The Unbelievable Rotterdam Marathon

Pull up a chair, grab a snack and get comfortable - this is a story and a half.

With the race starting at 11.00 with the air temp heading towards 25C it was going to be one of those days. At 20km we were told that the road temp was 31C and advised to drink plenty of water. No joking! I have to admit that after 8km I was struggling. Bearing in mind I had trained well for this, the air temp was a killer. And to cap a bad first 10km I accidently hit my watch with my hand and the useful Polar decided to go back to 00:00. For the next 15 km I was doing mental maths (it didn't matter after 30km anyway - keep reading). In fact for the first marathon I can remember, people were walking at 7km.

Family Bedders met me at 15km and, Heaven knows how, I was still on schedule. But then it fell apart - the heat was simply unbrearable. At 21 I decided, along with about 10.000 other runners that this was a day to get round in one piece rather than break records. From 22km on there were ambulances and police cars roaring around as runners really suffered. At the water stations it was like a scene out of a war movie. But full marks to the organisers - they had plenty of water as far as I could see (contrary to some reports I have read in the press) , xtra drink and hoses - literally hosing people down. I met family B again at 26km and nearly stopped. It was that bad - total torture. But, you can't stop can you?

Things started to go really wrong for the organisers when you saw spectators close to collapsing (in fact I saw one at the end being carried to a medical tent). OK a few runners maybe but not spectators surely? Then when I had reached 30 km, when it was just about actually getting bearable again, as I had slowed to a nice 6:00/km pace, the race was stopped.

The race was stopped. I had to write this again as it is hard to believe. The authorities had had enough - or perhaps a serious point they did not have enough emergency service personnel left to deal with the runners in trouble. The official view was that they did have enough but it would not have been long before they would have been in trouble - and they could see it only getting worse.

We were stopped and told "you continue at your own risk" (well that's what we do anyway). I had reached a part of the course that goes out to come back so it was all or nothing. I had to go on. But they kept stopping us run, saying that the time-mats had been turned off and would we please not worry about the time just get back to the finish without collapsing. It was desperate stuff. I heard later that 5-6.000 runners were stopped and not allowed to continue to the bit past 30 where I had reached. They were sent straight back to the finish which would have been about 2km.

It was real theatre stuff. People were coming out their houses trailing hoses to drench everyone and water stations now looked like the Somme.

I was told at around 36km "please do not run -don't worry you will get a medal" as if this made me think again.

Anyway, I did jog without anyone seeing me for the last 3km and ended up with a time of 4:31 and a bit. The mats were still working.......I do not know how many people started the race (about 10.000 we were told) but according to the results only 4300 finished the course.

The serious bit to this is that having suffered heat exhaustion in Chicago in 2005 there was no way I was going to push myself once I had reached halfway and realised early on that this could be a very dangerous race.

So I finished the course. I have my medal and I feel fine. But I can't help but wonder how people in their first marathon felt being stopped. Frustrated but also a bit relieved I guess.

And this has not put me off Marathoning. Far from it. My performance today rates up amongst my best given the conditions and I will be back at Rotterdam if I can in 2008.

See, I told you it was a good story.