First hand report from Ben Scott in the Guernsey marathon

Ever since injuring my left ankle about 8 weeks ago I'd been a bit nervous about running a marathon at race pace, hence my decision to pull out of the Isle of Man marathon.  I'd done a few 6-8 mile runs whilst in Guernsey with no apparent recurrance of the injury.  I did 15 miles, over the hilly bit of the course on the Sunday before the marathon and felt fine.  Monday was a rest day and I thought I'd do a gentle 4 miles on Tuesday.  A mile and a half in I was in trouble with the exact same pain that had been troubling me over the past few weeks flaring up worse than ever.  I hobbled back to the house convinced that my chances of running a marathon were gone. Wed and Thu were painful and at best uncomfortable. I'd given up on running to the extent that I'd packed every last bit of running kit into my suitcase by lunchtime on Thursday. Fri was a slight improvement and I lay in bed on Fri night and thought "There's no harm in standing on the start line - if it gets sore I'll bale out. It's better to try and fail than not to try". So I spent Saturday trying to organise myself and readjust the brain onto race mode, albeit with modified expectations.

So I started the race and it soon became apparent that the ankle was not going to be 100%.  I could feel it was sore and felt very stiff but the tape that Isla had applied the previous night seemed to be holding things together and the pain was not increasing.  I pushed on, with a far from normal running style. The first 9 miles consisted of mainly running with a bit of a limp, with no drive pushing off my left leg. However, by 8 miles I'd done all the uphill bits. At the bottom of the fairly steep descent down to the flat coast road (just short of 10 miles) something happened in the bad ankle. I'd been suffering all the way down the hill, with a pronounced limp, and something seemed to 'pop', causing a nasty surge in pain (accompanied by an audible expletive just in front of the poor marshall!). Bizarrely though, after initially thinking it was game over the pain started to ease and eventually was barely noticable as I made myway round the flat coastal section.

I was in seventh at this stage and thought that I'd just keep plugging away and see what happens.  All the runners in front of me were pretty much out of sight by half way and there was no-one behind me.  At about 21 miles I passed the guy who had been leading as he had blown and was walking (eventually he finished 7th).  I passed another guy who had slowed a bit on 22 miles (he finished 5th) and the last one on about 23 miles (who finished 6th).  It was a tough last couple of miles but I was chuffed to bits to cross the line in under 2:53 (2:52:57) in 4th place.  The ankle was a bit sore after and I'm having a spell off for a couple of weeks and some investigation as to what's wrong.

As an amusing aside I proved how addled a runners brain can get at the end of a marathon.  The finish consisted of running a lap of the athletics track and, as I entered the stadium, a marshall pointed to the track and shouted "Run round the outside".  I took this a bit too literally and did a lap in the outside lane, all 455 metres of it!  Funnily enough no other runner took this scenic route.  At least I know I can shave another 10-15 seconds off next time I do a marathon by not running the extra distance!