Weirwolf (22 page)

The biggest downside was the amount of time it all took. Spending four hours in a press conference two days before your big comeback is not exactly very smart. But you have to make the most of the attention while it is there. It may never happen again.

When I lined up on the start line on the Sunday, it felt great to be back in my chair. When the announcer read my name out, there was a massive roar – far louder than in previous years. And once the race was under way, the cheers and support seemed to be much bigger. I have never heard so many people shout my name. The weather was surprisingly warm and sunny and a combination of that and the Olympics had drawn one of the biggest crowds ever for a London Marathon. In some places it was six or seven deep. And there was definitely more recognition for the Brits. And apart from Mo Farah, who only did half the race, and me, there was no other British athlete who was in real contention to win. Maybe that’s why there was more support for me that day. Whatever it was, it made for a very emotional afternoon.

Amidst all this chaos, I tried to keep my routine as normal as possible. Although the organisers booked me a room at a hotel right next to the Tower of London for four days, I only ever use the room for the night before the race. My brother picks me up from home and I actually drive myself to the start line. I have full-access passes to get through the streets. My brother then takes my car to the finish and I meet up with everyone there once I am done.

As with all big marathons the organisers arrange a bus for the athletes. But I don’t like getting on that – someone’s always late, or forgotten their gloves or helmet. I like to get there first thing and prepare in my own time. This time I had a few more friendly faces with me to give me support and even Emily came along, which was such a relief. Because what happened next didn’t quite fit with the script I had written in my head.

Going into the race I felt in really good shape. But there’s race fitness and there’s training fitness. Halfway into the 26.2 miles I felt confident. But when some of the other athletes pushed on I was really fighting to stay in touch. I don’t know if it was the pressure but it felt like I was hanging on for dear life. I didn’t show it but inside I was struggling. I tried to lift myself but there was nothing there. I didn’t have the right balance. I hadn’t gone back to training until January and then the weather was so bad – we had snow two weeks before the marathon. That is unheard of. What it showed me was that the level of competition in wheelchair racing is getting higher all the time. You can’t take time out and expect to just roll back in and win
everything
. It shows the strength and depth in my field and that you have to do your training. Some of the guys I was racing, they had been out in Dubai and warm-weather training. To compete you need to be out every day and some days a double session. Even in that short time between the end of the Games and the marathon I had fallen behind.

When Kurt Fearnley hit the front I had no answer. He
beat me comfortably and I could only manage fifth place. I was gutted. I looked for Emily at the finish line. She told me just to get my chin up. Then I saw Jenny. She put her arm around me (as she always does when I am down) and told me I had been through a crap winter and that I had to just move on. Having them there really saved me that day. I had wanted to win, to keep my unbelievable run in London going, but in the end my body wasn’t up to it.

I suppose when you take all that into account finishing fifth wasn’t disastrous. Ask any of the guys who beat me that day and I’m sure they would tell you they would have happily swapped their position in the 2013 marathon for one of my precious 2012 gold medals.

If the marathon gave me another taste of the London magic, then the Anniversary Games was like being transported back in time. Exactly one year on from the start of the Olympics, I was back in that beautiful Olympic Stadium. So much had happened to me in the twelve months since the Paralympics ended, but in the stadium time had stood still. Nothing had really changed. All right, so the Olympic and Paralympic cauldron had gone, along with the agitos, the Paralympic movement’s answer to the Olympic rings. The place was decked out in the orange of sponsors Sainsbury’s rather than the mauve of London 2012, but everything else looked the same – the same black and white seats, the same
triangular floodlights and, most important of all, the same massive crowd. During the Paralympics and Olympics the capacity of the stadium was 80,000 but for the Anniversary Games it was scaled back to 60,000. But you could hardly tell the difference. The place was absolutely rammed and the atmosphere electric again. Over the course of two days of able-bodied athletics and then a single day of Paralympic track and field, British Athletics sold every available ticket. It was a great achievement and told me that we had made a real difference – that 2012 wasn’t a one-off.

I wonder how it might be in ten years’ time when the stadium is handed over to West Ham and they are playing in it every other week. How will it feel with retractable seats on the track, different floodlights and the Premier League club’s claret and blue colours everywhere? My hope is that it will still ultimately have the same vibe, and in the end it’s no good talking about creating a legacy and then not using the main stadium properly. The reality is that only football can really make use of that wonderful venue on a regular basis. As long as athletics is able to use it for its big
meetings
each year then I will be happy. I just pray they keep the track in good nick. I don’t want it to be beaten up like the Stade de France in Paris. That used to be super-fast but it’s not the same any more. They do too many events on it.

I was racing in a special invitational mile – a race set up by the organisers just for me to have a go at breaking the world record. It was scheduled right for the end – the climax to a nostalgic afternoon. At the start of the day I
was asked to go out onto the track and do a little
question-and
-answer session with the announcer. While we were waiting to go on I suddenly realised that this was exactly the same area where we had had to wait before going to collect our medals. The same butterflies came rushing back. In fact, I felt more nervous. I never enjoy talking to crowds, let alone one 60,000 big. It was much worse than the nerves I get before any race. But they gave me an
unbelievable
reception.

