MISSION COMPLETE

On April 23, all four of our team members lined up in London to round off their Big Marathon Challenge

PHOTOS: EDDIE MACDONALD

It’s five months since we met Alice Doggrell, Katie Hainbach, Leah McDaniel and Claire Price and introduced them to their coach, Richard Coates from Full Potential (fullpotential.co.uk). They’ve had specialist shoe fittings from ASICS, learnt about nutrition with HIGH5 and found out how supplements could help them with Solgar. All four team members trained hard to reach their marathon targets, and have experienced highs and lows as they hit new PBs, fended off niggles and dealt with their demons. Claire had already achieved her brilliant marathon best in Manchester, but the other three women were putting their training to the test.

Twitter: @fakoriginal

ALICE DOGGRELL

Age 37

From Bristol

Day job Knitwear designer

Big Marathon Challenge Alice wanted to break 3hrs 30mins in London. On the day she ran 3:31:19, breaking her previous PB by nine minutes, and in training she also set a new half-marathon PB of 1:33:04.

The big question: how was London for you?

I’m not going to lie, London was a bit frustrating for me. I knew I was capable of running sub-3:30. Unfortunately, the course was pretty congested around me, particularly with the Guinness World Record fancy dress attempts which had to be negotiated at the start, and never really cleared until around mile 23. This meant that it was hard to keep my rhythm as spaces in front of me suddenly closed up. The warmer-than-forecast weather also didn’t help me as it meant I had to take on water at every opportunity.

Everyone talks about the atmosphere at London and how great it is, but at times I found it overwhelmingly loud. Turning into Isle of Dogs we went through a narrow street with high walls either side and the noise was deafening. I spent a lot of the Isle of Dogs close to a Guinness World Record attempt of two people dressed as a Jamaican bobsled team, and they were getting a lot of cheers, but the sudden loud noises and high-pitched screaming was distracting for me when I was trying to push as hard as possible.

The Isle of Dogs was where I had my first properly dodgy kilometre, and I can’t remember anything in particular as to why. It was just hot and sunny, there was nothing much to look at and it was still too early to be counting down the miles to go. All of a sudden I had run a 5:30 kilometre instead of a 4:55. I had another dodgy one just as I came onto the Embankment and that was the sub-3:30 gone. I was still determined to put in as good a time as I could, so kept pushing as hard as my body would allow. I was pleased with my time (a nine-minute PB, and a Boston qualifying time as well as a good-for-age time) and am content that it was the best time I could achieve on the day. I have unfinished business with the course though, and will be back next year with a better understanding of what is ahead.