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or your 100th.

      I know this to be true not from personal experience but from talking to those who have run anything between 100 and 800 marathons. It would seem not only is there always the pain and suffering during a marathon, no matter how experienced you are, always there is the joy, too. It also appears to be the case that no matter how many marathons a person runs, perhaps not surprisingly the first is the one that stays most clearly in the mind.

      Take current chairman of the 100 Marathon Club, Roger Biggs. To date, he has 635 marathons under his belt and holds several records, but can still recall his first marathon with clarity.

      ‘Like many others, I’d watched the London Marathon on TV and was inspired to run one myself,’ he explains. ‘I failed to get into London, but in 1984 my hometown of Stevenage was having its first marathon so I decided to give it a go there.

      ‘I trained on my own and with a friend, and also ran three or four half marathons leading up to my debut. I remember in the race itself, I walked for the first time at 18 miles on a downhill section. By the time I entered the finish area, my calves were on the limit and I actually ground to a halt about 100 metres from the finish. A spectator helped me with a quick calf massage and believe it or not, I was warned for getting outside help! I finally got going again and limped over the line in 3 hours 58 minutes and 11 seconds.’

      And then there’s Gina Little, who has run 400 marathons – the most marathons ever run by a female. She too has no difficulty in summoning up her experience of that first time.

      ‘It had to be London,’ she remembers. ‘The course passes the end of my road and I’d seen the runners in the second London in 1982 and promised myself that I would do it the following year.’

      Sure enough, in 1983 Gina was on the start line.

      ‘On the morning of the marathon I walked up the hill towards the start. As I got nearer, I could smell the liniment runners were rubbing into their legs. The nearer I got, the stronger the smell! That smell still brings back great memories of that very special day.

      ‘I also remember that the friend I was running with was very nervous and had an upset tummy, so all through the race we had to keep stopping for the loo. One stop was in a pub and the loo was all the way downstairs. We must have lost so much time in the different loos we visited!’

      Another prominent 100 Club member, Steve Edwards, who has completed over 550 marathons and has a selection of past and current national and world marathon records under his belt, gives an account of his first experience.

      ‘I did everything wrong,’ he admits. ‘It was 1981, I was 18 years old and I entered the Coventry Marathon with six weeks to go. I did no proper training, had no dietary preparation and wore the wrong shoes.

      ‘Back then there was no internet or ready advice about training, so I decided to run five miles a night for five nights a week. However, I had no idea how far five miles was, so I went down to the school running track and ran 20 laps of the 400-metre track to cover the five miles and did that every night leading up to the race!’

      Race day dawned and Steve set off in his old, barely-there football boots, in which he’d done all his training and which had less support than a school football match.

      ‘I remember with about 10 or 11 miles to go thinking everything was okay – I was running at around 8-minute mile pace, which meant I would finish in around 3 hours 30, which I would have been really happy with. I even started to wonder what the wall thing was that the Americans were always talking about!’

      Just over a mile later, though he knew exactly what they meant. Not so much hitting the wall as running smack-bang into a concrete edifice.

      ‘I no longer owned my legs, they wanted to stop and I was trying to make them move. I knew if I wanted to finish I had to stop but that only resulted in me stiffening up, so I started to walk and then tried a little jog and eventually ended up doing alternate jogging/walking until the last mile when, somehow, I was able to run again.’

      Steve eventually crossed the finishing line in 3 hours 38 minutes.

      ‘The next day and for several days afterwards I could barely walk. My legs felt like gateposts and I had to walk backwards down the stairs.’

      In fact, this is such a common experience for first-timers that there is actually a T-shirt available to purchase with the logo ‘I’m in the Downstairs Backwards Club’!

      Steve clearly recollects his first words after finishing, ‘I am never doing that again!’ Those words are probably the most common ones spoken at the finishing line of a marathon, particularly when it comes to those who have just lost their ‘virginity’. It would appear that the members of the 100 Marathon Club are no exception. Indeed, only one of the guys and gals I spoke to admitted to setting out on that first marathon with the intention of running at least another 99 – you have been warned.

      SLUTS’ TOP TIPS FOR VIRGINS

      Roger Biggs (635 marathons)

      ‘It will always hurt at some point in a marathon, but believe that you will come out the other side.’

      Gina Little (370 marathons)

      ‘Don’t worry about time, try to relax and enjoy the experience. It doesn’t matter how many more marathons you run, the first is something special.’

      Steve Edwards (550 marathons)

      ‘Do the training, there are no shortcuts; you’ll only get out what you put in. Start off steady at the pace you are intending to try and complete the marathon. Don’t think that by going quicker at the start you’ll have time in the bank, it doesn’t usually work like that and will generally do the exact opposite. If you’ve done the training, you’ll maintain the same pace and finish on time, perhaps slightly quicker. If you haven’t done adequate training for the marathon in that time it was never going to happen anyway.’

      Brian Mills (771 marathons)

      ‘Enjoy the day.’

      Naomi Prasad (103 marathons)

      ‘Leave your watch behind! It isn’t about time for your first race, there are plenty of other future races if you want there to be when you can worry about that. Just go out and finish with a smile on your face.’

      Mel Ross (151 marathons)

      ‘Don’t start off a marathon too fast, ensure you drink enough.’

      Dave Ross (206 marathons)

      ‘Take time to build up the distance that you intend running, increase the mileage off-road as much as possible and eat well. It’s worth having running gait analysed, too – to ensure that the correct shoes are used prior to commencing a training routine.’

      Paul Watts (220 marathons)

      ‘Don’t let the euphoria of race day get to you and send you off too fast as you could end up regretting it later in the run.’

      Dave Moles (376 marathons)

      ‘Don’t do anything on race day that you haven’t already tried in training, e.g. drinking sports drinks.’

      Martin Bush (562 marathons)

      ‘Don’t worry about times, it’s more about completing the distance.’

      Richard Fulbrook (131 marathons)

      ‘Go out and enjoy the experience.’

      Osy Wayne (115 marathons)

      ‘Forget your watch and take it easy. Start with a big city marathon so you will never be alone.’

      Mike Marten (141 marathons)

      ‘Enjoy this one as much as possible, but more importantly, when you do the second marathon, don’t automatically assume you will better the time set in your first and for heaven’s sake, don’t be disappointed

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