A Tale of 3 Marathons: My 12 month journey from Coma to PB
Marathon 1
London Marathon (28 Apr 2019)
Result: Did Not Finish (DNF)
Marathon 2
Loch Rannoch Marathon (13 Oct 2019) Result: 2:54:18
Marathon 3
“Virtual” Meadows Marathon (26 Apr 2020) Result: 2:48:41
The finishing times of the 3 marathons I ran between April 2019 and April 2020 don’t look particularly interesting in isolation - failed a tough challenge at the first time of asking, before going on to complete it next time and then do slightly better the time after that.
Pretty typical right? Not really in my case…
The DNF attached tomy initial attempt in London 2019 came in dramatic fashion, after an unexpectedcardiac arrest stopped me in my tracks with only 500 metres to go. A grimmerending than I’d ever have imagined when setting off that day.
In contrast, theendorphin release I got from reading the 2 words “Fastest Marathon” on my watchin 2020 was more powerful than any other I’ve ever experienced and marked theend of a rollercoaster 12 months in between the two races.
Any personal besttimes I’ve recorded have given some form of “Runner’s High”, but the comebackelement of this one made it particularly special. This is the story of thejourney between the two events.
A DNFat London: April 28th 2019
Growing up watchingthe London marathon on tv was always an annual highlight. I loved seeing thelarge cheering crowds, willing on the athletes at every stage of the race, andfelt inspired by the back stories of the runners taking part on the day.
I had completedseveral half marathons and 10k races in previous years to help secure an entryvia my running club, Edinburgh Athletic Club, for the 2019 London Marathon - myfirst competitive attempt at this distance.
I felt excited as Ilined up amongst the 1000s of other runners at Greenwich Park that day, eager to add my name to the illustrious list of those who havecompleted 26.2 miles around the capital in the UK's most famous race.
A digital snapshotof the first 26 miles of the race looks great – I’d reached Buckingham Palace(500 metres from the end) after about 2hrs 50mins and was well on course tofinish comfortably under 3 hours.
I wish I could givea detailed account of what happened at this point, but I can’t. I don’tremember any of the race.
All I know forcertain is that things suddenly took a turn for the worse at this point. Myheart stopped beating and I crashed to the floor in an instant, ending my racethere and then.
A team ofparamedics promptly arrived to perform emergency CPR at the side of the road,before an ambulance took me to St Thomas hospital where I’d spend the night inan induced coma. A horrible ending to the day, with the three dreaded letters“DNF” attached to my name in the results list an added insult to injury to showthe world I’d failed to make it to the end.
PostLondon Recovery: April – May 2019
I have no memory ofwaking up in St Thomas, but I’m reliably told my first post coma conversation wasfood related and went something along the lines of;
Mum: Are youwanting something to eat?
Me: Yeah, I’d lovesome sushi.
Dad: Great I’ll goget you some.
*Dad gets sushi, Ieat sushi, nurse disposes of waste*
Mum: Was that sushigood?
Me: What sushi?
Short term memoryisn’t top of the body’s priority list when it’s rebooting itself, so theinitial challenges of my marathon recovery largely involved trying to rememberwhat I’d eaten for dinner or watched on tv earlier in the day!
With the support ofthe medical staff at the hospital, along with my family and friends who were atmy side, I recovered from the initial trauma after a few days and was allowedhome with my parents to begin the next stage of the recuperation process.
The usual postmarathon trials and tribulations of hobbling around on aching muscles are badenough. Added to that a nasty fall, CPR and emergency medical treatment meant Ifound myself with a body which was literally sore to move in any way possible.
My brain was at leastfully active by this point, so I was keen to start understanding what had gonewrong. The medical records given to me when I left the hospital were a goodstart;
Aline in the middle of the first page initially grabbed my attention;
“…his pulse was notpalpable and his GCS was noted as 3/15”.
Consulting DoctorGoogle to translate this in to my native Scottish tongue I loosely worked itout to be;
“…his heart wasn’tbeating, we couldn’t find any sign of life and his Glasgow Coma Scale was 3 outof 15”.
And what is theGlasgow Coma Scale?
“The Glasgow ComaScale is used to give a reliable way of recording a person’s level ofconsciousness”
A score of 3 out of15 doesn’t look great although it could be worse, right?
“The scale goesfrom 3 to 15, with a low score of 3 given if the person cannot open their eyes,makes no sound and cannot move.
In a review of 111patients with a GCS score of 3 the death rate was found to be 89%, 7% survivedin a vegetative state and 4% recorded satisfactory survival”
Turns out it can’tbe worse!
