Marathon - part ii
The Last 1st Marathon at Sherwood Pines
Part I is here…
I held onto another gel, I was coming up to 15 miles, I kept my pace the same, but I felt a surge of discomfort, it wasn’t pain but a rekindling of the injury I carried into this marathon, I allowed my left leg to carry more weight as I had during that last 6 miles of the 18 mile training session a couple weeks ago, and continued. KEEP IT BORING. I had the gel and after some time my knee settled.
The course became repetitive for the first time and the straights seemed to get longer, I began to feel a different pain whirling from my calfs to my thighs up my spine and through my body, I took deeper breaths but the air only agitated everything going on inside. This was new, and not yet 18 miles, I was calm in mind but my body wasn’t, my mind shouted I CAN TAKE IT! I repeated it out-loud. “I can take it!” I shouted out again “I can take it, I can take it!” But all the while I felt myself unravelling quickly. I began to whisper and entered a piece of the course I didn’t acknowledge until now.
The course around me interrupts my voice, I’m in a graveyard of pine trunks, with living pines standing around them. The horizontal pines are structured like pyres. Dead trees amongst the living. I can take it, I repeat again, the phrase morphs into I can take the pain, and then I can take the pain, so give it to me, I can take the pain, so whatever you’re feeling, give it to me! I don’t know who I’m talking to but I keep on repeating the words as their meaning morphs and my mind slips from the present and out of my body.
I’m drawn to my mother, but she isn’t in pain, she’s smiling while sat on our family home’s stairs laughing into her phone. The words I can take it drift over her. I’m in the past but the pain is writhing, increasing in my distant body. I see my aunties, my Aunt R first, then her twin Aunt M then their younger sister Aunt S. They’re all within beds looking out of windows. My body’s pain increases. They smile too but I know they're deep within their suffering… I’m trying to lift it from them into my body, like toxic coals into a furnace. I’m absorbing their pain. I’m a furnace, I can take it! I hear myself say. I’m running, I’m floating, I’m seeing, I’m breathing, I’m burning but it doesn’t matter, I can take it, for as long as it takes for it to ease. I know this is happening in my present and their future, their present my past, their pain, my pain - I ask for more and the pain increases throughout my body, it’s fuel I’m burning and breathing out into the pines, and they in turn give me oxygen, more fuel. It’s a healing process and I can feel the energy in every inhalation and exhalation, so no matter how much I absorb from their time, their illnesses, I can expel it, and my body is burning it - their pain is easing. I can take it for the whole race! I hear myself as though I’m not in control of that voice, but I agree with it. I can take it for the whole race? They took it for years.
I snap into consciousness and look around, the pyre of pines are behind me. I know why I’m running, the pain won’t stop me.
I check my watch and the pace is 6’45min per km, but it didn’t read as logical to my body, it was moving on its own, I couldn’t speed up. I had no control. I couldn’t move well, my heart was doing all it could to contend with the vigour of that surge. It would pass, ‘we just have to put our fundamentals together and be mentally strong!’ another voice from my video said.
A mile passed like this, maybe two, but I regained control at one of the water stations. I was staring at the floor, but those legs - Hermes - from miles earlier were nearer, they were trudging, barely running. The wall, I thought. I seemed to glide by, I felt bad only for a moment, I had a race to finish. I got to the fork in the road and veered right after losing balance, the cheers were interrupted; “You quitting marathoner?!” “Never!” I continued straight. I was feeling stretched, each step making lesser impact than the other, but I continued on. The cheers eventually rang silent.
Mile 20, I was deeper now, deeper in the mire than I’d ever been, the furthest I’d ran was 2 miles ago so this was new territory, and I was at a perilous state of managed exhaustion. I had my second to last gel, and noticed that it may be my last. I looked at my watch and saw the overall time, what!? It was under 3 hours which seemed impossible. I was still on for the 3h:30m time I naively trained for.
A few moments ago an elder couple in their 70’s / 80’s jogged past me, (not competitors) but now that I realised I was close to the time I trained for, I sped up and by them. I slipped back into 5min per km pace and felt alive, something about knowing the time helped me justify this but I was screaming out, I was shouting into the forest, a bolt of pain staggered me, I almost fell… cramp, dammit all! - my left hamstring. I’d seen this scene before in a Nick Bare video, he’d stopped for a time, took a sodium tablet and continued running. I knew if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to continue, I didn’t have any sodium tablets, I was at my peak, my threshold, every step incomplete was my end, so I continued hobbling nearby a steward who’d witnessed me shouting out into the air, she cheered me as I went by, “You’re doing well!’’, I was finished, she knew it. I knew it. But I continued. This part of the course was an intricate valley of un-level tracks of mud with a steeper incline upward. It used to be a hill, now Scafell Pike.
