My First Half Marathon

In the second episode of "30 Years of Running Marathons," Jason D runs his first half marathon, which he barely manages to finish, leaving him doubting his abilities. However, just two months later, he rises from the ashes like a Phoenix and runs a marathon in an unbelievably fast time. Could this be the beginning of a long and prosperous marathon career for him?

Thanks for listening. Keep on running.

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The race is on.

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The race is on. So let's get straight into the second episode of 30 years of Running Marathons. The last episode finished with me having run my very first marathon all those years ago, and it concluded on a bit of a cliffhanger when I was about to attempt my second ever race. That second ever race came quite a few months later after I recovered from the London Marathon. So London Marathon finished in April. I was a bit disappointed with my time. I thought I could run a lot faster than the four hours 48. I did. I also realized how difficult running a marathon was, and I guess, 'cause it's my first one, I didn't know what to expect, so I took it for granted. So I had some unknown objectives I still wanted to achieve. And one of those was I knew I could run faster and better than what I did in that very first marathon. So back then there wasn't the number of races that we have now. So it was literally finding a race. I wasn't working at the time, didn't have a car, so I needed a race that was fairly close to me, one I could get to . Um, and I was thinking maybe to do a shorter distance, for example, a half marathon. As soon as I mentioned this to my parents, they said, well, obviously, you know , if you can run a a full marathon, half marathon , it's no , no problem. Um, but what you'll hear in the rest of this podcast is it didn't turn out quite out expected. In fact, it was quite , um, um, horrifying finish to it. Uh , but more on that later. So as I said, the London Marathon finished in April , uh, with Spring we're coming into summer, and I didn't really stick to any specific training plan. I was maybe running three to four times a week. So for me, I'm basically an early morning runner . So I'm quite happy to get up at four , five o'clock, do my run before the, all the chaos of the world starts, come back refreshed, really sets me up for the day, whether I'm working or not. I know I've achieved something at the very start of the day. So I may be run 2, 3, 4. I mean, the average for me was like six to eight miles. For me, that was no problem, even 10 miles. Um, I mean, nowadays my friends jokingly say , I'd just go out for a three hour run just like that. I think nothing of it. Uh , and even back then, you know, I I didn't really sort of, you know, hadn't really had any injuries. Uh , I'd done my first marathon and even though I found it tough a few weeks afterwards, having said, you'll never do one again straight after the race. Like most runners, you are like, okay, I've recovered now I think I can do better than that time. I think I can go faster. And this was my mindset. So during the summer , it was very nice to run, you know, in shorts and t-shirt and enjoy the weather. So from April, June, July, August, I wasn't, you know , really going to any specific plan. It was my own plan in my head. Now I thought I could do this myself. As long as I do maybe a few, three or four runs a week, maybe run long run. So the long run would be 18 miles. That's what I did for my very first race. But I was thinking I suffered a lot in that very first race. I'm thinking maybe I ought to extend it slightly. So I went for the magical 20 mile mark, and that's what I did. I managed to get, I don't know , maybe, maybe three, three lots of 20 miles in. And the rest were maybe 10 to 15 miles. And for me, that would be more than enough for my next race because my next race was gonna be half marathon . So I'm thinking if I can do 20 miles now , if I'm doing on average a 10 to 15 miles more than adequately cover the half marathon. Now the half marathon I was aiming for was very local . It was literally started literally across the road from me . Um , and back then I lived in a place called Lau that's in United Kingdom. So Slough is basically about approximately 20 miles outside London, very close to Windsor, obviously rural Windsor where the Queen lived , and now the king now lives the United Kingdom . Um , so yeah , very , very , very close to me. I lived in Lau well , basically I lived in a , I like to think it was , um, well basically it was right on the border, so a little village called t . Um, so I wasn't right in the heart of sl . Um, slough is well known for many things. Apparently, it's got the largest trade and state in Europe. And for my American listeners, if you've heard of The Office or if you've watched The Office, the comedy show that was actually based in Lau , um, starred Ricky ves , very popular show over here. And I know it's , it's been transferred over to America, a very popular show over there too. So that's what SLA was well known for as well. Uh , what else is SLA well