by Phil Hewitt
Inside the stadium the atmosphere was good, which lifted my spirits a little as we assembled for the off. A choir was singing on a huge, temporary stage, and there was a reasonable number of supporters in the stands which rose up above us all the way round. I walked around the outside of the track and found the pink starting zone, the colour corresponding to the time I had said I hoped I'd finish in – 3 hours to 3 hours 30 minutes, the third group back from the front. The organisation was good, which is always an early comfort, and slowly I found myself being sucked into the zone, both mentally and physically. There was quite a buzz.
The fact that we were standing on an Olympic track definitely added to the sense of occasion, but it was noticeable that people were looking cold already. People were jumping up and down on the spot in an effort to keep warm. Runners were reluctant to discard their bin bags and extra layers. I was among the many who left it to the last couple of minutes to cast aside sweatshirt and extra T-shirt, flinging them into the trackside piles which generally get donated to the homeless at these events.
Just as in Paris, I didn't hear whatever it was that started the run, but suddenly we surged forward, stopped and then surged again in the time-honoured big-city marathon way. I was over the line in about 40 seconds, which I was delighted with. This wasn't a marathon remotely on the London, Paris or New York scale. It was much smaller and, on a more forgiving day, it would have been much more manageable. But at least we were away, and with no hold-ups or significant bunching, it was all looking more promising.
After a couple of hundred metres of track, we left the stadium and disgorged onto the streets where it was suddenly all just a fraction tighter, or so it seemed – an impression which lasted just a few minutes as the wide avenues opened up ahead of us.
This was my second marathon in kilometres and once again I came armed with a wristband, having printed out one which promised to get me around in 3:20. After New York and Paris, I was feeling ambitious. It meant having to keep my wits about me. The 3:30 wristband which had been such a success in Paris demanded five-minute kilometres. For the 3:20 schedule, I had to be doing kilometres in about 4:45, not such an easy figure to multiply in your head.
But, of course, it was more complicated than that. Wristband times don't allow for the inevitable slowing across the second half of the race. I calculated that, just as in Paris, I needed to have five minutes in hand at the halfway mark, but I knew that working that into multiples of 4:45 was never going to be easy.
From the stadium, we launched into a big, rectangular route, which, bizarrely, after 7 kilometres, took us back into the stadium. The fourth and long top side of the rectangle was a couple of kilometres through the Vondelpark, a picturesque run through a lovely autumnal open space. Conditions were damp from the overnight rain, and a glance at the skies suggested it was only a matter of minutes before more rain hammered down. More worryingly, even after 5 or 6 kilometres, I didn't feel that I had remotely warmed up. I wasn't into my stride, and inside I felt cold. Rather than slipping into an expansive forward flow, I was hunched and uptight.
But at least this stretch of the course served a useful purpose, I told myself. After Paris, I had learned my lesson and had mugged up on the route, no easy task in a city I didn't really know. But one thing I had noted, and which had stuck, was that the last couple of kilometres of the rectangle were a dress rehearsal for the actual marathon finish. We'd be back along here a couple of hours later. I tried to remind myself how much that kind of knowledge ought to be of benefit.
Even so, it did seem rather pointless when we were back in the stadium after just 7 kilometres. Have they really got nothing else to show us? I wondered. You can take familiarisation too far, I chuntered – something I seemed to be doing rather a lot that morning.
But my timing was still good. I was back where I started after about 33 minutes – still nicely in touch with the 4:45 minutes-per-kilometre schedule I was hoping to run to. Plus this time, having covered just one end of the track on our way out, we were going to complete a full circuit. I expected a lift from the loop. It didn't come. Instead, there was the worrying thought that somehow we were counting our chickens rather too early.
We ran over the finish with around 35 km still to go. On another day, in other circumstances, I can quite see myself thinking this was a brilliant idea, the ideal way to spur you on, giving you every opportunity to visualise the finish before the final approach. But not that day. Instead of inspiring, it felt dangerously presumptuous. Instead of rousing, it simply brought home to me how far there was to go – a thought I certainly wouldn't have been thinking if I had been running 7 kilometres away on virgin territory at that moment. What works one day, won't work on another, and I started to let negative thinking creep in.
Outside, it was back onto fairly large avenues with the runners starting to thin appreciably, genuine breathing space in a race which had never been too cramped anyway. And then things suddenly looked up at about 9 km when I made what I thought was a wonderful discovery. I found the Runners World 3:15 pacers, two guys running along with 3:15 on their vests and each trailing a pink balloon. It was the first time I had ever seen a pacer, though I knew they existed, and these were the ones for me. Their promise, which they radiated with every strong, confident step, was that they would get you home in the time they had blazoned all over them. All you had to do was keep up with them. Brilliant, I thought, and I stayed with them very comfortably for the next 10 km. I wanted to do 3:20. All I had to do was follow them, and they would get me there well inside it.
In that instant, those pacers represented, as far as I was concerned, an end to thinking. They could do it all for me. I'd just catch their slipstream.
