By Dan Webb

It was a cool, bright but breezy day in Nottingham, not too bad for a marathon.  I was nervous lining up with my old school friend Ben, and two other members of Grantham Town AC. As the only representative of LBAC, I felt that I should put on a good performance – wouldn’t want those Nottingham runners thinking we were some backwater, small-town running club! I had stayed the previous night at my mom’s house in Grantham. My three brothers and my niece and nephew had also come down which was a lovely surprise. My mom had cooked pasta especially for me. Sadly, I had to sip water while my brothers got merry on beer and wine. I was to make up for it on Sunday evening though.

I had told everyone that I was aiming for sub 4 hours. In truth however, having never run that distance before, I wasn’t even sure that I could do the distance. I had done a couple of 20 milers in training, but was always struggling and very slow towards the end. Warren had given me some good tips. He said that after a week of tapering down, my legs would feel better than they would have done for some time (which was true), but that I should resist the urge to go too fast. The first half of the marathon was quite hilly and also crowded with the half-marathon runners. I kept to an even pace, but all the injuries and niggles I had encountered during training seemed to flare up. By the halfway point, it was a relief to have some space to run as the half-marathon runners peeled off. My injuries seemed to have settled down and my legs felt good.

The second half of the marathon was also fairly flat so I could focus on keeping an even pace. At about 20 miles, I realised that I would make the 4 hour mark.  I felt OK, so was now aiming to get as good a time as possible. At that point we were just entering the 3 miles that went around the National Water Sports Centre.  I was looking forward to this part of the course as I knew that it would be completely flat, around a two mile long artificial lake. The first mile was OK as I had the wind behind me. Then we had to run around the end of the lake for two miles, into the wind. I think that this honestly made it harder that any of the hills.  Thinking on my feet (!) I found the tallest runner I could who was going at about my pace and tucked in behind him like a Tour de France cyclist. This tactic I had learned from Pete Mackrell during a windy cross country run in Luton (although it had not helped him on that occasion as he was behind Tom May at the point they ran into the wind). I told the tall runner that I would take my turn in front, but as he would have got no benefit from this, he kindly said that he didn’t mind. After battling into the wind for one and a half miles, he finally had to walk. At least I had the decency to shake his hand and thank him, before finding someone else to hide behind. My family were waiting for me at the 23mile mark, but didn’t notice me straight away as I was still on the heel of the taller runners. Whilst the other runners exited the Water Sports Lake dead on their feet (thanks to my parasitical tactics) I felt quite refreshed and increased the pace a little. My legs started to hurt at about 24 miles, but I kept the pace up and even managed a sprint finish. My time 3.47, my old school chum Ben from Grantham AC, finished a minute ahead of me, 30minutes ahead of his previous PB. I was well under the 4 hour mark, so we were both delighted with the race.

Later that day, I had a delicious Tapas feast prepared by my mom, and then went for a celebratory drink with Ben and my brother Andrew. Thanks to my family for their support and the good advice and kind wishes from the LBAC crew. The only advice I didn’t take was from Patrick who said I should go for a run the day after. Fat chance!!