known for? Um, probably not a lot. It's very much a very much industrial town, probably at most a hundred thousand people. And people literally commute there for work. It's not really a , a place that you, you think of a place to live as such. And , and certainly a lot of people will live in Lau rather than London, because London's very expensive. But , you know, it's got , you knows , slud got good transport links, so you get into London in about 20 minutes. But obviously the rents and problems of cheaper , a lot of people moved out Tola . Um, it's also rather unknown. Um, I know John Benjamin once wrote once that, oh , let bombs fall on sl , which is probably a bit of a harsh thing to say. I certainly enjoyed my, my upbringing in sl , but as I said , I wasn't right in the heart of it . I literally lived the road from college fields . So , you know , the , the , the Great school, Eaton College , uh, where Prince William and Harry went , and all of our , our great leaders in this country went to . And I was literally a mile from there and then straight into Windsor. I went to school in Windsor. So I wasn't really in the heart of, and that suited me fine. Anyway, I digress. The actual start line of the SLA marathon was literally in a park opposite me , called up to court park. So it was literally a hundred yards away from where I lived nowadays that a lot of park runs are held there. And I did do some training runs around there, although I preferred to go the other way into eat in the winter across the fields opposite me . But I'd , I'd run it a few times around there . And to be honest, the start was probably the most picturesque part , the whole race. I mean, it would start and finish in Upton Court Park and compared to London , and which I guess had about 40,000 runners, we are talking probably 500 at most that were actually running this race. So it was very , very small field. Um, and, and this would be a new experience for me . So, you know, we, there was no sort of waiting 15 minutes to cross the line. I mean, I didn't start the front obviously, because I wasn't gonna win, but, you know, you're literally just a few yards away from the start line. So I, I just lined up a few paces back and yeah, very small field. My parents and grandparents were there to see me off. And it was ideal where conditions were running, you know, not too hot, not too cold, overcast. And it was fine. And I , I was feeling really good. I thought, this is half mouth to my local, I probably know where the route's gonna go. Not that I really sort of looked to the route and I , I was feeling good. I had a long rest during the summer , uh, despite all the training, I'd now recovered from London. And I was raring to go again. I was raring to prove to myself that I can run this quickly. And it , it is only half marathon . It still gets a kudos of being a good achievement. Um, and I thought, I can nail this. I've done the full , let's do this, let's do it. So yeah, so the race started off and the course itself, as I say, once you left the park, it wasn't particularly , um, interesting. It was along all the , the main roads. They , they , they closed the roads off and we , we ran along the main roads and it was more or less a loop. So it was just basically one loop from what I remember. And I started off probably too quickly, I joined with a group of runners. And, you know, I did feel it after the first few miles. I was thinking maybe going a bit too quick here . Um, but once I settled down, I was looking at my watch thinking, yeah , yeah , the pace is good . What happened? As time went on, I probably got back to six mile mark and the weather started to change dramatically. Not necessarily in a bad way. I mean, it didn't , there was no storms or anything like that. But for, for England in September, the sun started coming out <laugh>. And that's unusual for British weather. So to get it quite warm. And at first it , it was nothing. It was, you know, just quite nice. On a September's day , it'd be a little bit warm, but then the sun became really strong. You know , it what over here , what we call in Indian summer and you get the summer heat waves later on in the year . And I had been taking on water at the drink stations, but obviously I'd been going quite fast starting , I've got to six miles, seven miles, only another six miles left. You know, I hadn't hit the wall or anything like that. So I was really pushing it along quite quickly. As soon as the sun came out , even though I had been training during the summer, I think during that summer, we hadn't had anything really that hot. And this was proving quite hot. And I started sweating. I started , it really started to affect me. And I'm thinking, I'm getting dehydrated here. This, this isn't good. I need to take on water. So next drink station, I took on water, poured it all over my head. Um, you know, I got to 10 miles. Now I'm thinking, well, look, it's only three miles to go. You know, I've run the London Marathon, you know, three miles to go. I'd already done 23 , but getting to 10 miles, it was like getting to 23 miles in the marathon. I'd absolutely had it. And I had this horrible