, a bit of a Three Quarters English then we leave her in peace and head home via Salford Tip where we dump a huge TV that someone gave her even though she didn’t want one. It’s so big it has to go in the boot which means we have to displace Doggo into the car where he sits regally on the backseat. He simply can’t believe his good fortune. In fact, he is so uncharacteristically well behaved and statuesque that we leave him there. Of course he daren’t move a muscle in case we stop and put him back in the boot.

In the evening we go for drinks in Stapleford then home for a Park curry.

(Sunday 4^th September)

Equipment Twiddling

I’m on the bus for only a half day at work. I leave at lunch time before heading over to Newark to set up for our dog show tomorrow. L comes along to help bang in a few stakes and set up a few hurdles.

It takes us a couple of hours and then I hang around for another hour as the guy who is looking after the computerisation of the show twiddles his equipment.

When we finally leave for home it’s 8pm and the ‘big’ match has already kicked off. I have had to forgo the FA Cup 4^th Round match between Derby and Manchester United. In a way that is good as I didn’t have to grapple with my conscience about the £35 ticket price.

After catching the first half on the radio we are home to watch the second on BBC 1. Derby lose 3-1.

(Friday 29^th January)