4500 reasons to say thank you!

Hello everyone!

I am alive! I am sorry for the radio silence since I left for London but that was caused both by the fact I had very little time free and the fact that my iPad was not too happy with the blogging software I use to put this out.

Well let’s cut to the chase. I finished the London Marathon on April 17^th in a time of 4 hours 17 minutes and 10 seconds. Even more impressively the total amount raised thus far is 4500 pounds thanks to a donation by Jutta and Allan during the run itself. It was a very nice surprise to see that so thanks!

So as you can see, from the time, I did not reach my personal target of finishing in under 4 hours. Ultimately I paid the price for deciding to try and go significantly under 4 hours on a hot day.  It made the last part of the race tough but seeing the finish line made it all worth it.  I also have to reserve a massive thanks to my wife, my dad, Denise, David, Jessie, his two girls and team Hartley for coming out and cheering me on around the course. Watching this race is a tough thing to do if you imagine how many people are watching and how many people are running. A lot of the photos out on the course were down to my wife and my dad!

I also want to say a big thanks to Brett and Eszter as well as Angelina and Pete for coming along afterwards to meet the rest of the on course support team and see me enjoy my first beerJ.

This blog has a lot of pictures in it and you can click on them to see them at a bigger size than shown here.

Collecting my number

On April 16th I headed to the Excel Center to collect my number. I was strongly advised to head there early to avoid the crowds and so an early start meant my wife and I arrived at about 10am and I was delighted to be able to walk straight up and collect my number, grab my timing tag, get a few pictures, walk around the actual expo and collect as many goodies as possible. The expo was nothing too special in my opinion but the buzz in the room was awesome.

I did decide rather spontaneously to spend some money buying an official race shirt, getting my name printed on it and also having the name of the charity printed on it. Below you can see two pictures of me modelling it.

Just before leaving the Expo we watched a motivational speaker .. for some reason I was focused on the picture you see below...  would it come true for me?

Speaking of tough moments, when going to get the Docklands Light Railway back to the centre of London, the queues we saw told me that we were right to arrive early... it could have been a tough long wait to get my number otherwise

The picture to the right made me laugh... only runners will get this ;-). The rest of the day was spent sitting on an open top bus driving around London to stop my legs from taking too much of a hit.

If you are interested in more pictures of the Expo you can view them here.

Race Day

My race day started at 6.45am with a morning wake up call from my blackberry. I got myself ready and headed downstairs to eat 5 Weetabix and guzzle a cup of coffee as well as my energy drink.  My carefully organized taxi failed to turn up but thanks to the intervention and persuasive power of Jessie I was soon sitting in a taxi and heading to the start. The picture below was taken by Jessie just before I left.



Last drop of water before heading to the start



The trip to the start was uneventful and I lined up in the Red start (1 of three) in block 5. I was very relaxed right up until the start and pretty much in the zone. I was feeling fit and realizing something I had dreamt of.. I was about to start the London Marathon.

Before I talk about the race let me just say that while I told most people I was planning to just run below 4 hours. The truth is I had trained on a 3 hours 45 minute plan. I had, however, not decided on if I would try to run that or if I would instead take it a bit easier and focus on breaking 4 hours. That decision was made on the start line. I was feeling good, the vibe was good and it was not too hot. All the stars seemed to line up and so I went for it.

The first 10 km

What surprised me the most was that the first 3 miles were not the same being taken by the elite athletes. The red start, where I started, seemed to go through some gently undulating housing areas before we joined up with the green and blue starts at the 3 mile marker. The support was pretty good along the way even at this early stage. It was pretty nice to hear the crowds cheering you on and also just to be out running was awesome. When we merged with the crowds at the 3 mile marker the numbers swelled as did the atmossphere. I reached the 5km marker in 27 minutes, the 10km marker was reached in 54 minutes. Somewhere around there I saw my father, my wife, David and the two little ones and they snapped this picture of me... I had to run zig zag to get to them. Apparently though it is easier to spot and take a good picture of a chicken... maybe that is what I need to wear next time :-)...

