Far 2 Fabulous

Running with Heart: The Triumphs and Tears of Marathon Training for a Cause

• Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 15

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Episode 15
Imagine tying your shoelaces knowing each step will help honor a loved one's memory. That's exactly the story I share with you as I recount the emotional and physical roller coaster of preparing for and running the Brighton Marathon. Surrounded by an amazing troop of women, including my sister Clare and friends Jenny, Sarah, Nicola, Maria, and Emma, we transformed from a group with a shared loss into a resilient marathon team. Our narrative is more than just about the miles; it's about the laughter, tears, and training mishaps that bonded us as we ran for my niece Mia and the fight against Meningitis Now.

Physical challenges are part of any marathon journey, and mine was no exception. You'll hear how I navigated the discomforts of an overactive pelvic floor and the annoyance of plantar fasciitis—and how a switch to cushioned sneakers felt like running on clouds. Discover the life-changing comforts of elastic laces and the therapeutic chill of ice baths, and why a sports massage can be your best friend during the grueling marathon training. These are the behind-the-scenes details that sculpt the marathon experience, the ones rarely spoken about but crucial to any runner's success.

And then there's race day—where every pre-race meal matters, and even getting to the starting line can be an epic tale. Join me as I recount the uproar of a pasta dinner gone hilariously wrong and the unexpected challenges of just reaching the marathon start. I’ll take you through every costume-clad runner that sped past me and the hip pain that made every step a test of will. Crossing the finish line was an accomplishment that trumped even the most challenging life experiences, and it’s a story of endurance, community, and heart that I'm thrilled to bring to you.

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Thank you for listening.

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For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

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We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Catherine:

Welcome to Far Two Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine. Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candid chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing. Let's dive in. Hello. Hello everybody, and it's just me again today.

Catherine:

I thought, as I have been going on and on and on about marathon running for almost the entire length that this podcast has existed, that I would take you through the full story, as I have now completed it. Yay. Last weekend, I ran the Brighton Marathon with six other very, very awesome ladies. One of them was my little sister, claire, and a huge shout out to Jenny and Sarah and Nicola and Maria and Emma, who I quite literally could not have done this without, and if I had have done, it would have been bloody miserable. So I thought that I would just take you through the story of it. Really, and a very good place to start, I think, probably would be the creating a plan. So if you don't know the story of how we even got to this point in the first place, we were all here at my house having a party for Mark, my husband's 50th birthday, and it was fairly early in the morning, and somebody and we're still not really sure who mentioned what a really good idea it would be to run the marathon Fueled on Prosecco. We all decided this was a brilliant idea and signed up there. And then, if you have a look on my social media definitely my Instagram you will see a picture of four of us holding up our phone screens accepting our application for Brighton Marathon. Then, another drunken night I wasn't present for this one they managed to convince everybody else to sign up, so it has been an incredible journey.

Catherine:

Again, for those of you that know me, you know that we were running for Meningitis Now, which is obviously a very emotional charity, very close to our hearts, because we lost my beautiful niece, mia, at the beginning of last year to meningitis and, as you can hear, it's still incredibly painful and I personally made her a promise that it would not freeze me in life, that I would use it to spur me on and live the life that I am blessed with still living, and activity and fitness and well-being is definitely one of the ways that I do this, and having this amazing community of these amazing ladies that we were running with has been such an incredible support and incredible focus for me and I know that has been for my sister and I'll gather myself in a minute. The other ladies that we were running with are all very, very close to the family, all very close to Mia. So it was a. It was a real medicine for us all. Actually, and I suspect after I don't know about right now because we're only like a week and a bit off of the marathon I expect in a week or so we will be starting to wonder what we're going to do next. At the moment I'm just enjoying a bit of a bit of rest, and what's really incredible and I'm sure I'll go into this a little bit later is that I can really feel like I'm still recovering now when I exert myself. This weekend just gone we had a big choir concert and then we had an after show party. It really drained me. So while I was doing it, obviously there was lots of energy, of fun, but I feel like this battery runs out very, very quickly and there's still lots of replenishing to be had.

