Conquering the Istanbul Marathon: Suyen's Inspiring Story
Get a coach… if you want to get better you need someone who has your back but is also ready to poke you if you slack off. To do the thinking and the planning so all you have to do is show up and give your best. Istanbul Marathon
I lost my mojo for running, probably during Covid but more likely because I found myself suddenly adulting like crazy: with a new house, bills, staff to pay, school / extra mural / teenager management, cooking all the hours available just to make it work.
Running became very low priority, not so low that I didn’t get my Discovery points😝 but I wasn’t planning races every other weekend and I could barely manage more than the requisite 30 minutes three or four times a week.
And this carried on for a very long time.
I kept my good friend Leana Shlesinger company (mostly for coffee but with some running) while her sporting career went from strength to strength - wracking up podium spots in triathlon with invitations to world championships across all the distances - incredible super woman! I was and continue to be in awe.
Then this May, my good friend Cindy Christodoulou asked if I fancied going to Athens to run the original marathon - I debated the idea - could I afford it? Could I take the selfish time off? Could I even run a marathon again?
I had a quick Google and I discovered the Istanbul marathon was the Sunday before - well now that was enticing…
In 1993, I tried to get to Istanbul with my good friend Antonia Beggs as part of our post A level inter-railing trip. We planned our route from Budapest to Belgrade and then down to Greece and a ferry to Turkey (there was the small issue of a war going on in Yugoslavia) but we were armed with a guide book that said all would be well.
On the morning of our journey, the hostel manager(who looked like Hagrid before Hagrid was invented) in Budapest told us with a rueful smile that we would see him at dinner. Ignoring him and the rather surprised looks of our fellow train passengers we blithely carried on.
Well it was all going swimmingly until just outside Belgrade. Armed immigration officers with AK47s asked us for our passports and visas.
“No visa? You go back to Budapest.”
To this day I’m not sure why we were so bolshy but we insisted we should be allowed to continue on the train.
“You go back to Budapest,” he said drily.
Not even when he cocked his gun at us while the other passengers hung out the windows, prayer beads flying, crosses made across bodies that it occurred to us we might be in actual danger.
Staring down the barrel of the gun I had a quick look around and it was pretty bleak, a platform with no actual station, a field of beautiful sunflowers but marred by a bombed out building just behind it, we agreed that perhaps we ought to go back to Budapest. And the train pulled away and left us there for three hours with not a soup. Another train coming from the other direction arrived, we got on, arrived in Budapest at 8pm and we refused to get off and give Hagrid the satisfaction but that’s another story for another day.
Two other attempts to visit Istanbul were scuppered so perhaps 4th time lucky?
And so instead of signing up for one marathon, I opted for two back to back - obviously 🙄.
About a week after this irrational decision, it occurred to me that maybe I would like to not just finish but rather, finish well.
I’ve always opted for a run walk strategy and it served me at the Cape Town marathon way back when (can’t even remember but I managed a 3.46) but I was younger, fitter, thinner and pre-menopausal- these are not excuses they are just boring facts.
So after I paid for the two races, I called up my (not yet a friend but soon to become my new best friend) Oliver Ruhl whom I had met properly at The Beast the year before (a race that I walked and didn’t finish because it was just too damn hard) and whom I had served lentil soup to at Karkloof Trail Series hundred miler where I volunteered at the Bushwillow aid station with Carla.
Oliver was horrified that I kept nagging the athletes to give me back their polystyrene cups after they had eaten (there were only 20 cups so we had to recycle them.)
Anyway I phoned him and asked if he would coach me. And it’s been a helluva ride - and so began a program of workouts - weekly runs that included speed work, hill work, endurance, many lonely hours spent zig zagging my way around the neighbourhoods, oddly once I had a program it was harder to run with Leana as more often than not our sessions asked different things of us.
Oliver who had had to give up his spot at the Spartathalon - a race of enormous proportions, prestige and endurance owing to injury, despite broken bones and hamstrings that were strung out would ride alongside some of my Sunday sessions offering gels, juice and advice, never complaining and always ready with a story. Some stories were repeated but we will put that down to old age 🫣.
And this brings us to today - the first of the marathons. Istanbul.
It’s been a wonderful week spent with my sister in law Susie Davis and my daughter Esmé Thornhill-Davis - a mad busy jam packed itinerary whizzing to all the sites, taking every transport available, visiting mosques, palaces, museums, bazaars, eating delicious food, walking around the city and surrounding islands all the while getting closer to the ‘run’
Yesterday I rested - I would have liked to have seen Kid Francescoli play but not having tickets decided that one and instead I had an early night and was ready to roll out of our Airbnb at 6.30, meeting up with Cindy (whom I persuaded to also join in the double) and taking the ferry to the start.
The marathon is the only race in the world that spans too continents, we started in Asia and cross the July 15th bridge over the Bosphorus and make our way across the city over the Galata bridge to Sulthanamet, home to the Haggia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi palace and more.
I’d like to say I took in the sights but really I was just concentrating on not falling over a discarded water bottle and overcoming the voice in my head that said this was very hard and would it really matter if I just walked.
Counting down the Kays - making it to the turn around point, reminding myself soon it would be down to single digits, only a park run or so left, trying to disregard cramping toes and the slightly disappointing slower final leg but not giving in to the evil hill that would take us to the finish line. Sucking down gels, drinking aqualyte and finding another gear to finish - I couldn’t be more relieved to have crossed the finish line in a time of 3.39.14.
Thank you Oliver for all the coaching, advice and support- you are a rockstar.
Now we can do this all again next Sunday in Athens