feeling, you know , I , the timings were gone out the window. Now whether I would even make it, I was think , can you fool Jason, you've taken it for granted yet again, why do you think you're better than what you are? It's called a half marathon for a reason. Yes, it's half the full distance, but to many , running a half marathon is a fantastic achievement. Why do you think you can suddenly speed round it twice the speed of your marathon because it's half the distance you can't. So all these thoughts were going through my mind, and I still had three miles to go along this never ending stretcher road. And this is where running marathons and half marathons, you know, once you've done all the training, it literally comes down to the day. I mean, they call it a victory lap, but a lot of factors out your control, like the weather can happen on the day and you can only control the thins that you are in control of. For example, taking on the water. I could take on more water . Maybe I should have done, I don't know . Um, I thought I took on as much as I could. I thought I drank a lot before the race. Um , maybe I could have worn a cap to keep the sun off my head. I dunno . But bear in mind, remember this was only my second race. So I'm fairly new to all this . And the arrogance of you father thinking , you know, I'll be fine. So coming down the main road just before you turn into the finish, I really was suffering now. And it was horrible. It was like it hit the wall in the marathon. It was like I felt was gonna collapse . Um , and there was very few runners around me , from what I remember, I was literally running on my own because bear in mind there was only 500 in the whole field. So even though it was 13 miles, you get spread out. So I can see a couple of runners in front of me. I didn't look behind me. Now I'm thinking in my mind, I must be the last one in. 'cause you've only got 500 runners. And with only 500 runners, you know, a lot of them are gonna be pretty good. Most first time runners, half marathon runners, marathon runner will go for the big events. That's where you got the support. I mean, all during this race, you know, there weren't the crowds, people alongside the roads. You might get one or two down to be walking by. That was it. And that was another crucial factor. And I would say to anybody who's thinking of entering their first marathon or half marathon, try and go, I know it's very difficult, but if you can get in, try and go for a slightly bigger race. Because if you go for these smaller races, it is gonna be the more, not say professional runners, but certainly faster. And you know, you're not gonna get the crowd supports and the crowd support is vital. You know, you want that, that , that , that atmosphere. And I'm glad I managed to do the London marathons, my first one, but obviously I was coming down from that now and I was really, I'm just how difficult it was to run even a half marathon , even though it was local when you haven't got the support. So my parents and grandparents, you know, they, they obviously weren't going around the course following me. They were in Upton Court Park at the finish and I turned into the entrance and I still had a few hundred yards down this little slope where I could see the gantry finishes , gantry. I mean, I couldn't see my parents or grandparents. I mean, there was a , a mixture of people behind him mean it wasn't like London mouth and you know , all the family support it right behind the line there. But I can see him. And by now, to be honest by now, my eyesight was literally going, my eyesight was like I was getting blurred vision. And that is a sign of dehydration. And yeah, just , just thinking about it now, my voice is going . It was just, it , it , it was , it was horrible. And I could blur really see that the finish line. And I literally couldn't put a sprint finish on or anything. I could literally just staggered across the line, just about managed to stay my feet for someone to put the medal around me. But then I just collapsed literally on the grass behind the finish line. Um, and my parents and grandparents were right there. And obviously, you know, they started talking to me , were concerned, but I , I couldn't speak, I wasn't unconscious, but I was, I was dead to the world in all other senses. Um, I vaguely remember a medic came over , uh, they brought me water , um, you know , maybe sports jails , anything to try to try and revive me. I'll be honest with you, my parents and grandparents didn't look too concerned. They just, they , they just couldn't figure out why, if it was a half mouth and why I struggled so much. And so they, they weren't overly concerned that I was in a bad way or anything. Um, and you know, the , eventually I seemed like a lifetime, but the medics got me sitting up again and, you know, it was , they said, obviously I was , I was , you know , de badly dehydrated. So they tried to get as much fluid into me as possible and tried to drag me to somewhere where there was some shade . 