I DID IT!!! :)

Short summary:

Today's attire:
Stourbridge Club Vest
Black / Pink shorts
Light Grey and Cherry Triaxes (my personal favourites at the moment)

(That was attempt at "looking good" on the last day. Obviously this is a metal confidence thing, I'm sure the photos will tell the real story)


Today's nutrition:
Number of Gels consumed: 5 (one every 5 miles - last one at 22.5 rather than 25)
Nunn (salt) tablets in water: 1
Mars bars: 1 at half way point
Bananas consumed: 1, whilst running away from the halfway point
Drugs: None, I forgot to put them in my belt but didn't need them thankfully.
Water top ups: LOTS. It was *really* warm out there again

Mental state:

Amount of swearing about the hills: Zero :-0
Amount of swearing about the views: Less, but it was still a very nice route
Amount of swearing about the weather: Whenever the sun came out from behind the clouds - quite a bit

A lot of thinking about: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/NatalieDellar4in4

The moral: If you don't try you will never know, and people only regret stuff they didn't do or try


Yet again I had a really good night’s sleep. Doing this kind of thing is a great cure for insomnia, although on each day I have always been awake before my alarm has gone off. I got picked up bright and early and taken to the start. We all agreed that our legs felt better this morning than they did at the start of day 3. On the bus there were two schools of thought on this. One is that after 3 days your legs kind of get used to things and the tiredness gets no worse, or we all felt better this morning because we knew we didn't have to get up and do it all again tomorrow.

There were a few more Marathoners today, not a massive amount but few different faces. Got chatting to Bermuda shorts man, and turns out he comes from Dudley! Small world. He is off to Brazil soon to do some mad jungle marathon. Sounds like too many insects for me after the traumas of the other week.

We all walked down to the main road and started by running through Buncrana. We followed the coast on some fairly main roads, it was a lot different from the tiny roads with grass growing up the middle of the previous days, but still nice. There were no killer hills to speak of, just long grinds and drags up and long drags down. I started off conservatively, about 5 or 6 miles in I overtook one of the guys, Stephen who was suffering with what sounded like some quite severe blisters. Like an idiot I offered him the rest of the bottle of water I had. Like that is going to help the raw skin on his feet - but I figured he might be out there for a while and he took it. He said later it was quite demoralising seeing everyone go past. I did feel gutted for him shuffling along :(

Today’s route went through a lot more little villages which was nice, there were people and cars out. There were also a LOT of Cycle Clubs out for their Sunday morning ride and it was nice to have people to wave at rather than sheep and barking dogs. There were even other runners out all of whom must have read about the event in the paper (I imagine it makes a change from "lost dog" news headlines which are probably as exciting as it gets here) - they were all very encouraging. I've been through Tooban (made me think of that crap arcade game in the 80s. The weird things that pop in to your head eh) and Burnfoot (made me think back to Stephen and his blisters).

You say toobin' I say Tooban...

Pretty soon we started picking up the signs for Muff. It was a really warm day, and a few miles outside Muff I had a quick stop at the halfway check point. I could feel myself getting carried away drinking water, thinking if I bolted it too quickly I would be sick, but I so needed it and didn't want to stop what had almost become an uncontrollable frenzied gulping. I robotically chomped down a mars bar and got my banana peeled and carried it with me eating for the next mile.

So did Muff the place live up to my expectations? Well in short no. The bit I saw was fairly dull, although there may be something of interest there if you are willing to look for it. Exiting Muff we did a left turn on to the main road, and from then onwards it was a 7 mile straight road back to the finish at the hotel, a road I recognised from the Taxi journey from the airport as the driver had given me the guided tour :) I didn't get to run with the lead car today, but it whizzed up and down the road between us all making sure we had everything we needed. Because of the way the coastline is formed, I could actually see the hotel from about 6 miles away, and this gave me a boost. Also, I started to catch up some of the half Marathoners who had started at the halfway checkpoint, and this also lifted me. Here I am running my 4th Marathon in 4 days and I can catch up and overtake people doing the half.

Today yet again I felt a lot better at the 21 mile point, and it wasn't really a conscious decision but I cranked up the pace a little. I felt good. I could see the hotel getting closer and closer and I wanted it to get closer still. Lots of beeps from cars, especially those around the 24/25 mile markers as they obviously got the idea of just how far we had run. At about 25.5 miles there was a bloody hill (well incline) but I just wanted it to be gone so I motored up it. I knew where I was and I knew where I had to get to. Legs started moving faster, and as I got to the front gate of the hotel my watch beeped 26 miles. The hotel has a very long driveway and I went a bit er... mental. The last 0.34 miles I did at 7.20mm.

It was so lovely to see Harold and a big crowd waiting at the finish, I was over the moon I had secretly wanted to do sub 5 for all of these runs, and here I was on the last one having done 4.27 -sub 4.30! I crossed the line to what sounded like a very big cheer. I got big hug from Harold, and big hugs all round really. I felt myself start to well up on Harold’s shoulder but the sheer astonishment of what I had done kind of stopped me. I almost felt dazed. Happy but dazed. I pottered around eating a banana, drinking and chatting whilst some of the other runners came in. Stephen came in just after 5 hours with his blisters. I suspect blister free he would be a LOT quicker than that but fair play to him for carrying on. 26+ miles on already burning stinging feet I cannot comprehend.

I am staying at the hotel where the finish was (the same one we started from on Thurs AM - seems a lifetime ago!) so I checked in, got changed and we tucked in to yet another spread whilst waiting for the presentations. We have been given a fabulous collection of medals, Bronze Thurs, Silver Fri, Gold Sat and a special bling one today. Fabulous. I like a good chunky medal and these do not disappoint. (Bit of a crap photo I shall try and get a better one).

Bronze, Silver, Gold and Uber-bling

The presentation ceremony was great, everyone looked so happy (until they saw they had to climb up and down off of a stage to get their final medal). No prize, but actually I was 3rd Lady. Also turns out when I uploaded my Garmin that I actually did a negative split today, 2.15 first half and 2.12 second half, and the second half included the mars bar stop. Pretty bloody happy with that! I thought I was going well with this last one being the fastest!

I can't believe I have done it. I called my parents and told them about what I had done, and about the fund raising (in case you've forgotten that was an upsetting conversation I was putting off having). I think it is safe to say they are a little bit proud.

Thank you to all the people who have made donations, thank you all the people who have believed in me, given me hugs, have been out and kept me company on training runs and thank you Gobi. If any of you are looking for a good challenge Harold can sort you out:

http://www.extremenorthevents.com/index.php

This was a really great set of Marathons, interesting and very challenging courses, friendly people and superb organization. I naturally worry about things and I didn't feel stressed about the arrangements etc (apart from the mad dash number collection on Weds night but it all turned out ok in the end)

It is my intention to keep blogging for a bit, although at the moment the recovery is looking like it will be straightforward fingers crossed. Going down stairs may be comical tomorrow morning though.