15km to half marathon

Not long after the 10km mark I started to question my idea of running 3 hours and 45 minutes. By now it was starting to warm up and my great planning which involved no hat or sun cream was starting to look like a really bad decision. I have run 2 marathons in the past and I thought it was time to slow down slightly and change my target. I thefore changed strategy with the aim to go over the half marathon in 1 hour 55 mins which if I could hold it would see me over the finish line in 3 hours 50. Still below 4 hours and still a good time.

I ran another time past the gathered supporters who were apparently not distracted anymore by a running chicken or Toilet managing to grab these fleeting shots of me as I went by.

The highlight of the whole race for me was crossing Tower Bridge. I think I will never forget it and the crowds were remarkable. If you add to that the emotion of running this big race and what it meant I have to admit to having a quick tear in the eye.

I crossed the half marathon point at 1 hour 55mins and 18 seconds which was right on time for the 3 hour 50 min revised target but I was already starting to get a little worried at that point.  For those of you that know about distance running you know that you should run either an even pace or have a faster second half of the race. I had neither run an even pace nor was I planning a faster second half. I had no idea what toll the faster start would have on my and I was starting to really heat up in the now blazing sun. That said I still felt strong in my legs and I pushed on into Canary Wharf.

Canary Wharf

Canary Wharf, as many will know, is where you will find many of the skyscrapers in London. Unfortunately it is also the place where on a hot day with lots of crowds around heat seems to sink not rise. As I got more and more into Canary Wharf I felt I was running increasingly in an oven. I could not cool myself down. The showers on the course were not too good and the water at the stations was already a little warm. I was slowly cooking and I knew it. I went through 25km in 2 hours and 17 minutes and at this stage I was still on target with my plan of around 3:50 but at around 28km my heart rate suddenly jumped and slowing down, trying to walk a little and numerous other tricks were not working.  I got through 30km in 2 hours 50 so was still on target for a time of below 4 hours but the heat was really starting to hit me and no matter what I did my heart rate kept climbing. I knew that it was unsustainable and I wanted to finish. I took to walking through all drinks stations sucking down fluids, trying to cool down and getting gels into me. Funnily enough my legs were still strong and it was my cardiovascular system that was letting me down... 

Along the way my supporters grabbed a few pictures of me in full hydration and walk mode

Unfortunately the plan to walk and hydrate through the drinks stations was also not suitable to get things under control and despite crossing the 35km marker at 3 hours and 27mins I was unable to get myself moving because of my heart going a bit mad (everytime I would start to run it would head up towards 185bpm ... ) and when the 4 hour target slipped by I have to admit to deciding to somewhat cruise to the finish line and enjoy the atmosphere given how hot it had now become for me. I eventually crossed the finish line in 4 hours 17 minutes and 10 seconds. My father grabbed a few pictures of me as I headed to the finish line.

There are some official photos which I am in the process of buying and I will share some of them in a future blog posting..  So there you have it.. I crossed the line and thanks to all your support, despite not hitting my personal time target and suffering a fair amount until I decided to enjoy the last few miles, the real winners were the XLP Research Trust who certainly exceeded my and their expectations thanks to you!

I have to admit to a few tears after crossing the line. I looked upwards and sort of apologized for not pushing myself to the finish to someone who was not there in person but was certainly there in my mind. A kind St Johns Ambulance man thought I was in pain and offered to help which I declined as someone collapsed next to me in a heap. The heat was certainly taking its toll and that was not only on those getting to the finish. Sophe Raworth is a BBC presenter who collapsed at 25 miles... her blog post is amazing.. what determination to finish! Reading that does make me feel better about not over doing it but my time slid by and I cannot be overly happy with that :-(

If you want to see more pictures of the race you can do so here.

The party after the race

Team Hartley, the founders of the XLP Research Trust, and the family who have gone through so much had organized for us to meet at a wine bar in Victoria after the race. My reward was a massage which I am posting pictures on here as if I do not my Dad will ;-)...

