On the 22nd May 2011 Pete Baillie, son of our treasurer (Kerr Baillie), took part in the Edinburgh marathon. This is the letter he sent to our Chair ...
I’m
38 and did this as a kind of mid-life crisis, ‘must do before 40’ sort of
challenge. Or possibly ‘must do while I can’ challenge. I’ve been training since
the middle of January, clocking up 67 training runs totalling 756km or roughly
18 Marathons in preparation. Training has been done on work time at lunch, at
night on rainy winter days running the country lanes around my house with a
head-torch on and at weekends taking an ever increasing chunk out of family
time. Luckily, living near the coast and having had a few nice weather Sundays
towards the end of training, the inevitable long Sunday runs have been from my
house and down to a beautiful local beach to meet up with my wife Claire and 18
month old son Lachlan for a few picnics and playing on the
beach.I was determined to do it in under 4 hours (good enough to not ‘need’ to do it again any faster)! And I was determined to raise as much money as I could for the charity that my father has supported for so long. This has been a present from me to him and a tribute to all of his hard work and dedication over the years at least as much as it is an effort on behalf of a worthy charity in itself. Thanks go to my colleagues at work who have covered me while I dug into the working day for training and for their sponsorship, and to all the many friends and family who all generously contributed. Thanks also go to my wife Claire who supported me and pushed me out on training runs on days when I didn’t feel like it or had other things that seemed more pressing and to Lachlan who was always delighted to see me when I got home or to the beach.
The
day itself was tough. I had flu a week before the race so that knocked the end
off my training schedule and put a few doubts in my mind as to how strong I was
going to be and the weather felt tough. A strong headwind for the last third of
the race and some freezing squalls of rain really drenched me and slowed me down
but looking on the bright side, the day after the race the weather was truly
appalling! The country ground to a halt under cancelled trains and fallen trees
in storm force winds and torrential rain so I was actually very lucky with both
the conditions and the support of Claire, Lachlan and my family on route, plus
great crowds along the way. All this got me over the finish line in just under 3
hours 52 so I’m delighted to have hit both objectives of raising money and
getting in under the magical 4 hour mark.
