Close your
eyes of think of England. What do you
see? For me, it’s castles, kings and
queens, endless green lawns, double decker buses and centuries old buildings
whose every stone whispers stories of victories and betrayals.
I see our country’s ancestors who handed down
to us their language, laws, and government and 21st century people who
are our best friends in the world. I had all of that and so much more at the
London Marathon in April 2012.
Nothing can
better sum up my experience running London than the taxi ride I took back to my
hotel the evening right after the marathon.
I had just seen “Jersey Boys” in London’s version of our Broadway, the
West End. I hailed a taxi (not wanting
to trust my legs to the Underground’s stairs after just running 26.2 miles a
few hours ago) and was greeted by the driver, a very British man a little bit
older than me. “How was your day in
London?” he asked as I gingerly sat down.
“Well, I just saw a fantastic musical, and before that… I ran the London
marathon!” I said. “NO!” he said. “I want to hear all about it!”
I started talking and couldn’t stop. I told him about the amazing organization of
the marathon, from the best expo I had ever been to (so spacious, hundreds of
booths from every possible marathon vendor you can imagine, an on site pasta
party where the organizers had a constant stream of speakers and videos
detailing what we would experience during the race) to the best organized race
I had ever ran (although there were 36,672 finishers, I never felt crowded,
there was water every mile as well as balloon arches and a dotted blue line
showing us the fastest official route).
I spoke of
the amazing time I had touring his city in my two days before the marathon,
visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum, shopping at my fave store, Harrod’s,
and walking by Buckingham Palace (while my dog was at Barkingham Palace!)
I toasted two of my favorite writers, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens,
at the very pub where they used to hang out, the George Inn. I was so excited
to be there, this was an English major’s dream field trip, that the bartender
must have realized how cool this was for me and gave me my drink for free, and
I don’t even like beer but I just had to drink to the Bard and Chuck!
I traded
running stories with 14 super friendly Canadians from our tour group, Marathon
Tours and Travel, at the pasta dinner the night before the marathon. They are
in a running camp so similar to our running camp, the major difference is that
they run in freezing weather, including down to 20 degrees BELOW ZERO,
something our Set Goals Not Limits campers have not experienced in Melbourne,
Florida.
The race
itself was an experience of a lifetime, running through the outskirts of London
in small rural villages, then into the city itself, with modern steel skyscrapers
and historical stone buldings. The spectators just made the race even better,
screaming for us the entire way. “Go Florida” was something I heard often, as I
ran in my Florida running shirt.
And the
other runners? That was what was extra
cool about London. It’s really 2 races
in one. London is one of the 5 World
Marathon Majors (this was race #4 for me, having already run NYC, Boston, and
Berlin.) So it is A Serious Race,
attracting the best runners in the world.
The top 3 women finishers, Mary Keitany, Edna Kiplat, and Priscah Jeptoo, as well as the men’s race winner, Wilson Kipsang, have all
been chosen to represent their home country, Kenya, in the 2012 Olympics.
But this is a people’s race as well. Exactly half of all runners run for a
charity, wearing the name of their charity on their shirts. It’s hard not to cry when you see some of the
names of the charities, such as Kids with Cancer and Stillborn Babies
Charity. Most of these runners are not
super fast. The organizers of the
marathon keep the race going for 8 and ½ hours, whereas most marathons are open
for only 6 hours. And that’s not just
for the charity runners – there is also something unique about London’s
marathon – it’s the huge number of runners in “fancy dress”, meaning crazy
costumes. There’s even a corral at the
start for these runners, wearing everything from formal evening wear (while dining) to a running car to animal
costumes to Wizard of Oz characters to a raunchy workman (naked except for his
tool chest, which did not cover much of his body) to another guy naked except
for a teapot (which pretty much covered his whole body). The juxtaposition of running by some of the
world’s most beautiful sights: Tower
Bridge at mile 12, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey at mile 25, then finishing the
race right in front of Buckingham Palace, while running by these “fancy dress”
runners is one of the craziest things I’ve ever done.
“Were you
always a runner?” the driver asked me. I
briefly told him my story (it’s detailed in my Boston Marathon blog),
basically, started running at age 45, started training for a marathon in the hospital
after getting really sick at age 48 (as in walking the halls in a hospital
gown, tied to an IV pole, deciding I was no longer the girl in the bed but a
runner training for a marathon even though I had never run a race farther than
3.1 miles) and that if I can do this thing, run marathons, anyone can do it and
more… I encouraged him to get out and run, and he said he’d give it a try! When we pulled up to my hotel he said he
wanted a picture of me, and I emailed him my post race picture. I opened my wallet and he refused to take a
penny (or shilling or pence or whatever they call their coins, I never got that
straight, I just concentrated on the paper money) and said it was an honor for
him to have me in the cab.
All the
English people I spoke to that marathon weekend treated me like my cab driver
did, like I was something special, like they were proud to have an American come
to their country to run their marathon. Everyone
wanted to know my story, was I a professional, did someone sponsor me to race
London (they were asking this of ME!) and what did I like about London. Easy to see why these people are our country’s
best friends.
The next
morning, before leaving for the airport, I sat at breakfast at our hotel’s
restaurant, and I hear, “There’s Cindy Bishop from Merritt Island!” Philippe joined me at our table. Philippe, another Canadian with our group,
was someone who I ran Berlin with in October 2011. He is on my schedule, running all the World
Marathon Majors. I’ll see him in Chicago
in October. We talked about the marathon
non stop for half an hour. We were both
happy with our times: I ran my second
fastest marathon in 4 hours, 18 minutes, and 5 seconds. Philippe ran a PR in 2 hours and 42 minutes and 6 seconds - and he’s 47 years old!!! We spoke of how
crazy cool the fancy dress runners were, how great the organization was and how
the spectators just kept us going… I mentioned that it was cool that Prince
Harry gave out the awards, and another kind of royalty, the future Kenyan Olympic
team, can someday tell their grandchildren that they ran the London Marathon
with Cindy Bishop. But we both agreed that
the real royalty was the most inspirational runner of all, the one we can tell
our grandchildren about, and anyone else who will listen. Philippe and I, and the other 36,669
finishers, ran with Fauja Singh, a 101 year old runner who finished the
marathon in 7 hours, 49 minutes, and 21 seconds. He didn’t even start running marathons until
he was 89 years old. Fauja proved to all
of us that we can do anything, defy the odds, if we just follow our dreams.
