It seemed to take an eternity to finish the last mile. I finally stumbled over the line in a time of 3hrs 36mins 41s. After being handed my medal I made my way to meet Helen, Kev & Louise .The walk to the post race reception held by Breast Cancer Care seemed to take forever. Once there a refreshing cup of tea & a much needed massage awaited us.

This is my story to the "Road to Hell".

I sit here the day after writing and reflecting on the previous day’s event. Mentally I feel a sense of pride and achievement; physically my legs are sore, getting out of the chair takes real effort and going downstairs just hurts. Then there is that ‘washed out’ feeling you get after a really big race…but of course it was all worth it.

I guess I never quite felt I could call myself a runner until I had done the ‘big one’. If you speak to non-runners and say you can run a sub 40 minute 10km or your race pace is sub 6 minute miles it means nothing to them. Tell them you did the 3 Peaks Challenge (run up the highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales one after another) and they look at you blank. They then ask "have you done a marathon?" to which you reply "Errr, not yet.".

Well, as I am not getting any younger I thought it was about time I tackled the 26.2 miles. While training in 2009 with Gordon he mentioned that he too was looking to do it. I suggested we might try and do it together and I think this was one of the best things we could have done; it gave me somebody to put the long miles in with, who was of similar ability and equally committed to the event. I owe him a big thank you.

I asked Caroline if I have the club entry for the 2010 London Marathon if no-one else wanted it. She kindly put me to the top of the list or may be nobody else was mad enough to want it.

Running in 2009 was a mixture of highs and lows for me. At the start of the year I was seeing good improvements with a PB in the half marathon and a better than expected finish in the Moffat Gala run held in July, but this last achievement came at a price. A pulled hamstring - an injury which I could not shake off, then Louise had an accident which left her with a broken back. All running went on hold and I was lucky to get out once a week. The upside was this gave the hamstring a chance to get a bit of enforced rest. Just before Louise’s accident she did her first race, a 10km trail race in aid of mesothelioma research. (she lost her father to Mesothelioma in June last year.) She asked if I would run for the same charity. I told her I would but I didn’t feel it would be fair for me to run just 10km for the sponsorship money, so I suggested I would do a marathon for people’s hard earned cash: no turning back now.

Louise got out of hospital just in time for Christmas 2009 after 8 weeks in the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. The start of the New Year was my call to getting back into training. For once in my life I decided to try and do things properly. I was acutely aware that I needed to get though this without major injury, so I tried to warm up and cool down after runs, also to stretch. In addition I brought a roller to massage the legs after big runs. I followed a training regime from one of my running books and increased the mileage by a maximum of 10% a week. The training plan I picked was a routine that said it would get you round in a sub 3 ½ hours; my first envisioned target time. I kept a training log to monitor accurately what I was doing.

At the start of the year the weather was not conducive to good training but I tried to make the best of it. Wrapping up in warm clothing and putting on my fell shoes allowed me to run on the snow-covered lanes around Wamphray. I started running my little 5 mile course in the snow and ice 3 times a week at first. I was very slow to start with. I had put on 12lbs in weight due to a combination of reasons:- being ‘home alone’ since October, a few too many trips to the Moffat Toffee Shop for their ‘to die for’ white chocolate Champaign truffles, the holiday excess, and lack of training.

The first few club races showed how far I had slipped and I found myself being left behind by a lot of you, while 6 months before the positions would have been reversed. I didn’t mind too much; I knew my fitness would return in time and I hoped you enjoyed leaving me behind for a change and it spurred you on to run better.

As the weeks slipped by things were going well and I had built my weekly mileage up to 37 miles, then a set back!! In the last week of February I pulled my hamstring again on one of Joe’s training nights in Lockerbie (didn’t you just know he had to be involved! He must have hidden the Voodoo doll behind a tree and got it out while my back was turned. Ha Ha).

The pull was at the beginning of the week. I was doing my long runs at weekends, so I decided to stop running for the rest of the week and sacrifice all other runs that week to give me a chance of keeping the long and most important run (in my opinion) in the training plan. The training regime I was using recommended a quiet/rest week once every 6 so I would use this as my quite week. I did my Sunday long run that week with my leg well strapped up and with an amount of trepidation. Still, I did the 17 miles without major mishap. I started my mileage back at 30 miles for that week and started to add 10% a week again rather than just go straight back in at the mileage before I got injured.

