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Athens, August 22, 2004. It is the morning of the marathon, the long day before the longest race.
I wake at 9.30am because my bottles for the race must be with the organisers by 10. I have been in Athens for a week and the problem has not been waking but sleeping. I lie in bed waiting for sleep to come, remembering Dad’s advice about imagining myself on a beach.
I try to relax but too often lose the battle. Night after night I have been getting up to go to the bathroom much more than normal. Is it because of the heat and the amount I’m drinking? Is something not right with my tummy? Is it that I’m just awake anyway and so then need to go to the toilet? Why is it that every morning I get out of bed and don’t feel properly rested?
Today, though, is not the day for questioning. It is the biggest day of my running life and I can get through it by eliminating all doubt from my mind, thinking of all my hard preparation and treating it like any other important race day. To fend off unwelcome thoughts, I stay busy.
I make sure the bottles are ready and then have breakfast. Later I chat to Gary (my husband) on the phone. I hang around the apartments chatting to the others: Liz Yelling and Tracey Morris, Jo Pavey and, in our apartment, Michael East, Lee McConnell and Hayley Tullett.
My breakfast is the same as always on race day: porridge, banana and honey. After eating, I ice the vastus medialis muscle above my left knee. It has been a nightmare for the past two weeks. Although you don’t use it to run, it is in constant use as a stabilising muscle on hills and uneven ground.
My determination to run in the Olympic marathon has never wavered, but there have been bleak moments when I have wondered if I am going to be able to make it. After icing my leg, I lie on the bed to relax. It kills a little time. Time is also spent going to the toilet.
This is how it has been for the previous five or six days. My food is being passed rapidly and, looking back, my stomach has been feeling terrible for a while. On my last couple of evening training runs I had to stop at least three times in the 40 minutes. Right now, that can’t be a problem; it has to be just nerves. It will be fine in the race, I tell myself.
A little after 1pm, five hours before the start of the race, I eat my last meal. Another big bowl of porridge, some banana, some biscuits, a yoghurt and a little chocolate: fuel for later in the day. After eating, I relax again, take a shower and then go for my pre-race ice-bath.
Athletes mix the ice and water depending on their appetite for discomfort. Some like it colder than others. I like it very cold and this afternoon I am thinking I will stay the usual 12 minutes. Ten, at the very least.
I climb into the iced water. It is very cold, but rather than handle it as it usually does, my body begins to shake. First a little, then violently. “Out,” says Gary, “you’ve got to get out now. You shouldn’t be shaking that much.”
The other marathon runners on the team, Liz and Tracey, say that the water is really cold, but they didn’t shake like that.
There is another, more pressing concern. Since eating almost two hours before, the food has lodged in my stomach. My stomach feels bloated and awful, as if I’ve eaten too much. I feel dizzy and nervous, as if I know something is not right. Rather than the excitement and anticipation that comes with the approach of a big race, I feel only nerves and dread.
I know something is wrong.
The food that I have eaten feels as if it is too much for my digestive system. All the visits to the bathroom have signalled a problem: is it the anti-inflammatories that I have been taking to keep the inflammation down in my leg? Have they upset my stomach?
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