At around the 13-km mark, we reached the River Amstel, and this was probably the most pleasant part of the route, down the western side of the river for a couple of kilometres, across a bridge and then back up the eastern side. Fairly early on, across the water, we heard the sirens from the other side and saw the outriders for the front-runners. One guy sped past, probably less than a hundred metres away. There was a longish gap and then a big group of runners, superfit and strong, stormed through. Even from a distance, it was obvious that they were thundering.
On my side of the river, it was also going nicely, if rather less quickly. Running alongside the river was lovely, and it all felt very manageable. It reminded me, just a little, of that lovely Bois de Vincennes stretch you get in Paris – much more rural for a few kilometres before you head back into the bustle of the big city. This was country running, the rain was holding off, and I was feeling strong. The pacers were looking very comfortable, just as it was their job to, and effectively I handed everything over to them.
Crossing the river was a great moment, a real feeling of progress, especially as we were now the ones looking across at thousands of runners several kilometres behind. Oh yes, life was beautiful at that point.
And then, oh so suddenly, it all went wrong. The drinks stations were bargy, hectic, hassly affairs with nothing terribly gentlemanly about the way runners cut in and jostled for drinks. Earlier I had missed out completely on a Gatorade sports drink station because I simply couldn't get through the big blokes around me. There was an aggressiveness about the runners I'd never experienced anywhere before – or since.
Another problem was that the sports drinks were in paper cups, which were awkward to handle. I knew by now how important it is to have a proper sports top to your bottle, one you can suck on without taking in any air. At the 2002 London Marathon, I'd gulped on an open cup – absolutely the wrong thing to do. I got a lungful of fluid and feared I was going to drown in the middle of a big-city marathon. It was the most horrible feeling. The discomfort lasted several hundred metres and the shock even longer. Consequently, I was always careful to use a proper sports bottle with a teat-type top.
But the jostle at the Amsterdam drinks stations meant that I missed out too many, and when I did stop, the fact that they were using
cups rather than pouches for the Gatorade meant I simply wasn't taking in enough fluids. At the 20-km drinks station, I knew I needed a substantial intake of sports drink, but I got shoved in the process, gulped too quickly and took in too much air – not as much as I took in at London, but more than enough to signal what was probably the day's first significant discomfort. Soon after followed the major discomfort.
When I moved on from the drinks station, the pink balloons were about 50 metres away, not too far, but that was that. I never got near them again. I passed the halfway mark at just under 1:38, by a good three or four minutes my fastest ever half-marathon – not that that was a cause for rejoicing. If I had been several minutes slower, I might well have kept control. But suddenly, at about 21 or 22 km, the whole thing just seemed to collapse on me.
It sounds stupid, but I was suddenly conscious that I was very slight and weak in a field of big, big blokes – not the kind of marathon runner I was used to. It was almost certainly all in my mind and not a true reflection of the actual field, but I felt out of place and miserably inadequate. I'd tried to keep up with the big boys and now felt myself fast coming a cropper. If there had been any sand around, they would have kicked it in my face.
The very best runners are pretty skinny, but they were well to the front by now. Instead – and as usual – I was running with the pack, but this time a very muscle-bound pack in a very male field. It was probably all in the mind, but I didn't just run puny, I felt puny – all part of a loss of confidence which, sadly, was the only thing about me that was actually gathering pace. I was disintegrating mentally. I felt out of my league. Everyone seemed huge, and so I started to fade, losing it in the mind long before I lost it on the road.
We continued on the riverbank for another couple of kilometres and then cut through a grassy embankment for a kilometre or so, but by then I was struggling. Seriously struggling. I had an orange gel and got a bit of a lift from that, but people were starting to stream past me in a worrying way. And as they looked bigger, so I felt smaller.
Soon we were running through a nondescript industrial suburb, which I later recognised as the area in which my hotel was located. It was a grim, uninspiring landscape, with nothing to look at except business units and warehouses, and with nothing to think about except the knowledge of so many kilometres stretching ahead. In a good marathon, the kilometres tumble away after the halfway mark, but in Amsterdam, it felt as if they were still stacking up. It was miserable, and now I endured a couple of kilometres convinced that I was going to get cramp, a worry heightened by the fact that my slowing meant I was feeling ever colder.
A new low point was a depressing section where you slog up one side of a dual carriageway simply to turn at a roundabout and head back down the other side – a couple of kilometres of pointlessness, the product of wretched planning on the part of the marathon organisers. It was demoralising to see all the runners heading back the other way several kilometres ahead, and even when it was me coming back on the other side (which can be a boost in a marathon), all I could see was hundreds of runners who would soon be overtaking me.
They were all looking great. I felt ghastly. I had a very brief walk at this point but felt much worse for it and so just plodded on through yet more industrial suburb, dour and uninviting, offering nothing to lift the spirit. For kilometre after kilometre, Amsterdam was unimaginably dull. And not a canal in sight.
All the boxes were starting to be un-ticked. I was fed up, I was cold, the rain was starting and the route was doing nothing for me. So much for the Venice of the North. This was a city intent on showing off only its warehouses and lorry parks. It was crushingly boring, and slowly I let it crush me.
