Free Life Without Limits, A by Chrissie Wellington

having my photo taken. I’ve never liked the way I look with my hair pulled back. I have inherited an ear from my dad and an ear from my mum, such that one is significantly larger than the other. So whenever I’m in a photo I like to shake my hair out a bit and cover them up. My favoured hairstyle while running, however, is to have it starkly pulled back in a ponytail. It troubled me that there would likely be photos taken of me on Marathon day with my ears on show. I have never found a solution to this problem.
    I spent the night before at my friend Emily’s house in Greenwich, where I ate a meal of tuna and pasta, a pre-race convention I observe to this day. I slept fitfully and woke early, but down at the start I was very relaxed, if excited. I don’t remember any nerves. My primary concern had morphed from photos to peeing. I have a relatively weak bladder, and the facilities were few and far between and very crowded. So I went behind the nearest bush, which is definitely a convention that I observe to this day.
    I felt really good from the start. You always have people passing you at these things, but I was overtaking much more than I was being overtaken. Maybe I am remembering too fondly, but I don’t recall ever being in any particular pain. Obviously, you get tired, but I just ran. And ran. The Isle of Dogs is quite tough mentally, because there are fewer people around, but, even then, it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it was going to be.
    London looks different on Marathon day. It’s a sensational feeling, running by those historic landmarks, cheered on by tens of thousands of well-wishers. It was a beautiful day, and my family had grabbed a position on Tower Bridge, displaying a knack for securing the best spots on the course that has served them well in the intervening years. I had a lot of support, as well, from friends and work colleagues.
    And random members of the public. ‘Go, girl!’ was shouted frequently, because I seemed to be surrounded by men. This was when it dawned on me that I was running pretty fast. I had a watch on, but maths has always been my weakest subject, so I rarely ever calculate my expected finish time even now, and certainly didn’t then. I knew from the Reading Half-Marathon that I was capable of running fast, but I was thinking along the lines of 3hr 45min, maybe 3hr 30min. As the end approached, though, I started to overtake a lot of the men who had overtaken me earlier in the day. As the cries of ‘Go, girl’ attested, I was a rarity as a woman this far advanced in the field. A couple of miles from the end, I thought, ‘Shit, I’m going to come in under 3hr 15min!’
    I saw my parents and brother as I rounded the corner at Buckingham Palace and headed for the finish line. The euphoria was indescribable. And the sheer surprise. I could not believe my eyes. The clock seemed to be reading 3hr 08min! This couldn’t be right. I had annihilated all of my expectations!
    At the finish line, I didn’t fall over or collapse in a heap. I was too energised, too overjoyed for any of that. They put some foil round me (still got it), but that was surely just to stop me bursting with pride. I had come 1,838th out of 32,889, and eighty-third out of 7,956 women. Paula Radcliffe had won the women’s race in 2hr 18min 56sec, so there may still have been a bit for me to work on, but I was blown away by the whole experience.
    There must, though, have been more pain than I remember, because one memory I do have is of not being able to get up from the toilet in the Portaloo at the finish. I don’t normally sit on a toilet seat – I sort of hover above it but here I had no choice, and fell onto it upon arrival. That was when my quads cramped up, leaving me stuck on the seat. I had to call out for my mum, who came in and pulled me off.
    That ‘moment’ aside, it was wonderful to share the whole experience with my parents and brother. That day, I put to bed many demons as far as my eating