It could be arguedthat the data wasn’t credible as the sample size is too small and as a fit clubrunner I probably didn’t fit the mould of the 111 patients in it. Nonetheless,seeing words of that severity linked to my name was a shock and difficult tocomprehend – it really brought home how lucky I’d been to make it out of Londonat all that day.
A Return to Running: June 2019
Once the initialrecovery was done the next step involved an assortment of medical scans andblood tests to figure out what had happened. Arranging these gave a clear pathto follow and would hopefully provide answers to a lot of the immediatequestions in my head:
How did thishappen?
Could it happenagain?
Will I be able todo my job?
Will I be able torun again?
To non-runners thelast question might seem bonkers. Why would you want to get back doing the verything which almost killed you only a few weeks earlier?
For me, runningoffers much more than the obvious fitness benefits. Being part of a widercommunity chasing a common goal helps create a strong social network, whilealso providing personal satisfaction of pushing yourself to keep improving eachday.
Coping with day today life would be much more of a struggle without it and thankfully theconsultant treating me took the same view. He empathised with the benefit itwould give to the mental side of the recovery and helped set out a series oftargets to work towards over the next few weeks;
Easy jogging
50% Easy Jogging /50% Steady Running
Steady Running
Steady Running witha quicker mile in the middle
Tackling those oneat a time gave manageable milestones for me to work towards and it felt greathitting each one before moving on to the next. I could feel progress being madeand felt ready to take things to the next level.
Planningthe Comeback: July 2019
It took months, butfollowing scan after scan and test after test they finally found that thecardiac arrest I’d suffered was most likely driven by a severe iron deficiency.
My levels were verylow, confirming that I was anaemic and wasn’t producing enough healthy redblood cells to carry adequate oxygen around my body's tissues. As the flow ofthe oxygen starts to run out, the body starts to shut down bit by bit until themost essential function (i.e. the heart) stops too.
Fortunately theproblem can be safely managed by chugging down a few iron tablets a day. With anew lease of life, I could start training again and quickly set a new series oftargets;
Paisley 10k =>Do it in about 38 minutes
Reykjavik HalfMarathon => Have fun doing the distance
Stirling 10k =>6 minutes per mile pace (37:20ish)
Scottish HalfMarathon => Quicker than Reykjavik
Glasgow GreatScottish 10k => Quicker than Stirling
Loch RannochMarathon => Finish the race!!
This racing seasonwould be different to most, but I had a path towards ridding the “DNF” attachedas the marathon best against my name and felt empowered to give it my bestshot.
Makingthe Distance: August – October 2019
Pictures speak louder than words, and the smiley photos at the end of the racesplanned in advance of my second marathon attempt hopefully show they went well.
I’d never been toLoch Rannoch before and had no real connection to it, so it might seem a randomchoice for my marathon comeback.
When choosing avenue the low key environment, less intense than big city races, was a strongappeal. The glorious scenery which greeted me on arrival immediately confirmedthe choice was a good one.
On the morning ofthe race I woke up relatively calm and dare I say excited about the prospect ofrunning a lap of the loch to complete my first marathon. Training had gonewell, each race before had gone to plan and I felt confident a better resultwas going to come my way that day.
When the race gotunderway I joined a group of runners towards the front, noting a guy from FifeAthletic Club murmur something about 3-hour pace. When things settled down Idecided to tuck behind him in to 7th and strap myself in for whatever wouldfollow.
Staying just behindanother runner for the first hour helped manage the initial nerves. It alsoprovided a vehicle to keep my mind ticking over by picking out landmarks toregularly check on the gap between us.
Eventually wearrived at a drink stand at the same time after 10 miles, following which Idecided to crack on and see if I could keep up with the runners further ahead.
The ability to stay“sensible” in the racing environment became increasingly hard to keep in check.After working my way past the runner in 5th place a crossover point aroundhalfway showed that I was quite close to the leading pack – the race was on!!
The course was quitetwisty-turny, which made it hard to work out how far behind the runner in infront of me was. To try and get a better idea I asked an elderly spectator ifhe knew, only to initially be more confused by the estimate he hesitantly threwback at me;
“I think about 400yards maybe.”
As a metric runnerthe old money measurement was puzzling enough, but how on earth could hepossibly have worked out a distance between two moving objects!?
The randomness didat least give the brain something to think about. A yard is slightly shorterthan a meter, a running track is 400 meters, I takes me about 90 seconds to doa lap of a track so I must be about a minute and a half behind 4th place!
