QUALIFYING FOR THE LONDON 2012

As I shall be 80 next year, I thought that it would be a good idea to run my final marathon by entering the London Marathon for 2012. The easiest way to enter is by qualifying in the good for age, so I had Dave Young and Malcolm Sherwood looking for a marathon which had to be before the end of June, and the only one's that came up were Edinburgh, Stratford and Brathay.

 

Dave Young tried to enter me for the Edinburgh one, but it was closed, as was Stratford, so it had to be Brathay. Malcolm Sherwood said that he would take me as I would not be in a fit state to drive home afterwards.

 

Just as we were approaching Brathay we had a very heavy hailstorm and I was thinking “what have I let myself in for”. When we arrived at the venue, Malc went off to find John and Janine and tell them where we were; whilst Julie and I went for a cup of tea .When Malc got back to us he was soaked as we had another heavy shower in which he had got caught.

 

A few minutes later we had to assemble to go to the start of the race, and the rain stopped. We set off in fine weather and after about four miles; Malc joined me on his bike and accompanied me for most of the way, stopping occasionally to put his chain back on his bike. In the meantime Janine had joined me and she ran some of the way and cycled some of the way with me. At Newby Bridge, which was about half way, Helen Jolly joined me on her bike, and 3miles further on Julie joined me to run the last 10 miles with me. I had planned on getting to Bowness by 2pm which would then give me one and a half hours to "run" the last 10k, and which by now I needed.

 

The weather, although windy, was quite kind as I didn’t get one raindrop on me and the trees gave a lot of shelter from the wind. It would appear that I was lucky as Dave Young had to run the last 8 miles of the Edinburgh Marathon into strong winds and, in those circumstances, I doubt if I would have made my time and also the support that I got at Brathay also made it easier for me.

 

Written by: Mike Walsh

Submitted: 8th June 2011

Edited by: Brenda J Earnshaw WRR Editor