With a week to go I was fretting about a knee injury I’d picked up during training and suffering with a serious dose of man-flu that had me wheezing like an asthmatic chain-smoker on a treadmill just from carrying Ava back up from Crail harbour to the holiday cottage we were staying in. In short, I had my excuses in early!
Well the cold cleared up and thanks to a sage piece of advice from Gary, the running guru, I had acquired an IT band support that seemed to be helping the knee no end and so I found myself in Glencoe village at the start line on a cold but dry and clear day with hardly any wind (insert flatulence joke here).
After a mile on the road the UK’s toughest marathon lived up to its name sending us off on tiny, boggy paths as it ascended the pass of Glencoe. At one point the route plunged off the paths completely and crossed rough, boggy hillside which makes for slow, energy-sapping running. The only upside was that the poor unfortunates who disappeared up their waists in the bog provided some comic relief for the rest of us who were only shin deep in mud. The ascent of the Devil’s staircase was predictably tough but the views from the top, at over 500m, were a spur to keep going.
After the steep decent into Kinlochleven and the encouragement from the crowd of almost 10 people gathered to cheer us on the real struggle started. The ascent onto the Lairig Mor really took it out of me and at 15 miles killer cramp in both legs and my knee starting to twitch seriously made me think about calling it a day and heading back but then the words of a very wise man came to mind, ‘suck it up’. So I did. A surreal food stop, manned by David Fox-Pitt himself, occurred at just the right time. I shunned the proffered cheeseboard with its brie ‘flown in from France this morning’ as it looked more like ‘chucked out by Aldi last night’ to me and went for the more orthodox Hob-Nob, packet of crisps, cereal bar and 3 Éclairs. Suddenly I felt so much better and by mile 20 I was feeling really good.
A final decent into Glen Nevis saw me arrive at the finish 5 hrs, 1minute, 8 seconds after starting and having covered 26.2 miles (27.6 according to my Garmin!), climbed the equivalent of Ben Nevis and drunk enough Hi-Five to fill a paddling pool. Thanks to all who supported me, sponsored me, didn’t try and talk me out of it. Your generosity and support definitely made the hard miles easier.
If you’d still like to sponsor me the site is:
http://www.justgiving.com/uphill-oconnell