I pushed the mileage back up to 49 miles a week before running into more injury trouble. I was getting pain from my IT band next to my left knee and pain in my right shin. It came to a head on 24^th of March when, on an 11 mile mid week run on my own, I was in so much pain I found myself walking the last 2 miles home. Off-road the injuries didn’t cause many problems but on the tarmac, once I got to 8 miles, things started to hurt. I knew I was only a week and a half from my 3-week taper down to the event. I decided to keep on running with as much off-road in as I could and then hope that once I started to drop the mileage things would improve. It was a gamble but luckily I got away with it. A new PB at the Hightae 10km club race with just 2 and half weeks to go and I was feeling good. My taper down was 75% of my maximum mileage 3 weeks before the event, 50% 2 weeks before, then on the Sunday one week before I did a half marathon training run at my full marathon race pace. From that point I did as little as possible up to race day. My average weekly mileage worked out at around 35 miles. I hadn’t been able to stick 100% to my laid down training regime, but my training wasn’t far from it. I was a couple of pounds heavier than my best racing weight but I was nearly there.

On the Thursday before the race I started carb’ loading the same night Louise and I made our way to London on the sleeper train. We met Gordon and Helen at the hotel on Friday at dinner time and then made our way to register for the race at the Excel centre that afternoon.

Once we had received our race numbers and ‘kit bag’ we walked around the hall which was full of stalls selling everything you could ever want (and a lot that you wouldn’t want) for running. Some of the prices were good as well and it took a bit of determination to walk out of there with only one extra running tee-shirt. On the stage Paula Radcliff was being interviewed and Liz Yelling and her husband gave advice on running the marathon.

The Saturday was spent doing trial runs from the hotel to the race start and all the viewing points the girls were going to visit to see us running from on the big day. While finding the best way around the tube this it gave us a chance to take in a few of the London sights.

That night we had a evening meal of pasta and, following Andrew’s advice, we had 8 pints of Guinness as part of our carb’ loading…. No, no not really, we stuck to diet coke. Then it was early to bed.

The hotel restaurant opened for breakfast at 7 am. We were the first in and it was a good job as the big pot of porridge was nearly empty. Gordon and I had enough but some of the other runners that were not up quite as early were heard to utter "who has eaten all my porridge?" Oops!!! Didn’t the owners know there was a marathon on?

We walked to the railway station then and were packed into a train like sardines for the short journey to near the start line. Travel on the London underground and rail services was free for us marathon runners on the day of the race - all you needed to do was flash your race number.

As we walked from the railway station to the start it began to rain. This could be good, it had turned out not to be as hot as was first predicted but was still the hottest day I have run on this year. At the start enclosure you had to put all the clothes you wanted for immediately after the race, your recovery drinks and food, etc into the kit bag which the organisers supplied with your race number on. This was then put on a lorry and taken to the finish for you to collect once you made it there.

The only downside was we were wrongly told over the tannoy system that we only had 15 minutes to get our stuff in our bags and onto the Lorries. This wouldn’t have been too bad except it was raining heavily so my waterproof jacket had to go into the bag, leaving me to get wet. It was at this point that Gordon and I got separated in the crowd and we didn’t see each other again until after the finish.

After trying to find Gordon for a while without luck, I made my way down to my allocated start zone. We were in pen 4. When I got there I looked at the runners around me and started to have doubts. Looking at some of them I realised that these people did not look like sub 31/2 hour runners. I noticed that their race numbers indicated they should have been in zone 5 or even 6 and even the ones that did have the right zone number on may have, to put it politely, been a little optimistic with their predicted race time. There was only one thing to do - push towards the start line. Unfortunately, as is nature, everybody else, even those running in fancy dress as an RAF helicopter, want to be as near as the front as possible as well. Up to this point it had been raining but as the start horn went it stopped… oh well.