I was really pleased to be joined at that location by My wife, my Dad and Denise, Team Hartley, Brett and Eszter as well as Angelina and Pete. It was great to see everyone. Below is a picture of my wife and I with team Hartley including the 4 boys and 2 parents who have been through so much more than I ever will ..  it is a picture I will treasure!

I also managed to get a picture of each of the boys wearing the medal. They earned it as well!

I was speaking to David after the race and he told me they are very close to starting a new round of research funding. Your support made it possible! Thank you!

Thanks and what's next

Well - as you can imagine I really have no idea how to say thanks to all of you for your support. I am sorry I was not able to make my target time but that is distance running for you especially when you try to push for a fast (fast for me anyway) time. I do not have the bug though and I think I will have to have another go. Maybe settle for 1 minute under 4 hours before I try for 15 mins under 4 hours.

Tomorrow - April 26th - applications for the 2012 London Marathon open tomorrow and I will apply. I am also thinking of applying for the Frankfurt Marathon in October of this year. Until then I'll be running a half marathon in 2 weeks in Heilbron with Bernard Doering and a 20km in Brussells with a set of Belgium colleagues as well as Bernard and Petri.  I also have the Karlsruhe half marathon planned for September of this year..

So the 2011 London Marathon adventure has come to an end.. Thanks to all of you for your support.

Mark

The countdown is now on...

Hi Everyone - Sorry for not spamming you yesterday. It was a busy day of work and then I decided to go hang out with the Heidelberg gang to do a quiz. I had not seen them for a while and I decided that would be good downtime. As it happens I feel my quiz team were robbed by our second team (*joke*) since they got half a point for Gnomeo as in the movie "Gnomeo & Juliet"... That is like giving half a point for Star in "Star Wars". I am not bitter though...  I am just saying that we would have won since we came second had it not been for that bit of generosity :-) ...  That half a point cost me 12 euros ;)... LOL...

Ok.. back to the running. Still not too nervous. If anything I am starting to feel good about Sunday. Lots of well wishes and a number of additional sponsors since I last wrote. Since I last wrote the total has risen to 4347 pounds which is awesome. I need about another 15 donations to catch the guy who is winning the 1000 pound challenge (the challenge is to get the most donations between April 6th and April 17th - amount not relevant - and the winner gets 1000 pound added to the charity.. so ask your friends to go pump in a euro, a pound, a dollar, a whatever! - that 1 of something could result in 1000 of something good :-)...)

This morning I have been doing my packing and preparing... the picture below shows my running gear all ready to rock and roll. I have not decided yet if I will run in blue or yellow as the t-shirt - feel free to tell me your thoughts - but everything else is primed including my trusty running shoes that will retire from running after the marathon (not me.. I have some replacement shoes), my shorts that stop parts of me turning into pain and the all important band-aids to prevent my nipples turning into a bloody painful mess. Of course I also have my trusty 1000 mile socks.. I think I have well and truly exhausted those sock miles so it will be time for some new socks after this as well.

Running gear ready - check!

I do have some sports and energy drinks which I will take a photo of tomorrow...  Today it is all about getting safely to London where we will be staying with David, Jessie and their too kids for the duration of the visit. Tomorrow is about picking up my number and I am going to take some pictures and try to get them up onto the blog tomorrow. That will be the first time I try to write a blog from the iPad so lets see how it goes ;)

So keep on asking people to donate, donate if you have not already done so and watch out for me on TV. Until tomorrow.. happy Friday!

Mark.

Can I just say that all of you reading this rock!

Today I passed the 4000 pound mark for my fund raising effort on behalf of the XLP Research Trust. Seeing that number pop up sent a massive chill through my whole body and makes me immensly proud to have such a supportive group of friends and colleagues around the world. I really do not know how to state my appreciation in a way that does justice to you all. We are now at 10% of the cost of a research program and who knew that little old me could motivate you all to do that!!! YOU ARE ALL SIMPLY AWESOME!

