Towards the end of last year I had decided to have a good stab at the club championship which I had a great chance of winning but it meant I'd have run do a marathon before the end of March. I'd toyed with the idea of running the Liverbird Marathon up and down Otterspool promenade on New Years eve. After saying I'd do it, I bottled out, reasoning that a marathon was tough enough without a. not really training for it and b. running up and down the prom in the middle of winter on concrete and brick surface. Luckily none of my fellow Penny Lane Striders who I'd mention it too were daft enough to run it...oh wait!
There were plenty of marathon's about but none seemed to tick the box of being drivable (I knew I'd probably be doing it solo so I'd have to drive there and back) or cheap. Then Neil Kelly forwarded me a link for the Shakespeare Raceways Marathon, a marathon in Stratford, in March, on a runway and on a Saturday! I had a quick nose around the web for reviews etc. and this was the first running of a marathon but the organisers had plenty of experience at the venue running half marathons, 10k etc. so I booked in and set about getting a training regime in place.
I had 8 weeks to tweak my training and tailor it to get in marathon shape. Before anyone reading this thinks 8 weeks is sufficient to run a good marathon, bare in mind leading up to the 'start' of my marathon training, I was already regularly running 2 hours on Sunday with a fair chunk of mileage and sessions on top of that.
After consulting pretty much every man and his dog on their recommendations for marathon training, I felt the core workout for me was going to be running my tempo's Saturday followed by the long run Sunday. The logic of this tip was that when it came to the taper, I be feeling really fresh. For the log runs I had plenty of company but the tempos were all ran solo, character building I can tell you!
Anyway, the big day finally arrived. My training had not gone 100% to plan but I suppose that's the nature of marathon training and I knew I was in good shape. The plan was to get under 2.45 – the gold standard that gains you elite entry to London and to achieve this I was going to set off at 6.10 pace and baring a total disaster it would theoretically allow me to run the second half three or four minutes slower. I knew the run was going be challenging, nine laps around an airfield, plus there were four races starting at the same time, 5k, 10k half marathon and the marathon. Obviously I’d be lapping runners which would only add to the time and effort.
When I arrived, the weather was fine, nice and sunny but during the warm up I could feel just how exposed the airfield was to the wind. I still set off at 6.10 pace quickly realised it would be too tough to maintain that pace in the windy sections of the laps. Although there was wind behind I never think you make up as much as loose and added to that I discovered there were five dead/hairpin turns each lap! So, I quickly re-assessed my game plan and stuck to no quicker than 6.17 which I stuck too but passing through the supposed 5k loop I was way over distance according to the garmin but not to worry, I hoped the course would even itself out with the shorter final lap.
Now it might seem tedious to run a marathon over 9 laps but the advantage of the loops was that the organisers, which I have to say were superb, had a table for drinks and gels – this was great because I didn’t have to carry anything and I could take a few swigs of my drink and leave it close by without having to lash it. The race also had water and electrolyte drinks at the same point.
At the half way point, I could see I was in 2nd on the race with a guy in a yellow vest of St Albans around 3 mins in front. I didn’t push on but obviously it crossed my mind from start that I was in with a good shout of winning the race. The laps and miles flew by and even though I’d slowed to 6.20 I got to 18 feeling okay which physiologically was massive as in the previous marathons I'd wobbled between 18 and 20. After the start of the 7th lap I could see the leader was fading, all of a sudden he was only 3 or 400 metres in front. I stuck to the pace and about 2 miles later he was walking. I passed the lead bike and asked it to lead me. I ran a few miles back to back quicker, the adrenaline carrying me along and entering the penultimate lap I was sure that baring injury or a major cramp I was going to win. I lost concentration a bit and the average slowed to 6.22. The lad did come back to me a bit but at the start of the last large lap I was clear.
By now my feet were hurting and I was running 6.30ish and wind seemed to pick up - I thought/prayed the small loop would be about ¼ mile but the lead bike took my back out to last switch back which meant the run in would be into the wind some more. I tried to push because I knew I’d be close to the Penny Lane v40 record but it was tough. I had about 300m left to the finish and couldn’t summon anything else but I’d won and was elated as I crossed the line in a massive PB of 2:50:17 |