Keep on Running

by Phil Hewitt

  After a while, it was more than possible to run at my own pace, particularly in a temperature which had to count as absolutely perfect for long-distance running. It was bright without being particularly sunny, and it certainly wasn't hot. It was cool and comfortable, and, as usual, there was the lovely release that came simply with the act of getting going.

  We started off on the seafront loops which made up the first 6 miles of the course, all on good wide roads. Posh marinas gave us plenty to look at, as did high-rise hotels as we entered the smarter end of town before turning back towards the start. Miles 2 to 6 were all nicely within the 7:30 target.

  All in all, it was a good start. The road rose and fell gently, but I had the pleasant feeling that any gradient was mostly downhill, which clearly couldn't have been the case given that we ended up back where we started. But I guess the sensation simply reflected the fact that I was feeling comfortable, particularly as we approached the start/finish area once again. We turned left inland and, almost immediately, the 10-km runners dashed off to our right, down the concourse to the finish.

  Of course, every distance has its disciplines and huge challenges, but it was difficult not to feel a slightly superior, totally irrational 'Why did they bother?' as the 10-km runners disappeared. We'd barely been going 40 minutes by then. But it was certainly an important psychological marker. Rather as a rocket sheds bits as it zooms into space, we were saying goodbye to the part-timers; we were clearly well underway; and, more interestingly, we were heading into the Old Town section we'd been worried about.

  In the event, it proved absolutely fine. There was limited crowd support; in fact, it's probably fair to say that the whole thing probably didn't impact vastly on the people of the city as a whole; but it was pleasant to be running through the city, particularly early on when we went up one side of the road only to come back down the other side, a chance to see just how many people were behind me – not a terribly sporting thought, but an important way to assess how I was doing at that point. You're always being pulled along to an extent, but even better, if you're doing well, you're being pushed along at the same time, and that was certainly the case here.

  I'd hated this kind of doubling-back in Amsterdam; I hadn't much liked it across the lake in Paris. But here, it was fine – another instance of how your feelings on the day colour your approach to everything. On another day, the sight of runners going in the opposite direction would have dragged me down; today it had the opposite effect.

  At about 8 miles, I passed our hotel before heading off right on the day's first slightly narrow street, gently uphill for a while before bearing round to the left and then down beside a river which flowed inland at right angles to the coast. And so it continued, some decent straight stretches taking us back into the narrower, older areas before we found ourselves coming out by the cathedral and running along the walkway on its southern side, overlooking the lake with the finish on the far side – an area we'd familiarised ourselves with. From there we headed back into the twisty streets for a bit more criss-crossing.

  The fantastic thing was that at no point were the public a problem. We'd imagined it would be difficult to keep pedestrians off the course, but never was this an issue at all. Just as importantly, at no point was bunching an issue either. It was emerging as an excellently thought-out course. The opening 6-mile coastal stretch, along decent dual carriageways, had stretched us out perfectly. Consequently we didn't for a moment get bottled up in the town. And again, even though it was fairly consistently up and down, I still had the impression – again, obviously completely wrong – that it was largely downhill, again presumably a sign that at that point I was still running well.

  We took in most of the sites, including Plaça Major and Plaça de Cort, and the miles remained nicely under control – miles 7 to 13 all comfortably under eight minutes. The whole thing was feeling nicely steady as we entered the penultimate city-centre section, a straight road north before a turn to head back south, down to the coast.

  Here at the waterfront, the half-marathon runners left us, while the full-marathon runners turned left to head east for that final half-inland, half-coastal 13 miles. With the sea in sight for the first time since mile 6, it was another significant psychological moment in the race. The field had reduced by about a third when the 10-km runners had peeled away just under an hour earlier; now our field was reduced by a third again as the half-marathon runners veered off in large numbers to the right. Turning left, I realised just how well spread the marathon runners were by now.

  And the lovely thing was that I had absolutely no sense of wishing to be with the half-marathon runners. All I felt – smug and entirely unjustified – was 'Right, now we're getting down to the serious business!' At 12 miles, I was pretty much bang on the 1:30 time that 7:30 minutes per mile demanded; at the half-marathon point, I was just under 1:40; and now it was marathon runners only as we entered the third quarter of the race – a stretch that proved even more boring than we'd imagined; dull industrial areas with only the occasional glimpse of the sea at the end of side streets to our right.

  One point of interest was how low the jets were coming in as we neared the airport, a point at which we seemed to be on an empty main road in the countryside. After that, we simply trundled on eastwards, never more than a few hundred yards from the sea, often much closer, but only ever seeing it in snatches. Occasionally things opened up when we were probably just a block away, and after a while we would catch glimpses of the front-runners coming back the other way – a bit of a double-edged sword. In some ways, it was encouraging, but it made me realise we still had a long way to go.

