Marathon Surprise

Today was my wife's birthday, so I really wasn't expecting to receive any presents, and certainly not an acceptance to the London Marathon. I'd looked on the Runners World website a couple of weeks ago where they'd been discussing cheque cashing dates (as they do every year). It seemed that about one in five people had had their cheques cashed on one day, while the rest (or at least those who had bequeathed their cheques) had had them cashed on another day. I fell into the second group, and since the London Marathon is heavily oversubscribed by a similar sort of ratio, I assumed that I had been rejected.

Not that being rejected is a big thing - this was the third time that I'd applied and it's only on your sixth attempt that you're guaranteed a place. By that time I'd would have been 31 (assuming they still used the same system) and I really wanted to run it before I turned 30.

So there I was checking the mail when I came home for lunch (the postman arrives mid morning - don't get me started on that rant!) and I saw a bulky package for me. I was sure that the rejection present this year was a fleece, so the package seemed a bit small. Surely I couldn't actually have got in? Maybe I was wrong and it was actually a watch again (I have a watch and a raincoat from previous rejections).

I was surprisingly unexcited - I really did think I'd been rejected, so I just put down the mail on the table, said hello to Hazel and gave her the letters (and more importantly her cards!). It wasn't for another few minutes that I remembered the Marathon letter.

I must have had a little hope left, because I was a bit excited opening it. That excitement increased massively when I saw the "Smile - you're in" front cover. I just turned round the letter and showed it to Hazel... She seemed to be really happy for me. Much happier than I was - acceptance had always been a theoretical possibility, but suddenly those 26 and a bit miles stretched out in front of me in a very real way, and more importantly, in a very short time. Despite the Marathon being staged towards the end of April next year, somehow there only appear to be twenty weeks between then and now. Hardly seems long enough to get decently fit, let alone post a good time. Fortunately I'm already reasonably fit, so it's not such a huge climb.

So who have I told? Well Hazel, obviously, my team at work, my immediate family and two school friends who got me into running in the first place. Actually, they're pretty much to blame for me being interested in sport at all. They really do have a lot to answer for. Basically one of them, Mike, convinced me to enter the Nike 10k because he was doing it. This was back when I was unfit and running 10k seemed to be something from a nightmare. I threw myself into it and six weeks later I was running 10k in a time of 50 minutes and 7 seconds. I was pretty pleased with myself until a friend at work pointed out that one of the women I work with had done a 10k in 48 minutes. Walking.... Still, I beat that time this year with a sub 45 10k run in Victoria Park.

The purpose of this blog is to try to record anything which relates to the race or my training - we'll see whether that actually happens... Not sure why - maybe for posterity, or to allow my creativity to run wild, or possibly just to save my wife from having to listen to me prattle on about running. To be honest, probably all three!