Parkin' some thoughts Keep Calm and Carry On by Nick Hazell Well, it wasn’t pretty. In fact, I might as well have eaten my training plan as tried to follow it. However, Mrs H and I completed our year of fundraising for Parkinson’s UK by crossing the finish line of the London Marathon together after 4 hours and 10 minutes. It was an extraordinary experience. Brilliant but horrible at the same time. It also confirmed my long held suspicion that you have to be slightly unhinged (or indeed without any hinges) to want to run 26.2 miles. It’s by no means a surprise that the first chap who tried the distance dropped dead shortly afterwards. We started the day feeling reasonably smug. In an effort to avoid joining the other 30,000 runners forced to cram themselves onto London’s groaning transport network at some unspeakable hour of the morning, we had somewhat late in the day, secured accommodation in Greenwich for the night before the event. Admittedly, this required the liberation of an eye wateringly large sum from the Hazell coffers totally disproportionate to the standard of room, but on this occasion the treasury department decided that one couldn’t put a price on convenience. This meant it was but a short hop, or in my case, shuffle to the start at Greenwich Park. On my last visit there, I vividly remember feeding tame squirrels by hand in a park fragrant with the aromas of Spring. On this occasion, the floral bouquets were replaced by a distinct whiff of Deep Heat and the squirrels had been driven into hiding by the presence of thousands of people, all of whom had been struck by a desire to use the toilet at the same time. In fact, there’s nothing like the prospect of a long run when it comes to the ensuring an uncontrollable need to spend most of your pre-race preparation time queuing for the facilities. At least it distracted me from the thought of what was to come. We were allocated a place at the Green Start which is the smaller of the three starts used in the race and
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offered the opportunity to spot a host of celebrities. Not being up to speed with the latest edition of “TV Weekly” though, I failed to recognise any of them. In any case, my attention was soon diverted by the countdown to 10am and the shuffle to the start. I was found to be a natural at this aspect of the race, although at this stage was preoccupied with the niggling thought that perhaps I needed the loo again. Fortunately once underway, my attention was drawn away from my bladder to a fact that you don’t realise when watching the Marathon on the television. The UK tourist board must have editorial control over broadcasting so as to give the impression that the route (and therefore London) is full of sights such as Big Ben, Tower Bridge, the Cutty Sark and Canary Wharf. The reality of the first few miles though is more Isle of Dogs Asda than heritage London. I was also being greeted by intermittent shouts of “come on Fatman” seemingly being lobbed in my direction. It took me a mile to realise, as he jogged past me, that these words of encouragement were in fact directed at a rather rotund fellow dressed in a bat man costume with this nom de plume emblazoned across his chest. As if being overtaken by an overweight caped crusader wasn’t bad enough, in his wake there soon followed a Gingerbread woman and a pint of London Pride.
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