  Towards the end of the inland stretch, we were going through towns, with shops either side which made for a bit more interest, and then finally, finally, we turned to the right before turning again to come out on the promenade, the sea clear to our left now as we headed back westwards on the home straight, all along the coast to the finish. Once again, and quite obviously, this was another major psychological turning point, with about 8 miles to go.

  I had been doing well until about mile 16, but then I had started to feel tiredness creeping in around 17 and 18. I was above nine minutes per mile for the first time at mile 18, but the turn along the seafront came just when I needed it. For the next 4 miles, I was well under nine again, helped by a change in the weather. By now, the day had turned cloudy and it was drizzling a bit, which suited me. It was refreshing.

  There were various people just wandering along the promenade; very few, if any, were there specifically for the marathon, but there was some good shouted support, and the encouraging thing was that we could see the curve of the coast in the distance, somewhere in the middle of which was the finish.

  We were running along in ones and twos at this point in a reasonably steady flow, with no great sense of being in a race. At one point, the route took us down onto duckboards on the sand, and then, for a good mile or so, we were running across slightly hilly sand dunes, followed by sparsely grassed heathland, undulating and starting to become just a touch arduous.

  Just as we emerged onto road again, I had my toughest moment of the race, slowing for a minute or two to barely more than a walk as we doubled back briefly and then turned sharp left and uphill. This was mile 23, a stinker and the only one that took me more than ten minutes. But then something suddenly clicked and miles 24 and 25 were fine, among the steadiest I have done at that stage in a marathon, dropping to well under nine for the penultimate mile. In the final mile I started to suffer again as we came back out onto the dual carriageway on which the race had started.

  There was just over half a mile to go, and the starting arch came into view in the distance. There were people milling around the roadside with their medals, but it was difficult to know whether these were half- or full-marathon medals. Either way, it was proof enough that the end was approaching. And so I drew level with the lake and passed through the starting arch. Just a few hundred yards more. Turn right at
the next corner and then turn right again to reach the final stretch. Finished runners by the roadside were drinking beer, so it seemed. One runner held up his plastic cup to me in a gesture of 'Keep going and this is what you will get', which left me mystified. I couldn't possibly imagine wanting a beer at that point, especially as I could feel myself flagging.

  But slowly the corner was approaching, the turn inland very rapidly followed by the sharp turn right onto the finishing concourse, the slightly raised, carpeted metal runway towards the finishing arch, and how lovely it was to step onto it, the rain now falling heavily. We'd looked at it the night before and noticed that it was downhill, and now there it was – so unlike the London finish which you first see from far too far away. In Mallorca, the finish was suddenly there – just a couple of hundred yards away, giving me just enough time to take it all in and try to finish in style.

  After more than three and a half hours of Status Quo, still the best thudding running music, the end was in sight. I pulled off my headband, raised my arms and sprinted the final few hundred feet, approaching the finishing clock just as 3:38 came up. My gun time, as they call it, was 3:38:03. My net time – in other words, time since actually crossing the start line – was 3:37:28. I'd done it. Marathon number 23 was completed, and it was great to stop.

  I was just under two minutes slower than New York seven years earlier, just over two minutes quicker than Amsterdam six years before; more than ten minutes quicker than Rome earlier that year; and three and a half minutes slower than Paris the year before. It was well behind my grouped 3:20–3:22 times (London, Paris, La Rochelle), but a big improvement on the big-city stinkers; Dublin (2005), Berlin (2007) and Rome.

  I remember lurching to the right as I came to a halt, but not worryingly so. I felt fine. I sat for a minute or two, just behind the finish, watching a few more runners come in, before walking on through the finishing section where it turned out that the beer was not only free but also alcohol-free, and lovely it was too. I really enjoyed it, though I remember feeling slightly nervous that in my depleted state it might still have a vaguely intoxicating effect. I nibbled on some banana, grabbed some water and collected my medal before leaving the race enclosure, wandering around the eastern end of the lake and picking up my bag.

  The rain had stopped again, and I wondered about hanging around the finish area until it was time to go back along the last couple of miles of the route to find Michael. I got as far as the start of the raised home straight, where I got a chap to take my photograph, but the rain resumed soon after, and I was feeling chilly. I ambled back to the hotel, where I showered and freshened up, before strolling back down to the finish. I retraced my steps along the promenade and was delighted to discover Michael just before 41 km, a lot closer to the finish than I'd dared hope.