We shuffled towards the start. Once there it was possible to start a slow jog. For the first, I would guess, 5 or 6 miles, there followed a constant looking for gaps or, in desperation, making a gap with the shout of "excuse me" or "coming through". On the course there is a painted, dotted red line. If you follow this you will do exactly 26.2; start to divert away from it and your mileage will be more. The slower runners were, of course, glued to this line while those of us behind them were left to zigzag from one side of the road to another as you looked for gaps to push though. Most gaps were to be found on the outside of the bends and on the pavements leading you to be jumping up and down the kerbs. I guess in a shorter race this would have made little difference. At this point I picked up with a runner from Kilmarnock who, like me, was pushing though the crowd and after that, a guy from New Zealand. We had a chat and he came from the area I was in last time I was over there. By the time I reached the half way point I was on for my sub 3:15 finish with a few minutes to spare.

As I ran the course there were a few memories that stick out: The crowds were cheering you on for the total length of the course. I didn’t expect to have spectators all the way round with the kids ‘high 5ing’ as you ran past. Running over Tower Bridge, as you reach this point, the buildings are close and the noise from the crowd seems to bounce off them. You then round the corner and are on to the bridge. The steel band was playing so loud it was almost deafening and there were dancers on the side of the road. Through all this we ran the miles down. I guess at around 15 miles I started to slow - I was now missing my mile split times which I had on a band around my wrist. At each mile marker, when it was brought home that my place was slipping, I tried to get the old legs turning over a bit quicker but after a few hundred yards they fell back to their slower pace. At around 19.5 miles we ran past a pub with the drinkers cheering us on with pints in their hands and big speakers blasting out the Chris Rea song ‘This is the road to Hell’!!! I laugh out loud, "how appropriate" I thought. I kept pushing on as hard as I could; the hamstrings on both legs felt tight and heavy. I was conscious that I was getting passed now by people that had a bit more left and it was my turn to stick as close to that little red line as I could. One thing gave me a little heart, people were increasingly pulling up and walking to the side of the course. How many of these ‘threw in the towel’ there and then I don’t know. I guess a lot surely must have finished even though they seemed to be holding hamstrings and calves etc.

A strange thing happen at around 21/22 miles. We entered a subway and all of a sudden, in front of me, lots of people were pulling up and leaning against the wall right and left of the course red line. In my now befuddled mind I though "What is going on?" Then I realised - there were no crowds here. These people had been running on pride and now there was nobody watching they pulled up. I was determined this was not going to be me. I was going to run all the way; no walking. I might not do my target time but even if nobody could see me I wasn’t going to walk. When I came on to the embankment the crowds were now massive. It must have been around the 24 mile mark. I tried to get the legs turning over a bit quicker but they didn’t seem to want to know. I felt I was struggling now and thought Gordon might pass me any minute but, unknown to me, he was having his own battle. I hadn’t seen Louise or Helen as I had ran round, had they abandoned us and just gone to the pub? Of cause they hadn’t I had just not seen them in the crowd. I made it into the last mile. There were now markers at every 400 metres and even more crowds in the last run in. Now the legs started to respond a bit. I picked up the pace and started to pull one or two places back. Round the last corner and the finish was in sight. I pushed though to the finish over the line in 3:20:21. My legs wobbled and felt like jelly. I picked up my kit bag from the lorry and, as I did so, I noted a couple of unfortunates being taken away on stretchers. I slowly made my way to the meeting point. What a daft idea to have made it at the top of a flight of stairs!(OK it was mine doh) As I tried to hobble up Louise ran down to meet me. I must have looked a bit of a state. We then waited for Gordon. It was a sense of relief when he came safely into view.

My view of the event was, apart from keeping people in the right pen at the start, that it was very well organised. On the course, there were plenty of sports drinks, gels and almost limitless bottles of water and then there were showers to run though that, with a sharp intake of breath from the cold water, helped to keep you cool for a short while. The crowds…….oh, the crowds were great. I would say if you are a runner, do the London, if only once, because for most of us it will be the only time you will run in that atmosphere.

I finished 2967^th out of 37,527 starters 51,000 entry forms went out but I guess over 13,000 did make the start line. I was just inside the first 8% of runners to finish, that don’t sound too bad even if I failed to do my target time, but the most important statistic of all is that once all the money is in I should have raised £500 to £600 for Bart’s Mesothelioma research.

I must thank Louise for putting up with my running for 5 days a week and her help with massaging my sore legs and pulled muscles. Thanks also to Gordon for being a great training partner, and to all the rest of you for your advice and encouragement.

I have learnt a few things from this and know how to train better form the next one, if there is a next one!!!!!