London Landmarks Half-Marathon Completed
After months of training, pounding the local streets in all sorts of weather, I finally took part in the London Landmarks Half-Marathon over the weekend. And completed it!
Me and The Family headed up to London on Saturday to enjoy a bus tour of London as this meant we didn’t have to travel up early on the morning of the race, especially as the trains were fubar. It was nice to be able to show The Girls™ the sights of London, and it was nice weather.
After a night in a Travelodge I headed over to Horse Guard’s Parade to meet up with other Tommy’s charity runners for photos and general chat before making our way to the bag drop and the starting line for the event itself. There was a mass warm-up for everyone in their start groups, before Steve Cram set us off.
I had two aims in this race, the first was not to go off to quick and the second was to finish in under two and half hours. The former was easy to do and I kept a slow and steady pace as we headed around Trafalgar Square, up to and back past Charing Cross. The Girls™ were planning to see me at various points around the route, the first of which was just by Charing Cross station and they waved and cheered me on as a ran past.
I next saw them as the route snaked around Bank, and they moved to various points to encourage me on. There was time for a quick high-five or hug each time. After moving on from Bank I wouldn’t see them again until closer to the end. However the crowd were absolutely amazing and encouraged every single runner. There were loads of “Tap for a power-up” signs as well as other funny ones such as “Whine now, wine later” and “You keep going random person“. Although my absolute favourite one was “If half-marathons were easy they’d be called Your Mum!“.
As the race went on I was feeling quite good. The miles I’d run in training had definitely helped. However, as I approached the Tower of London things went a little south. There is a long uphill section up Tower Hill and it absolutely killed me. The next few kilometres were spent half-walking half-jogging as I struggled to get any sort of rhythm back in my tired legs.
As I made my way along Victoria Embankment I was able to pick up the pace again and as I approached Westminster Bridge I received a text from The Wife saying that she and my daughters were positioned by the Houses of Parliament and this gave me a bit of a push. Running back over Westminster Bridge I spotted them in the crowd and stopped for one last hug with them.
There was now just one more kilometre to go and I pushed on for the final stretch and eventually had the finish line in sight. I crossed the line and checked my time against my target, I had beaten it with 1 minute and 49 seconds to spare! I collected my finishers goodie bag and went to meet The Girls™ on the edge of St James’ Park for a rest, a drink and a well-deserved sit down.
