Some of you may remember that I was a runner before I became ill with hypo-MDS in late 2008, and that I've run a few races since my transplant in 2009, but this weekend was BIG milestone for me, one I never ever thought I'd achieve, illness or not.
It was my first marathon, and some of you may be thinking “oh, but she runs, I’m sure it was no problem for her”. Think again – that distance is no joke! I’d done all my training and got three 20 milers in, but it was still really tough. And up until this year, I’d never raced farther than a 10km, so keep in mind that this is four times that distance!
It was my absolute perfect running weather – cold, cloudy, and with a hint of drizzle, and I was nervous, but as ready as I’d ever be. I’d wanted to finish in under 4 hours, but my “gold medal” time was 3:45, and to achieve that I’d need to run at 5:20min/km throughout (that’s 8:35min/mi). So I started off at my “easy” pace, which ended up being 5:05min/km, and that felt good. I was a freaking machine, maintaining that up through about 28km, when it started to feel tough, and I slowed down considerably from 30-40km, just keeping the momentum going and counting down every single km marker. I had two cheering zones from my running crew on the course, but my GPS running app, Runmeter, lets my Dailymile and Twitter friends speak comments into my ear while I run, so I had cheers of encouragement from about 30 different friends from all around the world, including some who’d gotten up at 3:30am to cheer me on! I cannot stress enough how much this helped me to carry on during that stretch of 10km when it was a real struggle.
But at the 40km mark, we turned the corner out of Vondelpark, and I passed where I was staying and I knew it was only a short 2km to the finish, and that gave me the boost I needed to pick up the pace again, and – I’m still not sure where this came from – but I even managed a sprint finish into the Olympic stadium to finish in 3:48:23!! Which, umm, I’m stupidly happy with.
As long as they don’t change the rules, it means I should qualify for a Good for Age entry into London 2014, which is otherwise impossible to get into. I hobbled back to my running crew’s hospitality zone for recovery shakes and hugs, then back to where I was staying for an ice bath (my host brought me tea and chocolate truffles to make it easier! Bless!), which I really think did help with my recovery. I had a few spots of chafing and two enormous blisters on my toes, all in brand-new places, but I was otherwise intact.
At the start of the race, I was really choking back tears, thinking of how far I've come, and all the people who weren't as lucky in the transplant draw as I'd been. I thought of everyone here who are still fighting, and those friends like Vera, Rob, and David, who'd lost the fight. I wanted to share my latest story update with everyone here to give hope that you really can emerge from this a stronger person, in body and mind and spirit. Keep on fighting.