“At 16 miles, I honestly thought I was going to bleed to death.” Sammi Kinghorn knew that her first attempt at a marathon would be tough, but even she hadn’t anticipated quite what she would have to overcome in Chicago last weekend.
An issue with her chair during her warm-up led her to tweak the mechanics which, in turn, led to a war wound that she
had to cope with for much of the second half of the race.
“On the morning of the race, my wheel was rubbing against my chair so straight away I knew I had to do something because that would really slow me down,” she said. “So I used a washer to knock my wheel out very slightly.
“Almost as soon as the race started, though, I could feel my wheel rubbing my underarm and when the first layer of skin came off I was thinking, oh no, this isn’t going to be good.”
She was not wrong. As the friction increased, the wound gradually worsened until Kinghorn was covered in blood.
“At about 16 miles, it was getting pretty stingy so I transferred a plaster that was on a blister on my thumb on to my arm to try to help it,” she said. “But within about two miles, I’d ripped right through my plaster, so that didn’t work out very well.
“At that point, I realised I was just going to have to cope with the pain. I was covered in blood, though – I could feel it running down my arm and my pink wheels had turned red from the blood.”
It was quite an introduction to the marathon for the 21-year-old, who is more accustomed to doing a lap or two round the track. Having won double gold at this summer’s World Para Athletics Championships, Kinghorn proved herself to be among the best sprinters on the planet.
But the release of the athletics programme for the 2018 Commonwealth Games was not kind to the Scot. With a limited number of para-events included, she was either going to have to move up to the endurance events, or face missing out.
She chose the former, with the Chicago Marathon her first attempt at making the qualifying time of two hours five minutes. Kinghorn, who is widely regarded as one of the toughest athletes in the country, was up for the challenge but was understandably apprehensive about racing for hours rather than a matter of minutes as she is used to. And she admits that she had to use some mind tricks to get her through the 26.2 miles.
“It’s such a long way and the whole way round I was thinking ‘who thought this was a good idea?!’,” she laughs. “I was playing games with myself the whole way. I would give myself a drink every two miles and then every time we passed a music stand, I’d sing that song until we got to the next stand.”
Kinghorn’s training in her native Borders over the years stood her in good stead as she soon discovered she was one of the strongest athletes on the hills, meaning she could use the climbs to recover while the rest of the field further depleted their energy stores.
She reached the halfway point in a half-marathon personal best and continued that impressive pace to finish fifth in one hour, 43 minutes and 52 seconds. Russian-born US athlete Tatyana McFadden won in a course-record time of 1:39.15.
Crucially, though, Kinghorn was more than 20 minutes inside the qualifying time for Team Scotland for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. She admits it was a huge relief.
“I was worried I was going to embarrass myself so I’m so pleased with how the race went,” she said. “I’d had a wrist injury a few weeks before the race and hadn’t been able to train as I would have liked so I’m just so happy to have got the qualifying time. And it’s given me a lot of confidence, knowing I can do the marathon, and I can do it well.”
With no more races planned until next year, Kinghorn now goes into a winter training block which will consist of high mileage sessions as she continues to build her endurance base. As the Scottish winter draws in though, it is a daunting prospect.
“I’ve had a few days off but next week, I’ll be back into the gruelling winter training,” she said.
“I like training though; I probably enjoy training more than I enjoy racing because you don’t have the nerves in training. I have to admit I don’t know how much I’ll enjoy marathon training in the winter. But I’m used to doing a lot of miles so hopefully it won’t feel too different from normal.”
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