A Lesson from the New York Marathon…

Hooray for Paula Radcliffe! “I definitely feel stronger after my pregnancy,” the champion marathon runner said, after she sprinted to victory in the final stages of last Sunday’s gruelling 26.2 mile race.

Paula’s fought her way back from bitter failure (Athens Olympics 2004, when stomach problems felled her) and injury (spinal stress fractures and a foot injury in 2006), and she only gave birth to her daughter Isla in January of this year. “I never thought having a baby would be the end of my career,” she grinned as she cuddled Isla after the finish line. She’s a world-beater and a woman of inspiration.

I didn’t think that running a marathon after raising four children would be the re-start of my career, either. However, I ran the New York Marathon in 2000 – in rather more than double Paula’s time of 2:23:09. I ran the race to prove to myself that you aren’t washed up past your mid-thirties, and the law of unintended consequences meant that apart from developing some calf muscles that a body builder would envy, I unexpectedly fell into a new career.

Not being the sporty type, I hadn’t even run for a bus in decades. I was always more the kind of girl who joined the Debating Society rather than the sort who raced around getting sweaty. But when middle-age spread started to take a firm grip on my waistline, and the kids were old enough to be left to their own devices for chunks of time in the evenings, I decided to get fit.

Not just fit, but super-fit – without the first idea of the time and commitment it would take to achieve that and run the daunting distance of twenty six miles and those irritating couple of hundred yards at the end.

It was hard.

Harder than I could have imagined – frequent blisters the size of silver dollars, raw and meaty. Legs that hurt every morning when I got out of bed; hips that protested when I climbed stairs; skin burns on my underarms from chafing; toenails shaken out of sneakers (after a nasty period of being black and flaky); six months of a messy house and a messy me (no personal grooming other than a quick shower and application of blister medicine).

I got lucky: My trainer, Steve, took painstaking care to make sure I trained properly, if not with speed or grace. He would run in front of me, singing to cheer me on – as I puffed and huffed and pounded painfully towards him. The problem was that Steve was running backwards at the time – and faster than I’ll ever run forwards. At times I wanted to murder him. Mercifully, I didn’t, and we are friends to this day.

I got lucky with my family too – partner and children thought it was just fantastic that Mum had decided to do this crazy thing, and after four-hour training sessions, I’d get home to find a cooked meal all ready and waiting, a bath drawn for me, and my bed all ready for me to crash in for a while. Before getting up to do it all again the next day…

The race itself was even tougher than I’d imagined – New York in November 2000 was balmy and beautiful the day before; we’d wandered around in short sleeves, so I was unprepared for the icy winds that battered me the next morning in my sleeveless running top and spandex pants – across every borough and certainly every bridge. I think if I’d stopped I’d have cramped up – so I didn’t stop, even at refreshment stations. I didn’t slow to a walk, either, even though my running pace was probably slower than many people’s walking. I just didn’t feel I could claim to have run a marathon if I’d taken time off and dawdled when it got hard. And it got hard, trust me.

I passed the finish line in Central Park in 5 hours 35 minutes, narrowly beating a man dressed as Superman, because he was silly enough to stop and kiss the ground before the line. Now my kids think that I’m a super-cool human for having blazed past the Man of Steel…

So how did this mad effort kick-start my career? Well, I wrote about it so I could let those kind souls who had sponsored me for charity have something fun and entertaining to show for their donations. Because I did so, the pledges to the charity on whose behalf I ran more than doubled to nearly £10,000. The charity asked me to write some more for them. I got some freelance work and it snowballed. I ended up writing for a careers website, and here I am writing for The Glass Hammer…

Running is a great activity for women in finance, and I seem to meet many young women who are passionate about it these days. Maybe it’s the competitive spirit, or the idea of pushing yourself to achieve your personal best that resonates with type A personalities. It’s also a great way to blow off steam from a stressful job and add some structure and routine to an often-unpredictable work schedule.

Finally, it’s a great way to stay in shape and counteract the inevitable toll on your figure from 12 hour days at the desk and expense account meals. Additionally, lots of investment banks and financial services firms sponsor charity teams for marathons and 5K fun runs, so it can be a great social activity to get to know your co-workers and raise money for a good cause.

The moral of the story is, if you want to do something, you can do it. Gather your
determination, your friends and mentors, get yourself into the right mindset,
and give it your all. If I can run a marathon, believe me, all things are possible. Just put your mind to it and get on with it.