What a day!
Main concerns prior to the race was not getting enough rest as weâd been walking the city and taking in the sights, you donât have to walk far to get that step count up. My legs were pretty stiff and a bit tender most days, so I was a little worried but knew when running it would be OK. No illness, no bad niggles and the weather looked perfect so I had no excuses to not perform well.
Got there a bit early as wasnât sure on the buses due to road closures, got my 10 mins warmup in ~20 mins before setting off, included some drills as part of it, running around a roundabout with literally 300+ other runners. Bumped into Conal doing this, it was chaos but good energy. Did a wee into a posh garden through a fence much to Lauraâs horror (there were 20 other chaps doing the same). No 2nd poo, which was a bit of a worry at the time.
My corral was not very rammed, so I hung at the back. Temp was only ~7°C so arm sleeves and gloves on. Then I saw people ahead running and we were off! Starting at the back of that wave meant I had no pressure so my start was totally my own, at my own pace and my own route. Hit ~4:35 and stuck to it for the first km, didnât panic that I wasnât at race pace yet so eased into it finding a nice rhythm.
I set my watch for distance alerts every 2km (I do this for all my long races so itâs not going off all the time) so although I wasnât getting pace reports every km I was still keeping a close eye. I remember after 4km thinking âIâm 5s down overall, no panic â easy does itâ. From then on in I just built the speed little by little, whatever felt comfy. My 9th km reported back too quick, I wasnât going that quick and I remember at the time thinking âIâm not doing 4:05 now, this is BSâ so this must have been where my watch found an extra 300m! Averaging the pace by 2km meant I was more chilled about having a slow km here and there, as I could pick it up in the next one and get my split times under 9mins for each.
After looping back through the city we crossed a bridge to Triana, this section was not as supported and had a long straight section which went on for miles, I thought this would feel tough but actually it was pretty cool as there was a steady stream of runners in both directions and it was nice seeing what everyone else was up to. Didnât see Conal, looked hard for him. I remember seeing the 3:15 pacer a few mins behind me at ~15k thinking that this was easy. Back on the other side of the canal there was another straight out and back section then into the city again. I felt pretty relaxed the whole time and was very strict with my gels, each one was taken within 100m of my plan (every 7k). I was sipping at my water and hydration drink throughout.
Getting to halfway still feeling pretty good was nice, there was a big crowd there. It was at about 1:34:30 I think so on pace (annoying that my watch gained 300m as this threw all the markers out â they were every 5k until the end). Still kept it steady, it was starting to warm up and I knew I was only halfway done so didnât bomb off.
I think my gloves came off at ~25k and the sleeves at ~30k as I was starting to get warm. Up to 30km I wasnât feeling much discomfort and it felt good to get a few more kms without the wall presenting itself to me.. it did to most people around me it seemed as a lot of people were slowing at this point, it was weird. I wanted to shout âfuck that wall, letâs get on with it!â to them but my Spanish was crap!
Apart from the end, my quickest real km was at 34k, this was the nice loop around Plaza de Espana and Laura was supposed to be waiting for me there, weâd already run it that week so I knew what I was in for and knew I could push a bit. Did some cheeky overtakes/undertakes and pushed a bit more for the crowd and to show off to Laura⌠but she didnât get there in time as was stuck due to the leaders closing the road off! Doh! Before this my right hip had started playing up, it was pretty sore and turning made it worse, so after showing off going quick I relaxed a bit again to try manage the pain. I didnât drop below 4:25 again though, felt I could still push a little but then the other hip started aching too.
Iâm pretty sure itâs my piriformis muscles that was flaring up, makes sense I think.
5k from the end I was having it, blasting past people and enjoying it, there was a road we went up 3 times and the last time I was thinking ânot this againâ but then we turned into a narrow cobbled lane that was actually downhill (!) and I got to stretch the legs for a bit, tried to maintain that pace but the hips and legs advised that we still had a bit of a jog to go. The last section through the old town and through some big plazas was cool, I was starting to suffer a bit but not enough to slow. 39km was a 4:25 so I decided to pick it up 2km from the end like you told me to. The 42nd km was a 4:16 and I was feeling pretty good, some people were barely running so I made up a load of places. The finish line was much longer than I expected so my last push was a bit longâŚ. But even that felt good. Good strong finish! Sat down for ~20s, then was up collecting my medal, a banana, a bag full of drinks and a very nice cold beer (madness, but it went down very nicely!). I then had to walk for a few km to get to my meeting point with Laura and was a bit high, but very happy. Followed a lady who had obviously had a catastrophic âshit in pantsâ incident at some point earlier in the race, she finished before me but it had dried. Yuck. My 2nd poo (or lack of) was on my mind a bit as my tummy felt a little full at times, I just ignored it and didnât break wind. I was belching quite a lot, not ideal.
I was one of only a few runners I saw with a hydration vest on, no others in my wave. Glad I had it on me as I could manage my hydration throughout, but the extra ~1.5kg weight on me wasnât ideal at the start I guess. Lots of people shouted âSamâ to me which was cool, handy having a short easy to pronounce name on your number đ
Could I have gone quicker? Maybe a little bit⌠but I wouldnât have had such a strong finish so overall I may have only gained an extra 30s max, if that. The hip pain was annoying but not unexpected and it didnât get in the way of me pushing that much. Could I go for a sub-3 hour marathon? Probably, but not very soon. This race had all the makings of success with the perfect weather and route, it couldnât have gone much better and reflected my current fitness levels quite well. Next road marathon I may aim for ~3:04 if I train enough, the perhaps after that look at a sub-3 hour race just to get it done. No hurry!
Thanks for sharing. It’s always great for me to read how the race went. I don’t think I need to apologise for writing a shorter response. I’m delighted. I don’t feel like that could have gone much better. It shows if you get the pacing right early then a marathon doesn’t have to be hell. Get it wrong, even by a few seconds and it can get very messy. So I’m really happy how we approached this and those somewhat boring tempo runs in the build up clearly helped, it allows you to not obsess about pace early on, or go off too quick. What impresses me the most with you, is you’re not hitting the same numbers as some of the other low 3 marathon runners I work with (in terms of training pts), but I think I’ve come to learn that’s partly down to your commitments outside of the running, and if we push harder I think you’d just end up burnt out, injured and hating the training. So for me just continuing on this upward progression is all we need to do. Is a sub 3 possible? Definitely. But as you say, no need to be in a hurry to get there. Keep doing what you are doing, you bring a lot of happiness to Hastings Runners and the Team, both are much better for having you as part of the gangs, and I include Laura in that of course. So keep being you, keep ticking over and keep getting stronger and quicker. Thank you for making me a very happy coach as well, tracking marathons is the worst đ, it’s not until the 40km mark I can relax and know you’re going to hit the targets.
