I had always said I would never do a marathon. Half marathons were challenging enough and already demanded too much training time. But then a year ago, I got inspired. I had such an amazing time spectating Dani’s London marathon that I thought to myself, “hmm, maybe I could do this". Fast forward a year and I have, in fact, done this. But holy baby jeebus was it a difficult journey.

Step 1: Getting In

I entered the lottery the same day as Dani was out running the race in 2021. After waiting what seemed like forever (they delayed releasing the results a couple weeks), I found out that I didn’t get in. A bit sad, I shared the news on my twitter account. I got a response from a charity I had never heard of, called WhizzKidz, inviting me to apply. Looking back, this turned out great. They have a very reasonable minimal goal and an amazing mission. I’m incredibly happy I wound up running for Team WhizzKids. If I decide to run London a second time, I will certainly be running for them again.

Step 2: Training

Having had great success training for my last half marathon using the Jeff Galloway plan on my garmin, I decided to also use his plan for a full marathon. He graciously shares a free marathon training plan for the RunDisney participants. I was able to take that plan and add it to my google calendar leading up to the race date.

My training started out pretty well and the Spring weather wasn’t terrible. I got up to about the 15k long run and WOMP. After two years of successfully dodging it, covid finally hit our house. I didn’t get a terrible case, but it was enough to keep me on the couch for more than a week. With this setback, I was already behind and had to start playing catch up with my schedule. Then, a couple weeks later, half way through a particular tough run I took a hard fall. I would up scraping up my knee, hands, arms, shoulder and even my face. Certainly not my finest moment.

I also faced some pretty awful training weather. This summer in the Netherlands was particularly hot and humid. The Sundays when it wasn’t too hot, it was all day rain. This is all to say that my plans did not really go as well as I had hoped. There were so many days where I just wanted to give up. After failing to finish the full distance of my last long run of the training cycle, we went to Disney World for Dani’s 40th birthday celebration. It was 34° (93°F) and 80% humidity every day in Florida, and I wound up skipping my last couple longer tapering runs. However, I did get a lot of time on feet with all the park time.

To really cap things off, I brought home a bit of a head cold back with me, less than a week before the race. Commence freaking out!

Step 3: Fundraising

I had all these grand plans of different ways to do the fundraising. Between work and life, those didn’t work out. Thankfully the fundraising wound up being one of the easier parts of my marathon journey. I owe this completely to the incredible people in my life who generously donated. Together we were able to raise £2141 for WhizzKidz. I will not forget all the support that everyone gave me. You all are absolute heros.

*** THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH TO ALL WHO DONATED AND SUPPORTED ME ***

Step 4: Get to the Start Line

We arrived in London and checking into our hotel in Canary Wharf, before heading out for the race expo at the ExCel London. Dani and I were met there by our friend Tara, a fellow WhizzKid runner. With my race number and finisher jacket secured, we took a spin around the expo floor. It was all a bit surreal and it really started to set in that I was going to be doing this thing. We picking up a few running supplies and found the WhizzKidz booth. The volunteers there were awesome. They had mailed my running vest already, but it was stuck in the post/customs system somewhere. They had a bunch of vests there and I was able to try on some sizes and get one for the race there. We also found my name on the participant in the booth AND the large one on the show floor.

I was thankfully mostly over the cold and feeling pretty good. But somehow on Saturday, getting out of bed, I managed to badly pull a muscle in my left shoulder, or so I thought (more on that later). I spent the day freaking out and in a considerable amount of pain. I did everything I could to manage the pain, hoping that it wouldn’t be as bad the next day. A combination of muscle cream and advil helped me get through the day.

The forecast was warning of a rainy race day which lead us to also a spend considerable time on Saturday afternoon trying to track down a poncho. The plastic disposable ones were nowhere to be found. I guess they are being phased out because they are not good for the environment. After some searching, we found a nice compact poncho used for hiking at an outdoor sports store. For dinner we grabbed some pasta at an italian restaurant. I put myself to bed early, nervous and excited for the next day.

Step 5: Cross the Finish Line

Two amazing things happened on Sunday morning. I woke up with greatly reduced pain in my shoulder, and a much improved forecast. It was fairly easy, short train ride and walk up a steep hill (what the hell?!?), to arrive at my start area (green) where Dani dropped me off.

The start area was actually one of the best I have experienced. There was plenty of room and porta-loos. I dropped off my bag and just took in the atmosphere with some light stretching. When it was time, my wave was first staged, and then walked to the start line. Before I knew it, we were off.

The first 9 miles of the race were absolutely magical. We ran through neighborhoods, where people lined the streets cheering and lots of kids were giving high-fives. The weather was gorgeous. I was following my run walk intervals, and felt absolutely great.

At mile 9, WhizzKidz had their first cheer station. I ran by and gave them high-fives and everything was awesome. Then a few meters more and my right calf suddenly cramped up. Like instant, charlie horse, style cramp. Shit. So I started walking, trying to relax and ease it out. Eventually, it settled down and I started back to my intervals. Unfortunately, the issue would plague me the rest of the race.

I got to see Dani the first time after crossing the London bridge, as she was posted up with the November Project group there. There I was able to replenish my water pack and fuel. I also saw my friend Tara shortly after that, when she caught up with (and passed) me. It was so nice to see her (not just because she gave me some salt packets) and chat for a bit.

The second half of the race is a little bit of a blur. Because I couldn’t run for more than 30-60 seconds at a time without my calf cramping, I had to walk the majority of it. The upside, I spent more time taking in the sights and sounds of course. The downside, it was painful and super difficult, and it took me just over seven house to cross the finish line.

But I did cross the finish line. I crossed it standing up and with a smile on my face. I EARNED that medal they placed around my neck. This obviously wasn’t the race I wanted, but it’s the race I got and I made the best I could of it. I found Dani in the meet up areas after collecting my bag and all the goodies and we set off to shower and celebrate.

Step 6: Celebrate, Recover, and Recalibrate

Yay, I did it! We had a lovely celebratory dinner at Goodman Canary Wharf, which is an absolutely fantastic steak house - the truffle fries, omg. The next day, we trained around London to get some fun medal pictures as well as visit my favourite toy store in the world. And then it was a short flight back home. Feels like it went by in a flash. Will I do this again, that’s a strong maybe… I’d love to try London again when I’m a bit more properly trained and hopefully injury free. So I guess, TBD :)

About that pulled neck muscle

So yeah, as I mentioned before, I thought I had pulled a muscle in my neck. I spent the rest of the week in absolute agony. My neck muscles were inflamed and causing pain all over my shoulder, upper back and down my left arm. Everything ached and I couldn’t get comfortable no matter what I tried. Which made sleep very difficult. I got a physio appointment a week later and he concluded that I likely ruptured a muscle in my neck and that I also had a bruised nerve causing the arm pain. Nothing to be done but try to manage the pain and let it heal. It’s now a month later and thankfully most of the pain is gone. Still working on getting back full range of pain-free motion in my left arm/shoulder. Because of all of this, I’ve missed the first month and a half of my hockey season. I’m hopefully that by mid/end of November I’ll be able to start training on ice again.