Catherine:

So right at the beginning was creating the plan, and so I'd got the plan sent from Brighton Marathon. I'd got a plan sent from Meningitis Now and we had a plan that the girls had used that had already done the marathon from a local trainer here, james, who does lots and lots of running. He's very good at it. So it was a really great plan, and so what I did was combined all three of these, trying my very best not to just pick my favorite bits and leave everything else out, along with my weekly program, because I already teach six classes a week, including HIIT, including Pilates, so it was really good with regards to the mix of things that I was doing. So there was Poloxin, which is really great for cardio, and then the Pilates, obviously for the stretching, and then the HIIT was brilliant for the strength training and again the cardio as well. So having those already there and then adding the runs to it, it was really good. It was hard to be able to fit in. I've got all this time now, which is good because I need to do some work now, which is good because I need to do some work and it moved a little bit. So creating the plan was brilliant Holding it loosely, not being so rigid that it became a real bind, and being able to move it around with my life. That said, also sticking to the plan. That's roughly in that week, so I moved things from day to day sometimes, but I made sure that I did everything that I had planned for that week in that week, and running with these lovely ladies has been my saviour as well.

Catherine:

I'm not very good at running on my own. I love parkrun. I do that pretty much every single week. When we were in lockdown, I think I ran about five times because there was no parkrun and I don't feel very motivated to go out and run on my own so often. Myself and my sister would coordinate our schedules and we'd go out for the long runs together, which was brilliant. And there are at least three or four runs that's a lie. There's loads more runs than that that. I wouldn't have gone on if somebody wasn't coming and picking me up or if I wasn't going to meet them. So for me that was really motivating.

Catherine:

Lots of people, when I've spoken to them, have insinuated that, one, this wouldn't be as much of a challenge for me because I am quite fit and active, and, two, that I don't have the excuses that everybody else does, that I have somehow got this magic pot of motivation that doesn't run out. And sadly that isn't true. I have all the excuses under the sun as many, if not more, as everybody else, and it turns me into the absolute queen of procrastination. And a couple of times I really came a cropper with this, because I would procrastinate for an hour or so and then by the time I actually got myself out running, it would be boring, with rain, or I hadn't left myself long enough to then get back and be ready for whatever it was I needed to do afterwards. So don't think that, because I love fitness and well-being, that I don't have the same excuses running through my head.

Catherine:

Oh, my goodness, my other training buddy is obviously my dog, luna, and through the first half of the training it was absolutely brilliant, but we did find her limit on the 20k run. We ran from my house to Herne Bay and back again, and as we were coming back up the slope from the beach, I normally click the lead and she comes running so that I can, so I can click it onto her collar, and I clicked a couple of times and she just didn't appear by my ankles and I turned around and she was very, very leisurely walking up the slope. I had broken the dog and she slept for the entire next day, and so we found that that was probably her limit for now. She is going to be eight towards the end of this year, so she does very well, but she just loves coming out and running with us and she's pretty good at it.

Catherine:

And speaking about that 20k run, this felt like a big jump up at the time and I remember on the way back, as we were running through Tankerton obviously those of you that are local, these names will make sense to you. Tankerton is another part of Whitstable along the seafront. It's probably about four or five kilometres away from home and I felt like I hit a wall. It gave me a bit of an idea of what this wall would feel like, as people talk about it when you're running the marathon and I just thought that I wasn't going to actually be able to get home. We stopped and we had another gel I'll talk about fuel in a minute and we were running into the wind and it all went very quiet. There were three of us me, my sister, claire and Maria. We all went very quiet and we just got our heads down in the end and we just slotted on along and when we got back we were so relieved that, as our watches clicked over to the 20 kilometers and we got back in the car and I remember thinking I can't possibly run any more than I've just run.

