Copenhagen Marathon 2024

See me run Copenhagen Marathon 2024.
A summary of how it went : Well! Perhaps not as well as I had initially thought it could given how I had been training, but after spraining my ankle just a few weeks before race day it didn’t go too badly! Missing two key weeks of my plan did un-nerve me, I was almost going into the race with no proper strategy other than running to feel and seeing what happened.
What happened was I started conservatively. Nice and steady and after a few kms I decided to up my pace a little, after that I stopped even thinking about pace and just enjoyed the atmosphere. Up to 15km I hadn’t even thought about distance either and then once I passed the half marathon mark I’d started to evaluate where I felt I was at. Still feeling good I just continued on as I had been.
I took water at every station, approx every 4km, ate every 25-30mins. Gels and mini malt loaf. Took salt chews every time I felt like my stomach wasn’t happy or it felt like a cramp was forming. No stomach issues and no cramps appeared.
Occasionally I got twinges around the tendons I damaged with my sprain and at around km 33 I thought a blister was forming on the sole of my right foot. But, again, nothing appeared.
I reached km 35 and had started to dig deep, it was getting painful and the realisation that I was running this marathon really hit. I made a deal with myself that I would run the whole damn thing, no stopping. Although I wasn’t sure how it would go
We’d agreed a spot that my wife and daughter would be at km 37 and seeing them there, with just a Parkrun to go, gave me the most joyous lift I could ever have hoped for!
With that boost, I pushed on and kept that promise to myself, finishing in 3:49:46, crying my way across the finish line.
Despite running for nearly 20 years, and covering the distance before this is the first Marathon I have actually run. I feel like I have learned so much about myself, what I’m capable of, what I am made of, and that I can do things that in the past I have avoided through fear of not being good enough. I am good enough! I have a medal that proves it!