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Virtual London Marathon 2020

Writer's picture: RachelRachel

Was it bloody-mindedness, sheer stupidity, the lure of a challenge or the shiny medal which made me sign up to the Virtual London Marathon 2020. The 40th race. Probably a mix of all!


Before all this apocalyptic-ness kicked off I wasn't a fan of the virtual race to get your virtual bling and initially held off, but as things progressed and everything ground to a halt, to stop myself also grinding to a halt I felt like I needed a little bit of motivation to get out of the door. I've not completed many - 4 so far but realising I could enter the very first Virtual London Marathon, this was special.


Back in 2014, I was very lucky to get a ballot place and that so far is my only marathon. In the closing moments of that race, despite hurting everywhere, I didn't want it to end and hoped I could do it again very soon. Fast forward 6 years and I've not been successful in the ballot and haven't managed to train up to marathon distance to train for good for age either due to various injuries, so that second London still eludes me.


I hear many of you saying, well, there are plenty of other marathons, London isn't the be all and end all, and for good reason. London these days is nigh on impossible to get into and many people seem resigned to never tread that hallowed course. I am very lucky and grateful that I got in before the ballot changed and more people can now enter and the chances of getting in slimmer and slimmer.


For me, the London Marathon holds a special place in my heart. I'm from a family of runners. My Dad took up running when he was 55 and to cut a long detailed story short (I'll save that for another blog) we all followed suit and all of us - my Mum, Cynthia, Dad, Louis, Sister, Sarah and me have all ran the London Marathon. Mum and Dad more than once and Dad still has the fastest marathon time out of all of us in a shade over 4 hours. Growing up, we used to watch Mum and Dad go off to London on the Norwich Road Runners club coach and then sit and watch the marathon, trying to excitedly spot them on the telly. Which we successfully did. We saw Mum coming over Tower Bridge and Dad and another runner helping someone who was struggling over the finish line. It was something magical and something I always hoped to do myself.


When it came to 2014 and I arrived at Blackheath amongst a sea of runners it was very emotional. Mum and my sister were out on the route. I telephoned Dad at home from Blackheath, a very emotional moment having thought about this moment for a very long time. Running in their footsteps was just amazing and I loved every step of my first marathon and it's why I've wanted to return to run the London Marathon ever since, the next time to race it - and try to beat Dad's time!


So, after 6 years, the virtual race seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Only thing was I wasn't in marathon shape. A few friends who I've been doing efforts with during lockdown suggested we all take part together (only 6 of us of course) and we'll walk it. All of us are runners, all of us have run marathons and/or London in the past and some of us at the moment are either not running or have been getting through injury. I feel I've been hampered emotionally and mentally by lockdown and it seemed like a great opportunity to get together with friends and achieve something one-off and special. I'm not sure any of us realised what we were letting ourselves in for! Yeah, we can walk a marathon, it's not the same as running it, we're all fit, it'll be fiiiinnnneeee.... ahem.


Getting an early, start we set off at just after 7am on Sunday 4 October, trying to sync up starting the official app and watches at the same time. When we met another two friends round the corner they hadn't yet started the app and were half a mile behind already! First mile, we had a downpour...whilst we all laughed it off, put hoods up, pressed on to make a good start to our challenge, we were all thinking "please, please don't rain for 26.2 miles..."!





The weather settled, albeit with a number of showers along the way and we fell into a pretty good pace of around 15/16 minute miles with lots of chat and laughs. Our route was mainly on the local Marriot's Way, an old railway line, which is a popular path for runners, walkers and cyclists. Flat and just the right distance from Norwich to Aylsham for our marathon walk. What was hard and what we hadn't considered was the mud underfoot due to the recent rain! Walking at pace, on mud, with backpacks on is actually quite hard work (that's an understatement!).


Along the way, we all either took the lead or caught up with a jog after a quick bathroom break. A word of warning - be careful on bathroom breaks out in nature, getting up too quickly, slipping on wet leaves can leave you with an injury which has nothing to do with running! I limped for quite a long way until the ibuprofen helped! Ouch (doh!).


We also discovered that running is a lot easier than walking (perhaps as more regular runners than long distance walkers!) and as the miles progressed we occasionally had a very short canter to relieve our aching legs!


A very brief stop was had at Whitwell Station to make use of the proper loos and grab a much needed takeaway coffee. Watches were kept going though and there was no time to rest and we were off again at our now standard pace.




The app was mostly successful for us, however, despite starting at the same time my app finished first, Tawa's I think gave up completely and Stacey's decided to freeze mid-way through and she ended up around a mile behind everyone else, whereby we kept going at the end to get her to the finish. I ended up covering 27.3 miles!


Reality set in with us all at various stages and I think most of us uttered, more than once, "I didn't realise walking 26.2 miles would be so hard". Yes. We've learnt a lot. All of us out there knew that if we were running a marathon that we respect that distance, we train, we prepare. The same goes for walking. You're out there longer and we were still pushing ourselves as much as possible. It was tough without that proper preparation.


For me, despite that, I needed the challenge. Throughout lockdown my running has been all over the place. Going well, then not so well, then better, then non-existent. It's probably been mostly mental than physical, the world we find ourselves in is a strange and scary place. I'm in the high risk category because my immune system is compromised due to the medication I take and my parents are in their 80s and 90s, so throughout lockdown I've been very careful and coming out of lockdown not too much has changed so I really needed a challenge. With friends. With company. I needed to push myself and feel some sense of achievement and togetherness which I miss from club training and Sunday morning races. It hurt. I have a few dodgy toenails, had some terrible blisters at the end and I'm resting and recovering at the moment like with any marathon. I loved it though. Thank you to Deborah, Stacey, Vicky, Tawa and Jo for such a brilliant experience, sometimes quite surreal, your company and laughs. It was emotional thinking back to when I was lucky enough to run the London, and it was a much needed positive day in all the stress, anxiety and gloom. Thank you girls, thank you London Marathon. I was very grateful to be part of the first virtual London Marathon and the 40th race. That post-race pint was very much needed! I'm off to put my feet up and drink tea!








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