Catherine:

And the last kilometer orre or so towards the end, I'm thinking, oh my goodness, am I actually going to make this? And then the next length of run, I think was probably 20, I think we probably did a 22 kilometre after that because we wanted to break the half marathon mark, and again the last kilometre of that was like living hell. And then at the end of it I think thinking I can't possibly run another step. And each time you had these targets. So the next one was 25k. I think you get to 24k and you think I don't know if I can run this other kilometre. And then when you finish it you think, oh my know if I can run this other kilometer. And then when you finish it you think, oh my goodness, I can't run anymore. And yet a week later off, you go on your longer run, even longer the next time, and you manage to do it. But it's really interesting that that last kilometer, kilometer and a half, always feels like the hardest bit. So so I touched on fuel just now.

Catherine:

While we were training, we practiced using gels. Most of us had decided that that was how we were going to fuel ourselves through the marathon, and so we practiced on which brand we were going to use and how many we needed, and this was really a trial and error. Thankfully, the course, as we ran along the seafront, gave us lots of toilets, so when the gels didn't make us feel very comfortable, we were lucky that we had toilets all around, but it really was about getting used to them, finding the ones that we liked, not just the flavors. Myself and my sister ended up using high five, and it was the high five aqua, so it had water in with it to help you with your hydration, because you're supposed to take at least two good gulps of water with your gel if it's not the Aqua, and up until probably about the 20 kilometre mark I wasn't running with any water. So the Aqua ones were really, really good.

Catherine:

And then some of the other ladies were using something called Tailwind, which was something that you put into your drink and and that kept you going. They were gummies that were the same sort of stuff as the gels. They were quite nice actually. And then you had the electrolyte drinks and again this was a trial and error. When I started with the electrolyte drinks, we did the lid 20 20 mile run, I had electrolyte drink in my in my bottle of water and that made me feel very, very sick, having that with the gels at the same time. So the next time I ran I made sure that I had the electrolyte drink earlier on in the day and then I just ran with water and have my gels and then I had another electrolyte drink earlier on in the day and then I just ran with water and had my gels and then I had another electrolyte drink later on in the day. So I wasn't running with it all, but it was very, very personal to everybody.

Catherine:

The other thing I touched about was the toilet fun. Oh, there was so much toilet humor in this marathon training. It was ridiculous, and as a group of ladies that range from aged just before 40 to just after 50, there was lots, of, lots of toilet talk. I didn't realize that runner's trots were a thing, but apparently long distance running has interesting effects on one's bowels, so it was interesting trying to work out ways to help that. A lot of that was around dehydration, would you believe. So a good way to rectify that was making sure that you were very hydrated before you did the run and then making sure that you were hydrated all the way through. Making sure that you didn't eat something that was incredibly fibrous beforehand was another thing. So these were all of the learning curves that we were going through as we were training.

Catherine:

Now, again, we're still on the toilet toilet humour here, actually no, it wasn't very funny at all and I touched on this in an earlier podcast was the incontinence as we were running. This was always a worry because we obviously we wanted to be very hydrated and you were running and sometimes you didn't know where the toilet was, how far you needed to go, and I touched on this again an earlier podcast about suddenly realising that on certain weeks of the month it was actually harder to not go to the toilet whilst you were running, and this was definitely highlighted by the weeks that I was training and then noticing it was the same week in my cycle. So I have actually started to use some hormone replacement cream. That is really helping with this, thankfully, because, although it didn't stop me from running, because I either use we use some period pants, we used sanitary towels and things like that. It didn't make it very pleasant. It is embarrassing, it's not great, it's not fun to talk about, and I can see that it would completely put people off running. So the fact that we'd found ways around it and again things like making sure that you are very hydrated so that your bladder is not irritated was another way around this. So just the reason that I say this is because I want people to know that there are things that they can do to help themselves, along with female physios.