When the coursestraightened out it turned out he was correct, and as an added bonus the runnerin 3rd place was side by side with the guy in 4th. A podium place was now wellwithin my sights.
Despite there beingplenty of the race left common sense went out the window and I chased them downto find myself in the “bronze medal” position as we moved towards the businessend of the race.
The runner in 2ndwas never in sight, but there was plenty of company towards the end fromrunners taking part in a half marathon which shared the same finish.
With their words ofencouragement helping power the legs for the final push I can remember comingback in towards the village almost frame by frame, feeling in control as mywatch hit 42 kilometres and I neared the end of the race (a marathon is 42.2kfor a metric runner like me).
At this point Iknew I was going to do it. Those words boomed loudly through my head as edgedtowards the finish line;
“You’re going to doit.”
I’m not usually anemotional guy, but tears started to drip out my eyes as I hit the home stretchwith the sentence being broadcast on repeat in my head. I’d crossed the lineand the journey was over – finally I could call myself a marathon runner, and abronze medal one at that.
ASense of Unfinished Business: November – December 2019
The immediateaftermath following Loch Rannoch was great. Every message of congratulationshit a positive note, but I didn’t quite feel like the comeback from LondonMarathon was complete just yet. I still had an urge to complete the big oneitself in a time which matched the potential I had.
Thankfully beingpart of a great running club like Edinburgh AC makes this more accessible thanwould otherwise be the case. After speaking to my coaches another crack atLondon in 2020 was agreed as the next target.
As an added bonus Iwould also get a shiny new vest to wear for the event, replacing a tatty oldgrey one I’d had to use at Loch Rannoch and the other races as a substitute fora nice white one which didn’t make it through the London ordeal.
The new vest waspresented as a surprise gift by two of my running pals during our annualChristmas dinner, which was very touching and made me feel quite emotional.
It meant more thanif I’d be given the most expensive hi-tech kit available on the market and I gothome feeling happy and excited, knowing everything was now in place for takingon the challenges which lay ahead.
Backto Training and Making Highlights: January – February 2020
All the picturesyou see of runners at the end of races look great. Delighted faces, medals andtrophies proudly displayed to show off the achievement of having conquered along term goal. The realities of Winter marathon training in Scotland paintquite a different picture at times.
Most of the earlymonths of 2020 were spent getting battered about by Storm Ciara, Dennis and abunch of other names I grew to dislike more and more as each long, cold andmiserable run tested my love of the sport to the max.
Having a positivemindset is key to getting through these sessions and was aided in this trainingblock by an idea my niece Beth had given me over Christmas.
She mentionedtaking a note of her highlight of the day before going to bed each night, whichsounded a great idea and was one I adopted as my New Year’s Resolution for 2020.
The highlight logwould often pop up in my head during sessions and the desire to have somethinggood to record at the end of the day often helped squeeze out a little bitmore. In particular a debate my inner dialogue was having about whether to addmore weight on to my weekly set of squats left a mark:
Should I add moreweight this week?
What if it goeswrong?
What if it’s tooheavy?
You don’t have todo a full set.
Why not have a go?
Okay, let’s make ahighlight!!
The four simplewords “let’s make a highlight” were easy to remember, a positive motivator andbecame the mantra I used to regularly remind myself of the satisfaction steadyimprovement over would bring.
AChange of Plan: March 2019
Initially I wasn’tworried about the noises being heard of a “Covid-19” virus from the East, whichwas causing large parts of China to be shut down. China was miles away andoften had diseases which never really reached our shores so surely this wouldbe the same?
We all know howthat turned out and by the time the London Marathon was cancelled it had becomeso inevitable I didn’t feel too down about it and tried to focus on what couldbe controlled.
A half marathon I’dentered from the village of Balloch on the shores of Loch Lomond, to the largerindustrial town of Clydebank on the outskirts of Glasgow was still going aheadso I decided to put my immediate focus on that.
I stayed inClydebank the night before the race and joined most of the other runners at alocal leisure centre on the morning of the event to take one of thecomplementary shuttle buses to the start line at Balloch.
It was a dreichday, which matched the uneasy atmosphere on the bus as we all juggled a mix ofemotion and fear, knowing something horrible was on its way and would likelymake this the last race we were going to be able to run in quite some time.
I’d only ever run ahalf marathon under 80 minutes once before, in a time of 79:44, so beating thatwas the goal I set out to achieve. The field doing the race was quite large andI found myself in amongst a pretty big group aiming for about the same time asthings got underway.
