I am rarely triggered — but yesterday, I risked Instagram with half an eye closed and adrenaline surged through my body as I hazarded Twitter. For it was everywhere: the London Marathon was everywhere. The ballot had been announced and the runners were high. My right knee seized up in protest.
Before you start, I know the London Marathon is a philanthropic extravaganza that last year raised £65 million for charity, that it is a joyful day, and that running 26.2 miles is a feat of super endurance. Essentially, to come out against it is like declaring you dislike sunshine, or babies; it is going on record as an unambiguous misanthrope.
But here we are! Guys: don’t do it. Step away from the energy gels; put down the KT tape; hold onto all your toenails while you still can. I ran it in 2014: both knees are still crumbling to dust and I have a regular (lactic) acid flashback to the moment on the Victoria line, four days after the run, when a woman stood on my foot and the big toenail that had been hanging by a thread fell off. Luckily, I fainted straight afterwards.
Yes, the race was a good day. I finished it! It was also sunny, and around Mile 18, as I ran through Canary Wharf — a dark odyssey of the soul — the few people cheering me on brought a tear to my eye. Although it might have just been sweat.
But oh, the months before: run after run after run. I signed up late, so I was already behind on training; I then got dumped. Spoiler alert — if you think training for a marathon is a distraction from your problems, you are incorrect. You’ll just have a broken heart as well as shin splints.
Obviously not everything that happened to me will happen to you, although there are a few truisms. Chiefly, all you will talk about is the marathon. (For years: I ran it in 2014.) But when you’re running 18 training miles on a Saturday, there really is nothing else you can think about. You will become a creaky, screaming bore; indeed, it is really the people closest to a marathoner I feel most sorry for. Especially since you will also always smell of Deep Heat, and will be constantly hungry and whiny.
If I can impart any wisdom, it runs thus. Don’t be “quirky” and run to an audiobook instead of music — no one ever “got in the zone” to The Handmaid’s Tale — and don’t Google, “do people die marathon?” or you will become convinced, like me, that you have an undiagnosed heart condition and will expire on the finish line. Definitely don’t attempt to hit a big night out after a long training run, or you will get so drunk you pass out on the bus home from Dalston and won’t get to bed until 5am. You will then have to get up and run again.
Oh and please don’t listen to ghouls gleefully peddling horror stories — like the friend who told me how “statistically likely” it was I’d soil myself, say. Or misanthropic columnists with bad knees.