Catherine:

For me, I have got an overactive pelvic floor, which means that it's engaged all of the time. So when I really need it, when I'm running and trying to breathe and then I want to laugh, all at the same time, the pelvic floor is just like okay, that's enough, I've been engaged for long enough. I can't. I can't hold it when I, when I really need you. So that might be, might be something. Often it's an underactive and it needs exercise and that the hormones are are also thrown in there for good measure. So there's lots of things that you can do within your diet and your hydration as well to help that. So, and it's certainly improved and, interestingly, as the running went along, that also helped improve, improve it, and you would perhaps think that it would be the other way around, but not for me.

Catherine:

Another complaint that I ran with was plantar fasciitis Last year. Beginning of last year, I started to have pain in my left heel. So, especially when I hadn't been standing up for a while and I'd stand up, put my foot down on the floor and the absolute shooting pain up through my heel was absolutely unbearable. And I had plenty of massage. I researched what exercises and what stretches I had to do for it. I had to manage my own irritations, because I spend a lot of time barefoot and strengthening and stretching my feet, but obviously not enough for me. Again, the hormones interplay with this as well. The left side got better and it moved over to my right side. I got to the point where it hurt if I ran and it hurt if I didn't.

Catherine:

So I did move from my barefoot trainers into trainers with cushioning in, just because it was much, much more comfortable to do those longer runs in. I do truly believe that the barefoot trainers are much, much better for our feet and for strengthening and for the feet to be able to do what they're designed to do, rather than squished and cushioned. However, with the pain already in my heel, it was much more comfortable to run with cushioned trainers. So that's exactly what I did and I carried on. It hurt in between when I wasn't running, but actually whilst I was running, most of the time it was okay. It's still uncomfortable now, but I think it is slowly, slowly going, which is absolute blessing because a real pain in the foot. I got new trainers and I also added my elastic laces onto my trainers. So, number one, it just makes it so much easier to be able to put them on and off, and number two, it actually gives the trainer a little bit of give whilst still remaining on your foot. So I've got quite wide feet and again, I was very conscious that I didn't want to squash my feet into shoe-shaped shoes. I wanted to be able to have as much space for my feet as I possibly could, so the elastic laces were a really great thing for me.

Catherine:

Another thing that was absolutely invaluable to me through my training was my routine with the ice bath and the bath. So I have an ice bath out in the garden so as soon as I came back from a run, I would get straight into it At the moment, other than a few days. It was between about five and eight degrees. We've actually had quite a mild winter and it has only frozen over twice, so that's really telling. So it's been about eight degrees, which is absolutely fine, and I'd go and sit in there for between three to five minutes whilst my bath was running and then I would take myself straight up to the bath, try and make sure I didn't burn myself full of Epsom salts in the bath and just make sure I sat in there for about 20 minutes and rested those very tired limbs. So that was very helpful.

Catherine:

And the other thing, and I'm ashamed to say I discovered because, again, as somebody who really values fitness and well-being, I didn't value sports massage. I'm a baby and I think that it hurts, which it does sometimes and I just thought that I didn't need it. And the lovely Helen Lear, who is again local to us here, offered all six of us a leg massage and so I thought, okay, the girls were raving about it. So I thought, okay, I will book this in. So I went along and we just had. We had lovely chat. We put the world to right. She was very good at entertaining me whilst she dug her elbows in my glutes and I walked out of there. I floated out of there.

Catherine:

Actually, my thighs, my quads, my glutes, my lower back I had been walking around not just marathon training forever with them this tight, and as women we tend to get used to. Whatever this discomfort is, we just get on with it, don't we? So this is the discomfort that I had just got used to. Whatever this discomfort is, we just get on with it, don't we? So this is the discomfort that I had just got used to, and so this was actually just before I did the lid 20 mile, and the difference that it made to my running is unbelievable. I remember, towards the end of the, when we ran the 22 kilometers and when we ran the 25 kilometers, feeling like my legs were just like concrete, like big lumps of concrete, just plod, plod, plodding along, moving so that I didn't face plant. And after this massage they felt so much lighter and I didn't feel the pain and the heaviness in my quads like I normally do. And so now sports massage is going to be part of my maintenance for my body, because I do a lot of physical exercise, I do a lot of swimming, I do a lot of HIIT, I do a lot of swimming, I do a lot of HIIT, I do a lot of Pilates lots of work through the quads there and so this is going to be part of my maintenance forever.