Once I reached the top my leg was back to normal, I continued on, I was running well enough if a little slower than planned and my brain was intact, I think my brain was intact. I guess it’s no longer possible to keep it boring. I don’t know what’s meant to happen now I’m beyond 18 miles while losing spirit and momentum each step. I was bored I realised, bored of running, tired, the course was bored of me and I was last, dead last, second to last at best, I hadn’t seen a runner for so long I didn’t know what was happening. Where are they? Just as I called on them, I heard steps behind me, I heard a voice in my head say ‘I’m not done!’ You’re not done! I sped up again. My form was lost, but the steps faded from behind me, whoever it was, I hoped they were feeling beaten, as I was.
Mile 21 or so, I don’t know what mile, I couldn’t focus on my watch but I knew it was the championship rounds. I felt good, no not good, I felt; slow. My body was evaporating energy. I had my final gel, I planned to have it mile 23 but I couldn’t wait, I had it, I absorbed it immediately and moments later the exhaustion peaked. I knew the footsteps behind were hunting me silently. Every steward I passed I could hear them cheering others. If they caught me now, I’m just a fish on land.
The footsteps eventually came, I’m in a state of sorrow, is there a better way to describe this complete lack of hope… the steps belonged to a lady I hadn’t seen before, I named her Arwen because I no longer felt like running alone… it was arrogant, pure ego wrapped around naivety, what the hell was I thinking when I decided to enter, train and compete completely alone.
My light was about to go out, but I heard music. I was ready to stop any moment, any next step but I continued jogging, no longer running, I couldn’t lift my legs.
The music, was a song, an old song I’d heard my mother sing, but she wasn’t singing it, three voices were singing it. It drifted on the air as a feather does, the wind carried it to me, the faces I saw singing it were not of this plane, I didn’t smile because I was hallucinating and exhausted, I was in another space of reality, I’m losing my mind. The faces were so clear I looked up, above them, they were trying to make me laugh, I knew their sense of humour, I knew their voices, and they messed up the words on purpose:
“Amazing Grace how sweet OUR sound,
That saved a wretch like YOU!”
They continued but delirium overawed them, I couldn’t laugh I couldn’t smile I could only put one foot in front of the other, I was lifted for a moment but during the next mile, my leverage, my why, my ego, my arrogance, failed me completely.
Real exhaustion.
Loss of clear thought.
Loss of—
Broken
One
Word
At
A
Time
One
Step
At
A
Time
People are passing me during my hopelessness, I don’t know how many, 10, 5, 8, does it matter, I was always dead last now I’m further back.
I’m going to stop. No. Not yet. My mind was silent now, no motivation, no voices, no images, no real thread to cling to other than one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, I continued.
The 24th mile. I hear someone say it’s the last lap of the course but I can’t engage, I don’t look at them, a couple more people pass me, they’re running so slow, they look knee deep in sinking sand.
One step in front of the other.
One lap. One step in front of the other. The last steps. Continue. Continue. Continue. Continue. Continue. Continue.
At this point, I couldn’t think so I’ll tell the rest from the future. A person I’d seen some time earlier retook me - he didn’t look to be going any quicker than he was during his wall phase - I followed him around the last corner and the longest straight nature could lay. Two others passed me on route, down the last straight, I was feet without a body, limbs without feeling, a body breathing evaporating oxygen. Then… I saw the finish line, that stupid wonderful green sign, I’d finally come to the fork in the road, they cheered again. I ran to the line - a small significant group cheered as I finished.
I finally stopped and walked on legs that mimicked the flight of a hot air balloon. I was light. I received a medal, I gripped it but can’t say I could feel it. Then I stood, the haze cleared from me and I realised I’d actually finished. An ambulance crew were on the sidelines, one of them told me I finished top 10. I laughed. He was delirious. (I finished 13th of 31). I sipped some water and thought I saw my mother while accepting congratulations from the ambulance staff and stewards by a sweet and chocolate and cola stand. It wasn’t her, I was delirious. I was alone - trained alone - worked alone - ran alone - finished al— no, I was wrong, it was my mother… I wasn’t expecting her, my brother was meant to come… anyway, she walked over and congratulated me “Can you walk?’’. I showed her the medal and looked up to the sky and finally smiled.
As we walked to the car, I knew, without her or my aunts in mind, I would have stopped, not because I’m not tough enough alone, but because sourcing that level of pain without a reason, is meaningless. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know - but I’ve never ran alone a day in my life.
If you came this far thank you — the reason I was running is my mother, my aunts and my Aunt R’s charity, The Rose Thompson Foundation, she passed in 2023.
Adieu