Dublin City Marathon: The kindness of strangers

Yesterday saw me run my first ever Marathon. I'd entered the Dublin City Marathon a few months ago and had been training hard for it, I'd overcome two injuries in that time Achilles Tendonopathy and a Hamstring tear and was making good progress running four days a week. Every Sunday I run my long run and four weeks ago was up to eighteen miles. Then during a evening dancing Ceroc my left knee went on me and I suffered Patello Femoral Syndrome, which feels like someone is sliding a white hot knife in to the front of your knee just below the kneecap...It bloody well hurts! So I had to rest for a week and then went in to the gym and started on 20 minutes on the cross trainer, it was heart breaking. A week later I built up to an hour on the cross trainer. Last week I got back on the road and was shocked at how hard it was to run even three miles at a slow pace, I did it again a couple of days later and it was better. At the end of the week I finally succumbed to the nasty cold/mild flu thats going around. So it was a slightly nervous Jamile that found himself amid thirteen thousand people on the start line of the 30th Dublin City Marathon. I hadn't slept all that great the night before and was dosed up on Beechams, I reasoned that in Namibia I would be exhausted and have to carry on, if I couldn't do a Marathon when I was feeling low, ill and tired then I'd have a big problem.
I was happily surprised to find that in the first half of the Marathon I was actually making good speed and moving up the field. At 12 miles I was feeling strong and running well, then at mile 13 it was like someone had powered me down. I surely started loosing pace and although I kept running the pace was well reduced. The highlight of mile 14 was when a small boy came out of the crowd at the top of a hill and held out a large orange boiled sweet to me. It was a real boost and helped me pick up the pace. In a window as I ran past stood three large boxer dogs one looking out of the window face on, the second was side on to the bay window but resting his head somewhere behind the net curtain on the first dogs back. It looked like it was one dog with a white body and a brown head with a broken neck! But funniest of all was the third dog that sat behind the second slumped against his friend with his head resting on his friend backside fast asleep! I wish I'd been carrying a camera, it was hysterical.
For anyone who has had their faith in human kindness turned to a cynical hardness I say to you run a Marathon. I saw time and time again total strangers offering me sweets, drinks, oranges from their gardens or tables they set up themselves by the side of the road. People stood in the street for hours just to cheer, clap and urge on total strangers; children lining up to high five the runners as they passed. My spirits were raised at mile 18 when I saw my wife and two friends waiting to cheer me on at an unexpected point. I didn't walk until 30Km, I’d been trying to ramp up my pace since the power down and it wasn't working. So with a heavy heart I decided to walk for five minutes, after which I ran again a bit quicker. I had to walk about three more times and every time I started running again I was a little quicker. By mile 22 I was running again and having just seen my wife for second time I began to ramp up the pace again, by the time I crossed the finish line I was running as fast as I could. I felt elated, exhausted, in pain and very happy. My time wasn't the point, but for those who care it was 05:05:16 its a start.
Today I woke up to find a swollen ankle with a bruise on the lateral aspect of my foot just under the lateral malleolus (the bony lump on the outside of the ankle). My foot feels like its been beaten with a rubber hose and I hope its a soft tissue injury not a stress fracture. Either way the treatments the same so I'll not waste my time in a A&E. My psoas muscles are stiff and sore (They run from the top of the lumbar spine to the femur) but otherwise I'm fine, I loved the Marathon and looking forward to getting stuck back into training hard. My next Marathon is next month.