Catherine:

The other things that I used to keep me together were I'd mentioned that I have added some oestrogen hormone cream into the mix, which has actually been a lot of help for the pelvic floor. I believe in time it's going to be helpful for my joints and things as well, which is fantastic. And I've also been using lots of vitamins and I have added some oil into my daily routine. I'm a vegetarian, so this is also very, very important. I've added a really good multi-vitamin. I've added magnesium and I upped that a few days before and a few days after the marathon to help with my repair.

Catherine:

I also take one of those just before I go to sleep at night, and that's supposed to help with the sleep as well, and I have been taking those with some turmeric juice that I got in the refrigerated area in the supermarket, for two reasons. Number one the oil tastes disgusting, so it's nice to mix it in with something. Actually, three reasons. Number one the oil tastes disgusting, so it's nice to mix it in with something. Actually, three reasons. Number two turmeric is very, very good anti-inflammatory, so I thought that that would help. And number three I didn't think that the kids would like turmeric, so they didn't keep stealing it. That's how come it managed to stay in the fridge for as long as it did, so that was really useful. I just remembered another thing that I didn't say whilst I was talking about fuel. We were recommended that we had about 90 minutes worth of fuel in our tanks and that we should start to top up this fuel before it completely ran out.

Catherine:

So part of the planning of when we were thinking about gels and stuff was when we were going to take them and maybe looking at when the water stations were and if we weren't carrying our own gels with us. Brighton Marathon was really really well organised and they had gel stations, so they either had cups of the electrolyte drinks and they had gels and they had aqua gels all the way around. So if you didn't want to take your own, you had that out and about as well. I did decide to take my own and, as I said, I was drinking water all the way through, so I wasn't drinking the electrolyte drinks. So what I had decided to do was at 10 kilometers. So what I had decided to do was at 10 kilometers, which was just past the hour for me. I would start to take my first one then and then I took them every five kilometers all the way through right up until the end. I would have like two kilometers left to go, which is often when I feel like I need that last gel to just get me through that last blast. So that was another part of the planning and being able to test that on some of our longer runs. That was really, really helpful.

Catherine:

In reality, on marathon day, by the time I got to probably about the 18 mile mark, I was really uncomfortable. My tummy was really, really uncomfortable and I felt a bit sick and I really didn't want to take any more gels because every time I took them they made me feel worse. However, I knew that I needed the fuel as well, but I knew that I needed the fuel as well. So that did spread out a little bit in reality, but I roughly stuck to the plan doing that. So the kit that I found invaluable and on the top of my list I've got rain jacket, which is hilarious because I have some rubbishy old rain jackets that I've run in. And as I was looking at the weather forecast for Brighton and I have to admit that I did start looking at it about the two-week 10-day forecast point which I know is ridiculous because it's probably not very accurate and there's nothing else I can do about it but anyway, that's what I did and it looked like it was going to rain and I decided I didn't like my crappy old running jacket and I wanted to go and get a new one. So I did go and get a nice new one. Ironically, it didn't rain it was really hot and I ditched it with my running crew halfway through.

Catherine:

But anyway, my absolute invaluable piece of running gear is my headband. I've got a buff headband that I always wear around my head when I'm running in the winter or when I'm running in the wind, and it covers up my ears. I can't stand the wind in my ears, it hurts and I don't like it. So I always have a headband and then it keeps my hair out of my face and it keeps the sweat out of my face as well. I did run with a running cap when we did the 20 mile race at Lid, which was brilliant because it was pouring the entire time and so that kept the rain out of my face and I kept it secure with my headband around it as well. I probably looked like a right wally, but I was very comfortable.

