Springwell Running Club - Crossing Continents - Peter Jack

Crossing Continents

By Peter Jack

HAVE you ever done a marathon where inside the first 10k, you cross from one continent to another over the worlds fourth largest suspension bridge, play the drums in a band, play the bodhran with another, grab a mic off a DJ for a bit of a gulder, take photographs of Japanese and South African athletes on their camera, meet a guy from Syria, bump into a guy you only met two days previously – well, that is what happens when you run the Istanbul marathon!

The race had been my third athletic so called goal of the season. My swim goal had been a 3.8k time trial, my bike goal had been the infamous Wicklow 200k and now I wanted to run a marathon to round off the year in style. My previous marathon had been in my last ever Ironman in Almere 14 months previously in Holland, but I entered the Istanbul race to base a five or six day holiday around it – sports tourism in the best sense of the word. The race entry fee cost 50 Turkish Liara - £7.00!

For that, I was able to participate in one of the world’s most iconic races with the bonus of running from Asia to Europe in a city that was bursting with history and folklore. It had the Blue Mosque, one of the world’s most famous Islamic religious centrepieces with six minarets piercing the sky and keeping sentinel over the blue domed structure. Opposite it in the Sultanmet was the Hagia Sophia which used to be a Church for the Crusaders then a mosque in the Ottoman Empire and was now a museum – and now the finish line of the marathon was between these two magnificent buildings.

I have been fortunate to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Summer Palace in Beijing and the Hermitage in St Petersburg and those buildings all convey a sense of wonder and awe – but they are matched by these fine buildings in Istanbul. They were built many centuries ago and certainly couldn’t be duplicated today. I should have been looking forward to the race but at 5.50am, I seriously doubted I would be seeing the Blue Mosque etc., let alone see a marathon finish line. Why are hotel rooms so sweltering no matter what you do with the thermostat? I felt I had been trying to sleep in a sauna and spent most of the night in a pool of sweat, wondering how I was to get to the bus pickup in the city centre down beside the sea. I set off from the hotel still half asleep at 6.20am to walk to a bus stop where a kind bus official hopped on the bus with me to the next stop to show me where to get my next tram so I could then get on a bus along with thousands of other athletes to the start line.

There I was minding my own business when a bloke wondered over and said “Mr Peter, how are you?”. It was my new friend Farid whom I had met at the fabulous marathon expo two days previously which in a city of 25 million, was a bit of a coincidence.

Farid was about to do his 90th marathon but alas, none of them abroad. As a Kurdish Turk getting a visa to race abroad is practically impossible. Sadly, that’s the world we live in. The USA and the UK both now have so called “populist leaders” and so does Turkey with its President Erdogan who controls the press and bends the laws to suit himself. As is usual with patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel, the national flag of Turkey abounded everywhere with its strong red background with a white Islamic crescent and white star. The National Anthem was even belted out at the Galatasaray match two nights previously where I was fortunate to visit.

Istanbul has four teams in the Turkish Liga with Galatasaray being the defending champions. They used to be managed by Liverpool legend Graeme Souness who made himself a hero with the own fans and infamous with the visiting Fenerbahçe fans by planting his club’s flag in the centre circle.

This was also the ground which greeted the visiting Man United fans in a European Champions league match years ago with a banner that proclaimed “Welcome to Hell” and I was putting myself in the middle of this lot! The kick off was 20:30. I had met a kind bloke on my Turkish Airline flight the day before from Dublin who happened to be visiting his mum in her native city. When I told him that I was going to go to the match he said he was a fan but he never been to the new stadium so who did I bump into at the Turkish Telecom Arena when I was getting my ticket in the afternoon but my good friend from the flight, Alber – I know we live in a global village but this was getting freaky!

Thankfully, Alber helped me to get my ticket. You can’t just rock up and buy one, you need to register beforehand your ID via your passport. This is to help the Turkish authorities stamp out hooliganism. Now every seat’s occupant is known to the authorities and families can even now bring their kids in complete safety but the noise and bedlam from fans behind one of the goals was astounding. It never stopped from 30 minutes before the first whistle to the final whistle. The words “bedlam” and “cacophony” could have been invented for this crowd. I even bumped into two Spanish guys earlier (one from Madrid and one from Barca) who had travelled over specifically to see the match – another example of sporting tourism. It was disappointing therefore that all the guide books I had bought from Istanbul had no mention of how to get to Galatasaray or Fenerbahçe stadia etc.

When Ryan Babbel (ex Liverpool) scored a penalty in the 20th minute to make it 2-0, the opposition just seemed to want to keep the score down and the home team seemed fairly content to rest on their laurels but all in all, it was a fantastic night out for a sports nut like me and reminded me of the atmosphere in Stadio Olympico in Rome where I saw Lazio play many years ago. Going into that ground was a bit like going into a coliseum between the lions and gladiators! The question now was would I be fit enough to face my own gladiatorial challenge early on Sunday morning?

