Sam Perkin – the Cornish Marathon

My training had been going well up until about 6 weeks before the event when I bought a new pair of running shoes. Unfortunately they sold me the wrong shoes so I injured my feet the first time I went out in them! The upshot of all this was that I had plantar fasciitis (strained the tendons in my feet) and I had to take 6 weeks off for recovery, which put my training right back.

On the day of the marathon itself my race companion, Kay Kershaw, and I were just aiming to complete the course, as we were both carrying injuries. We were late and the last to start, only by 2 minutes which we found quite amusing but after 9 miles we had managed to overtake a few other runners. By the time we reached Jamaica Inn it was raining hard, cold and windy – not nice! Luckily our friends were there waiting for us with dry clothes and a hot drink. We felt better after that and morale was high again until we got to about 23 miles when I really started to feel tired. We had overtaken more runners but the last few miles were very hard.

We were so pleased when we finally reached the last hill where we could see the finish line and run downhill. With every step that last mile I could feel my legs wanting to cramp up and stop, I struggled but got there!

Our time was 5 hours 13 minutes! I’m already training for the London marathon and I will be raising money for Cornwall Hospice Care, as well as running in the Cornish Grand Prix this year – so watch this space!

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