Hull Marathon – 24th September 2017.
The third person I joined in their marathon debut was the lovely Jo-Mo. Jo aspired to complete a marathon and as she hails from Hull, and
this year Hull is the City of Culture (C-Hull-ture) this was the natural
choice.
We should have got her to stand in front of the 'E' - MAD IN HULL! |
I have joined Jo on many training runs throughout the summer and we
practiced Jo’s variation on the Run-Walk strategy. This would generally
involve running the first 2 to 3 miles, then going over to timed walk-runs for
about half the run, calling at her house for ablutions and refueling, then
resume the run on a kind of rebel-run walk strategy – basically running flat
and downhill, walking uphill or when tired! The training has, at
times been a real challenge for Jo as she’s had some health problems to deal
with. This makes her achievement even more inspiring. I’ve seen
many ups and downs over the training period, and I’ve seen determination by the
bucket-load. She has had to wrangle and debate with herself at times as
to whether pursuing this goal was foolhardy, but has always returned to the
same conclusion: “fuck it – just do it!” I’ve felt so pleased and proud
every time she’s completed a new run distance and it’s no exaggeration to say
that it’s been an honour to be part of her marathon journey.
Our training runs also used music for distraction, usually play lists
with themes such as places / days months years / names / modes of
transport. Despite Jo’s request, there was never a play list based around
Birds of the British Isles! The impossible we do today, miracles take a
little longer! We’ve been joined on all or parts of our training runs by
running friends – variously Sarah, Mike, Chris, Rachel and others and this has
helped to break things up a lot.
Some of the gang who ran the Hull Marathon / Relay |
As part of her training, Jo signed up to the Humber Bridge Half Marathon
in June. Sarah and I decided to join her, and on the day Rachel and Laura
ran with us too. Throughout our runs, there have often been bits of
quizzes and funny facts all to distract us – Jo had a number of football and
general knowledge questions for us on the Humber Bridge HM, which kept us
amused for a mile or two. But, as you will see, that was nothing compared
to the idea she cooked up for the Hull Marathon.
Did I mention, we did some leaping?
Hull is a full marathon as well as offering a two or four
person relay option. As mentioned in my last post, Rach was signed up to
the full marathon and planned to run with us – just 9 days after completing her
first marathon [yes, I know – she IS mad!]. Sarah and Laura were both
part of (different) 2-person relay teams (with Emma and Fiona respectively) –
both running the second half of the relay. Emma and Fiona were running
for a time, but Sarah and Laura weren’t racing so planned to wait at the
changeover point and join Jo, Rach and I for the remainder of the event, thus
re-forming the Humber Bridge HM Fantastic Five team.
With about two weeks to go before the marathon, Jo announced that she
would like us to have a mastermind style quiz for the second half of the
run. She is SUCH a DIVA! No end to her demands! We picked our
specialist subjects and then she gave us each the name of another team member
and we had to write 10 specialist subject questions and 10 general knowledge
and put them in a sealed envelope to bring on the day! If I didn’t
already know we were going to have some fun, I certainly knew now!
The day before the marathon, we went over to Hull and did a parkrun (as
you do) on the way to collect our numbers. At some point that day, Jo
told us about a section of the course at about 22 miles, which goes through an
athletics park with a track where there would be some timing mats over (I think
it was) 200 metres.
This was for the fast folks to have the chance for a
timed sprint. Jo announced (demands, again!) that we needed to have a
special move for this stretch and after some consideration, we came upon the
idea of cantering across the finish line like horses! Then someone came
up with the idea of coconuts (like Patsy on Monty Python’s Holy
Grail). Jo swears it was me. I grant you, I might have said,
in passing, but without any thought that it would be taken up, “it’s a
pity we can’t have coconuts” – but it was definitely Jo who said, ‘perhaps we
could’ and started to wonder whether Brigg Lidl sold coconuts!
By the time we dropped her off home, the idea had grown and I knew that there
was no way we were going to Hull without coconuts! So, in the spirit of
being a good running buddy, I said, “leave it with us.” One trip to
Morrison’s later and some dedicated work from Chris, and we had 5 coconut
shells, halved and ready to go..... and lots of coconut to eat!