'cause the sun was still very strong, even though, you know, we're talking September time in England. It was, it was very strong. And , um, yeah, to me, a good few minutes before I could even speak to my parents or grandparents. And they were like , well, you know what happened there? And I go, well, look up in the start , it's fairly obvious what happened, <laugh> the sun came out out and yeah, now I know what it's like to run in such hot weather. And in all the time that I've been running, I don't think I've ever run a really hot marathon. Not that I can remember. I mean it's, I've , I've, I've run hot marathons, but you know, for example, I've not run in Australia where, where it's, you know , it can be really hot or Africa or anywhere like that. But I've run in a , obviously over the years, I've run a , a few times now with the weather's been hot and I guess I'm more prepared for it now. I mean, it's never easy. But being a young fool, shall I say, I was, you know, young and arrogant and blase about it all. But, you know, from these, these races and certainly from the mistakes you make, you always learn. What I learned from that was that never, never take any race for granted. I keep saying this and it's gonna be keep repeating in all my podcasts, but you must never take any race for granted. And even after 30 years now, I still, still don't take any race for granted. Whether it's, you know, a three miler, a five miler, 10 k , whatever, I prepare just the same. And another thing, you've always gotta expect the unexpected, as I said , you can't control, for example, things like the weather, but you can be prepared for it. You know, you can control what you drink, what you drink before the, the race, what you eat, the nutrition, you can control that. So yes, the time wasn't what I expected. It was quicker, for example, the , but I was still feeling really deflated. That was what I think that was the middle of September. But bear in mind, I'd done all this training leading up to it. And at the time, you know, I managed to, well basically we didn't because I was just across the road, we took me time to recover. But we walked back home and I dunno , I guess it took me about a week. I didn't run for about a week and I was obviously still very proud looking back now because I had the medal . Um , my parents and grandparents, even though they didn't, you know , like a song of dance about it, I knew they were proud of me. And looking back, you know, I was, I was proud, but I still had unfinished business, unfinished business. Like that was my second race. And on my second race, I still messed it up and I'm thinking, no, I can do better than this. So I'm a urgency. I was looking for another race. So marathons and half marathons, certainly in the northern hemisphere here, you tend to get your spring marathons. So they normally, you know, go from maybe February to April, you might go into May, and then you get your marathon . Marathon are gonna be from maybe September through to Christmas. So that's when most of the races you do get a few in the summer where you get one or two races in the summer, <laugh> . But , but obviously after suffering in the heat like that , I didn't wanna do a summer one . And 'cause I was young and anxious and impatient, I wanted a race really quickly that I could do to prove to myself that I can do a fast time faster than what I have done. And also, I all had this bank of training behind me and the distances I've been running like the 20 miles and that, you know, I I , I could be running a marathon, so I didn't want all of that training to go to waste . 'cause otherwise, you know, my next race would be maybe, for example, February or April. Certainly the big , a lot of big marathons in London would be in April. So you've got a good few months and anything can happen in those months of winter training. So ideally I was thinking I'd do one more race before the end of the year, have a bit , and for an April marathon, hopefully , fingers crossed . So, you know , back then , as I say , there weren't a number of races you have now, but I did find one and that was called the Abbot and Marathon. Now, that was a place in Oxford. It was about 40 miles from me, but my grandparents were very keen to help me. My parents not so much, but my grandparents were very keen on my running exploits and no problem. So that having to get a train or anything like that. And, and I think the ab marathon's still going to that actually. Um, but where it was at that particular time, it was right out the sticks . I mean, Oxford chair , uh, you come out away from Oxford, obviously where everybody knows the university is , but out in the sticks is beautiful countryside. And it was actually , um, it was something a bit different from , from what normally done normally. The , the marathons I had done, like London Slough , they were literally like one loop . So you went out, came back. Now the mouth , and from what I remember it was , it was a two looper . So you did two laps. You , you didn't come straight back to the start. You did did the first lap , um, I think you just avoided the start , but then you did like another loop. And then you came back to the start and the , and the start finish was, so where the start and finish was, you started and you went uphill slightly, but