Another year and yes, another MK Marathon!
This year is actually the 10th year I’ll be running this and I’m looking forward to finally get my full ‘MK Legend’ medal at the finish.
It’s also a brand new course this year. It looks like the marathon won’t be taking place at the football stadium but instead will be held at Campbell Park in the town centre. More on that later.
I’ve also got two friends running the marathon this year too: James is running his second marathon (first time at MK), and Dale will be running his first ever marathon, raising money for Sarcoma UK.
My training started off very sluggish as usual. It’s felt like another brutally long winter and I’m still struggling with low mood and lacking motivation. One thing that was a huge help was catching up with James and Dale from time to time, and seeing how their training was going. Even if I didn’t have much to say about my own progress!
Around March I started to (sort of) follow a training plan and Dale invited me out for a few half marathon training runs. Without this I’d have seriously considered deferring my place to the following year.
The main benchmark for me was to be able to run at least two 20 mile long runs in the run up to the big day. I’d need to be able to do this to have the level of fitness needed to complete the full distance. I just about managed it.
May came around quickly, and luckily the weather was fairly cool still (I’m used to the weather suddenly heating up drastically at the start of May). I travelled to the event with James (an hour early by accident!), and also met up with Dale.
The new course was a nice change – it seemed much easier to drop off bags and get ready without navigating the crowds in the stadium, everything was out in the open.
There was a fair bit of congestion for the first few miles though, with a lot of bollards which caught a few runners out as they’re very hard to see amongst the crowd. It was quite chaotic compared to usual, but eventually the pack evened out.
The course would be a two-lap route this year, keeping to the greener parts of Milton Keynes between the two lakes. I didn’t mind the new route too much – it didn’t have the variety / landmarks of the old one, but there seemed to be much less of the redways which can be a bit boring to run on.
By about mile 16 the sun came out and I was starting to find it quite hard. It was a bit of a death march up until mile 23 and when I perked up and had a second wind. One of the good things about the new course being two laps is knowing what to expect during the second half of the run when you’re getting tired.
The very last mile was tough though. As we climbed some steps and ran around Campbell Park it was hard to see where the finish was. I just wanted to reach the end and had no idea how much further I needed to go.
The crowd of spectators cheering us on said there was only a hundred meters to go, but as the path was in a high-sided valley I didn’t see the finish line until I was crossing it.
I was very relieved to finish at 4 hours 18, which I was happy with considering my preparation. And I got my legends medal!