When things started to pick up, it was too late. After about 32 or 33 km, we broke out beside a canal for the first time in far too long, but by then the mental damage had been done. I had lost it. All hope of a 3:20 finish had evaporated – and therein lay the danger. It wasn't just the dream that was lost, but the will to participate. I was always going to finish, but I had nothing left to give. Fear of cramp had receded, but my thighs felt like lead, and with fatigue came the usual confusion. I was struggling to work out how many miles were left and muddling them up with kilometres.
Reaching 20 miles is always a good point, because that last six is a manageable distance to think about, but I didn't have the energy to calculate what 20 miles would be in kilometres. Not that that would have helped. You'd have to be pretty alert to run in both measurements. I could barely cope with one.
Self-pity set in. Just after 35 km, with 7 km to go, you reach the edge of the city centre once again and go past the Music Theatre, from where you soon go over a pretty bridge. In places now the crowds, which had been sparse throughout the boring bits and not that great in the other bits, weren't too bad, but not having anyone out there cheering for me was dispiriting. I was on my own in a race I wasn't enjoying, battling against kilometres which were refusing to budge. I'd never felt more miserable on a racecourse – especially when somebody pulled the plug and the rain hammered down, cold and unforgiving.
I walked for a few minutes, trotted on, and then walked for a couple of minutes more. There was a runner with a St Neots vest who seemed to have run a parallel race to me. I saw him struggle at about 20 km and then he headed on. But then I found him again and overtook him. Then he would overtake me and so it would go on. His presence was a help in some ways, giving me a reason to carry on. In hindsight I wish I had teamed up with him, but you don't think of these things at the time and I don't know how he would have reacted. However, he did at least give me something to focus on in the final few kilometres.
Eventually we got back to the Vondelpark, which meant we were on the final stretch, but even then it was impossible to keep running. I walked for several minutes, the rain lashing my face, so cold as to be painful. I knew I had blown the whole damned thing by then, and I'd gone past caring. Looking back, it's very easy to be critical of yourself and wonder why you stopped when surely it was easier to carry on, but the problem is that it is just so difficult to keep going once you've set a target only to watch it drift irretrievably out of your reach.
Those pink balloons had long since floated away, and I'd long since discarded my wristband. After about 37 km, hopelessly, helplessly behind schedule, I chucked it into an Amsterdam gutter in disgust. It was all >the wristband's fault. It could hardly be mine. If I hadn't been so hung up on doing 3:20, I could have done 3:30, and now even that was running away from me. Run well, and wristbands will help. Run badly, and they're a reminder of mounting failure. I was sure I could hear it laughing. Down the drain it went, and I threatened to follow.
My target was probably unrealistic from the start. I'd been hoping to leap from a previous best of 3:27 to hit 3:20, but as I wobbled in Amsterdam, I started to think that not even favourable conditions on the day would have been enough. It was the kind of leap that required the kind of speed work I'd never wanted to do. I wondered if I was approaching the point where general fitness ceased to be enough and serious speed training had to take over.
And that's the moment my marathon imploded – the moment I was pushed one crucial place further back. Not that the position mattered one bit by then; far more important was the person who had overtaken me. You'll never guess what he had on his head. Oh. OK. You've guessed it. A beautifully ornate model yacht, fully rigged and sailing serenely through the rain, which was now falling heavily. I expect he'd carved it himself while we waited at the starting line.
This was a fast, serious race, and at the start I remember thinking that I had never stood among so many lean, superfit-looking blokes. There was absolutely no hint of fun run about this one, and yet I was passed by the nearest thing to a fun runner that Amsterdam threw up. What a prat. Me, not him. Just the sight of him was enough. I was beyond misery and almost beyond continuing. My problem was that I was in wholly uncharted territory for me – a marathon that was going seriously wrong. And I didn't know how t
o cope. The only possibility was somehow simply to keep going.
Slowly I reached 40 km and started to look out for 41 km. It never seemed to come. I was out of the park heading along what had been the fourth side of the rectangle earlier on, and it seemed the 41-km marker was never going to arrive. I saw it the first time round, but this time I completely missed it. I sagged into a dejected walk again. I probably walked for almost a kilometre in total over the whole race, and that is bad. Really bad.
But a policeman by the roadside shouted 'Run, run, you are almost there!' I managed a sickly smile and said to him, 'I will run if you will', and he did, for 50 metres or so, a sweet gesture. But then he stopped and said in a lovely, thick Dutch accent, 'I will stop here. I am wearing my bicycling booties!' It was an exquisite moment – just enough to get me home.
Soon people were shouting that the stadium was just around the corner, and it was. That was when I realised that I had completely missed the 41-km marker. I turned the corner and the stadium loomed massive before my eyes. I had barely the strength to run but I trotted into the arena once again. We were suddenly on the track, running round and the finish slew into view. But even that was an anticlimax. I usually can't help but shed a tear on crossing a marathon finish line, but this time I just felt monumentally depressed.