the majority of the course, literally you were going downhill. So it was known as a very fast course. So this , this gave me more of a , uh, an incentive than anything else to , I'm thinking, okay, it's a fast course , but yet again, there wasn't a lot of runners running it. Probably the max 500 and it wouldn't be the crowd support. As I say , this was very much , um, around the country lane. So different to the lau half where I was on the main roads. Um , this would be a very picturesque, but it could be a very lonely marathon and ness . I managed to , to team up with someone else who was going at the pace that I wanted. And this, this is what happened, I managed to team up with a couple of guys and when the race died off , um, I managed, you know, after we spread out from the start, I managed to catch up with these two runs. And I said to them, I said, you know, what, what , what time are you looking at? And they were looking at a time, maybe three and a half hours. Now, bearing in mind my last marathon was the London and that was back in April. And I did that in four hours, 48 . So <laugh> , if I was to get in at three 30 , you are talking an hour and 18 minutes quicker, which is a heck of a lot of time difference. So what I was thinking, I don't know , as I say through , I mean it was a fast course and through the first six miles I felt like I was hardly breathing and I stayed with these two guys and we even managed to have a little bit of a chat as we were running at this pace. At times I felt like, I'm gonna go in front of you, but then I was thinking, no, no, don't be a fool. You're happy at this pace, just keep with this pace because things can change so dramatically in the marathon. You can be fine one minute, the next minute, whatever reason you hit the wall or, or , or for example happened in the s sl , half the weather changes. It can change in an instant. So, you know, I was literally just, just on the, the back of these two guys. And when you are running with someone else like that, the whole race becomes a lot more comfortable for start. You can have a little bit of a chat if you can talk. You don't feel so alone, their pace new . So you haven't got the concentrate on your pace or keep looking at your watch. They're , they're pacing for you and you feel that camaraderie because it was literally us three and at times we couldn't see any other runners around. There weren't crowds at the side of the roads. So it was literally us against the world. And I really enjoyed the company. I hadn't done this before . Okay, London Marathon, I had run with masses of runners around me, but people went by me, I went by people, they were just other runners here. I was forming a real runner's friendship and I was confident with these guys . They're gonna get me to beat my London time . I'm gonna run my fastest marathon ever. I'm gonna fill my potential here. So I guess it got to about eight, 10 miles and I was still with these guys and we were , we were still on for a really good pace. But then as the , as the the race description said , it was going downhill and I just felt so good . I , I didn't even think it was a risk at the time, but I just felt so good. I felt I'm gonna push on slightly because I, i , I didn't know whether I felt we were slowing or not. Maybe I did, we probably weren't. But I was thinking if I just go slightly ahead of them, you know , I didnt want to be in a competition with them. I didn't want to think, you know, if I suddenly go past and they're suddenly gonna go past me and we're gonna , because that, that wouldn't do any of us any good. If we fight against each other, then we're just, all of us are gonna blow up. So I just increased the pace slightly and went in front of them. I was hoping in some ways that they would come with me because I was thinking, if they come with me, we're all in this together. I've got so much to thank them for, we're gonna be on a really good time here. But now I went slightly ahead and the one thing you should never do is look behind you. So I dared to not look behind me. I just, I just kept going and I was waiting for them to come up onto my shoulder, even past me. But that didn't happen. So I, I just kept going at this pace and then I felt stronger and stronger. Looked 10 miles and still 13 more miles to go. But then I start breaking it up. I'm thinking, okay, I still feel good. Let's get to 16 miles. I there's no wool , nothing. I get to 18 and another 20 mile was the big, the big miler . But nothing happened. I just, I just felt really good and kept going at this really strong pace. And as I say , I probably left the other about maybe 10 , 11 , just before halfway I was literally running in my own. Uh, but you know, the last 13 miles, it didn't feel like I was running on my own. Felt so good. And I got to, I don't know , 23 miles and the three last three miles of my mouth can be really tough. But I got to 24 and it was like just two more miles to go. And instead of , instead of thinking I was slowing down, I wasn't actually slowing down, I was pushing even more. I get to 25 now, I know what's coming the last mile. And as I said previously, the last mile