Catherine:

Sunscreen was something that we used for Brighton Marathon. Actually, not enough of the sun definitely took us by surprise, and I think we all had burnt partings, and apart from those sensible people that wore caps although I think they thought that their their running caps were going to get blown off at one point but we did all end up with pink shoulders and tan lines around our necks and actually, hilariously, I've got brown knees because I ran in shorts and long socks, so you can see when my shorts ended and the top of my socks started, which is always attractive. I find I'm going to spend the rest of the summer trying to get rid of those lines. The other cream we used I call it cow cream because basically, my pot is black and white, so that's why I call it cow cream, but it's the cream that you put in places where you are most likely to rub. I rubbed underneath my arms on my running vest and that was very, very uncomfortable. Again, that was the lid 20 that I discovered that, so really making sure I had plenty of cream under there for the day. All around our like bra line bands all around the groin area when else did we put it? Everywhere really.

Catherine:

There were definitely some nipple protectors being put into tops. I didn't need those. My top was so tight. Nothing was moving in there, but they have been very, very helpful. Lovely big girl pants were definitely very helpful. Patterned trousers in case there were any mishaps. Shin splint socks and they just happened to be orange, which was great, because obviously our meningitis now race tops were orange.

Catherine:

Trainers were invaluable. I decided to wear shorts on the day, which was fantastic. I did get very hot in my leggings towards the end of our training, but obviously most of our training was through the winter. Plasters were very helpful. I had stretchy tape like the tape that physios strap your ankles up with. I often got a blister on my little toe kind of where it went down into a point. So I strapped that up and I've got from years of wearing silly shoes when I was younger. I've got a bunion on my right foot, so I put a plaster over that as well and that was really really helpful. That um, that kept as much of the bliss as the way as possible.

Catherine:

And then, part way through training, I did actually give in and bought a, a running belt. I won't say on the podcast what we called our belts. We didn't call them running belts. That begins with the w. You can add the rest to that and it has our and it was. It isn't water, it has our water bottles and a pocket in it for all of our gels and and plasters and goodness knows what. So that was whilst I was training was really helpful. I did start off with that at the beginning of the marathon, but as I took some of the gels and didn't need the pocket, I could put the gels in my pockets of my shorts. I then discarded that and I gave that to my support crew as well, which was really helpful. I love the pockets in my shorts and my leggings. I very rarely, if I'm out running very rarely wear a pair of leggings or shorts now without the pockets. So my phone slides into the side and I can have gels in the side and that's really helpful. So that is all the important kit.

Catherine:

The fun things that we got were ordering things like orange. Actually, I ordered a pair of orange shorts but they were neon orange and our vests weren't quite so bright and it just looked absolutely awful. So they went back. But I did order some orange ribbon for our hair, so I plaited that into our hair. I actually plaited my sisters as we were walking up the road trying to find a taxi I will tell you more about that in a moment. And then in the toilet queue, once we got up there and we got to do fun things like paint my nails orange with orange hearts on. And then there was an amazing supporter banner that Alex, mia's daddy, and Lily my other niece, mia's sister had got made for us. It's absolutely huge and they hung that over the barriers and they all had bright orange t-shirts on with Mia's face on and you couldn't miss them. It was absolutely incredible. I mean, that really really made it for when we were going around. It was so fabulous. Yes, so I just alluded to the taxi on race day. So I was really excited on race day. So we've all piled down to Brighton from Whitstable it's about an hour and a half's journey. We've all got ourselves Airbnbs and hotels, so we've all piled down there and actually, let me just tell you our first disasters there are a few, actually. I think maybe these things do come in threes, because this definitely were. There were three On the Saturday my lovely youngest was taken poorly and we had to go and spend about four hours in the children's A&E in Brighton.

