Week 5, race 5: London Marathon

Week 5 of my 40/40 challenge saw me taking part in the 2015 London Marathon! I had a North Herts Road Runners club place for the 2014 marathon but I had to defer it to this year as I broke my ankle and had a baby. I knew that getting round would be tricky so decided to start training in January when Matthew was 3 months old and gradually up my distance of my long runs and the number of times I ran in a week and see how I was looking in April.
It was logistically and physically challenging but I slowly managed to build up to 3 runs a week with my long run reaching around 3 and a half hours long. I did most of my training on my own and some of the shorter runs with Matthew in the pram as well as having to fit around Gary's availability to look after the crazy gang and having to time my departure for long runs around feeding time. I wouldn't say it was ideal marathon training but a couple of weeks ago I decided I had done enough and with the experience of having run before I thought I could probably manage to finish without embarassing myself too much.

Race day itself was a bit cold and damp to begin with but once we were going it was perfect marathon weather as it was dry and cool. I was at the blue start in pen 9 (right at the back) and it took a very long 16 minutes to cross the start line! 5:27:44. I was very pleased with this time, not the worst of my 14 marathons and given I didn't run for 11 months and had to start from scratch with a small baby in January I couldn't really ask for more :-)
The first half went well, I felt good but was trying to be careful not to run too fast and I found myself with the 5:00 pacers and made sure I didn't go any faster than them as I wasn't in sub 5:00 shape atall. I ran the first half in 2:27 and managed to get to around 15 and a half miles before needing to stop and walk. I kept myself going fairly well until the last few miles where it became a bit of a struggle of mind over body and I eventually managed to get over the finish line in