CRACOVIA MARATHON 2007
I'm still playing five a side football and a couple of the guys, Richard Mintern and Peter Woolf, did their first marathon in Berlin in 2006. I commit to step up, train and run one. I'm now 51 years old and it's time I fulfilled a long held ambition. I used to think with my work and lifestyle I was too busy to commit to enough training. Now I know that if you want to do something, you find the time. I look for something abroad and settle on the Cracovia Marathon in Krakow, Poland. It looks good, not too big with just over a thousand runners and an interesting course and city. It feels quite hardcore to be going over to Poland on my own for the race. However I go to the five a side football session and tell my mate Bing (Gerard Lee). He immediately goes over to Pete - well he is in too so there are three of us with two running. Bing is too sensible to run, he's just going to relax, enjoy the city and maybe take a few pictures of us finishing.
I train well for the event, although I lose three weeks to the flu and post illness recovery and for a while I fret over whether I'm going to be able to run. Like most people doing their first marathon it's a big deal for me. I'm running for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, my step grandmother suffered from this cruel condition. We board the plane and there's a stag party on board, all dressed in the same tops with their names on the back.
It's pouring with rain on race morning. Pete and I arrive at the start. Bing wishes us luck and heads off to a tour around the castle. There's a tent to shelter and change in and I nervously pin the number to my race shirt which takes me an age. I haven't learnt it's best to prepare this the night before. My nutrition for the race consists of six jelly babies in my back pocket which I plan to eat spaced out over the last six miles. Not the most sophisticated of approaches. All the male runners seem to be razor sharp and thin with close cropped hair.
We look at each other. 'We are going to come last'.
There are no charity runners, no people dressed as Elvis or carrying ladders, just a super serious crowd. This is what I was looking for and the rain adds to it. Shortly before the gun we cross over to the start and we're off. The start/finish is in a big park about five kilometres in circumference and we loop around this to begin with. Then it's through the town to a long stretch along the river and back. It's pretty flat, there's one very minor slope down to the river. The rain doesn't let up but I'm in the groove and Pete and I keep a steady pace together with another English guy we meet.
Getting the work done.
With Pete in the annual wasp chewing competition
My ambition is to break four hours, we get to halfway in about 1.53.
About 17 miles in Pete is feeling good, he announces: 'We're only here once - I'm going for it'.
He shoots off up the road. This tactic proves predictably unwise and we catch him again a mile or two further along. I go ahead at the next water station. My race follows the classic pattern and shortly before getting back to the old town after 20 miles or so, it starts to bite. I begin to understand the marathon experience.
However, I do have my custom nutrition plan ready to go, one jelly baby per mile for the next six miles. Down goes the first one! There is no magical injection of energy and I don't think the gel manufacturers have too much to worry about.
My finishing chip time is 3.55.54 and Pete is just behind for his second sub-four finish. We haven't come last, we are just over halfway down the field. We collect our medals and take a few pictures of each other. Perhaps the jelly baby plan wasn't so bad after all.
About 20 miles in, feeling it. What are my hands doing up there?
The minor slope has transformed into a hill but we are back in the city centre with the first substantial crowds, a band is playing and I set out for the last big push. I reach the park and we have to run straight past the finish on an outer path to follow a final loop around the edge.
At the far side of the park I finally slow to a brief walk but then I hear a voice shouting from behind. 'Oi what you doing walking?'. It's Pete and as he catches up with me he announces to the crowd: 'I've been trying to catch this guy since mile 20'.
This gets me running again and soon we are coming round the final bend into the finish straight. I know I've done it, I'm going to break four hours and with considerable elation accelerate as fast as I can to the line.
Finishing straight, trying to lift up my big feet
Nearly there
We meet up with Bing, have a celebratory beer in one of the tented outdoor bars in the main square and that evening we go to a traditional Polish restaurant in the Jewish quarter. For the starter they bring a pot of soft cheese and a pot of goose fat with some bread to dip in them, it's amazing post marathon recovery food but I'm not sure how your body would handle it on a normal day.
The next day we go to Auschwitz which is not far away and this puts the whole thing into perspective, what a sobering and harrowing experience.
On the plane back that evening are the same stag party still in their matching tops, but with one sporting a broken arm and others groaning under the weight of their hangovers.