The Race!

After months of training the day finally arrived, on Sunday 25th April I ran my first marathon. While I feel a certain amount of pride that I can say that I finished the London Marathon 2010, it is tinged with a bit of disappointment. I finished in 4:35:41 and placed 20,332 of 36,522 finishers.

Running the London Marathon is something special, I thought it would be good beforehand but I wasn't prepared for how good. I'd read lots of reports that it was an amazing event to be part of, but I'd presumed they were exaggerations, people had been sucked in by the marketing, I was wrong. The main thing is the crowds, the noise they made was something else, coming past the Cutty Sark and onto Tower Bridge it was huge, I've been to some big games of football and it would come fairly close to the roar after a 90th minute winner. But it wasn't just there, with the exception of a couple of kilometres around Docklands they were a constant companion, and if it wasn't the crowd keeping me going it was the other runners, there was a camaraderie that I just hadn't seen before in the halfs I've done, maybe it was because I was struggling more than ever that I noticed it, but I think its probably borne out of the mutual respect that is generated by knowing just how much hard work has gone in beforehand. It is just a great day. I would recommend it to anyone, yes it is alot of work, yes there is lots of pain afterwards, yes there is the risk that you put in lots of work and fail to make the start, as I did last year, but it is worth it, unquestionably.

I think you can understand that I'm glad I did it, but it doesn't mean I'm not disappointed with how my race went. Here are my splits:

5km    00:25:53  00:25:53
10km  00:25:07  00:51:00
15km  00:25:25  01:16:25
20km  00:26:33  01:43:08
25km  00:32:37  02:15:55
30km  00:39:39  02:55:34
35km  00:45:27  03:41:01
40km  00:40:30  04:21:31
42.2km 00:14:10  04:35:41

Half   1:48:44  1:48:44
Full    2:46:57  4:35:41

I think they tell most of the story, I set off at what I felt was a fairly comfortable pace, more than 5:00min/km when in training my long runs were all quicker than 4:50min/km, so I thought I was playing it safe. I was feeling my knee from the start but it didn't seem to be getting any worse, I was gradually ticking off the kilometres and gaining confidence, but probably after about 15km's I started to tire. I was taken aback, 15km at that pace should have been easy but it wasn't. I kept thinking to myself, keep pushing on, get to halfway running and you'll feel better. I got to halfway and despite the crowds just couldn't summon the energy to keep on running.

After about 22km's I took a break to walk. As soon as you make that decision you know it is going to be a huge struggle to run the rest of the way, each time you start to run again its harder to get going,while walking the muscles get cold so when you start again you face a big injury risk, a few times I felt that my calf was set to go so had to ease off. From 22km's on I just battled on, running when I could summon up the energy, trying to break it up into little sections, telling myself I had to run 500m before I could have another rest, just to get myself round.

I did get round, and I guess I can be proud of that, I've got the medal, got the T-shirt, its done, but its not the way I wanted it done. So what to do now.....learn the lessons and go back to try again! Why did I feel so lousy during the race, it could be the lack of running in the weeks before the race because of my knee, but equally it could be from not feeding myself up well enough in the days before and for that I have to blame a lack of preparation. Ideally, you shouldn't be eating anything new or different in the days before a run, just more of the right foods, essentially pasta and rice. I was finding wherever convenient to eat and just taking the standard portion, what I should have done was to prepare food to take over with me, having eaten the same meals before long runs during my training. While in London I didn't have much of an appetite, partly because of nerves, but as much because it was different food to what I was used to.

I have learnt from this experience, there will be other marathons, other challenges, from now I keep my head up and keep training ready for the next one.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully I'll be to post some pics from the day later in the week.