The Day After....

The Day After

What a few days, with the travel to Listvianka, the small matter of running a marathon and then travel home, although we haven't got home yet, sat in a restaurant in Moscow airport, where we will be for the next 9 hrs....

The following is a short account of how the last few days have gone.

We arrived in Listvianka on Thursday morning, we had a lazy day had a wander around the town, didn't take long, wandered out onto the ice of the Lake, it is a strange feeling knowing that in 2 days time we will be running across this, and also knowing that it is the deepest, and largest freshwater lake in the world.

On Friday we thought that we had better go for a short run on the lake, to get use to running on the surface and also used to the Yak Trax on our trainers.

In the evening we had a race meeting, where we were told that this year we will be running the opposite way across the lake, this decision had been made due to some issues with the ice cracking... As in the words of the race director "Lake Baikal is living and breathing" so these things happen.. Also the start was moved forwards which meant an issue with breakfast at the hotel, but they brought breakfast forward so it'll worked out.

It was a shame that we were now running away from the Hotel, physiologically this was harder as running towards the hotel would have been easier, as you were then running "home".

But on the flip side it meant that we could stay warmer and inside right up until the race started.

Out we all trooped to give our offering of Milk to the "Ice Gods" it obviously worked as we had near perfect conditions, beautiful blue sky and more importantly no wind...

We set of at a steady pace, practicing what we had been doing all through training of running 9 mins then walk 1min, after a couple of miles you were soon in your own space, with only a field of 130 people (80 for the marathon & 50 for the half).

We progressed nice and comfortably reaching the halfway point in 2hrs 15 mins, a really good steady pace, Philip was doing well and feeling comfortable,although I knew that tough times would be ahead.

They hit a bit sooner than I thought, Philip had a little wobble at 14.5 miles, I think the bleakness of the ice and snow was getting to him, so after that we had to manage the running and rest times better. Philip dug deep and carried on, the pace slowed but that was always going to happen.

Philip even started drinking the tea at the feed stations, completely laced with sugar, he would never drink it like that anywhere else...

We got on with it, counting down the miles, at this stage Philip was struggling but he carried on, I think the last 2 miles for Philip were everlasting, although now you could see the green tent at the finish line.

We ploughed on and finished in a time of 5.03.52

An amazing effort on Philip's part

We were then whisked onto a waiting hovercraft to be taken back to the hotel, a bit quicker than running, although typically Russian style this was still complicated as we got to the halfway point and they stopped, not sure if we were meant to have a break or wait for another hovercraft or what, but the end it got us back to the hotel, although being cramped on a hovercraft straight after the race does not help tired aching legs..

Back at the hotel we showered and changed and went to the presentation of awards and medals.

There had even been a new ice marathon world record set that day, so they were very happy, also happier as it was set by a Russian..

After this downstairs to the pub for a gala dinner, with beer and Vodka,

Philip called it a night at 11pm, I managed to hang around longer, probably not a good idea, too much Vodka, does not make for a good start to the journey home.

We would like to thank all our sponsors who without their help this would not have been so successful.

Also we would like to thank everyone who has sponsored us, I will put a final figure on here once I know.

On a final note I would like to commend Philip on his dedication to training over the last year, and also to sticking to his training plan, so that he would be able to do a marathon.

I think I need to thank Philip for also finding this marathon, because yes, it was a crazy idea, BUT what an experience and one that I wouldn't change.......

Trevor