Sunday, November 12, 2006

London Marathon

London, here we come! On Friday I sent in my entry for the 2007 Flora London Marathon to Marathon Tours and Travel along with a hefty deposit check. So now I'm committed.

I have to confess I've been vacillating for the last couple of weeks about whether to run this or not. The only way to be sure of getting an entry, indeed by now the only way to enter at all, is to sign up for a package including hotel and air travel with the tour company. And it seemed like an expensive commitment, especially if by any chance I injured myself while training or for any other reason wasn't in shape to run a marathon next April.

I'm already four weeks into my training program and definitely want to aim to run an April marathon. Looking around on various websites I found that the New Jersey Marathon in Long Branch is the week after London. So after discussion with Tillerwoman we decided to drop the idea of doing London and planned on doing New Jersey instead. Hey, we live so close to Long Branch that we wouldn't even need a hotel. Just show up on the day and run.

But then I had second thoughts again. Does that make it third thoughts?

Two laps around some Jersey shore town?

Or London? Cutty Sark, Tower of London, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, London Eye, Cleopatra's Needle, London Bridge, Buckingham Palace... one of the great city marathons of the world.

So eventually I decided to go for the big one. If I'm going to put in all the effort to train for a marathon, the actual race had better be a truly memorable experience. And as an aging , I don't know how many more years are left in these old legs so I had better grab the chance while I can.

So on Friday I called up the tour company, confirmed they still have guaranteed places available in the race, and sent them my deposit. I'm on my way.

I called up my mother in England this morning and told her my decision. The plan is to visit her and my mother-in-law in the week before the race, and then for Tillerwoman and me to spend four nights in London over the race weekend. Mum kept going on and on about how far it is to run and I had to keep explaining that it's no further than the two marathons I've already completed.

In the end I just had to tell her... "I have to do it while I'm still young!"

6 comments:

JP said...

Good luck Tillerman very impressed my involvement last year involved watching it on tv in background while reading the sunday papers.

Its a great route, but as a londoner I'm biased!

I hope you have a good race

Zen said...

Smashing!!!

Anonymous said...

Good Luck on the run!! I am trying to secure a number for a friend of mine. I have started to contact various charities. Could you please forward me info on the tour package. If you can thanks so much!

moxie12794@aol.com

EVK4 said...

Good choice. If you somehow injure yourself and can't do the marathon, you still have the hotel and tickets to visit London...not a bad backup plan.

I'm sure Shakespeare said something about backup plans, insert that quote here.

Sherry said...

I'll watch out for you on the tv!

Anonymous said...

I live in Toronto Canada and just received my official rejection notice that i did not get a spot in the 2007 london marathon.

I keep hearing how you can buy a charity spot , but not living in the uk im guessing they wont allow me to purchase one.

does anyone have any suggestions/ideas on how I can , in relitivly short order, purchase a confirmed spot in the marathon.

cheers
gj

Post a Comment