The London Marathon That Didn’t Happen
Covid-19 hit, and my dream of running the marathon was over - well, I wouldn’t call it a dream - but you get it
So long story short, Covid-19 happened - the year I was due to run the London Marathon, in 2020. Pretty much everything got cancelled actually from March 2020 to December 2020.
The story starts - and finishes in record time.
Now, I heard that I won a ballot place in October 2019, way before anything had surfaced about Covid-19.
I got the email whilst I was in the office, at my first job. My colleague sat opposite me wondering why I was grinning, when I told him I got in, he said ‘do you even run’ - I looked back and said ‘no, but I better start’
Which I did.
I wasn’t a couch to 5km kinda individual - I had run before and if you’ve read any of my other posts, you know I play sports a lot. The actual aspects which were challenging to me were:
a) Finding the time to run that far - like bruh a marathon is long
b) Knowing how my body would react to such long distances - shin splints, cramps, muscle fatigue
c) Making sure my my training plan was on point - mixing sports and running long distances seemed draining
So most of this I googled or spoke to friends who had done marathons before - but realistically I wanted to find out what worked for me.
I started with a couple of 5km runs - probably doing 30 minutes plus each time. Man is a sprinter not a marathon runner.
I did that maybe twice a week.
One Sunday I decided to up the distance and went from 5km to 16km (10 miles) - this was a cold November day, I believe I did it in 1 hour 50 minutes.
When doing the maths - that would mean it would take me roughly 5 hours plus to complete the Marathon.
You know what, after that initial run, I was thinking just get me over that finish line.
I took a weeks break whilst my muscles and bones begged me for rest - and then did a shorter run, wherein I gave in after 4km due to shin splints.
Then embarrassingly walked home - hobbling. I realised running long distances was definitely not for the faint-hearted and required some high levels of determination to get you through.
Then everything changed…
It was around March 2020 and Covid-19 was widespread.
Whilst driving I heard on the radio that the London Marathon was cancelled. Which was expected and honestly I was relieved. No way was I crossing that line unless someone drove me to the end.
Later on that year, an email was sent confirming the new date of October 4th.
Had I done any prep - nope.
However, again they had to cancel as the UK gov introduced this concept of isolating in bubbles and no one could leave their house or something. 2020 was a wild one, even writing this today makes me think back at how crazy a year it was.
They eventually kept a date of October 2021 - a full year and a half after I was due to run.
Which meant nothing to me, because by which point I had given up.
I did try and reschedule it for the following year (2022) as I had done no training at all. However in doing so, I had to squander my place and re-apply - those were the rules.
So whilst writing this 5 years after initially aiming to do the London marathon, I am no closer doing it.
Yet, I did join a run-club in London and maybe, just maybe that will provide me some motivation to put myself forward for it in the near-term.