Ok, so I need to stop using the word Awesome. Some people apparently spotted my usage of that in my recent stage efforts in Las Vegas. There it was part of an ongoing conspiracy but in this blog it is really meant in the full sense of the word!

It is amazing to think that back in 2003 I ran the second of my two previous marathons and was a respectable 67kg yet by 2008 I had grown to a massive 92kg thanks to the excesses of life (mostly beer and laziness). What is even more amazing is that through the support of many people mentioned in previous blogs I have been able to personally turn around my health and get back down to 74kg with a target to get back to around 70kg by the end of this year. The pictures at the end of this blog really illustrate the change and this is down to many people and a bit of motivation to get moving! I did not change anything except stepping up my exercise...  I have many more embarassing ones of me over the years and I like the new me which is the same as the old me before I got lazy (almost!).

I still have a big ask of each of you and that is to help me drive more people to contribute. Even if it 1 pound, 1 US Dollar, 1 Australian Dollar, 1 Euro etc... Just Giving (the site you have donated to) is offering an extra 1000 to the person with the most individual contributions (from different individuals) over a 48 hour period. It has been going now for about 12 hours and I know that with your help we can claim that cash :-)... do me a favor and remind people .. I promise you all that after this effort and all your contributions I will not come begging again for at least another 3 years ;-)....

The big race is now 4 days away. I got through my last significant run last night and have a short 20 minute jog planned for today at a slow speed and then I am rest mode until Saturday when I have another 20 minute jog in the plan (will probably replace it with a walk to the Excel arena to get my number). Then it is the big day.. I am not nervous today and all my muscle pain and phantom injuries have gone.. maybe they will be back tomorrow :-)

This evening is time to start packing.. I need to prepare for 18 degrees celcius weather during the run and probably a bit colder first thing. I also need to get my iPod running tunes ready to rock and roll me along the 26 miles...  I also started to carbo load today taking in my first pasta of what is going to be 3 or 4 days of pasta and potatoes... I will probably not want to see either of those for sometime after the race...  and finally..  I am really looking forward to my first beer after the race... I am delighted to say that I should be joined by a number of people including the whole of the Hartley family who have inspired me to do this and that in itself is testament to the wonders of medicine and a reminder as to what this is all about... together we are making a difference ...

Thanks again.. I will blast out another update tomorrow telling you how it feels to be 3 days before a Marathon :-)

Until then... keep well my awesome bunch of fellow superstars!

Mark.





Teller in some of the eary fat years



Teller in 2011

Penn in early fat years

Penn in 2011

Mark at the height of fat boy status - blocked out the person next to me to protect the innocent!

Mark in 2011

5 days to go...

Well.. 5 days to the race itself and I am now starting to feel all sorts of mysterious pains :-). My legs are not happy after the 2 mile sprint race I did at the weekend and my muscles feel a bit tight in places. Worry about injury is setting in and phantom niggles are abound.I think this is normal... maybe the pressure is playing tricks!

This is not my first marathon. I already completed two, but it is the first one I am doing in full view of a lot of people based on the fund raising efforts I have underway, although those were 8 years ago so too far back to count. To that end I think I am starting to feel the pressure. Maybe I should not have included a target time in my original note and then I would not have any pressure. I would be able to meander around the course, collect my T-Shirt and medal and then go on to enjoy a good night with friends.

I am also starting to remember the pain I went through in reaching just over 4 hours last time I did a marathon and wondering if I will encounter that again...

But then I stop for a minute... those of you that know me also know that I have a hard time doing anything at less than 100%. Don't confuse that for being the best at something (since I am not sure I have ever been the best at something in my life) but it does mean I will be really disappointed if at the end I cannot say I left everything out on the course and gave it my all utilizing what I have to the max. That "all" to the "max" is inevitably going to result in some pain because by definition as you push yourself to the max in a marathon that is what is going to happen! Mentally I am not sure I can really prepare for that...  I do know that as the days click by the nerves are mounting...

