While Commando was running the Manchester Marathon, I’d been enjoying a spectacularly beautiful walk around the hidden gems of Manchester with my friend Yas. All morning there’d been a little nagging worry in the back of my mind. Race days are always a little like this. I go off for a walk but, no matter how lovely the setting, I can’t quite stop worrying about Commando and how he’s doing. There are so many things that can go wrong. I’ve seen the runners collapsed at the side of the road being treated by paramedics, or limping along with injuries. Then there’s the worry about time. Commando always sets off with a target time, if he doesn’t make it he’s not a happy bunny. With a marathon the possibilities for disaster are magnified. These are the trails and tribulations of a marathon runner’s wife.
6 April 2014
The tracking app was supposed to be helping me keep track of Commando but, so far, it was just adding to my worries and I found myself checking it obsessively. The next timing mat was at mile twenty, six point two miles from the finish line. At the half marathon stage he was bang on track for his target time, if he kept up his pace I figured he’d hit twenty miles around half past twelve. When Yas and I reached the marathon course it was quarter to twelve. The problem was, we didn’t really know what part of the course we’d reached.
We were on a crossing on a street lined with terraced houses. Yas told me this was Kingsway, only a couple of miles from the finish. I couldn’t see any mile markers anywhere nearby so, just to be sure, I asked the Marshall manning the crossing.
“What mile is this?” I said.
“It’s a marathon,” he said, looking at me a little oddly, perhaps it was the southern accent.
“Yes I know, my husband is running in it, but where on the course is this, what distance?”
“Twenty four miles,” he said.
Just then the three hour pacer ran past so I knew Commando wouldn’t be passing this way for another hour and a half unless he was having a blinding race.
Yas and I stood by the side of the road watching the runners for a while. Yas had brought some packets of jelly babies to hand out but, on the whole, the runners passing us were so focused on each step they hardly noticed us. Some looked pained, some were obviously struggling with injuries or exhaustion, others looked fresh as a daisy as if they could go on for ever. One man was running, as if in a trance, his head bowed, body bent over. I thought for a moment he was going to fall but he pulled himself back upright and carried on only to hunch over again a few yards up the road. We cheered them on and told the ones who looked to be struggling they were close to the finish.
“Not much further now, just over two miles.”
Of course, for every struggling runner I saw my mind turned to Commando, was he struggling too. How was his knee holding up? Was he still running looking fresh or was he limping along in pain feeling like the miles ahead were an impossible mountain? Yes, I’m only a walker but I’ve walked two marathons and several more in training, I know how much it hurts to travel that distance on your own two feet. I know how hard it is to keep going at mile twenty when you hit the wall and six more miles feels like it might as well be six hundred.
After a while we left the crossing and followed the course up Kingsway with runners passing us. Several were walking by this point, or taking walk breaks before breaking into a run again. Who could blame them at what was probably mile twenty five. Marshals were handing out orange quarters, the discarded remains littered the roadside along with empty water pouches. The sight took my mind back to the Moonwalk, orange quarters and hot chocolate at mile twenty three or four, just as the dawn was breaking over London. Never has an orange tasted so good.
A little further on I spotted a runner wearing a red and white striped Team Southampton vest. I cheered all the harder for him and wondered, yet again, where Commando was right then. It was gone half past twelve, if he was on target he should have passed twenty miles but, no matter how many times I refreshed the app, it wasn’t telling me he had. Twenty miles is tough, with a dodgy knee more so, I really hoped he was still running and the problem was with the app rather than his knee.
The closer we got to The Trafford Arch the thicker the crowds beside the road became. So we could hardly see the runners through them. These are the times in a race when I really curse being short. At the finish line itself there was no hope of seeing anything. I jumped up and down a bit and saw the odd runner but, as it was ten to one, I was pretty sure Commando wouldn’t be crossing the line just yet. Then again who knew? The blasted app still didn’t have him passing the twenty mile mat and I was sure he must have by then, unless something had happened. Of course, my mind then turned to all the things that could have happened and all the runners we’d seen at the side of the road with the paramedics. I was refreshing the blasted thing so much I was in danger of running my phone battery down.
Eventually I found a space on a wall where, if I clung like a monkey with my feet just about on the tiny bit of brick available, I could see the runners a few yards after they’d crossed the line. A young man was on the wall in front of me in a prime position perched on the top of the post of the gate the runners were passing through. He had two huge balloons in the shape of a two and a six. Whether this was for the twenty six miles of the marathon course or for someone’s birthday I had no idea. I took a few shots of runners coming in in between refreshing the annoying app. The pain of those miles, along with the joy of finishing was etched on every face.
When the app finally told me Commando had crossed the twenty mile timing mat at 12.22 I was overjoyed. By this time it was ten past one and I knew he would be crossing the finish line soon. At the risk of losing my spot on the wall I jumped down to tell Yas. She had to leave to get back to her family but at least she left knowing Commando was ok. Luckily no one stole my spot so I climbed back up and carried on my precarious and rather uncomfortable perching. My arm was aching with the effort of holding on and I had to keep changing hands but I kept my eyes fixed on the runners the whole time looking for that familiar grey head.
When I finally saw him I was so overjoyed I almost fell off the wall. I actually bashed my chin on the top of one of the railings but any pain was lost in the excitement of seeing him amongst the crowd of runners, not only in one piece but not gasping for breath or limping.
As he got nearer to the gate, quite close to where I was perched I shouted his name. He obviously heard because he looked around but he was expecting to see me at ground level so he missed me. Once again I shouted and once again he stopped and looked around but didn’t see me. Then the man sitting on the gate post shouted too, much louder than me, and finally he saw me and smiled before carrying on to collect his medal.
As soon as he was out of sight I jumped down off the wall, rubbing my battered chin, and ran round to the park entrance to meet him. He came through the crowd, tired but happy, wrapped in his Mylar blanket clutching his goody bag and his medal. Once he’d collected his bag from the drop off point, put on his jacket and his jogging trousers we were on our way.
Of course, as we were outside Old Trafford, one of the most famous football grounds in the country, we had to stop for a quick photo shoot with Commando standing at the entrance. Personally I don’t know what all the fuss is about, it’s not a bad stadium but I think I prefer our own St Mary’s. Maybe I’m just biased though.
So another day as a marathon runners wife had passed without incident. There were a few trials and tribulations for sure but Commando reached the finish line in one piece and even quicker than his target time at that. His official chip time was 4:23:33, smashing his PB to pieces. Later he told me his knee had started to hurt at mile sixteen but he’d run through the pain and it settled down so disaster was averted. Strangely, despite the forecast and a couple of very light showers, it didn’t really start to rain until we were on the way back to the hotel in a taxi. I’d call that a good result.
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So glad you got this blog post back up. My daughter is caught in your penultimate photo – standing just behind the man in yellow, and clutching a space blanket and water bottle – and I remember we were all surprised by that amazing coincidence 😀
I’d totally forgotten about that. Thanks for reminding me. It certainly was a huge coincidence!