in any race is always the hardest. It's just, it , it feels like the longest mile there is. And obviously it was the , it was the same mile that we'd started off in, but certainly the last few yards were all the way downhill to the finish line. And it's 26 miles, I think 365 yards. No , 365 yards make a difference. But today, no it didn't. And I remember turning right, I was at the top of the hill and I could see the , the gantry and the all I remember seeing was the very first , uh, number on the timer, it was three hours. And I was like, wow, I am smashing this. I can't believe this time already. And I could see a smattering of , of crowds and officials down by the gantry. There was no one in front of me, from what I could tell, no one was behind me. I wasn't gonna let anybody pass me anywhere . I literally just sprinted down the slope towards the gantry. And I've still got the photograph now of me arms flailing, me, sprinting, the sun is out, but I'm not dehydrated this time. I've been drinking all the way along. I prepared well and even though I'm running my fastest ever, I'm not dehydrated, I'm not, I'm not sweating. I'm just having the time on my life. And I'm like, yes, this is it. My third race and I've actually nailed it. And I come sprinting across the line. I can see my grandparents at the back of the line there, like I'm sprinting across and I'm like, wow, did I just run a marathon or was it only a half or was it 10 k? Because to me, I , I just ran across, stop my watch with all smiles and everything medals presented around my neck. I see my grandparents there cheering me on and I'm standing there and all, all I remember was thinking, I know this sounds daft especially compared to obviously my, my previous race attempts. But , and this is how competitive I compare , I was standing there thinking, wow, what a waste. I've still got so much more energy left in me . I could have gone even faster. But then I looked up at the time, and you'll never in your life, believe what time I got. Bear in mind, this is only my third race and it was only my second ever marathon. The time I got was three hours. Okay, three hours, 18 minutes, 42 seconds, three hours, 18. And yet I was still thinking I could go even faster . I was thinking maybe I could have done under three hours. And I , it was one of the be well it was one of the best feelings ever, but also very contradictory. 'cause I'm thinking, will I ever get a chance again? Because obviously now I was really up for running more marathons. Will I ever get the chance again to feel that good during a marathon, knowing I could have pushed it even more? Because to me, like when I said in my first marathon, and if you didn't hear about first marathon in the first podcast, it was, it was pure hell. There was me as a youngster thinking I can run really quickly. No problems. I cut a long story short, you know, I hit the wall. Um , I did it in four hours, 48 minutes , um, which I was expecting to do under four hours. I came across the line, felt sick, I literally myself in the port cabins. And it was the most disgusting feeling I ever felt at the end. Um, I felt like I'd gone round in a washing machine, my stomach was turning over and it was just crap and everywhere. And that 40 I could hardly get up. Um, just everything. I was absolute mess. Um, but then as I said in that podcast, I , I felt good because I knew I hadn't left anything out there on the course. I'd given it my all. And even though it wasn't as fast as what I wanted, I had known by feeling that bad, by myself, by just the state I was in, I'd given everything. And that's what you can ask for, you know , a marathon, half marathon , any race is a challenge. And I've learned to realize, you know, you're not comparing yourself to others, even your own time doesn't really matter. Yes, we all like to, to to beat our time. At the end of the day, if you finish, you're a winner. What , what , I dunno . I guess what disappointed me here was, you know, I felt too good at the finish. I felt too good. And then I'm judging myself thinking you full , you didn't work hard enough. You could have pushed it even more. But in such a long race, like the marathon , there is a fine line between pushing it even more and then blowing up because it's such a long race, you're talking maybe three, six hours, sometimes seven hours for some people. You can't just go sprinting off at the start. You can't go quickly even at the halfway point normally because, you know, you still got another half round to do. You've gotta find the pace that you can keep all the way around. And, you know, the , the , the , the great scenario, the great dream for most runners is to do what's known as a negative split, which only learned later on in years . And a negative split is where literally you do the second half of the race quicker than the first. That's your ideal race scenario. You start off slowly, don't get caught up with the excitement and you increase as you go along. Unfortunately for me, <laugh> and I wouldn't advise as most of my races, I start off too quickly though I have managed to, it's the first mile that normally kills you. So you have to