Before the Anniversary Games I had been reading a lot of the stuff on Twitter. It was clear people were excited by the prospect of going back to the Olympic Park. Whether it was people who missed out on tickets in 2012 or others who did go and just wanted to relive those memories, I had absolutely no doubt that people would turn up. Unfortunately, when it came to my performance, the old Weirwolf didn’t show. Although I was doing good times in training and felt OK, I wasn’t race fit. I needed much more racing.

The funny thing is, in the weeks leading up to the race I followed exactly the same routine that I had set up in the run-up to 2012. I was back on the beetroot juice and doing the same kind of sessions in Richmond Park. But on the day I just couldn’t seem to find that extra yard of pace I needed to do something really big. At the end, when I was interviewed by C4, you can see I was not very happy. I loved being cheered round again but I was disappointed with myself. I wanted to deliver a big finish for the crowd by breaking that record but in the end I couldn’t do it.

If I was in a dark mood immediately after my race then it only got blacker once I tried to leave the stadium and meet up with Emily and the kids. I had already had a
difficult
journey there in the morning. British Athletics couldn’t allocate me a parking space near the stadium so I had to dump the car in the Westfield shopping complex. All the Paralympians were in the same boat and I wasn’t asking for special treatment but you have to ask whether Usain Bolt or any of the big stars of track and field would be asked to lug their kit across a packed shopping centre to pick up a bus from a hotel to take them to the stadium. I think I know the answer. I was already slightly flustered by a sudden change in the schedule – the organisers didn’t tell me or my agent’s representative, Mel Halling of Definitive, about the interview on the track before the meeting so I had left a bit later than normal just to concentrate on my race, which was three hours after the start. But now I had to be there much sooner. It really threw my preparations out as I like to be there in good time with everything tested and ready to go. Now I was rushing and I was irritated. Maybe that was one of the reasons why my race didn’t go as well as I had hoped.

But none of that was as bad as what happened afterwards. Having jumped on the athletes’ bus back to Westfield I was then dropped off at the entrance to the shopping centre to be confronted by thousands of fans drifting slowly away from the stadium. A lot of them were just making their way to the tube but some had stopped off for a drink or
something to eat, and now here I was in the middle of a massive crowd. Don’t get me wrong – it was absolutely lovely. People couldn’t have been nicer. They only wanted autographs and to have a chat and pose for pictures. But it was also quite scary. I don’t normally go into public areas immediately after my races so I wasn’t used to it. The numbers were really big and I was landed right in the middle of it. The plan had been to find Emily and some other members of my family for a quick bite to eat but there was no way I was getting through. Luckily I was with Jenny, who was pushing Mason along behind me. He was fast asleep and so was completely oblivious to the mayhem around us. Then Mel, my agent’s representative, spotted a couple of policemen. She explained the situation and, bless them, they gave us a police escort through the crowds. It was the first time I have ever been properly mobbed and to be honest it freaked me out. I felt bad that I couldn’t sign everyone’s piece of paper or T-shirt. Eventually, when I got through the crowd, I managed to meet up with Emily and a few friends and we did get something to eat. I was feeling quite shaky, though. Twelve months on, London 2012 still had the power to surprise.

Ask any of the British athletes involved in London 2012 – able bodied or disabled – and they will tell you it was just the most magical year. For Team GB and Paralympics GB
to win so many golds and finish third in both medal tables was an incredible achievement. You always get a lift in a home Games and the crowd in Stratford obviously played a huge part in that. We also enjoyed record levels of
funding
, without which none of those marginal gains would have been possible.

What we have to do now is maintain those levels of funding. Even before the Games were over the government committed to keep the elite money at the same levels up until the Rio Olympics and Paralympics in 2016. That gives me a lot of confidence that we can repeat what we did in London when we get to Brazil. We have got enough funding now to stay there, and the talent’s coming through. I don’t see a dramatic drop or a return to the Atlanta days, when Great Britain won one Olympic gold medal in 1996. Sport is now much too important and is much better run than when I started. There is a lot of talk about legacy and I am sure there are loads of things we could do better but all the signs I see are good and the fact people are even talking about the L word tells me that we will keep pushing on as a sporting power.

As for my future, a lot of people keep asking about whether I will go on to Rio de Janeiro and the 2016 Paralympics. Even if my body can stand the sheer bloody torture of another three years of training – the cold, dark winters in Richmond Park followed by summers on the road competing – am I mentally up to it? Do I still have the drive to win, having achieved all my dreams in London?
Plus do I really want to give up all those hours with Emily and the kids?

Before London, the plan was clear: I would go for broke in 2012 and then look to bow out at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. I have never represented England and it felt like another big home Games would be the right moment to say goodbye. Beyond Glasgow I was very clear. I always thought, I’m not going to be one of those old stagers, still chasing the glory when they should have packed up years earlier. London would be my last shot at the big time. Once the flame went out that would be it, time to move on. Besides, I would be thirty-seven in Rio. Would people like Marcel have overtaken me by then? Would I really want to go to Brazil just to make up the numbers? That’s not my style. If I put my name on a start list, I want to win.