On asking Jo how she was feeling on the morning of the marathon, she
told me how she was framing it in order to avoid feeling overwhelmed: “well,
I’m going for a little tour around Hull with Fran and Rach, stopping for a picnic at about 12 miles, then after that we’re going to meet up with Sarah
and Laura and go to the Humber Bridge. There’ll be a quiz and a bit of
music, then we’ll be horses cantering on that track. And then we get to
go in the KCOM stadium and run right past the tunnel where the players come in. Oh
and there’ll be a bit of running.”
And that was exactly what we did – and more. The tour of Hull took
us around the city centre shopping area, through industrial areas, leaping through
residential areas, where it seemed EVERYONE came out to greet us in their
pyjamas / dressing gowns / string vests / nothing but a nappy (age dependent)
and shout, ‘give us a twirl!’. We naturally obliged – I’ve never
twirled so much – I think Mike would have been proud of us! We did some
leaping too. We loved running the harbour / old port areas and looking at the
new swanky apartments. We did (our impression of) some highland dancing
when we ran past bagpipe players, did some leaping, ran through an area
of the docks not normally open to the public, used the male loos there. The things you hear during a marathon – Jo and I using the loos and Rach
shouting out, “I’m having a full on wash here!” I was dead proud of Rach
– she’s our lovely delicate little flower and there she was in the men’s loos,
in close proximity of the urinals, having a wash! Did I mention, we did
some fantastic leaping?
Just before we joined up with the rest of our gang, Jo saw her brother
and had a hug and we were joined by Jo’s sister-in-law for a part lap of the
park. It was funny. As she’d joined us for a little trot and was
clearly fresh, we (Jo, Rach and I) decided to temporarily abandon the walk-run strategy and just run for that bit. I was tickled to hear Jo’s sister-in-law say
something like, “yes, it’s not far, might as well just run it” .... apparently
oblivious to the fact that we’d already run nearly 13 miles and still had about the
same to do again! You had to be there :-D It was in the park
here that we also saw Rach’s sister, Kate and their mum.
We caught up with some army guys carrying bergens with a really loud
speaker and boom, boom music. We tried to stay behind them for a while
because the view was quite nice, but unfortunately they were walking the whole
way, so we were way too fast for them!
It was a real boost to pick up Sarah and Laura at the halfway point and
we had a further lift to the spirits as we saw Jo’s Chris as well as a
great gang of our running buddies who were part of a relay team and were still
at the changeover point, having done their bit. A hug fest ensued and
that gave us a few minutes rest.
We got into the run-walk rhythm again and headed off for the most
difficult stretch which was a long (perhaps two miles) stretch taking us
towards the bridge. We deployed the blue tooth speaker at this point
and had a bit of music themed around our specialist subjects - Queen, The
Beatles, 80s pop, Disney and the film Matilda .... I’ll leave you to match the
subject with the person! One thing that made this section more bearable was
that it was an out and back section and we could look out for our running
buddies coming in the opposite direction. We saw Mike (J) – on the full
marathon and Chris (A) and Lottie Bell doing their half of the two person relay.
Eventually we made it to the bridge and Jo pronounced the quiz OPEN. Der
der der deeeeeeer, der da (sing the mastermind music!). Thank goodness we
had this distraction, because it was really windy on the bridge and I could
tell that Jo was flagging a little. Rach and I were getting tired too,
probably still having Mablethorpe in our legs. I think we may have slightly
picked up the run pace too when Sarah and Laura joined us, just because they were
fresh and we had someone else to chat to. We each took it in turns to ask
the questions, Magnus Magnusun style – to the point of interrupting the final
question with some beeps and saying, “I’ve started, so I’ll finish!”
Great fun.
