WRC Club Members 100 Best/Favourite Races – 2: The Greater Manchester Marathon

Nicky Mowat is our first Lady to send in her race nomination. Thank you Nicky.

Any other Lady Member willing to pen me their nomination and description?  email me at grannanpm@gmail.com.  Gentlemen – you too can send in your nomination articles. Thank you.  I Only have one other at the moment!! Back to Nicky:

GREATER MANCHESTER MARATHON SUNDAY 19TH APRIL 2015

My splits:

7k     32.44

10k   47.44

10m   1:16:11

21k.     1:39:59

20m.   2:32:58

Finish  3:23:34

I decided to do the Manchester marathon rather than London for a change, less razzmatazz and guaranteed cool weather!

It was distinctly chilly waiting for the start and we were glad of the foil blankets being handed out. A mere 8 degrees as we crossed the line – perfect temperature. The race started with a loop so we could look out for runners ahead and behind; Pete Speake and Sharon Johnstone up with the elite. I hadn’t realized that Eslpeth was running – she kept that quiet!

I started off with Patrick and the only game plan was not to go faster than 7.30 min/mile. It was quite tempting in places when there was a downhill gradient but Patrick reigned me in.

There were far more supporters than I had expected from WRC, the first was Rob Downs at about 9 miles. Janine, Andy, Di and Al and Katy Green were all in Timperley but spread out in different groups all very enthusiastic with their support. I decided not to register the mile splits but just kept my watch on the full time which turned out to be a good thing as there were no clocks along the route and not even a marker at every mile. I’d lost Patrick by about mile 11 so my technical assistance as to what min/mile I was doing had gone.

I enjoyed the fact that the spectators were concentrated in certain areas and then you had some peace in between!

At 20 miles the previous year I had had problems with my achilles , so I knew not to take things for granted in a marathon. However, this year my body seemed to be holding together during the second half. Of course I had the usual thoughts at about 22 miles: this was a bad idea, who invented marathons? I felt quite sick at this stage and took swigs of water at every mile, throwing the rest over my head which seemed to work. I manged to get round on one jelly baby and two swigs of gel! At 24 miles I worked out that even if I really slowed down to a 10 minute mile I would do a PB! As we came back into Stretford the crowds were building which at this point was very encouraging. As I turned into Matt Busby Way I went for the glory finish , arms in the air. The runners were relatively spread out so I felt like an Olympic champion!

When I first saw the clock I thought it said 3.33 not 3.23. However even after I’d had a few minutes to recover, trying not to throw up over the spectators I heard them announce the arrival of the 3.29 pacer

A PB by 5 minutes, then I found out that I’d won my age category; and the following day that I was UK no 1. Where would it end ?

The reaction from my family was mixed, a rather underwhelming text from hubbie ‘very good, see you later”, whilst my daughters thought I’d been on drugs or had taken a shortcut!!

I had my name in the Runners’ World “leading marathon runners 2015”. Although a week later I was deposed the article remained on my fridge for a long time!

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Thank you Nicky.