start slowly on the first mile. So yeah, normally I start off too quickly, but I have got , I'm start , you know , even after 30 years , I'm not good at it , but I managed to slow down the first mile . But I've always , my mindset has always been just this is not the correct way to do it. To try and do the , the half net in a full mouth and do the halfway 13 miles get a good time because you know you're gonna slow down in the second half and how much you slow down. Well , that's up to you. And I've never been, my opinion, it's not necessarily the correct opinion, but my opinion's never been, do the first half slow or slower and then do the second half quicker. Because I know even if I do it slower, I'm gonna go even slower on the second half. And hence my time's gonna be even slower. I mean , the rules completely went out the window on this. 'cause you know, I started pushing it at a halfway mark. I never hit the wall, never got dehydrated, and I never slowed down. And you know, I just, I just, I just , I just kept going. I , I didn't quite get a negative split, but it was pretty close to one, both one and a half times. Uh, were , were pretty even. So in , in many ways it was I guess the perfect race, but it wasn't perfect in the sense. But I'm thinking I could have gone even quicker and even 30 years later, it still haunts me to this day that I'm thinking I could have gone quicker, maybe even under three hours. But looking back, you know, three hours, 18, and if I told you this, and I'll tell you now, that is still to this day my pb and yet it was only my second ever marathon. And you know, I , my first was four , I was 48 back in April. And then I've gone from April to, what are we in this, this was held approximately end of October, and I've knocked an hour and 38 and I've even got this in the , in , in , in the results. And I look at that and I'm thinking, wow, most people will be over the moon with that. And I was, because as I say , it's , it's , it's , it's my pv. But what happened along the way was I probably didn't capitalize on it. You know, I ran more marathons and a half marathons maybe, maybe I didn't take the training as seriously as I should. You know, when, when you're young, you know, the the , you tend to ignore the rules. You think, no , I'll do it my way. I know better and maybe if I pushed on with my training more. But to me, you know, running the marathon, even though I've always ran, it was more a goal objective. You know , maybe something you have on your bucket list, you know, if you say to people, you run a marathon, then it's impressive. And apparently they say only one to 2% of the population have ever run a marathon. So, you know, you , you , you are one of the few that have done it. Even a half marathon is a great achievement. So I was guess what it was like , you know, I've done that and having done the ab , ab and marathon so quickly like that, I was like , well , yeah , this is quite easy. Maybe I need to do something more challenging, find a different challenge. I didn't think to myself, I could be really, really good at this. If I can knock that much time off, I could maybe even at least get under three hours, which does anybody knows if get under three hours, it's astronomical time. You know, you're in the two hour something bracket, which, you know, professional, well professionals now doing two hours , six, two hours, 10, but you know, you're in that the same hour bracket as them. And I could have done it. And maybe that's, well, I know it is . It's my one regret over the 30 years of running marathons that I never capitalized on that and gotten to the three hours . But, you know, even now to most people, three hours , 18 is a really, really good time. And as you'll see in later podcast, I have, I have got very, very, very close to it. So I always have hope even 30 years later. You've always gotta have hope. Um, but as I say , you know, the , the main thing looking back now is always to finish the marathon. If you beat your time, that's good. But you know, any , any marathon or as , or as I say now , any race is an achievement 3, 5, 10 miles and you know, you mustn't berate yourself like I'm doing now about, oh, I could, I could have gone faster because that's, that's all in the past. And after I did the abdo marathon, it probably took about a week. Um, or may or maybe it was two weeks before I thought to myself, you did well there, you did good. You did everything. You did everything right. You couldn't have done it much better. It was the perfect race. Look at the time, look how much you knocked off London. And this is the end of October. So now I'm thinking, okay , let's look towards running London again . Now that would be good if I could run the London marathon again , that would be ideal. So at this time I still, still wasn't working. So I had obviously plenty of time for training and come October time, which is when I'd run the den marathon and you know , the entries for , for London, you applied back then in October. I was thinking, yeah , let's try and get back into London if I'm gonna do another marathon, want to do a big one. And around April time, you know, there were , there were a few marathons, not as many as there are now, but there are a few marathons I could have gone for. And certainly London, you know, I was a bit naive thinking, yeah , I can get back into London again. I didn't realize how difficult it was gonna be. So in the meantime, I hadn't got a job. And so this was this , this was, you know, taking my mind off that, that factor. But going back to looking at other goals , um, I left school when I was 17. I never thought I was academically minded. So in the meantime , I was doing an evening course, an evening course that I hoped to get me back into university in what's known as a , a mature student. So any, you know, any age over 18, you know , they class as a mature student. And I was only just over that . So I was looking to do business studies or, or , or account or something like that, something where I could , you know, I was thinking that'd be useful to , to run their own business . So that , that's what I was, that's what I was doing in , in , in evening classes while , while I didn't have a job and then doing, running in , in , in the daytime. And if I could get into university, I would probably be starting probably the , the following year, the following September. So for me it was like, well , yeah , get the, the marathon run in April. Uh , maybe there'll be, you know, maybe I could try a summer race and then if I get into university, which would be in September, let's see what happens then I could still, maybe if they got slow off marathon , run that again, maybe do the abdo marathon and that. But you know, obviously things in your life change . So sometimes things go on back burner. But at the moment I was thinking, yeah, I'm gonna try and get into London Marathon . Well , as it happens, that didn't quite turn out that way. So I didn't get into London and from what I remember, I couldn't find any other marathon. Certainly not local to me. 'cause bear in mind I didn't have a car and I , I was never a big fan of of , of going by train . And you know , a lot of these, some of these races, you know, they , they , they weren't necessarily close to train stations and that, and I was , I was very much , um, a homely person. Never fancy going too far out my comfort zone. So I didn't get into London, I'd be training all through the winter. Uh , 'cause to me it didn't seem like training. I'd literally just , just running for the fun of it . While it wasn't working, it was giving something to do. I feel I was achieving something even if I wasn't, you know, running the races. But the back of my mind, I was hoping something would come up. I'd never run , uh, a race in the summer before. And I didn't think there were many races you, you could run in the summer. As I say , most of the races were , uh, they were in the spring or the winter , um, au to wintertime. So I was thinking, even though I had obviously suffered with the heat and the slab half , I was thinking, well, maybe I could find some race. It was only a 10 k just had put my training to good use because I was thinking if I hear back and I've got a place at university, you know, come September, everything could change. You know what it's like when you go to university? Well , certainly back then it was all, even though I didn't do much of that currently, I was thinking if I get to university, it's gonna be all drinking and parties and certainly not drugs. I was never, never into drugs. I was never into drinking. But, you know, when at university obviously that could all change . So that's what I was, you know , planning on , I was planning to get on as many races I could before I started university. And that's what I did. I started looking for races in the summer and there was one quite local to me, and it's actually still run today. And that's the , the Burnham half mouth and about , they did a half and they 10 K on the same day . So basically the half , half was a two laps and the 10 K , which is one lap. And me being a glutton for punishment and always wanting to, to try and, you know, the biggest challenge, get the biggest achievement. Ideally I would've run a marathon, but they didn't have the marathon. So I was like, straight away , I'm gonna go for the , uh, the half marathon. And that's what I did . I put my name down for it . As I say , it was only , only Burnham . And my grandparents said, yeah, we'll , we'll we'll take you there. It was literally burnham's probably less than 10 miles from . So it was an ideal place to go . And , um, yeah , to say it was a a an eventful race is , is an understatement. It certainly opened my eyes to, you know, what , what running a half marathon is like. Yeah. Again, this was another, another small race and it was local to me and it was very much a , a , a race for runner. So there weren't many first timers there. And it was a very, very hit course out in the countryside. And it was a course that was gonna test me and believe you me, it certainly tested me . All right . And well, let's just say it was like most of my races an an eventful race. Um, which I'll leave it for now and I'll tell you more about this race on my next episode of 30 years of running Marathons.