Well after a number of weeks of training, some hamstring problems and ridiculous amounts of snow during my training the big day is almost here! I’ll keep it brief as I’m in need of some sleep I’m afraid.
After setting off at 04:30 this morning, we arrived in London around 11:00, however it took us a full hour and twenty minutes to get through the city to docklands where our hotel and the Excel Centre are located, impressive! After checking in it was off to register and look around the Expo.
Registration itself took around three or four minutes as there was only one person in front of me in the queue (they split the running numbers up into numerous desks). Following that I strolled over to get my IPICO tag which will time my run. It’s amazing how much data they have on you – one beep of a barcode and there’s your life story on their screen!
The next few hours were spent browsing the vast amount of stalls in the hall, everything from watches and running tops to charities and foreign marathon organisers. We also took in the Pasta Party which gave you a few good things to eat in a public seating area. The best bit about this, however was that you could watch various experts from the London Marathon, Lucozade, etc. discuss what the best plan is for the race, what you can do to enhance your chances of doing well, etc. The best stats from last year’s race were that 40% of all runners slowed over the second half of the marathon and only 9% maintained a steady pace throughout. Nine percent!
After filling up on some knowledge and food, we headed to the stalls again. As there were no mediums left of the white Virgin London Marathon running tshirts, I decided to have a look elsewhere, like the watches. I spent a bit of time at the Timex stand having a look at a few options available and almost purchased one of them. However, I eventually ended up at the Garmin stand, specialists in GPS tracking watches. As they were doing a deal on an older model (Forerunner 205), I was interested and eventually purchased one (its charging right now – need to work out how it works before tomorrow though!)
It will allow me to track my time, average pace, how it differs from my goal time, and will beep after every mile and inform me of how fast my last mile was – ideal. When I plug it into my laptop it will also give me a GPS route of where I ran, the graph of my speed as well as elevation. There’s so much it does that I haven’t even looked into yet. Anyway, at only £20 more expensive than the plain watch I had been looking at, I’m pretty pleased.
After that, it was back to the hotel for a sit down and I’m now not long in from having my dinner (pasta, shock). I’m now going to have a look at this new gadget before going to bed.
I’ve got everything laid out for tomorrow which is good.
Now all I have to do is get up and run a marathon. Simples (ha!).
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