The temperature had been cool for the previous several days i.e. perfect for a marathon but on race day of course, it was sunny, not a cloud in the sky with a high of 19 degrees, oh well, at least I could work on my suntan. I hadn’t worked on much else as my training had been very brief due to an Achilles injury. At the start of the year, my right Achilles had needed a ten week rest but then when I thought I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, it turned out it was a train coming towards me and my left Achilles now promptly started to give bother. As a result, I had precisely two longish runs, one of 10 miles and one of 13.1 miles.

When you are preparing for a marathon you should of course be doing 16, 18 and 20 miles etc. so it would be fair to say that when I was on the start line, I was not over trained…. As my phone had picked the wrong week of year to lay down and die, I spent my time in Istanbul looking up at the real world rather than down at the interweb world and this certainly didn’t do me any harm for four or five days.

My tactics were to run as far as I had in training i.e. 21k, then jog and walk the rest. I wasn’t going for a sub four, I just wanted to get round. My chances of emulating Eliud Kipchoge (who recently ran 1.59.40 in Vienna to break two hours for the first time over the classic marathon distance) would be slim.

There were however lots of fast Kenyans and Ethiopians on the start line in Istanbul lured by a big payday (50,000 dollars for each winner). The race was officially called the 41st Vodaphone Istanbul Marathon with Adidas a subsidiary sponsor. There were ads for the race in the carriages of the fantastic metro system and the race also featured on billboards all over the city. It turns out there was a 15k option which thousands of the locals did purely because they now had the chance to jog over the Bosporus bridge, which is closed to pedestrians 364 days a year as it had been the venue of too many tragic suicides.

The MC in the start area was doing a great job of revving the crowd up and there was ear splitting rock music to get the adrenaline pumping which probably resulted in too many athletes going off far too hard on the start line. I always follow the moto of my erstwhile coach, Bill Black, at the start of a long race – “If you think you are going to fast, you are going too fast. If you think you are going at the right speed, you are still going too fast but if you think you are going too slowly, then you are going at the right pace”.

As if life wasn’t tough enough with a dodgy Achilles and no training and too high a temperature and a case of TMCOMBC (too many candles on my birthday cake) I had another burden, literally, to bear. I missed the departure of the baggage buses so I now had to put my post race shorts, shirt, beanie, bandana and windproof jacket into my marathon string bag and sling it round my shoulders.

I ended up only taking it off my back and readjusting it about 500 times during the race. At least I wasn’t staring the race with a hangover - with Turkish prices, I couldn’t afford one! Everything was a cheap as chips – 7 Turkish Lira to the pound – except alcohol. It’s a well known fact that a bloke can’t go to a Friday night footie match with 40,000 other ejits without having a wee settler i.e. a pint of foaming nectar.

I had found out that alcohol, whilst not illegal in Turkey, was not sold anywhere in the ground or near the ground but I did see a bunch of blokes surreptitiously in the shadows necking a few tinnies so I followed a dodgy looking character down a back alley and did a bit of bartering with an enterprising old guy who was flogging tins of Tuborg Gold out of a plastic bag. We eventually made a deal and my thirst was quenched. There was so much subterfuge this must be what’s it’s like to buy drugs – except the beer was dearer!

Back on sober race morning, there was a race helicopter taking pictures of us and TV cameras everywhere. There were thousands of people from all over the world as well as a host of locals all anticipating the hooter being sounded and we began our shuffle towards the start line. About 5 minutes later, the computer chip on my shoelaces gave a reassuring beep and my race had officially started.

I couldn’t quite take it all in. Here we were in the city of Istanbul, a fulcrum of the Islamic world surrounded by Byzantine history with relics of the Ottoman Empire crossing a stretch of water to the other half of the city which used to be called Constantinople. This journey centuries ago could only have been undertaken in a galleon. The views of the city were breath-taking but before I knew it, I was deep in conversation with two blokes from the Cordonians Running Club in Kent. They were hoping to break 6 hours. My ambition had been to finish but I suddenly decided I wanted to break 5 hours which I thought in the circumstances would be very respectable.

My plan was to run/jog to half way then walk/jog/stumble the rest. My Suunto watch told me my exact pace and Bill would have been very pleased as it felt far too slow! My first couple of kilometres where averaging 6.35 which wasn’t taking anything out of me so it was all good.

I was amazed by the amount of South Africans doing the race and all of them were sporting their national colours. Their team had just won the Rugby World Cup the day before so they were bouncing. Apparently, a huge group of them watched the match in a bar on one side of the street and the English fans watched it in a bar on the other side of the street. No prizes for guessing whose bar takings where higher two hours later! That match had kicked off at 12 noon Istanbul time i.e. 3 hours ahead of LMT (Limavady Mean Time).