As we got past the second tower of the bridge, guess who appeared down
on the pathway running towards us? Cheryl! Awww, bless Jo. This bit was really
emotional. I think partly because Jo was feeling tired and the wind was
making it hard, and we were hot, and partly because we’d managed to keep
Cheryl’s possible appearance quiet – Jo was completely overcome with sobs. That brought a lump to all our throats. Cheryl ran the rest of the way over the bridge with
us, then disappeared and reappeared under the bridge where she’d asked the band to
play us something suitably uplifting – Super-Trooper! As we trotted off
to make our way back onto the bridge on the other side, Cheryl disappeared into
the distance again and we resumed the quiz. Jo seemed uplifted at this
point and once halfway over the bridge went into rebel mode and we found
ourselves running without any walk breaks for about a mile. Laura and I hung
back a little with Rach who was an absolute Super-Trooper at that point. She
was really getting tired – it’s a massive deal to run your first marathon and then run
another one 9 days later. She was in need of more fuel but sick of jelly
sweets. Mini-baby bel cheeses seemed to hit the mark. I could tell
she was finding it tough, but she was an absolute rock – never complained once,
just got her head down and got on with it.
After a mile or so of Jo-Mo in Rebel mode, Sarah read the situation well
and suggested we resume the run-walk strategy. It’s all very well bashing
on downhill (off the bridge) but we still had 6 miles to go, so no need to get
giddy. As we turned to do our return journey down the out and back
section, there was Cheryl again and she kept popping up here and there along
the way, getting back in her car – pulling a bit further along and running a
little bit with us, once again breaking things up.
We reached the timed track section and out came the coconuts from my
little drawstring bag, drinks bottles being quickly collected up and put in the
bag! What a laugh we had. My tiredness was forgotten as I trotted and
cantered my way around with my fellow horses and ponies, much to the amusement
of the single official remaining at the track. As we came out of the area
– there was Cheryl again, videoing us with her phone and laughing her head
off. Coconuts were put away and drinks bottle returned as we
set of for the final stretch. Rachel wouldn’t be parted from her coconuts
...... Jo had said we would need them again for the finish and I think Rach had
runner’s brain, was tiring fast and just needed to avoid any unnecessary extra
faffing!
The final run back towards the stadium was a bit difficult. Roads
were reopening seconds ahead of us and although there were still marshals
present, some of them didn’t know which way we were supposed to go next.
Although Jo knows the area, she said afterwards that she was beyond working out
where to go and it was Sarah who kept us on track, asking people along the way
at that final stretch and spotting the remaining marshals.
As we approached the KCOM, we still had just under a mile to go – this
would constitute a lap around the outside of the stadium and ¾ of a lap inside
the stadium. At this point – talking of things you hear on a marathon –
Jo said, in rather a posh, but serious matter of fact way, “OK, now Sarah, can
you get the coconuts ready please?!” Hilarious! Surreal! The
drawstring bag was undone for the final time, bottles gathered, coconuts
deployed and off we went on the lap outside the stadium. I must admit I
was at the end of myself by that point, as were Rach and Laura and we dropped
back considerably from Jo, who seemed to have got a second wind, and Sarah, who
was very focused on supporting Jo. They waited for us at the entry to the
stadium and although we caught up at that point, my legs just couldn’t go quick
enough to keep with Jo, who was already cantering into the limelight,
clattering her coconuts as she went! Laura, Rach and I were still flagging and Sarah dropped back to join us.
It was the perfect ending – it was so right that Jo Mo was as lively as
you like, head held high, enjoying the moment and able to canter on ahead,
whist we four trotted behind and came over the finish just line a few second
afterwards. The clatter of 5 pairs of coconut halves being bashed echoed
wonderfully around the stadium, now almost empty apart from the faithful CRC
runners and supporters waiting to cheer us in.
What a day. I was so proud of Jo and Rach and grateful to Sarah
and Laura for the additional support. And tired. And
emotional. What an amazing ending to a wonderful hat trick of marathon
debuts.
I love this pic of us all after we'd finished. Thanks you so much to everyone who came to support and to those who ran themselves and waited for us to finish. Too many to mention without risk of leaving someone out - you all know who you are.
Special thanks to all who took photos on the day and have sent them to me - you bring the story alive and create very special memories for us.
Having had the pleasure of running along side 3 people completing their first marathon - Chris, Rachel and now Jo, I just want to re-post the following pic, aimed an anyone who is thinking of training for their first:
To read about the other two marathon debuts, click here for Chris and click here for Rachel
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your interest - I appreciate genuine comments. No spam though please. Thank you.