I ran this one for Rowan, Callum and Matthew:
The 40th London marathon was a race I always wanted to run, with it being one month after my 40th birthday. A few years ago I decided to see if I could train hard and get a good for age time and get in without relying on getting through the ballot. At first I needed to run 3:50 as I’d be 40 by race day, then the rules were changed so I’d have to run 3:45 as I was 38 when I ran the time. Imagine how DELIGHTED I was when I took 13 minutes of my previous pb to run 3.43.31 at Loch Ness marathon, I’d done it, I’d be running the 40th London Marathon.
Except… another rule change meant that only 3000 women would get a place instead of everyone that applied. Still, the previous year everyone had got in so I felt hopeful when I entered… I actually sobbed when I got an email to say that they’d reduced the time to 3.40.45 and I didn’t have a place 😦
Fast forward nearly a year, and with coronavirus getting in the way, the original race was postponed, the new race was cancelled (apart from elite runners) and the 40th race had gone virtual. I had the opportunity to enter again and I snapped it up, I could finally earn the 40th London Marathon medal albeit on my own route in my own time.
To start with I made plans with a few people to run together, then the rule of 6 was introduced meaning, in Scotland anyway, we were limited to running with just one other family. Obviously I wanted to run with Tracey as she’s been a huge support throughout this challenge but it was a shame not to be able to run with other friends who’d entered the race.
Tracey and I started to make plans and we decided on a Queen theme since we would have been in London seeing the Queen. We planned a route around Balmoral castle but then discovered we’d need mobile signal the whole time for the marathon app to work so we changed our plans. I’d always thought it would be nice to run from the neonatal unit to Stonehaven (ie Emily’s journey home from hospital) and we decided to combine that with seeing as many Queen related roads as possible. And of course, it’s the London Marathon, so we had to dress up…
We arrived at the start to find two of our lovely colleagues, Rhona and Regina, there to cheer us off which was amazing given it was 9am on Sunday morning. After much faffing with phones (we needed to start the official app and login to the live wall), we were off…
No sooner were we off the hospital grounds, we heard more cheers, here was another of our lovely colleagues, Janice, out of her bed on a Sunday morning to support us! Round the corner, more cheers, it was Emily from the Archie Foundation, she was excited we were going right past her house and was up and out in the rain to cheer us on. She also told me she couldn’t see me on the tracker, I checked and WHAT AN IDIOT, I had managed not to actually start it 🤦♀️ so now I was half a mile ahead of it. We also decided to ditch the live wall at this point as we couldn’t really get it to work.
Another corner, another awesome colleague, Sandi, this was so fun! Then we started ticking off the Queen-named roads and taking selfies at each…
On Queens Road we were cheered by some people we didn’t know, turns out they were out supporting someone else and we saw them several times over the next few miles.
With all Aberdeen Queens ticked off, we headed out to the Queen Mother Rose Garden at Hazlehead park and on the way got more cheers from a pal, Karen, who’d popped out to see us. We wasted some time taking pictures at the wrong rose garden (!!) then carried on our way down to the Deeside Way, a former railway that carried the Queen out to Balmoral Castle in days gone by.
After the previous day’s heavy rain, the railway line was VERY WET, before long we were wading through giant puddles, but we saw a couple of other marathon runners and this kept our spirits up.
Just before Drumoak we came across a very large flood and a group of people advised us to jump into the field unless we wanted to wade in up to our waists, well two Queen of Hearts playing cards stumbling over a barbed wire fence is quite a sight, let me tell you!
We carried on our way, chatted to more marathon runners, were cheered on by strangers and as we crossed Park Bridge the app had just told us we were crossing Tower Bridge and there was a large group of people watching the swollen river. They became our impromptu bridge supporters and were super lovely!
Then it was up, up, up, through the woods, narrow tracks, and MUD. The Elsick Mounth resembled a flowing river and then a quagmire, it was very slow going:
Coming down the other side, the glorious sight of our friend Claire and daughter Isla, cheered us right up and soon we only had a few miles to go before we got to Stonehaven.
Our route was planned to nip past my old house, Emily’s first home, and as we rounded the corner, one of my bestest pals, Alyson, was there to cheer us on with her kids and my kids. This meant I could take a picture with Emily outside the house:
We took in Queens Gardens and Queens Road and then headed down to the beach front where we got more cheers and folk taking our picture, we felt like celebrities!!
By now our watches told us we’d finished, Tracey’s app said she was finished but we’d mapped a route to the caravan park so we kept going, good job we did, Alyson was further up to cheer us again:
And three amazing friends, Annie, George and Karen were at the finish! Thanks for coming out guys!!
We chatted then we ambled back to the car and finally my app decided I’d finished, so my “official” London marathon time is a fair bit slower than we’d taken, although with all the chat, the selfies, the puddle wading and evading and the mud, we hadn’t exactly set any records but boy did we have fun. Tracey made this awesome video to sum it up:
Later on, I logged onto my emails and discovered that while I’d been busy running, many people had been busy sponsoring me and my total had gone up by nearly £500!!
This includes another lovely donation from the wonderful Rhona and Michael along with one of their legendary limericks:
Having forgotten to use the official selfie frame when I finished, I took this picture to show you where you will probably find me for the next few days at least:
ELEVEN done, only ONE to go!!
Robertson Family Fundraising 