The interaction with the crowd in the race was crazy. There were street parties all over the place with live music and DJs and crowds cheering, it was just manic and it made the life of an athlete so much more fun. After 10k, we crossed our second bridge namely the Galata and made it over to Eninou where the day before, we had taken a ferry out into the Bosporus, surrounded by seagulls wheeling over our heads, with dolphins seemingly jumping for joy beside the bow of the boat. Eninou the day the before had been bumper to bumper with traffic, no surprise in a city of teeming millions and yet on marathon day, it was traffic free - what a transformation, what a privilege.

Thankfully, the 15k runners peeled off for their own finish line – we would see them several hours later as we returned along the same route on the other side of the road. At that stage, they were still basking in the sunshine, rejoicing in the fact that their torment was over – we, on the other hand, weren’t even half way round!

Thankfully, the course had plenty of water stops (water, Powerade, bananas and apples and much needed sponges to stop over heating). We noticed tables for the elite athletes where their special drinks etc. had been laid out for them. As we trudged out to the 25k mark where we would turn for home, we witnessed on the other side of the road a group of five leaders all running at 5minute mile pace, their feet barely touching the hot tarmac. Taking of tarmac, I passed one poor girl who was running carrying her right shoe in her arms and then we were both passed by a bloke carrying both of his shoes and he was running bare foot, perhaps a case of new shoe syndrome?!

I had gone through halfway in 2 hours 14 minutes at an average at 6:20 a kilometre, nothing to write home about but at least on target. I then brought to bear my cunning masterplan. I would walk between 30 and 60 seconds every time I reached a kilometre mark after every 21k i.e. I had 20 rests/pauses between me and the finish line and then I would jog until the next kilometre marker.

I had the carrot – a short break – followed by the stick – another run. Any one who has never done a marathon wonders what hurts most during the race. I wasn’t going fast enough to hurt my heart and lungs and my Brooks Bedlam shoes were doing a great job for the soles of my feet. My Achilles support bandage – allied to great work from Conan Loughery back home – ensured that my achilles wasn’t really troubling me.

My main problems were calves and hamstrings and ligaments and muscles due to the relentless nature of the test I was undergoing but the kilometre markers ticked by and every kilometre was marked by me as a mini celebration – I got to stop running and have a wee walk!

The sun had risen in the east behind us on the start line and my aim was to finish before it set in the west in front of us. We were surrounded by the ancient wonders of Istanbul and I had the chance to think of the incredible progress this country has made over the last few years. The new gleaming Istanbul airport is the smartest airport I have ever been in – Dublin and Belfast seem like third world airports by comparison.

The new Turkish airport had no sense of claustrophobia or noise or crowds, it was just all so calm and peaceful despite the fact that in several years’ time, it will be busiest airport in the world. The metro, bus and ferry system were also amazing. If you bought an Istanbulkart, each journey cost about 30 pence (about the 10th of one stop on the London Underground) and you could literally get a ferry across the Bosporus or a Metro under it for the sake of a few pence. You could even use this card to access public toilets and they could also be used in Taxis.

We were now on a bit of the course which was quite quiet and it was a bit of a no man’s land with not many visual or aural stimuli but eventually, I made it to 37k - come on Pete, there is only the Limavady Park Run to do now! I felt sure if I could keep moving, I would reach my fairly unambitious goal of sub 5 hours. People always ask if the mythical marathon wall ever confronts you, well if the wall had been in Istanbul, I certainly didn’t have the energy to climb over it but hopefully maybe just to sneak under it. There is however a fairly tough time in a marathon if you haven’t done enough training between 25k and 35k. You feel you are at the end of your tether but nowhere near the end of your race.

I told myself the race finished at 40k and then there was just the 2k victory lap or to be precise a 2195 metres victory lap….

At kilometre 41, the path went from smooth tarmac to rough cobble stones and then it went uphill. Oh, deep joy, but there was the Topkapi Palace which has amazed us yesterday, then we darted through a gap in the city ramparts, then we were in a street where trams normally travel but today, these streets were thronged with cheering crowds all wanting to high five you; there was the Blue Mosque which has been admired for over half a millennia; there was the Hagia Sophia which has put people in awe for fifteen hundred years and here at last, was the finish line in the middle of the Hippodrome which used to host over a 100,000 spectators to watch gladiatorial combat but which was now witnessing our shuffling shambolic attempts to put one foot in front of the other and before you can say it was bizarre in the Grand Bazaar, I was over the finish line with a medal round my neck, a goody bag in one had and a recovery drink in the other, delighted with a 4.48 finish and realising that if you want an epic city centre marathon that spans two continents and bridges the divide between the locals and their international visitors, that combines stunning geography with living history – and if you have got the spare 7 quid entry fee – then the Istanbul marathon has got to be on your bucket list.

There were apparently 37,000 people from 106 countries competing in either the marathon or the 15k with 100,000 local runners later doing an 8k fun run.

The men’s race was won by Daniel Kibet of Kenya in 2 hours 9 minutes with the women’s race being won by Ethiopia’s Hirut Tibebu in 2 hours 23 minutes.