Catherine:

Thankfully, everything was absolutely a-okay. It was definitely worth a check, but she is absolutely fine. So, rather than going and sitting on the beach with a book and hydrating which was my plan and carbo-loading with some chips, we went and sat in the children's A&E in Brighton. The staff were absolutely incredible, so thank you very, very much for looking after us so well, and I just did my hydrating there instead. So that was thing number one.

Catherine:

Thing number two was then obviously everybody else is coming down to Brighton as well, so we decided we would do our final bit of carbo loading all together. So we booked a restaurant that was recommended for large groups to eat in Brighton and we had all pre-ordered. There were 27 of us and we. So we all arrived and it was amazing seeing everybody else's supporters and all of all of our fellow runners, and it was really. It was such a fun time and we sat down and we waited, and we waited and we waited. So we booked this for six o'clock, thinking we wanted to obviously eat and then get ourselves home, get a good night's sleep, make sure that our food had gone down. So by 7 30 everybody was starting to get just a little bit itchy and actually it's a fairly feisty group of people, and they were. Everybody was so calm, so calm. It was incredible.

Catherine:

In the end some of the starters did come out, but it would all gone horribly, horribly wrong in the restaurant. The mismanagement of how many people they booked in, how many staff they had, and the communications with the kitchen just completely broke down and we couldn't get out of them how long everything was going to be. I do have to say right now that the waiting staff was so fabulous. They looked after us so, so beautifully and they did as much as they possibly could in such a terrible situation. So thank you guys for that. But in the end we had to walk out because we didn't know when we were going to get our food. So bye, just gone eight I think. We're on the streets of Brighton thinking, oh my goodness, what are we going to eat? So in the end it was back to the Airbnb for pesto pasta and getting our kit ready. So that was disaster number two. So they say these things coming through. So disaster number three was the taxi.

Catherine:

We'd rung up that night to see if we could book a taxi and we were staying in an area that was all blocked off because the marathon was pretty much running straight past where we were. So worked out where we needed to go to meet the taxi with open roads, and they said that would be fine, ring up in the morning and book it about 40 minutes before you need it. So we actually rang up about an hour before in the morning and they took our booking. We told them exactly where we needed it to be and we told them exactly why we needed it and it needs to be on time. So, bearing in mind the distance from where we are up to Preston Park, which is where the marathon starts, is about 50 minutes and it's uphill and I didn't want to add to my step count at that point, so I was very much looking forward to the taxi ride up there.

Catherine:

We went round the corner, we came out of where all the roads were closed and went up the hill a little bit and we stood on the corner where we'd arranged to meet it and we waited, and we waited and I did a bit of my sister's plaits because we weren't quite ready when we left. And then my sister rang up the taxi company and said where's our taxi? And the lady that answered the phone said oh, I'm really sorry, they shouldn't have said that they could definitely get you a taxi because we don't have any available. And that was a horrible, horrible shock. So, yeah, they were not very helpful, unfortunately. So the only thing that we felt was available to us was to start to walk and thankfully we had barely got two streets up the hill and a taxi drove past and we flagged him down and he was available. So he was an absolute hero. He drove us up to Preston Park and we got there in plenty of time to get our bags dropped in again.

Catherine:

This is something I'm ashamed to say I didn't do before, and we noticed quite quickly how beneficial it was. If you run, those initial aches and pains and that first sort of kilometre or so that you run is often really, really tough, and doing a really good warm-up took this away. So we have a very hilarious warm-up, lots of, lots of funny shapes being thrown. So we did that in the field all together, getting ready, and then off we went into our, into our gray wave. We were so we had put down that we were going to run it in about four and a half hours, which was definitely going to be a stretch for all of us, even the faster ones. However, it was advised that that was probably better to be in a slightly faster wave. One to carry you along and two so you didn't get stuck behind all of the mascots and all the people that were dressed up. Yes, I did get overtaken by a rhino and yes, I did get overtaken by a man dressed up in a bear suit with a walking stick. So those are the two of the highlights, I think, for my day.

