Marathon Blog #2

24 Feb 2015

'Giving the Rhino's a run for their money' By Colin Gifford My first meeting with Cutty Sark was at mile 6 of the 1996 London Marathon. It's one of those landmarks that you've seen on TV and when you run past it as part of the race you suddenly feel your own personal bond with the ship. Since then there's been a lot of (ahem) water under the bridge and I now live in Greenwich with my family. We're members of Royal Museums Greenwich and have watched as the ship was restored, stood in the rain as the Queen re-opened it (well, my wife and children anyway) and have been aboard for everything from singing sea-shanty's to making barometers since it re-opened. When you live in Greenwich your feelings for the ship are strong - a bond made even stronger by the fact that my company, Blast Design, has recently started working with Cutty Sark to promote it to visitors. So the only thing left to do is to run the marathon for the old girl. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to the training. My memories of 19 years ago consist of running past cosy looking pubs, full of happy warm people enjoying themselves, on the coldest and darkest nights of the year! But I've surprised myself. I'm actually enjoying getting up at 6am and running. Maybe it's because I know that these days if I wasn't running I wouldn't actually be in those pubs anymore! Living in Greenwich helps too, as there are great runs to do in every direction either around Blackheath or Greenwich Park, or down the river past the O2 towards the Thames barrier. I've also found that I can run from my studio in Angel all the way back to Greenwich via the canal, the river path and the foot tunnel without stepping on a single road! That's one of the good things about running, you really get to appreciate where you are - you have time to take it all in. Running across Tower Bridge on a sunny Sunday morning somehow makes it all worthwhile. So things are going well. I've planned a few build up races and completed the Greenwich 10k last weekend in 46 minutes (picture). But I did have a scare. Only two days after I found out I had a place to run for Cutty Sark I started getting a phantom pain in my ankle. Within a day it was so bad that I was properly limping and had self-diagnosed myself with Tendonitis (thanks Google) which was to have put me out of the marathon. Running long distances does strange things to your mind and my paranoia took me to a physio where I was sure he'd confirm me as a DNS (Did Not Start). Amazingly after following his instructions of alternate icing and Ibuprofen gel I was back running in two days. Back in the race! So now in our house the conversation has turned to 'what to wear' for the race? I'm a bit old school (and getting older by the day), so left to my own devices I'd wear the lightest and most comfortable gear I can find, something to blend in with the other 35,000. However, my wife Martina has other plans. Plans which include the construction of a scale model of Cutty Sark to strap onto and around me. With the added bonus of it being watertight, so that spectators can weigh me down further as I run by throwing in their contributions in the form of their loose change. She says 'that'll show those Rhino's...' Help! Please visit rmg.co.uk/cuttysark/marathon and help Colin and the other runners raise money for Cutty Sark!