Here is a message from the most wonderful Holly, who we are all EXTREMELY proud of for completing the marathon in fantastic time:
Hurrah! After three months of (sort of) sacrificing my social life, over-eating, running in the snow/rain/cold, running up hills, running down hills, cycling, horrible glute work, hideous hamstring stretching, many pilates sessions and a very pitiful attempt at carbloading, the big day finally came around on Sunday 17th April. The day I had been both dreading and looking forward to for months. From about Saturday afternoon everything began to take on a ritualistic ‘last rites’ type feel, brushing my teeth, laying out my running clothes, checking my ipod holder, my energy gels, a last dash to Runners Need to buy a marathon gel belt, do I take a water bottle? No shan’t bother. Family came round to feed me pasta, boyfriend came round and drank beer, I was still not asleep by midnight as my mind started to race.
As our most esteemed Queen Miranda herself told me ‘it’s only a few hours of your life Holly, just get on with it’ – I kept repeating this mantra whilst trying to get to sleep and eventually drifted off. The bus ride to the start was hilarious, I was the only person on the bus who wasn’t on their way home from a night out…surprised I didn’t see some familiar faces. Hanging around the start for an hour I attempted some pathetic stretches, discovered how degrading female urinals are, and tried to eat some more food before we were off at 9:45! I couldn’t start running for the first 15 minutes and found myself generally running quite a bit faster than the group around me havign underestimated how fast I would run.
All was going marvellously well until I needed the loo at Mile 2! Wasted 5 minutes queuing for a portaloo. Back to the road, some lovely priests were out in Greenwich flicking holy water at the runners as they came by, not enough holy water to cure my sins I don’t think! I started feeling it around mile 9 where the road became a little more boring, all I could think about was getting to Mile 11 where my friends were waiting for me, gave me such a boost to see them all shouting and waving from the crowds and waving a hideous sign calling me ‘Schmolly Hogtrots’ – spotted this straight away! I couldn’t quite believe I was running in the London Marathon!
On to Mile 13 and my family were all shouting and waving with the rest of the Shelter supporters, that spurred me on a few more miles, until I reached the dreaded Isle of Dogs, the worst part of the route, it got boring, long and around Mile 17 my legs started seizing up. I had to stop and try and stretch out my hips and quads, my friends at Mile 18 were screaming and shouting and waving, I hadn’t realised they’d be there so it was amazing to see them.
Miles 18-20 were tough, my legs were so heavy I felt they were made of lead, but once I got past mile 20 all I could think was ‘I’ve never run this far in my life and only 6 miles to go!’ hugging my family at Mile 22 on Tower Hill was the last surge of energy needed to see me through the last 4 miles and as I turned off Birdcage Walk I started to speed up for the final 1200 meters before sprinting the final 600 meters as fast as I could! Some kind of energy flooded over me and I raced across the finish line feeling on top of the world.
Friends and family were waiting at the end, I couldn’t have made it through without their support. The whole way round I kept thinking of all the sponsorship I’d raised and how important the work Shelter does is, after running the hideous 26.2 miles at least I could go off to the pub before going home to my lovely flat and nice warm bed and wonderful flatmates. So many people don’t have a home or are in danger of losing their homes and I was acutely aware of this the whole way round the marathon.
Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me, and a special thank you to Croquet East for helping me raise money at the Sports Day fundraiser and all you wonderful people who turned up and made it such a great day!
It’s still possible to sponsor me so any spare change will go a long way to helping Shelter. www.justgiving.com/hollylondonmarathon
Huge congratulation Holly – it was a pleasure to help out!
Also – don’t forget to come and join us for A Lovely Afternoon of Croquet in Victoria Park from 2.30pm on Saturday!
Big love,
HRH Queen Miranda
