Riding the high of our buggy marathon PB in Montauban at the end of March, we grabbed an unexpected opportunity on Sunday 30th April 2023 to run a fourth full marathon pushing the stroller.
It was another early start for our 50-minute drive to beautiful Albi and another rather wet morning. We had a smooth time collecting our race number and setting up the pushchair and joined the crowds at the start with about 15 minutes to go before the gun.
Again, although it was almost dry by the 8:45am start, I decided to begin the race with the raincover on and, again, it turned out to be the right decision. A couple of kilometres in, the heavens opened and I was instantly soaked to the bone. The road quickly became flooded and my shoes and socks were drenched.
Thankfully I’d thought to put a towel down under my little passenger – although the raincover is excellent at keeping the chariot dry from above, the canvas bottom is not completely waterproof (as I discovered once years ago on a very wet canal-path training run) and water leaches in as it sprays off the road. I learned after the race that DD had actually got a bit wet during that storm, but she’s such an angelic little teammate that she didn’t complain (or perhaps she did, but I couldn’t hear her through the pounding of the rain!)
The half marathon and marathon start at the same time, so we were in good company heading out of Albi until the half marathon turn-around point at about 12km. After that, the pack thinned out considerably and I ploughed on towards the two long, dark tunnels that form a key part of the race route.
I was absolutely delighted to be told on a couple of points on the course that we were first female! I suspected we wouldn’t hang onto that honour, given the grueling nature of the marathon, so decided just to drink it in and enjoy it while it lasted.
In fact, we maintained the lead until about 25km, which was a bit of fun and certainly an unexpected bonus of the day. We were running strongly, in fact, and averaging 4:25/km pace until about the 29th km, when I started to feel the struggle of pushing such a considerable weight.
Inevitably, we slowed down and I must confess we walked twice on nasty little uphills on the return to the city centre. But my fuelling seemed to work (a combination of Overstims gummies and Isostar caffeinated fruit chews) and, although I certainly felt tired, I didn’t completely blow up.
Returning to the stadium for the finish, I was thrilled to see my husband, son and older daughter in the crowd and relieved to hang on to third place for a spot on the podium (and silver in the Occitanie Regional Championship) in an official time of 3 hours, 18 minutes and 20 seconds. Exactly a minute slower than our Montauban time, but a perfectly respectable result nonetheless.
Once again, I was incredibly proud of my daughter. It was adorable how genuinely excited she was to race with me (even announcing the day before, “I call it a mara-fun Mummy, because it’s FUN!”) and she entertains herself in the stroller with such maturity. Literally the only squeak I heard from her was when she said she was too hot (after the rainstorm, the sun had appeared and the day became warmer and warmer) and at that point we had less than a mile to go!
And, once again, I was proud of myself, but also a touch disappointed that we couldn’t get closer to our target time. Now that I’ve returned to work on a more serious basis, I can already tell I’ll have much less time for running and future marathon exploits look more in doubt. Not to mention the fact that DD is growing all the time and there’ll certainly come a point when pushing her in the buggy is out of the question!
So I’m not wholly satisfied (that’s just my nature I think), but yet I relish this fourth fabulous marathon experience with my daughter and feel sure I’ll look back in years to come with pride at what we achieved together.
