'Seb! Your nipples?!': Marathon memories, part two
Hold onto your areolas.
Did you miss part one? You can catch up here.
Every tissue, muscle and fibre had screamed for my attention so loud that I didn’t even notice the two long streaks of blood on my running top.
Don’t get me wrong; I knew my nipples were sore and perhaps as sore as they had ever been. I had not felt such tenderness since I went for a three-mile run in a thick cotton rugby jersey on a wet, gusty day at school. Similarly, on that occasion, it had taken until a friend inquired about the red drops on my shirt during class that afternoon to realise I’d drawn blood.
I had just reached thirty kilometres, wind and rain thrusting willfully into my face, when I clocked my sister and her then-boyfriend running alongside in support.
I turned towards them, watching their faces morph from encouragement to horror.
“Seb, your nipples!” my sister cried out. I followed her finger and saw what they had seen: two perfect red circles around my areolas, spreading down in bloody smears.
Frankly, it explained quite a lot. As a tall man, I had grown used to seeing surprised faces on these runs but couldn’t understand why I had caused such bemusement among the notoriously height-blessed Dutch.
The next twelve kilometres would take me further towards the city centre and the main viewing areas for the marathon. Whatever dignity I had left was about to go out the window. And what would be left of my nipples when I arrived at the finish line?
Thirty kilometres earlier, the race began in the stadium built for the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.
In retracing my steps, I had made several clear errors en route to Nipplegate. The first was wearing a non-running top during training and aggravating my nipples to a bleeding point. The most recent and egregious had taken place the previous day.
As one often does with these events, we had to pick up our bibs beforehand, although, unlike other races, they also handed out the official running shirts ahead of time. I had recently lost my favourite running top — my Paris marathon finisher’s shirt — and arrived in Amsterdam with a few options, none perfect, either too small or loose.
Given the quality of the Paris offering, I figured the Amsterdam equivalent, which fit much better than the rest in my bag, was the sensible choice. To the surprise and concern of a prescient few, I told friends and family the evening before of my choice.
The above picture features me still congratulating myself for the genius move.
Exhibit A: my nipples, draped in Vaseline, are already standing to attention.
It was around twelve degrees in mid-late October 2019, though in truth, the wind and rain made it feel colder than that. Strangely coarse, the running shirt gradually acted like a cheese grater against my sensitive, fragile and eminently tearable nipple skin.
For some bizarre reason, I was optimistic that, with some experience under my belt, I could better my previous time in Paris eighteen months earlier. I say bizarre because training had not gone particularly well, nor was I as fit or healthy.
I had also not felt the same since Paris, and my times had reflected this. I was way off my previous pace in runs of all distances and had struggled with aches and pains, particularly in my knees, hamstrings and hips. I kept telling myself that it might be different on the day, spurred on by the occasion and running with two great mates, Pete and George, who were participating in their first marathon.
That’s Pete on the left in the picture above.
Hopes of running in a faster time were quashed very quickly — not that I was ever getting anywhere near it. After we exited the stadium, the road began to narrow, causing a bottleneck and forcing us to slow down, at one point, to a walking pace. I knew from training that I had to run the first half as quickly as possible before my legs gave way, so I was resiled to doing a slower time pretty early on — another psychological nail in the coffin.
I just want to show you my left quad here. There’s nothing much else to see.
Amsterdam is obviously quite a bit smaller than Paris, so we were only in the thick of things for the first few miles before heading out of the city, where spectators began to dwindle in numbers.
At about 10 km, it all came flooding back: the grind, the adversity, the lost toenails. My brain had wiped clean the negative memories of my first marathon, leaving only sunshine and roses. I’ll never forget the fatal thought: “Why am I putting myself through this again?”
I think the three of us ran together for about the first 12-13km, by which point I couldn’t maintain the pace and urged them to carry on without me.
Things worsened as we hugged a path along the Amstel River, with faster runners already coming up on the opposite bank. This section went on and on and on and on... and on and on and on… all the while knowing you have to do the same distance in the opposite direction.
I told myself to somehow get to the 32km mark and, if necessary, walk the rest of the way.
If I’m not mistaken, this is the first sighting of me in the wild with two bleeding nipples.
Some people thought the two symmetrical streaks were part of the shirt design when they saw the photo evidence after the race (some bloody shirt design), no matter how much we told them otherwise.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t aware of it until I saw my sister. My hamstrings were so tight and hips so sore that I was more preoccupied with my lower half, which helped to spread the pain around to the extent that nothing really hurt.
This is just bleak.
I am barely moving here, almost at a complete standstill. This is the running technique of a 100-year-old man.
Family and friends, tracking our progress via our bib numbers online, knew that I was worse for wear and possibly too far gone. Their voicenotes had transitioned from motivating to consoling, Mum’s tone even more concerned than usual.
Sure enough, I reached 32km and promptly walked for a kilometre or two (three), sending videos and messages to loved ones. Poor George was in an ambulance getting his heart checked — he was okay and still managed to finish ahead of me. Strangely enough, Pete ended up with exactly the same time as I did in Paris — to the second.
Just two kilometres to go. Notice the other guy with the same running top on the right — no bleeding nipple! Lucky bastard.
If you can avoid it, and if you plan to resume running, you never want to walk in a marathon. The moment you do, your body seizes as though grateful for the opportunity to prevent you from doing that to it again.
I staggered through the last seven kilometres, wishing I hadn’t stopped.
I distinctly remember laughing for much of the last three or four kilometres through the centre of Amsterdam. What else was there to do? A very funny turn of events.
I’m pretty sure I’m texting the family WhatsApp group to say: ‘Never let me do one of these again.’
I finished in 04:31:44, a full 35 minutes slower than I mustered in Paris.
The race for me was a disaster, but you know what? Who cares. I had a blinding weekend with two great friends in a beautiful city. We raised more than £5,000 for Tommy’s. In my eyes, it’s what you don’t do that you regret, and I’m grateful for the memories and absolute clarity that I never want to do one of these things again.
See you next week x
Poor thing Seb! Still ~ total respect for finishing! True grit X