  The rain had pretty much stopped again by now, but I imagined he would be drenched and frozen. In fact, he'd rather enjoyed the rain. His overriding feeling was relief that we hadn't had to run in blazing sun. I found him after about 5 hours 25 minutes had elapsed, and it was clear he was on track to come in well inside 5:51, the time he needed to achieve if he was to hit 'bronze standard' for his age – which he duly did. He was running steadily and well, just as he had done throughout. He finished in 5:37 – a fantastic result at the age of 78.

  This was a marathon in which the organisers had got almost everything right. It was beautifully organised, with the water and the sports drinks frequent and plentiful. I'd gone back with drinks for Michael, but needn't have worried. They hadn't run dry – and neither had we. It's a young marathon but one very much on the up. It was great not to have the awful crush of Rome or Paris; great to be able to move around so easily at the start and at the finish; and great to have done a marathon in a new country. A good result all round.

  As I waited for Michael to pick up his medal and collect his bag, I looked around and tried to take it all in, this the most exotic of my marathons. I wanted to register it all in my mind: the palm trees, the lake, the friendliness – all part of the sheer different-ness of the Mallorca Marathon. My last marathon. I wanted to say goodbye.

  And as I looked, I started to smile.

  The smile broadened. Just who was I trying to kid? The only one who'd fallen for it was me. As I stood there, looking back across the finishing line, I knew I wasn't finished. How could I be? Why on earth would I want to give this up? There was nowhere else I wanted to be at that moment. The only thought of elsewhere was 'Where next?' I knew I couldn't possibly give up the sweet knackered-ness of running.

  I was washed and refreshed, but my body was still telling me that it had gone beyond the ordinary, that I had pushed it beyond the point that bodies naturally go. And that was the pleasure. It had been a small marathon, but even small marathons can be great ones.

  For this one day, we had converged from around the world; we had attached our microchips and we had pinned on our numbers. We had gone through our pre-race rituals, and then we had stood together at the start, perfect strangers to each other and yet brothers (plus a few sisters) in the maddest feat of endurance known to common man.

  With our different-coloured vests, our different hopes, our different worries, we had set off as one. With our different gaits, some super-smooth and slick, others straggly and inelegant, we had surged forward, stretching slowly in the next few hours to cover mile upon mile of Mallorcan road as sweaty humanity pushed itself to the limit. And that was the joy; I realise it now. Not to do well, but simply to be part of it.

  As I stood looking at that finishing line, thoughts came back to me that I had had on finishing my very first marathon 12 years before. Thoughts which reminded me why I had become so besotted with marathon running.

  All of us have got our lives, our jobs, our families, our routines, our habits, our foibles. All of us work to get from one day to the next. Very few of us hit the headlines. Very few of us aspire to. But train for a marathon, and for one day you can join the ranks of the immortals.

  I thought of the distance we had just run and I thought of what we had achieved in covering it. This is the way the common man smashes Shane Warne back over his head to bring up a triple century at Lords; this is the way we mortals smash home that FA Cup-winning penalty. This is the way we become heroes – if only to ourselves. Sporting glory is there for the taking every time you line up at the start of a marathon – and that's the seduction.

  I thought of the thousands of people who streamed home in the icy rain hours after me in the Amsterdam marathon; I thought of my Dublin bin bag, my shelter for 20 miles; I thought of my London tears and loud, painful breathing; I thought of the nun I'd cruelly abused in Rome; and I thought of the way I'd pulled myself back from the brink in La Rochelle.

  And I then remembered how sweet life had been in New York; how slippery it had been on the Clarendon Way; how hilly it had been on the Isle of Wight. I thought of those Brooklyn firefighters lining the route in the Big Apple. I thought of the man with the boat on his head who sailed past me in the Dutch downpour. And I thought of the little boy who'd really seemed to believe it when he shouted full in my face, nearly two hours after the winner had crossed the line in London, 'Come on, Phil! You can still win this!' This was my world, and I wasn't about to leave it.

  And then I realised what had made Mallorca so special. It was my 23rd finish and yet it was the only time I had raised my arms and punched the air as I went over the line. It wasn't a gesture of farewell. How wrong had I been? Instead, in that instinctive gesture, my whole body had been shouting 'Bring it on!'

  I was drunk on the whole damned thing, as drunk as I have ever been. It's a world I love right from the nipple plasters through to the blackened toenails, right from the misery of the lonely long-distance training run to the adrenalin surge of the big-city finishing line. As I punched the air, I knew it. I am not done yet. My race isn't run. The best is yet to come – even if, from here on in, the best is likely to get slower and slower.

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