2013 London Marathon - I got a place via a draw for a club place after failing to get in via the main ballot in both 2012 and 2013. Up until now I hadn't really thought seriously about doing a marathon and my ambition was to do just one and that had to be London. Having done all the training and recovered (almost) from injury just 2 weeks before the race I suffered from foot and ankle injuries during the marathon and came in just outside my goal time of sub-4:30. Later in 2013 I did the Farnham Pilgrim trail marathon and Portsmouth Coastal marathon, partly to prove to myself that I could get below that 4:30 time.
Now I knew I could do the distance, I decided to enter a few more in 2014 including the Winter Tanners (my first ultra at 30miles), Milton Keynes, Farnham Pilgrim, Abingdon and Portsmouth again. This time the goal was to get below 4 hours, which I failed to do at Milton Keynes being beaten by the heat and cramps and managed at both Abingdon and Portsmouth.
How Far Can I Go?
That brought me up to 8 marathons and aside of maybe posting a time below 3:45, marathon ambitions had been done. But during 2014 I also did Endure 24 and the Thunder Run, both 24 hour events that I did as part of a team. This got me thinking about how far I could go and so I entered Endure 24 for 2015 as a solo runner. I also entered Brighton marathon while the price was lowest and had put my name in for the London marathon by the marshal's ballot. That would mean 2 marathons in 2 weeks with the possibility of adding long runs the day after as training for Endure 24. So marathons were now looking like training runs for my main goal of a long ultra in 2015.
Throughout 2014 I had been following the progress of two of our club runners Vicky Horne and Greg Ward as they tackled huge marathon goals. Vicky was aiming to do 52 marathons in the year and Greg just as many as he could fit in so he could reach 100 marathons in the shortest time (he managed 67 marathons in 2014 and did his 100th marathon in January this year). What an achievement for both of them!
Climbing Everest
I was having a chat with Greg at Frimley parkrun late last year when he still had a few marathons to go for his 100, and he told me an interesting fact. There are more people who have climbed Mount Everest than have done 100 marathons. That pretty much sold it to me. That is something momentous and difficult and yet something that I could do.
That Everest quote comes from Malcom Anderson's book The Messengers, where he interviewed over 100 people from around the world who have achieved 100 marathons. Finding out how many people have climbed Everest is relatively straight forward as the authorities in Nepal and Tibet issue climbing licences and keep records - it turns out that as of the 2014 spring climbing season 6358 people had reached the summit. Malcom Anderson managed to trawl through the records of the 100 marathon clubs from around the world to get his answer. I'll take his word for the total, but I could find out there are only just over 400 people from the UK who are members of the 100 Marathon Club.
Can I Do It?
That is an exclusive club and one I'd like to be a member of - they do a really nice club T-shirt after all and you even get a medal. It's some commitment, but probably means swapping the 10k and half marathon events I do for marathons and training with the club some more (a great bonus). It's got some cost to it, but not significantly more than I spend on race entries each year anyway, maybe about £3,000 over 4 to 5 years. Some people will drink and smoke their way through more than that. Compare that to climbing Everest at about £10,000 and a month in Nepal, which would be awsome, of course, but which I couldn't afford. Not many people get to fulfil a goal of some adventurous nature, but here's the thing - I'm a runner, not a mountaineer and it seems right that achieving something great should be through running.
So, the plan for this year and into next is looking like this:
11 January Winter Tanners (done)
08 March Surrey Half
14 March Thames Meander Spring
22 March Fleet half
29 March SJ Canal Run - 20 miles
12 April Brighton
23 April St George's Day
26 April London
17 May Richmond Park
13 June Endure 24 Solo
03 July Elstead Marathon
29 August Thames Meander Summer
13 September Farnham Pilgrim
11 October Trionium Greensand (maybe)
18 October Abingdon
07 November Thames Meander Winter
27 November Agincourt 600th Anniversary
20 December Portsmouth Coastal
10 January 2016 Winter Tanners
14 February 2016 Punchbowl Marathon
That's 12 marathons and 4 ultras, which will take my marathon total up to 24. A lot of these I have picked because they are reasonably local and I know people running at them. All the 2015 runs are booked except Greensand (don't know how daft I'm feeling yet) and Abingdon (not open till March). Most of these are relatively cheap at £30-£35 or under. Brighton is the exception at £50 to £70 depending on when you enter and getting to being one of the most expensive marathons in the UK; why I don't know. At the other end of the price scale, however, you have the Surrey LDWA events, with the Tanners and Punchbowl probably the most fun outside of a parkrun that you can have for under a tenner.
What About You?
Considering whether this long-term long distance goal is possible for anyone to do, I think there is a difficult mental barrier to get over when considering doing a marathon - you ask yourself "Can I do the distance? and Will it hurt?" Basically the answer is YES to both, but the pain, or more properly discomfort, lasts for about 6 or 8 miles if you have managed to get through a suitable training plan, so if you can put up with that then you can at least get round. If I get to the point of doing 1 or 2 marathons per month then "training" isn't so much about putting in long runs but shorter slow recovery runs and speed and conditioning to maintain form and fitness. That sounds like I'll get to do more of my favourite running, which is running with friends and leading the slow or medium pace groups on Sandhurst Joggers club runs a couple of times a week and, of course, running with the kids at parkrun.
No.1 on the Bucket ListConsidering whether this long-term long distance goal is possible for anyone to do, I think there is a difficult mental barrier to get over when considering doing a marathon - you ask yourself "Can I do the distance? and Will it hurt?" Basically the answer is YES to both, but the pain, or more properly discomfort, lasts for about 6 or 8 miles if you have managed to get through a suitable training plan, so if you can put up with that then you can at least get round. If I get to the point of doing 1 or 2 marathons per month then "training" isn't so much about putting in long runs but shorter slow recovery runs and speed and conditioning to maintain form and fitness. That sounds like I'll get to do more of my favourite running, which is running with friends and leading the slow or medium pace groups on Sandhurst Joggers club runs a couple of times a week and, of course, running with the kids at parkrun.
As an afterthought to this post I was looking through the 100 Marathon Club listings for marathons outside the UK and I came across an Everest Marathon! You trek about 40 miles over a 10 day period to get from Lukla in Nepal to Everest Base Camp at 5360m acclimatising as you go and then run(!?) the marathon back to Namche Bazaar (alt. 3450m) - it is mostly downhill after all. Then you have a morning off before a "recovery" trek over the next day and half back to Lukla. I think I might save that one for when my son Alfred is old enough to do a marathon - mid 50's is about right for a mid-life crisis, bucket list kind of event!