I need to do a 10km light jog later and then I am into serious taper teritory... just a 20min jog tomorrow followed by a potential 2 mile jog on Saturday and then it is race day... wow.. it is really that close. 

Best set of friends ever

It has been a few weeks since I last updated you on the progress and the Marathon is now just 6 days away. Since I last updated on March 20^th I have been on the road and well busy. I flew to the USA on March 23^rd and only returned back to Heidelberg on April 8^th. Just before leaving I did a 12.3km run in Heidelberg on the 22^nd of March. After that my work took me to Cary, North Carolina and then on to Las Vegas, Nevada.  It involved 2 a weekend in Cary and a weekend in Las Vegas.  

I enjoy being in Cary since I normally am able to get in a good amount of running as jet lag wakes me up at 6am most mornings and there is an excellent park to run in (the William B. Umstead park) right next to the hotel and SAS.  Normally Cary is a very pleasant place to run as well due to the temperatures early in the morning as well and the trails are not on asphalt so they are great for the knees.

The first few days I was there I managed to run 13.5km on Thursday 24^th, 6.5km on the treadmill on Friday 25^th and followed that up with 22.5km on the treadmill on Saturday while watching England get thrashed at Cricket by Sri Lanka and England hand out a pounding to Wales at Soccer.

On Sunday, despite the rapidly deteriorating weather, I headed out into the Umstead park running around 28km, losing all feeling in my face and freezing my backside off,  taking me to 82.5km for the week.  I then took two days off and then on Wednesday 30^th and Thursday 31^st I ran 13.5km both days. On the second of those days I was joined by Rick Styll, Andrew Pease, Pia Bergendorff Tormalm and Frederik Vandenberghe which was great as I had not run with any of those folks before.  That took me to 234km for the month of March which was great. It turns out that that would be my last run until April 10^th as I failed to motivate myself to get up early in Vegas and work pretty much dominated my schedule. On the positive side it meant I have had 9 days of good rest and on the negative side I missed a pretty important training week.

On arriving back in Heidelberg Jet Lag from the 9 hour time difference was definitely a factor and as a result my first run was a pithy 3.1km race during the time people like Petri and Bernard (and all the other SAS runners) were off doing the hard work of the Half Marathon in Heidelberg. I really wanted to run the Half Marathon but a week before the Marathon it would have been a bad idea. I found sitting around waiting for everyone pretty boring to be honest so next year I will be back with the masses.  I put a picture of about half of the crowd that was running below. A big congratulations to Petri for his 1:48 time and to Bernard for running at all given he was as jet lagged as me!

So the race is fast approaching. I am running through my checklist:

1.       I know where I need to be and when

a.       Collect my number on Saturday from the Excel Arena

b.      Pasta dinner with family and friends on Saturday night

c.       Race start (red area) … should be there by 9am

d.      Race end … when I get there

e.      First beer in 65 days – Pub near Victoria … when I get there

2.       I also have my flights all sorted and  tomorrow will be the day to prepare 2 sets of running things for the different possible weather. I also need to organize all my juices/sports drinks etc. Need to keep everything the same as for races in Germany for maximum success a lowest risk of something strange happening

In addition I made one last appeal to a lot of people for donations and I have been amazed by the more than €400 that has arrived since I have done that. It reminds me again what a wonderful set of friends I have around the world.

The next few days will involve me working and trying hard to get in the last two runs in a sensible manner before the race itself. I arrive in London on Friday night and will be staying with a good friend from college in New Cross (close to the start). I promise to post some updates during this week as the nerves kick in. I am not yet feeling the heat but I have to say that the trepidation is building in terms of if I should attack a fast time or just focus on finishing… I am not sure I will really decide until close to the day what to do but I hope that the last 10 days of slackness have not had too much of an impact!

Until next time thanks to everyone again for their sponsorship.

Mark.