Catherine:

So when we went off, the support for I would say at least the first eight miles was absolutely insane. I mean, the crowd was like two or three people fit all the way around. It was absolutely. It was incredible, it was exhausting as well, because everybody is calling your name and cheering you on, and it was quite an experience. And so I went off way too fast, way too fast, got carried away completely and my hip started to hurt almost immediately, which has never happened. Ankles, heels, yes, groin, yes, but not my left hip. So once we started getting out of the crowds, I made the decision then to pull it back a little bit and make sure that I walked on the hills and I ran all the rest of the time was my plan at that point and I was completely open to running, and then this is what I adopted.

Catherine:

Towards the end, I got to about mile, probably about mile 19, and initially it was very overwhelming because you could see stretched out in front of you just a sea of heads running away from you and a sea of heads running back towards you again, but you couldn't see the end of it out towards Hove, and that was quite overwhelming. By that point I thought, right, I've got about two park runs left. We used a lot of runner's maths here. I had about two park runs left, so I thought, if I walk one kilometre, I can jog the next four, and so that's how I got through the very last bit of it. It was incredibly overwhelming and if you saw my video at mile 22, I think it was I did a stories to update.

Catherine:

I might have to put that in my highlights. Actually, I wanted to just update people on how it was going and how tough I was finding it and it really I don't know if it was, I don't know if it was ignorance or arrogance it really surprised me how hard, right from the word go, I found it and and I even muttered the words I would rather give birth than do this again. So I wanted to update on my stories and as I was talking I started to to well up. It was so hard and at 22 miles miles, which was further than I'd ever run before, and I was aware of that. I'm really really pleased that I'd done that. I was still aware I had another 4.2 miles to go.

Catherine:

So it was really really just a mixed bag of emotions and up until that point I'd really kept a game face on and that really I'd really cracked at that point and actually then I think that was me cracked and open for the rest of it, because the tears continued to flow for the rest of that evening and have done ever since. So it was a very, very emotional time and the only possible thing that will take me out of marathon retirement now is the London Marathon and that is certainly not going to be in the very near future. I definitely have a half Ironman competition in my future at some point and we are going to continue to run some longer distances, just so that we don't lose this plenty. Thank you very much. I may even consider doing the lid 20 mile again, because I actually really enjoyed that race, but for marathons at the moment, that is the end of that story. So I hope that you have enjoyed me reminiscing on my marathon story. I hope that some of my experiences have been of use to you and, as always, I am completely open to any questions. So please feel free to find me on any of my socials and send me a message.

Catherine:

And my final plug is that our support page is still open because we have two other runners as part of our group running at London this weekend. We are absolutely blown over by the support that we have had through people messaging us, through people coming down to see us at the marathon. That was just absolutely incredible. Lots of my sister's friends came down from home. My friends Tris and Neil came down from London to come and cheer me on as well. In fact, they walked along with me for a little bit as well, which was absolutely fantastic. Yeah, so the support was just beyond our wildest dreams and the donations have been incredible. So we hit £10, pounds on the day of the marathon and that's all going to meningitis now and it's going to do so much good.

Catherine:

See, I told you, the tears have not stopped flowing since then. Yes, so if you would like to support us, that will be still open for another couple of weeks. We will be very, very grateful for that. But, as I say, if you've got any comments or questions, please, please, please, feel free to get in touch, and I have been creating some reels on my Instagram of the training of lead up, and I need to create one from the actual race as well, which I will post in the next couple of days so you can come and live along with us through the pictures as well. Thank you very much for having just me, myself and I today, and Julie and I will be back with you next week. Take care and make your life easier by joining our podcast mailing list. You'll find the links in the show notes. Your weekly episode will be delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday morning. Make it a fabulous week and we'll catch you in the next episode.