In contrast to thedrama of the outside world the race felt calm and the early miles went bytrouble free. Not much stood out until I passed the 10 mile point in 59:48,which was a big personal milestone thanks to the words of my Dad a few yearsago.
When I startedgetting a bit more serious about my running he mentioned once doing a 10 milerace in under an hour. I could never have imagined running that fast for solong when starting out, but over the years it became more and more reachableand here I was doing it during a slightly longer race.
The support of myDad, along with the rest of my close friends and family, had been instrumentalin the recovery from London and looking back now I know he would have slippedin the 10 mile reference to help motivate me as my running improved.
I couldn’t quitekeep that pace going for the final 3.1 miles, but was still delighted when Icrossed the line in 79:14 to beat the target I’d set. It felt good knowing thatI would have at least one pb to show for my training over 2020 and themotivational wisdom of my Dad all those years ago helping me get there made itthat little bit more special.
ChoosingMy "Virtual" London Alternative: April 2020
After the halfmarathon was done the next question was whether I would round off my marathontraining programme within another shot at the distance. In truth there was onlyever going to be one answer – of course I was!
The idea of failingto achieve my main goal for the second year in a row didn’t sit well and I knewI wanted to get another completed 26.2 miles added to my name. The debate sooncentered around where to do it and I eventually landed on the Meadows.
The Meadows is a2.25 kilometre park in the middle of Edinburgh and every runner from the cityknows it well. Doing lap after lap of it to complete a marathon might soundlike a strange and boring choice, but it made a lot of sense the more I thoughtabout it.
First and foremostit’s completely flat, so very fast, and logistically it worked well too – itwas close to where I lived, had paths wide enough to socially distance andoffered a few places to set down bottles of water.
Although not theimage I’d had at the start of the year I at least had a Plan B. Finallycompleting 26.2 miles in April in a time that did me justice was on and I wasdetermined to get it done no matter what.
Completingthe Comeback: April 26th 2020
My alarm went offat 6am on the day of the “race” and I got myself out of bed as soon as possibleto get the fuel my body needed in the system. I was soon out of the door andfound myself at the start line just after 7:30am, ready to go.
I set off with aview to beat my time from Loch Rannoch in 2019, which needed each kilometre tobe run in about 4:07 minutes.
I hit the first onebang on target at 4:06, before competitive racing instincts kicked in and Isettled in to a pace close to 4 minutes per kilometre as I got in to my stride.
I’d expectedrunning lap after lap around a near empty park to be a bit of a grind, but Ifound I was enjoying it. My overriding feelings were ones of confidence andhappiness as I took on the quest of laying the ghost of 2019 to rest once andfor all.
Gradually a fewpeople began appearing to share the journey with me. Giving imaginary nicknamesand scenarios of what they were doing gave my mind something to think about asthe laps were racked up and didn’t play an insignificant role - part of mewishes I could thank “Backpack Lady”, “Orange and Dog”, “Dally Duo”, “SpanishOrange”, “Argentina”, “Newcastle” and “Big Rugby” for the helping me on my waythat day.
I wish somethingmemorable had happened towards the end of the run, but there wasn’t anythingtoo exciting. I didn’t really hit the dreaded “marathon wall” at the 24-25 milemark and kept going at a steady pace as I completed the 18th and penultimatelap.
I rang an imaginarybell as I set out on lap 19 and felt great knowing I was just about there. Thelast full lap went by without any drama and I hit the home stretch knowingthere was just a few hundred metres left to go.
Still fully awareof what was going on I knew there would be no repeat of the abrupt ending from2019 and my watch hit 42.2k. Another marathon was complete, although I decidedto keep going until 42.25km to make sure no satellite issues would rob me ofthe glory!
With a sufficientcushion in place the journey was over and I hit stop - immediately sharing theexcitement of my watch which was eager to tell me I had “1 new record”! Delightwas flowing through me as “Fastest Marathon 2:48:41!!” was then flashed in myface.
After getting somewater and food on board, I got ready to walk home and pulled out my phone tolet my friends and family know it was done. I’d finally completed 26.2 miles onLondon marathon weekend in a time which reflected my ability and couldn’t havefelt happier at that moment.
The well wishesstarted to come through straightaway and each made me feel more and moreemotional as I walked home. I sobbed with satisfaction most of the way backfeeling a pretty proud man, knowing the marathon journey I’d started out on 12months ago had finally reached the ending I’d wanted.
PeteSimpson